Uncle Horace’s study door opened, and Penny caught her breath. Henry wore a dark blue coat with buff-colored breeches and gleaming black boots. He was tall and majestic and so very handsome she couldn’t help but rest her hand on her heart, the very vision of a smitten, idiotic ninny.
His lips quirked, and he dropped his gaze to her hand. She moved her hand and still his gaze lingered, which sent a rush of mortified, delightful heat rushing to her face. As though from far away she heard her uncle’s hearty felicitations and her aunt’s screeching delight. Her eyes remained glued to His Grace’s fine physique, and she barely registered him asking Millicent if he and Persephone might have a moment to chat in the parlor. Alone.
“Of course!” Millicent gathered her stitchery in a flurry of movement. “I’ll just check on some things in the kitchen and then return to chaperone. In a while.” Her aunt and uncle left the room, the door opened barely a crack. Penny shook her head. When it came to Persephone, Millicent was willing to throw out the propriety rule book entirely in order to secure a match with the duke.
Henry crossed the room to the hearth where Penny stood, unconsciously wringing her hands together. He clasped her cold fingers in his own and brought her hands to his mouth, his eyes never leaving hers. He touched the tip of his tongue to her knuckle and the breath left her lungs in a shuddering sigh. Smug male satisfaction crossed his face, and he tugged her toward the settee.
“I’ve thought of nothing but you since last night.” Henry kept hold of her hands, tracing his thumb along her skin.
Penelope swallowed, dropping her eyes to his expertly tied cravat. If only... if only...
“What are you thinking?”
She shrugged miserably, and he placed a finger beneath her chin, tipping her face up. He looked at her with a mixture of desire and tenderness, and his smile was nearly her undoing.
“Persephone, what is it? What are you trying not to say?”
Penny shook her head, thinking of Persephone on her way to Scotland but not nearly close enough yet. She and Gilroy rode in a carriage; Millicent could hire someone from town to chase them down on a swift horse and cut them off before they made Gretna Green.
“Will you be at the bonfire supper tonight in the village square?” she finally had the courage to ask.
“I had planned on being there with you, yes. I attended as a child; I seem to remember a suppertime picnic of sorts with multiple fires set around the square and the Ellshire village park.”
Penny’s lips quirked. “Yes. Controlled fires, though. And enough of them to keep everyone warm while they celebrate the ending of another harvest season.” She paused and sighed. “There is something on my mind, Henry, and I shall tell you what it is tonight. Another’s happiness is at stake, and I must wait until later.”
His lips tightened fractionally. “You must wait and speak to this someone first?”
She frowned. “Speak to someone?” She shook her head. “No, I just have to wait for... well, I must wait.” She lifted her shoulder in a miserable shrug.
He tipped his head, confusion clearly written on his face.
“It will make sense later, and if you still decide you want to court me, then, well, I shall be most happy.”
He blinked at her, his head still held in the same position, and she gritted her teeth at the fact that, once again, Persephone had made a Plan that affected Penny.
Henry shook himself free of whatever he’d been thinking and smiled at her, squeezing her hands. “Will you show me your fossil creek bed? I’ve been anxious to see it.”
Penny felt excitement bubble to the surface until she was so happy she wanted to float into the clouds. Finally! Another who would delight in her discoveries! “Yes! I’ll grab my shawl and bonnet.”
Millicent paused at the entryway where Henry was helping Penny adjust her blue shawl across her shoulders. Her aunt carried a tray of refreshments, and she now looked at Penny in some confusion. “You’re going outside?”
“Well, yes, I thought I would show His Grace the beautiful meadow.” Penny grasped desperately for her sister’s mannerisms, her turn of phrase, her affectations. Regrettably, her mind drew nothing but a blank.
“The meadow?” Millicent blinked.
“Yes.” Penny smiled brightly and tied the bow on her bonnet.
“Why are you wearing Penelope’s wrap and bonnet, Persephone?” Millicent said with a sideways glance at His Grace. “Are you feeling well?”
