My True Love

by Cheryl Holt

  "I wouldn't be too certain if I were you."

  Lucas turned from his brother and the deck of their ship, gazing across the docks. Dusk was nigh, and the frantic commerce of the day was grinding to a halt. The traffic had thinned,

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  the noise and commotion had quieted, people had finished their business and retired to their rooms. The busy carters and longshoremen were clogging the taverns, eagerly drinking away their day's wages. Sailors were beginning to stroll, looking for trouble. Prostitutes were calling out, hoping for business.

  He watched with a curious disinterest, not really paying attention, thinking instead of Matthew and how quick he was to give his opinions on what Lucas should do. But his brother hadn't been present that last night, when Penny had discovered the truth. He hadn't been the one who caused her despair, listened to the words of anguish pouring from her mouth, endured the cruel sting of her wrath, or felt the bitter stab of her rejection. Mostly Matthew hadn't been there while her heart was breaking, while the fire of her love had been slowly extinguished, so he couldn't know how terrible it had been.

  Lucas had viewed her from a distance that final, horrible day as she'd made her farewells to the boys and the house she had liked so much. When she'd traveled to town, he'd followed at a discreet distance, ensuring she arrived safely. Through much of the journey she'd wept uncontrollably, resting her weary head on Colette's shoulder. Her gait slow, her countenance despondent, he'd secretly observed her climbing down from the farmer's wagon and walking up the steps to her father's house, looking as though her life were over.

  Matthew hadn't witnessed any of it, but Lucas had.

  He'd seen her bleak expression of hopelessness. She had given him all—her love, her friendship, her care, herself—and he had foolishly squandered all her precious gifts. Heart and soul she had adored him, and like the inept cad he was, he'd casually tossed it all away, refusing to accept her devotion for the treasure it was. His idiotic pride and sense of familial duty had blinded him to what truly mattered, and now it was too late to do anything to rectify the circumstances.

  Some sins were too grave to be forgiven.

  Penny wasn't coming back. Despite how fervently Matthew wished it, or how long or often Paulie and Harry asked about

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  her potential return, they all had to face the fact that Lucas had hurt her in every despicable manner a man could possibly hurt a woman. There was no reason to hope that he could ever be pardoned for using and abusing her so deplorably, and he was too ashamed of his behavior to ask for absolution. For all his offenses, he deserved to lose her.

  "You're overlooking something important," his brother asserted, bringing him out of his reverie.

  "What?"

  "Suppose she's with child."

  "She's not," Lucas contended, though he had no method of knowing whether his statement was true.

  "How can you be so confident?" Matthew queried. "What if she's increasing? If you've committed such a heinous deed, will your honor allow you to leave her here in her ruined state? Is that how you hope to be remembered among these dreadful people? I know you well, brother. You couldn't run off without ever seeing your child." He twisted the knife into Lucas's most vulnerable spot. "And what if it's a boy? Another man would be his father. With the way your luck is running, Miss Westmoreland will probably remain at home with her parents, so the duke would raise your son. Is that your choice of outcome?''

  Lucas couldn't admit that creating a babe with Penny had been his greatest aspiration. Even now, after all that had occurred, he yearned to discover that his child was growing in her belly. Only a miracle would bring Penny back, the kind of miracle a child would be.

  In the dismal hours of the night, as he lay on the narrow bed in his tiny cabin, he closed his eyes and pretended her pregnancy was a reality, that Penny had relented and Westmoreland sought him out. But he knew without a doubt that the dream was just that—a dream—and it would never be anything more than a fantasy best left to his dark, midnight imaginings.

  "Stop it!" Lucas seethed, refusing to contemplate his boy in the hands of the uncaring duke, not able to acknowledge

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  what a hideous consequence he would consider it to be. "There is no babe."

  "You can't be certain," Matthew insisted, "and the only way you can prevent such a debacle is by marrying her. Now. Before we leave. Bring her with us, Lucas. It's the only acceptable solution. You know I'm right!"

