He found himself manoeuvred away, distracted, enveloped in the soft, lilting sound of her voice as she deftly rescued him from his past and delivered him back safely to the present.
Chapter Nine
Penny instantly took to Lady Jessamine. There was so much in her that was like looking in a mirror that they had instantly developed a rapport. They were both survivors in their own way and both only too happy to leave their pasts in the past. Jessamine wanted this trial over with so she could draw a veil over hers. Penny wanted it over so that she could have the funds to bury hers. Only three days in and she felt more like her friend and confidante than her housekeeper. It was so lovely to be able to discuss those things with someone who knew exactly what it did to a person. They both suffered from misplaced self-loathing at their supposed weaknesses, yet completely understood why the other had had to conform as they had.
Lord Flint was nice enough, but preoccupied with keeping his new wife safe from whatever imagined threats lay outside the quiet estate’s outer wall, so they didn’t collide much. The Dowager Baroness of Penmor, his irrepressible mother, was a breath of fresh air in what could have been an oppressive situation. A tad eccentric, a tad overdramatic, nosy to the point of outrageous and absolutely hilarious. She made sure that laughter became part of every day.
‘He sounds like an absolute brute!’ Penny had brought the ladies some mid-morning tea and now found herself the main topic of their conversation. The Dowager had insisted on a full rundown of her awful marriage which had been strangely cathartic, much as the in-depth recollection of the entire trial yesterday had allowed her to begin to view it with some distance and new perspective. Time was beginning to heal the wounds and purging her soul, as the Dowager was prone to point out whenever Penny tried to sidestep the most awkward questions, and felt so much better than bottling it all inside. ‘There must have been one good reason you chose to marry the man? You did choose—didn’t you?’
‘Alas, I did, so I cannot blame anyone for that folly other than myself.’ She picked up the pot again to refill the cups seeing as this latest friendly inquisition was bound to last a while. ‘I thought myself in love with him and foolishly convinced myself that feeling was mutual.’
‘But he only loved your dowry.’
‘Mama!’ Lady Jessamine quickly interjected to spare her feelings. ‘I am sure he initially saw more in Penny than that.’
‘And I am quite sure he didn’t.’ Penny smiled as she passed the cup back. She had been reconciled with her feelings concerning her hasty and regrettable courtship long ago. ‘I was young and naive and quite out of my depth. To be brutally frank with you, ladies, I was also pathetically shallow. I was so delighted a viscount wanted to court me I never took the time to consider why that was, when I wasn’t a particularly good catch in the eyes of the ton. I came from trade, you see, had no aristocratic connections and had to learn quickly how to behave like a proper lady. What I was, ultimately, was an easy target for a fortune hunter and a desperate fortune hunter found me. Very quickly.’
The Dowager leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘How quickly?’
‘We were married within three months of our first meeting.’
‘A perfectly acceptable amount of time. I met and married mine within two and my son married Jess in just one.’
‘Perhaps, but in truth I barely knew Penhurst at all. Before I skipped blindly down the aisle, I do not think we spent more than a few hours in one another’s company overall and certainly for no longer than a scant few minutes at a time. I had no clue then that anyone can pretend to be somebody else entirely for a few minutes. Over a few hours the first cracks began to show and the true blackguard I had shackled myself to emerged swiftly afterwards. I knew within weeks I had made the worst mistake of my life and by then, of course, it was too late. I should also state for the record, in case you are feeling sorry for me, I had been warned about him from the outset. Clarissa cautioned me not to marry him, as did my own dear father on the wedding day itself.’
‘No...’
‘Yes. He had discovered Penhurst was up to his neck in debt and had his suspicions as to his motives, but I wouldn’t listen. I was too caught up in the romance alongside my ailing mother, who so wanted to leave this mortal coil with the happiest of memories. A viscount wanted to marry me. Penny Ridley. A shopkeeper’s daughter.’