Penny leaned close to her aunt and whispered in her ear. “I am so giddy with excitement I fear I’ve lost my mind!” She allowed the last to come out on a small squeal and was gratified when Millicent beamed at her conspiratorially.
“Very well, then, but do take care to avoid that dreadful creek bed in the woods where Penelope likes to sit.”
Penny narrowed her eyes but squeezed out a smile. She didn’t sit in the creek bed, for heaven’s sake. Well, she didn’t sit there merely for the sake of sitting there. She had a purpose, after all. But as she was skating on borrowed luck, she refrained from further comment, gave her aunt a delighted shrug and a bright smile, and pulled Henry from the house.
“Penelope also enjoys the creek bed, then?” he asked as Penny ushered him out of the small yard and around to the meadow and the woods.
She glanced at him, surprised to see amusement there, rather than confusion. “She does, on occasion.” Penny figured she wasn’t going to hell for all the lies and half-truths she’d implied; she was already there. But she was determined to enjoy every last drop of daylight she had with Henry, showing him her beloved creek bed and discussing the wonder of seashells and ancient rock formations. The night would come soon enough, and with it, her heart would break.
Chapter Nine
Henry watched the firelight play on Penelope’s features as they sat on a warm blanket near one of several small bonfires in the village park. The festivities had grown since he was a boy, and he was surprised to see the same number of people around the park and village square as had been at the ball the night before. It seemed the Ellshire Autumn Masquerade Ball and Festival had become a draw for neighboring towns, as well. For his part, he was grateful. The more people there were milling around, the more anonymity he enjoyed.
Penelope caught him watching her, and she smiled. Their afternoon had been the best of his life. He had examined her beloved creek bed, impressed at the things she’d uncovered and the potential for more still hidden in the ground. They had walked a mile to the shore, where she showed him several caves she hoped to explore in search of more fossils. They’d broken the rock she’d nearly been run over for in the village street and discovered that it was, indeed, a beautiful geode with crystal formations on the inside. Her delight had warmed him up inside until he’d felt positively smitten and ridiculous. They’d eaten lunch at a small pub near the water and returned in time for her to change her clothes for the bonfire supper.
“Did you enjoy your day?” she asked, nibbling on a meat pie. He watched her lick a stray crumb from her finger and swallowed audibly. If too much more time passed before he kissed her again, he was likely to implode.
“Very much.” He smiled and tucked an errant curl behind her ear.
She blushed. “I never can stay tidy for very long.”
“I prefer it.” He paused, knowing her well enough by now to recognize the telltale bobbing of her knee, even though they sat on the ground. Her skirts moved subtly with the movement, and he was desperate for her to put her anxiety behind them so they could move forward. “You said you would tell me what was on your mind tonight.”
She exhaled softly and set her plate down on the blanket. She slowly wiped her fingers with a linen napkin, and he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her confession out. “Henry.” She looked at him with such longing in her gaze that it took everything he possessed to keep from shushing her, from telling her he already knew her terrible secret. He smiled. If that was the most terrible thing she ever did to him,
he’d count himself a lucky man.
“Henry, I must confess something to you. My letters to you, that is, when we began...” She rubbed her forehead with fingers that trembled.
He reached for her hand and held it gently. He opened his mouth to end her misery when a flash of movement from the side cut him off, and he stared as a bony hand reached down and hauled Penelope up by the arm.
“You!” Millicent stood on the blanket, her furious visage inches from Penny’s. Henry stood and pried the woman’s vicious fingers from Penny’s arm, inserting himself between the two women.
“Madam, I urge you to rethink whatever it is you have to say in the next few moments,” he murmured to her in a deadly undertone.
She glared up at him, her eyes snapping. “That girl,”—she stabbed her finger around him—“is not Persephone!”
“I know.”
“She—what did you say?”
Penny edged out from behind him. “You what?”