  "No, I don't," he responded. "I don't know thai you're right at all." He shifted uncomfortably, unable to further discuss the emotional topic. God, that he could do as Matthew suggested. That he could just walk up to their front door and ask to speak with her.

  There was a terrible pain pushing at the center of his chest, and he felt as though his heart were shattering in two. He rubbed a hand across the distressing torment, but he couldn't ease the ache. Only wanting the agonizing subject closed once and for all, he said, “I understand her, Matthew. I realize what she's like and how she views the world. She would never grant me pardon, and she would never have me back in a thousand years."

  "But you love her, Lucas. I'm sure you do!"

  "So?" he said shortly. Matthew's statement was the truth. Lucas wouldn't even try to deny it, but love mattered so little. It didn't mend anything; it didn't change anything.

  "Your level of regard for her has to count for something," Matthew said, sounding like a genuine romantic.

  “No," Lucas said harshly,' 'it counts for nothing." He hated to see the dismay in Matthew's eyes, and he truly didn't want to hurt any of them, or further disrupt their lives, so he continued more gently. "My only motivation is to do what is best for her. Staying here, attempting to see her, would only inflict additional damage, and I can't bear the thought of committing yet another nefarious act where she is concerned. She deserves to have me gone. To have some peace." He patted his brother on the shoulder. "You once told me that I was not worthy of her."

  "I didn't mean it!"

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  "Yes, you did, and you were right." He gazed up at the first visible stars, then around the ship—at the empty masts, the sails tidily wrapped and ready to be put to use. Soon he would be spirited away from this vile place of deception and woe.

  "It was never meant to be, Matthew," he said quietly. "Let it go."

  Suddenly the ship seemed too small. With the crew returned to duty, there was no corner where he could be alone. He required time away, to clear his mind and dissemble privately, while he made his own special good-byes to her. After they left England, he would have many long weeks on the deck to grieve in view of the others. For now, during these last few hours on the foreign shore, he needed to be secluded with only his memories.

  He stepped to the gangplank. Halfway down, he turned and looked at his brother, standing on the deck, so solitary and forlorn. "You'll see," he asserted a final time. "My decision is for the best."

  Strolling quickly, he jumped onto the dock and hurried off into the night, so he did not hear his brother respond, "The best for whom, you silly man?"

  ******************

  Penny sat at the dining table, pushing the food around with her fork. She had so little appetite, and she couldn't work up the energy required to become hungry. Abstinence from nutrition had caused her to drop a few more pounds, until her dresses hung loose on her slender frame. Although her health was in a perilous state, she couldn't muster the stamina to take better care of herself.

  Nothing seemed worthwhile. She filled her days as she had before she'd ever had the misfortune to cross paths with Lucas Pendleton, keeping to her rooms, declining social invitations, and quietly going about a tedious routine of boring pursuits.

  She couldn't find any purpose to getting up in the morning when she didn't have Lucas to love or Harry to fuss over. There

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  was no bread that needed baking or garden that
needed tending or child that needed watching. Most of all, there was 10 husband who needed a joyful coupling with his wife, a soft scrub of his back while he was at his bath, a kiss good-bye as he left for work.

  As always, she couldn't get beyond the fact that she had spent such a small amount of time in their company, and yet they had managed to completely dominate the picture she had of her life and who she was. She couldn't remember how she used to pass day after month after year in this stifling house with her unhappy parents and frivolous brother. Sometimes the stillness became so intense that she caught herself listening for footsteps, a cough, laughter—any sign that real people occupied the drafty abode.

  She didn't have anything to do! No tasks that required minding, no schedules to heed. Hadn't she always been someone's wife and mother, jobs that brought with them a myriad of duties and responsibilities?