‘Ridley’s was hardly a shop, my dear. It was an institution. A fine one. People used to brag about owning a piece of Ridley furniture. I always spent a few hours there perusing its treasures whenever my dear husband, God rest him, dragged me to London. And always such fine quality! Why, I still have a pair of mahogany end tables which I must have bought over a decade ago and they are just as good as when I first bought them. I miss Ridley’s.’
‘My mother and father would be delighted to know that.’ Both ladies already knew her parents had passed. Thankfully, they never got to witness the full extent of the huge mistake Penny had made in marrying her Viscount. ‘As am I. Once a shopkeeper’s daughter, always a shopkeeper’s daughter. I am tremendously proud to have been part of Ridley’s.’
‘Are you ever tempted to resurrect it? Because that would be marvellous!’ The suggestion caused a bubble of unexpected excitement before reality quickly popped it.
‘Alas, if I were to open a shop now it would have to be Henley’s and it couldn’t possibly be in London. For obvious reasons.’
‘Damn Penhurst. I’ve decided I loathe him doubly now, for treating you abominably and for depriving me of good shopping. When did you realise you loathed the brute rather than loved him?’ The Dowager had a canny knack of asking the most intrusive questions outright and would not be waylaid from the main topic at hand. There was no point in trying to avoid the question. Three days in the Dowager’s company had taught Penny that she could teach the meticulously thorough Crown Prosecutor a thing or two about interrogating a witness.
‘Quite quickly.’ She had been a delirious bride for almost the whole day and then Penhurst had shown his true colours. It had been their wedding night and he had been drunk. Too drunk to do what her mother had whisperingly promised a wedding night involved. He had stumbled into her bedchamber in the small hours, dropped his trousers, roughly hoisted up her nightgown and then blamed her for his lack of passion. He might, he had castigated in a slurred and spiteful voice as he had attempted to caress his own body into life, have been able to overlook the fact she was a lowly cit if she had been a real beauty, but beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers. ‘Which in some ways I am grateful for as it allowed me to quickly learn to loathe him with a vengeance.’
‘I’ll wager he was an atrocious lover, too.’
Penny almost choked on her tea.
‘Mama, that is none of our business!’ Poor Jessamine looked appalled.
‘Why ever not? We are all married women here, Jess. It perfectly acceptable for married ladies to discuss such things in private.’
‘I am so sorry, Penny. She is incorrigible. You do not need to answer.’
‘She is incorrigible—but we adore her for it.’
‘I knew he was an atrocious lover! Villains like him always are. Was he selfish? Rough? Lacking in the correct equipment?’
All of the above, alongside repugnant. The only way to endure Penhurst’s impersonal and unpleasant intrusions had been to close her eyes and imagine she was somewhere else. Somewhere so far away she could completely detach—like the moon. Fortunately, he only cared about his own gratification, so the act was over quickly and then he always left her bedroom straight after.
‘All I will say in response is that I was exceedingly relieved when I learned I was carrying Freddie, so that he stopped visiting my bedchamber and thankfully never bothered to return. I am not sure I could have withstood many more months of that chore.’ The marital bed had been nothing like her mother had promised, not that she had ever confessed
as much to her. Far from it, in fact. Her mother had promised tenderness, passion and pleasure, not a drunken, grunting lecher. In the days and weeks after, Penny had pretended she was ecstatic to be married—solely to please her romantic mother—when the opposite had been true. Straight away she had felt trapped. Straight away she had bitterly regretted her folly. Without thinking, she made a face of disgust. Then, remembering she was trying to keep the tone of the conversation light-hearted, shuddered for effect. ‘He was an all-round sorry excuse for a lover...’
‘I hope I am not interrupting...’ At the sound of Lord Hadleigh’s deep voice behind her, Penny did choke on her tea. She made a delicate attempt not to retch out a cough, but when it became apparent she would likely turn purple unless she did, had to suffer the further embarrassment of the Dowager whacking her on the back until the wayward tea finally dislodged itself.