He placed an arm around Penny’s shoulders and pulled her close against his side, his lips thinning in anger at the spectacle Millicent was making at Penny’s expense.
“What have you done?” Millicent snarled at her niece. “You encouraged Persephone to run off with that doctor,”—she spat the word out—“so you could claim His Grace for yourself! Pretending to be your sister!”
“No.” Penny shook her head and glanced at Henry. “I did not encourage Persephone to do anything. She makes her own choices, and I am not to blame.”
“Where are they?” Millicent’s face turned an alarming shade of purple.
“Gretna Green. They should be there by now.” She glanced up at Henry. “Which is why I couldn’t tell you... what I wanted to tell you until tonight. Now.”
He closed his eyes. It was as he’d guessed after spending the afternoon with her and watching for little signs, small anecdotes that gave herself and the nature of her relationship with Persephone away. She had written to him for Persephone, so that Persephone could pursue her interest in Doctor Fitzroy. She had stood in her sister’s place this weekend to protect Persephone’s romance with the doctor, and even now, she put aside her own dismay and sadness, thinking she was risking her relationship with him to buy Persephone enough time to make it over the border.
“I hope they hurry and consummate it,” he muttered as a quiet aside to Penny.
She nodded at him. “That’s what I told her.”
His lips twitched, and he fought back a laugh.
“This is not in the least amusing, nor is this the last of it!” Millicent leaned toward Penny, and to his surprise, Penny shifted her stance slightly, aggressively toward her aunt.
“This is the last of it, Aunt Millicent. Persephone will return to Ellshire a married woman, and you will have no say in the matter.”
“You ungrateful wretch. If you think you’re going to remain under my roof after this, you’re mistaken!”
“That’s just as well,” Henry told the woman. “She won’t need to. My mother has invited Penelope as her guest at Wilmington indefinitely. We will return to your home to pack Penny’s things, and you will remain well out of the way until we are gone. I expect I’ve made myself clear.”
Millicent took a deep breath and let it out. With one final, angry nod, she spun on her heel and left. Henry looked down at Penny, still nestled against his side, and tapped the end of her nose with his fingertip. “My lady, we must talk.”
Penny avoided the stares of the gathering crowd and held onto Henry’s hand as he led her to the edge of the park, leaving the people and the bonfires behind. He guided her through a small stand of trees away from prying eyes and put his hands on her shoulders before dropping them to his sides. She studied his face, bewildered, and felt cold without his arms around her.
She shook her head. “You know I’m not Persephone? How?”
He took a deep breath. “I’ve known since about thirty seconds after I saw you for the first time.”
“Wha— How? How on earth did you know?” She searched his face, looking for signs of subterfuge on his part, wanting him to say something quickly that would make sense to her.
“I knew you only from the inside, Penny, from your letters.” He lifted his shoulders in a small shrug and ran a hand through his hair. It was the first time she’d seen him agitated. Unsure of himself. “I knew your soul, and I also knew that the twin I met first wasn’t quite... right. And then you came in from outside and I just,”—he spread his hands wide—“I just knew.”
Her heart skipped at beat at the sound of her true name on his lips. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I was...” He muttered something she couldn’t make out.
“You were what?”
Again, the mumble.
“Henry, what are you saying?”
He looked at her, the sheepish expression on his face giving him the appearance of a young boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I was aroused.”
Her head spun. “You were... aroused?” He wasn’t making any sense. “What the devil does that even mean, you were aroused? At what? My lie?”
“No, Penny.” Again, he ran his fingers through his hair and paced a small distance away from her, then returned back to the spot he’d just left. “The thought of you trying to put one over on me, as it were, I found it intriguing. Amazing. Interesting. I wanted to know what you were going to do, and I didn’t want to spoil it. And by the time I realized it was causing you a fair amount of distress, I wanted to tell you I knew, but then I kissed you, and then I never wanted to stop kissing you. And the longer we went without talking about it, the harder it seemed to broach. I wanted you to tell me this morning, but you said you couldn’t, and I thought maybe it was because you were in love with the doctor and had to tell him I was courting you...”
