Penelope

by Anya Wylde

  “You are desperate to marry, are you not?” he asked softly.

  “You are h-hurting me,” she stammered, avoiding his eyes.

  He immediately loosened his hold but did not let her go. “This is a dangerous game you play, my dear, and if I ravish you, no one will believe you.”

  Penelope swallowed nervously, “I thought I was not good enough for you.”

  He studied her face, his eyes tracing her dark curling hair and the delicate skin that showed above the neckline. Her squirming made him tighten his fingers on her wrist.

  Something changed in the air and a queer sort of intensity pervaded the room. The duke stilled and his eyes darkened.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said huskily. “You remind me of dark, violent fairy tales. A sprite escaped from the page of a book or a pixie with a hint of madness lurking in big brown eyes. It would be a novel experience …”

  She kept her eyes pinned on his chest. A faint blush started creeping up her neck.

  “You are trembling,” he noted absently.

  Her eyes flitted up to his while her chest rose and fell in agitation.

  He searched her eyes and then his expression changed. Dropping her wrist he turned his back on her.

  His voice was desolate when he said, “I am furious that you tried to trick me, but I am not going to hurt you. Don’t look at me like that.” He turned to face her again, his eyes falling on her trembling mouth. “Someone else may appreciate what you offer, but I am not that man, Miss Fairweather. Be careful whom you choose in future. Men can be cruel.”

  His head dipped towards her, his eyes dark, troubled and piercing. “Stay away from me, country girl. I am the architect, not the fool. I plan and people follow. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, her face white.

  He studied her face, taking his time. His head dipped lower still, his lips a heartbeat away from hers.

  “Leave,” he whispered.

  She did. She ran, forgetting the pain in her ankle. She didn’t even recall Lady Bathsheba until she collapsed on the bed and found the goat nuzzling her. She put her arms around the goat and wept.

  “I want to go home, Lady Bathsheba, I want to go home,” she sobbed.

  ***

  The duke stared at the spot where Penelope had recently stood. His hands curled into a fist as he remembered the feel of her small slim waist.

  He smiled mockingly. At least Miss Penelope Fairweather would never try and crawl into his bed again.

  Her frightened face loomed in front of him and for a moment he felt remorse. What if she had been telling the truth? He banished the thought immediately. She was a conniving, sly woman and the quicker she left his home the better for all concerned. A silly country girl was no match for the Duke of Blackthorne. She would be off to Finnshire before she knew it.

  Chapter 8

  ‘The standard decree on the principles of behaviour within the Blackthorne household’ lay face down on Penelope’s rosewood bedside table. Rules number 5, 11, 13 and 15 were crossed out. Penelope had broken them all in one day (A remarkable feat that is still unmatched to this day).

  The sun, which was missing when one wanted it, was predictably shining bright and happy this morning. Penelope pulled the satin sheet over her face, followed by the quilt and finally the pillow. The cheerful sun wove its way through the very same sheet, quilt and pillow to dance upon her eyelids.

  Meanwhile, Penelope’s mother, sitting high above the Blackthorne Mansion on the second cloud on the right, watched her daughter sleep. Her little girl was growing up. Her darling daughter finally understood the dangers of lubricating her insides with brandy and wine. A woozy head and utter mortification were sure to follow. Sighing, she sipped her own heavenly wine in pleasure, her hand automatically shooting out to catch a naughty cupid escaping with her bottle of holy spirit. In heaven one never suffered a sore head, no matter how much liquid sloshed in your belly. Smiling tearfully, she adjusted a halo atop a celestial wolfhound and leaned back on her seat of clouds to watch the day unfold.

  Back in the guestroom of the Blackthorne Mansion, Penelope squeezed her eyes shut harder, trying desperately to sleep for a touch longer.

  The clatter of cups, someone poking the fire and a cheery tune assaulted her ears next. She flung the quilt back and glowered at her smiling maid.