Penny immediately shot to her feet and tried to look more like a housekeeper than a gossiping lady. ‘Let me take your coat. Did none of the footman greet you properly at the door?’ In her embarrassment, she was babbling. ‘We did not expect you till later this afternoon, my lord.’
She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since last week when she’d practically had to drag him around his own house before he had dashed away. He had been aloof and uninterested, not at all like the charming fellow who had helped her with the flour explosion the week before. At the time she had put the change down to the shift in their statuses. She was no longer a peer’s widow and was now a servant and technically, despite it being commandeered by the Crown, this grand house was his so that made her his servant.
But upon reflection, his manner and demeanour on that visit had bothered her to such an extent that he had occupied a great deal of her spare thoughts since. She had never seen him so out of sorts or so...uncommanding. He had been positively monosyllabic for the entire tour. Penny had had to prise every word out of him and, once or twice during that short half-hour visit, when he was not being terminally detached he had even seemed almost vulnerable. Not so now, though. The confident barrister had come visiting today. He stood in the doorway still clutching his hat, looking windswept and handsome. Perhaps, on a second glance, he still seemed a little bit awkward to be there now, too, if she was honest.
Good heavens! Had he heard her discussing intimacies?
‘Do not let it trouble you.’ He could barely meet her eye, which suggested he had heard her. ‘I came around the back. Through the kitchens. I didn’t mean to startle you.’ Although if she had been doing the job she was being paid to do rather than sitting around sipping tea and discussing her disappointing history with marital congress, she wouldn’t have choked on it in the first place.
He shrugged out of his greatcoat, sending a waft of something delicious her way as he handed it to her. A subtle, spicy cologne mixed with the crisp autumn air. She took the garment, trying not to be so aware that it was still filled with the warmth of him as he greeted the other ladies with much more affection than she had expected.
‘Hadleigh! How are you?’ Lady Jessamine smothered him in a hug.
‘I am well.’ He held her at arm’s length and grinned his pleasure at seeing her, something which shouldn’t have bothered Penny in the slightest—but did. She wanted him to be the charming man for her again, too. ‘But look at you! Marriage clearly suits you.’ Then he held his arms open to the Dowager. ‘Lady Flint! I had no idea you were coming.’
‘As if I would leave dear Jess to suffer you alone.’ She kissed his cheek affectionately and then neatened his cravat. ‘You have form, young man. Somebody needs to be here to make sure she is allowed to eat at civilised times.’
‘I didn’t realise you all knew each other so well.’ And Penny felt oddly left out despite knowing she had no reason to. She was a servant here, not really one of the ladies and certainly not part of this affectionate reunion.
‘Indeed,’ said the Dowager, still obviously thrilled to see him, ‘Jess endured many arduous hours being interrogated by this scoundrel. But he did save her life, so we all feel duty-bound to be nice to him.’
‘He did?’ The man in question appeared discomfited by this admission.
‘I can assure you, they are exaggerating my part in it all.’ Before anyone could elaborate, he was all business once more. But only to her. ‘Is the room readied as I instructed?’
‘Of course.’ Although why he had insisted setting up a new study in what had been the music room she couldn’t fathom when there was a perfectly serviceable study further along the hallway containing everything he had requested she buy again from scratch. But she had purchased a new sturdy desk exactly as he had asked for, a comfortable chair to go with it, paper, quills, ink. Organised the furniture to catch the daylight as well as moving in a few homely touches to make it seem less sparse now that all the instruments apart from the beautiful pianoforte had been relegated to the attic. ‘Everything on your list is ready and waiting for you.
‘Then if you will excuse me, ladies, I need to head there directly and prepare. And might I have a word, Penny?’ As he was already striding purposefully towards the door, she had no choice other than to follow, quietly dreading any potentially awkward conversation about her place in his lovely house or the sort of conversation she had just been having within it.