Her eyes widened, and she stared at him, unable to believe she’d heard him correctly. “You thought I was in love with a man named Gilroy Fitzroy?”
“Exactly!” He gestured in the air. “So you see my dilemma?”
Penny chewed on her lip. “I am so confused.” And she was. Should she be angry at him? After all, he’d done nothing worse than she had.
“My darling Penelope.” Henry placed his hands on her shoulders and then cupped her face. “Please forgive me for allowing it to go on as it did. Forgive me for not realizing until I was well into the mess that it was causing you pain. I know why you wrote to me as Persephone.”
Drat. She felt the tears gather again. “You do?”
He nodded and thumbed away an escaped tear. “You’ve done everything for her. And in this one instance, I thank my lucky stars that you did. If she had written to me instead of you, I would have tossed the letter into the fire and never known you. Never fallen in love with you. Would never have been so desperate to meet you that it was all I could do to wait until this blasted festival to see your face, to kiss you.”
“Henry, I’m so sorry for all the confusion, the half-truths.” She sniffled, and he took a handkerchief from his pocket. He paused and reached in again to his coat pocket and pulled out a small object. He smiled at her and opened his hand, moving her to a small shaft of moonlight that shot through the trees.
She recognized it immediately and gasped, bringing her hand to her lips and then laughing through her tears. “You have a trilobite in your pocket!”
“That sounds slightly inappropriate.”
She laughed again, harder. She carefully took it from his hand and clasped it in both of hers, turning her face to him and feeling so much joy she thought her heart would burst. “I can’t believe you carry this around with you. I am utterly in love.”
He chuckled and traced his fingers gently down her cheek. “With me or the fossil?”
She swatted at him. “With you. And the fossil.”
“Then you’ll marry me? Please, for the love of heaven, say you’ll marry me. I’ll never find another woman in the world who will go searching for ancient sea life wit
h me. And incidentally, Wilmington lands stretch to the shore. The caves you showed me today—I own them.”
She laughed so hard she actually fell into his chest. He promptly closed his arms around her and tipped her face up to meet his unrepentant grin.
“Yes, I will bribe you.”
“Henry, dear man. Of course I’ll marry you. But I warn you, I am not at all conventional.” She felt a stab of insecurity. “I’m hardly duchess material.”
“You’re my perfect duchess. I don’t want you to change even one thing. I love you, Penelope Timely.”
“I love you too, Your Grace. My Henry.”
Her last thought before his lips closed over hers was that she couldn’t imagine a brighter spot of heaven on earth—to be kissing the man she adored and clutching a fossil at the same time. And then rational thought quite flew out the proverbial window as he kissed her senseless. For a deliciously long time.
Other Works by Nancy Campbell Allen:
Click on the covers to visit Nancy’s Amazon author page
Nancy Campbell Allen (N.C. Allen) is the author of 11 published novels, which encompass a variety of genres from contemporary romantic suspense to historical fiction. Her Civil War series, Faith of our Fathers, won the Utah Best of State award in 2005 and all three of her historicals featuring Isabelle Webb, Pinkerton spy, have been nominated for the Whitney Award. Her formal schooling includes a B.S. in Elementary Education from Weber State University and she has worked as a freelance editor, contributing to the recent release, We Knew Howard Hughes, by Jim Whetton.
Nancy served as the Teen Writers Conference chair in 2011 and 2012, and has presented at numerous conferences and events since her initial publication in 1999 with Covenant Communications. Her agent is Pam Van Hylckama Vlieg of Foreword Literary, and she is currently writing a series of Gothic Steampunk novels and other short novellas. Nancy loves to read, write, travel and research, and enjoys spending time laughing with family and friends. She and her husband have three children, and she lives in Ogden, Utah with her family and one very large Siberian Husky named Thor.
Timeless Regency Collection: Autumn Masquerade Page 23