  “Good morning, Miss Pea,” Mary said, her cheeks pink with exercise, her eyes bright and sporting a jolly expression.

  Penelope wondered if women were hanged. If she murdered her maid, would she get away with it? If one planned things properly, she mused, blowing a strand of hair away from her face. Her hair somehow always took time ceding to gravity. Gravity always won, but the battle left her looking like a fluffy new mop every morning. She blearily reached for her cup of tea and sipped in silence.

  Mary’s love affair with the stablehand was progressing satisfactorily. That morning the stablehand had caught Mary’s hand and given her the ends of his candle stubs. She explained this entire romantic scene to Penelope in great detail, stressing the amount of times she had blushed and how many times he had stammered.

  Normally Penelope would have asked her for more details and relished the gossip. She would have been happy for her maid and given her some helpful advice on how best to woo the stablehand.

  But today was not a normal day because tiny little creatures created from a mixture of brandy and wine had made their way up from Penelope’s stomach to her head. They now sat playing untuned violins and strident flutes.

  So while Mary chattered on, Penelope eyed her through bloodshot eyes and meditated on the number of ways a mistress could kill her lady’s maid.

  Soon things became even more trying for Penelope because Mary approached her with a comb. Mary was clever, she mused. A comb running through tangled hair atop a head that throbbed was an excellent weapon. She stared at her cup mournfully. Not a drop remained of the scalding hot tea which could have been a brilliant counter weapon. Irritably she allowed Mary to attack. It was better to stay passive and suffer than attempt to win a war bare handed.

  So Mary combed, pulled, tugged and struggled. And as Mary battled the knots in Penelope’s hair, her sparkling chatter turned into disgruntled silence, the smile faded from her lips, and soon her good humour was entirely replaced with a glower.

  Nothing annoyed a lady’s maid more than a nest of wild, disobedient and knotted hair. Penelope felt revenged and refreshed. She splashed her face, scrubbed her teeth and wore her new spotted muslin in a more genial mood.

  ***

  Penelope sat on an antique chair inspecting her swollen ankle. It was worse; angry and red. She poked it gingerly and winced in pain. And then a moment later she poked it again. It was still painful. Mornings in the Blackthorne Mansion, it seemed, were a time for self-flagellation.

  Penelope squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to relive the night’s events. The drunken debacle, the duke’s horrid words and the goat with the duke’s underthing flashed through her mind in vivid detail. She did not enjoy reliving these scenes, but past experience had taught her that recalling the embarrassing memories soon after the event occurs dampens the cringeworthy feelings a bit. It is never as bad as you think.

  Unfortunately, recalling the night’s events did not make her feel any better. If anything, she was cringing all the more.

  Penelope forced herself to breathe. Her cold hands tried to cool her heated cheeks while her brain tried to figure out the fastest way out of London without being seen. After entertaining herself with thoughts of running away with a circus, begging a gin seller to adopt her, and joining the barmy Finnshire witch in the forest, she arrived at the obvious conclusion. She would have to bid the dowager goodbye. The question was what in the world was she supposed to say to her?

  She tried to come up with an answer, but her thoughts refused to behave. They meandered away from the dowager again and again and landed right on top of the duke. Her mind flitted from the image of the t
umble down the stairs to the duke’s arms holding her, from the terror he had induced, to the accusations hurled at her. Why had he looked so desolate in the end? His voice had been full of self-loathing. Or was it regret? He was so hard to read.

  She shook herself and touched her ankle. The pain helped her focus. The rotten man was intelligent enough to hate himself. He was despicable and it was only right that he should know his own character. The brute. He did not deserve her sympathy. She was a goose for trying to see some good in him.

  The rude man had dared to insinuate that she, Miss Penelope Winifred Rose Spebbington Fairweather, would stoop so low as to seduce him, and that too on her first day in London. He thought she was a loose skirt, a doxie, a bawdy basket.

  “Arrrgh,” Penelope growled aloud.