Chapter Ten
Hadleigh had been mulling over what he should say for days. A brief apology for his odd behaviour the last time they met which would include a tiny, dismissive nod to the painful memories this house had conjured in him, swiftly followed by his heartfelt thanks that she had readied it so quickly. Something he should have done on his last visit before he had fled the estate as if his breeches were on fire. Not his finest hour.
He had been sorely tempted to flee the house again a moment ago—but for entirely different reasons. That would teach him to cowardly sneak into the back of his own house like a thief and then spend several illicit minutes eavesdropping on a conversation that really didn’t concern him. In his defence—although blatantly such behaviour was wholly indefensible—he had been intrigued to hear about Penny’s marriage. She had been so open to the Dowager and Jessamine, admitting to her own folly in hastily marrying the man and inadvertently appraising him of details he had not known. Like the fact her time with her son was strictly limited or that he used that time to blackmail her with. No wonder she had adhered to all his demands when she had been threatened with banishment if she stepped out of line. Having seen her with her little boy, seen the palpable love she had for him shining in her eyes, being wrenched from his life like that would have destroyed her.
When she had told him that she had lived with a controlling man, he had assumed she had lived with someone like his father. His word had been law—but even he had not attempted to control all aspects of his mother’s life. She had been able to come and go as she pleased, visit friends, do exactly what she wanted with the house and bring up Hadleigh in whatever way she saw fit. His father always had more pressing things to do than care two figs about the running of the house or being a parent to his only child. He much preferred spending all his time with his current mistress, or, more often than not, mistresses.
Yet Penny had endured more than that—her entire life had been rigidly controlled, which went a long way to explaining why she was so adamantly determined to control her own future without any outside interference now her husband was gone. Aspects of her character now made more sense. The stubborn pride was a sign that Penhurst hadn’t broken her spirit—or if he had, it was recovering. Hadleigh was glad he had overheard she felt no inclination to mourn the man because she was well shot of him. He wasn’t entirely sure what he felt about overhearing that snippet about what had gone on in the marital bed, though.
Pity had been the first emotion he had experienced, rapidly followed by a whole host of clamouring emotions he had not been the slightest bit prepared for. The anger had been so sudde
n and explosive it shocked him. He had wanted to pummel Penhurst’s smug face with his fist for treating her with such brutish carelessness. Intertwined with the anger had been something which was worryingly akin to jealousy. It had been that surge of irrational, wholly male possessiveness which had prompted him to either make his presence known and put an abrupt end to the confession or storm out of the house again. Because if she had elaborated, with actual specific detail of those lacklustre intimacies, Hadleigh wasn’t entirely sure how he would have reacted, truth be told. Not when he had been dreaming about intimacies with her himself since the fateful night with the flour.
He’d had the same dream every night for a week. She stood at the top of the steps in front of the front door, her dress plastered to her body by the wind just as it had been the last time he had come here. Only in his dream, the house beyond didn’t bother him because she was there waiting for him, so he had sprinted up those steps and taken her in his arms, kissed her. What happened next in the dreams varied from night to night, depending on how much cheese he had had at the interchangeable, unappetising but reliably cold suppers he had eaten before falling exhausted into bed. But they always reliably ended up in that same bed and he awoke hot and bothered, a little ashamed and a great deal hard.
He had suspected that, on top of everything else currently clouding his mind, he was seriously attracted to her. Now, thanks to the undeniable knot of jealousy he couldn’t seem to shift, he knew he was.
He blamed this house. He’d opened Pandora’s box to right a wrong when his mind was at its most occupied and the pressure resting on his shoulders was the greatest. And, if he was honest, he blamed himself, too. He could and should have walked away when she had politely sent him packing, heeded Leatham’s order to leave her well alone, but something about her called to him and he hadn’t been able to resist. He had gone out of his way to find a solution to help her. Gone out of his way to visit her. Allowed his wayward hands to touch her cheek and his wayward eyes to look their fill when he should have been focusing all his energies on the trial.
The Determined Lord Hadleigh Page 11