  That man needed to be taught a lesson. Duke or not, someone had to bring him down to earth. He behaved as if he was King George … or rather God himself. She scowled. A mad pixie he had called her. Well, he was the demented one …

  A shuffle and a slight noise distracted her from her gloomy thoughts. The goat sat on the carpet scratching behind its ear.

  She turned an evil eye on the goat.

  “Lady Bathsheba, you look content. I suppose you have had your breakfast, whereas I have no idea if anyone will appear with a tray for me. I will not risk my neck by attempting those winding oak stairs with a sprained ankle.”

  Lady Bathsheba crossed her two front feet and prepared for a long monologue. Penelope had been silent for too long, and now she turned to her favourite audience, one that could not interrupt.

  If a goat could sigh, then Lady Bathsheba did just that.

  “I am hungry, extremely hungry. I suppose I could shove you in the fireplace and cook you. You deserve it, you know. I would not be in this predicament but for you.” She warmed to her topic, “Yes, that’s it. It’s not me, it’s you. You are the crux of this whole mess. Why did you have to run into the duke’s room of all places? Just because he called you a goat? There I said it. Goat, goat, goat. You are a goat. Do what you want to my room and clothes, I don’t care. You should be running scared, Lady Bathsheba, instead of looking bored. I mean it, at the moment I don’t see my beloved pet sitting on the carpet. What I see is a big fat juicy piece of mutton waiting to be tossed into the fire. And as for the duke, I hope I never see him again. I suppose he is busy all day doing whatever dukes do, and by the time he returns, I will be in the carriage on my way to wherever… Can you believe his arrogance in assuming—”

  “Assuming?” the duke spoke up from the doorway.

  Ideally when Penelope had spotted him, she should have continued sitting on the chair and waved an imperious hand at him. It was the sort of thing that a refined lady would do. She should have, but she didn’t. Instead, she squeaked, and for some extraordinary reason sprang off her chair, and then raced to the bed and dived under the quilts. Her wits, it seemed, were scared of the duke. They fled in his presence.

  The duke looked first at the chair and then at the bed. One eyebrow rose in question and then dropped back in place.

  He tried to look non-threatening as he said, “Calm down, I am here to carry you downstairs for breakfast.”

  Penelope slid further back in her bed and clutched the sheets in a deathly grip.

  The duke scowled and said, “I don’t want to carry you down any more than you want to be carried by me, but my mother requested it. I don’t want to worry her any further.”

  “Can’t I eat in my room?” she asked.

  “No”

  “Well I don’t want any breakfast.”

  “You were willing to cook your pet a moment ago.”

  “Fine, I don’t want you to carry me. There, I said it.”

  “Did I not tell you that I do as I please? And right now I choose to please my mother.”

  “You wanted me to stay away. I am following your command, your grace.”

  “I am pleased that my direction registered in your thick skull. My next command, as you call it, is to never argue with me.”

  She scowled and then stilled.

  He was walking towards her with a strange smile on his face.

  “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  Stunned, she stared at him for a moment.

  Penelope’s breath came faster and her eyes darted to his lips. “You didn’t.”

  “Almost”

  He had almost kissed her? She wondered how she had missed that bit of interesting information … and he had wanted to kiss her?

  She frowned and said, “Is that an apology?”

  He scooped her up and walked towards the door.

  “Is that an apology?” she asked again, gripping his shirt tightly.

  “I never apologise.”

  She stared at him in confusion. Why had he mentioned the kiss if he hadn’t wanted to apologise? Perhaps, she mused, the words had slipped out? He did seem to be regretting telling her now … Her thoughts stopped short and became entirely muddled when she noticed the warmth of his hands seeping through her clothes and heating her skin. She was in his arms, she realised, once again. Her chest constricted and for some odd reason she started tingling all over.

  In an attempt to distract herself from this disturbing new development, she said, “You could tell your mother I tried to … about last night I mean. She will send me packing.”

  “Your face is beet red. Don’t tell me you have never been this close to a man before. I won’t believe it, just like I know you are shamming that sprain in your foot. As for telling my mother, she may send you packing or insist I marry you. If she does insist on marriage, then extricating myself from you will be slightly more difficult. And don’t you dare tell her either, or I will personally make sure that your life is hell.”

  He paused, and then slightly loosened his hold on her, threatening to drop her.

  Her arms shot out and grabbed his neck. She held on for dear life, her nose buried in his chest.

  “I won’t say a word,” she quickly promised.

  “We will see,” he said, his arms once more holding her securely as he resumed walking.

  “I do want to leave. I really do, and you are right, I can’t face the season. I am not prepared.”

  He chuckled, “So you want to go home, do you? My grandfather will make sure of that after last night’s debacle, whether you truly want to or not.”

  “Do you have to doubt my every word?” Penelope asked irritably.

  “Are you going to stand there holding her and arguing or are you going to put her down?” Lady Radclyff interrupted, watching the couple with a gleam in her eye.

  The duke looked up, startled to see he was standing in the breakfast room.

  ***

  Two cups of tea and a slice of toasted bread later, Penelope had stopped feeling like a giant unwanted giraffe.

  The dowager broke the silence, “Now that we are fortified, Charles, I want you to stay and discuss this … this predicament. An hour of your time is not too much to ask for, is it?”

  The duke smiled and said, “Of course not, Mother. I can spare an hour or two, but I truly think it’s a lost cause. Grandfather will never agree to have her in the house.”

  “Then find a solution. That is what you do, isn’t it? Solve other people’s problems. Then apply your mind to this little pickle as well,” Lady Radclyff said.

  “Don’t be silly, Anne. It’s not the same thing. As a duke, I do have certain responsibilities, but not of this kind.”

  “As a duke you have to sort out personal as well as financial issues apart from handling the law and order on your estate. This is no different,” Lady Radclyff argued.

  “Annie, you know Grandfather as well as I do. He will not agree. Miss Fairweather will have to go home.”

  “You are not even trying,” Lady Radclyff complained.

  For the first time Penelope felt thankful for the duke’s presence. He, at least, without meaning to was on her side.

  The dowager
frowned thoughtfully, “Charles, I have an idea. It will ensure that my father is not troubled by Miss Fairweather’s presence, and she can stay on and have her season.”

  “Let’s hear it,” the duke said sceptically.

  “Father only comes down for dinner. He stays in his rooms otherwise. I propose that we bend our rules a little and let Miss Fairweather have her dinner in her room.”

  “He will never know she is here,” Lady Radclyff said, clapping her hands in glee.

  “Impossible, Mother. How can you even suggest such a thing? The Blackthorne house has never broken any rules in two centuries. Besides, how can you even conceive of deceiving your own father?”

  “You break a rule every night by having a candle burning until midnight, and I have found pastry crumbs on your bed clothes all through your adolescence,” the dowager replied.

  The duke spluttered.

  “And what about the time you sneaked off to—” Lady Radclyff said.

  “Enough,” the duke cut in.

  “As for deceiving my father, what he doesn’t know cannot hurt him. We will simply keep silent about her presence, never agreeing or disagreeing. A few weeks and he would have forgotten what she looks like. We can then present her all over again and this time without any mishaps,” the dowager continued, ignoring her son’s flushed face.

  “I refuse to lie to Grandfather,” the duke said firmly.

  “You will stay silent though. If he asks you directly, then you can confess,” the dowager pleaded.

  “No guest has ever broken a rule in this house,” the duke shot back.

  “You caught Lady Henley in bed with Lord Stone, and we found Henrietta the scullery maid with—” Lady Radclyff mumbled under her breath.

  “Fine, do as you please, Mother. I will have no part of it.”

  “That’s all I wanted to hear. And, Charles, one more thing,” the dowager said smiling.

  “What now?”

  “You have to claim the first dance of the season.”

  “Eh?”