  No, came the surprising answer, and it was difficult to realize that she was not, had never been, either of those things, and that she had no useful activity to keep her busy. She felt unencumbered, unattached, and floating free of whatever cords had once bound her to her parents' world.

  Upon returning that first night, she'd been brimming with righteous indignation, spouting plans for a home of her own. She'd craved a personal space where she could go and lick her wounds in private. How she'd wanted to simply collect her mother, and the two of them go to live in a spot where men couldn't hurt them. The duke could still have his women and his affairs, his schemes and intrigues, and they would never have to hear about or suffer from any of it.

  But her mother obviously considered the concept to be preposterous, and Penny hadn't pressed her father on the idea. She couldn't abide the thought of meeting with him, talking with him, haggling over terms and costs. She was hurting too much to have a civil conversation, so she'd left things be.

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  Her plan remained a viable abstraction, rolling around on the edge of her consciousness, but she couldn't put it into action. Any discourse with the duke would require some referral to her episode with Lucas, and she wasn't ready to describe what had happened. So far her parents had been blessedly silent on asking about her ordeal, tiptoeing around her emotional state and physical presence as though she were ill and they must take extra care not to disturb her. After all, discussion would require that some of their feelings be aired, and who wanted that?

  Don't talk about it.

  The hidden message ran through the hollow halls of the Westmoreland home, and for once she embraced the overwhelming necessity for avoidance of any authentic emotional outbursts. If she sat down with her father, he would expect her to talk about Lucas, he'd demand to know the details, and she simply couldn't confess what was in her heart to someone who held her in such low esteem.

  Although she'd never imagined that the duke fostered much affection for her, she'd always believed he possessed some. But he had no regard for her whatsoever, caring so little that she could have been murdered by a stranger and he wouldn't have minded. The knowledge was a greater burden than any daughter should have to bear.

  Lucas was impossible to explain, as was their time together, so she couldn't speak of it. Not to anyone, not even to Colette, who had been there with her, who had seen how joyous Penny was at having encountered Lucas and how devastated she was by losing him. Colette had stayed by her side, pensive and helpful and worried, but supportive of Penny in her grief. For Penny understood why she was overwhelmed by such melancholy.

  She was grieving. For the loss of her great love for Lucas. For the loss of the life she might have had with him and Harry. For the loss of her marriage and the happiness she assumed she'd found with her handsome, exciting new husband. Yet,

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  all of those losses paled in comparison to the terrible discovery that no baby had resulted from their brief union. Two weeks after returning to London, she'd learned of her barren condition, and the news had seemed to be the greatest sorrow of all.

  Although she tried to tell herself that a babe would have been the least desirable ending and that no pregnancy was the best for all concerned, in her heart she couldn't accept the wise counsel. A baby would have provided her with a piece of Lucas she could have always cherished.

  Sadly she'd brought nothing of Lucas home from the country. No slip of clothing, no miniature portrait lovingly kept in a necklace charm, no lock of hair or other memento to smell and trail through her fingers. A child would have helped her to remember that handful of wonderful, thrilling days before she'd had the opportunity to learn what Lucas was really like.

  Gradually her grand adventure would fade, her memories growing less vibrant, until it would seem as though none of it had ever happened. Her recollection of events would languish and decline, and she would look back and wouldn't be able to say for certain if it had really occurred or not. What a pathetic, sorry statement about the only truly extraordinary thing that had ever transpired in her long, boring life!

  Down the length of the table she saw her father sitting at one end, her mother at the other. Both were chatting with their respective dinner partners about various inane topics. They appeared and sounded extremely gracious, the perfect host and hostess, while carrying on as though the other spouse weren't in the room. They could keep it up for hours, days. Their mutual disdain had been developed to an art form, and it might have been funny to witness if it hadn't been so pathetically tragic.

  The gathering was an intimate one of only ten people, just family and a few extremely close friends, and much different from those her mother usually hosted every night this time of year. After the split with Edward had been announced, the gossipmongers had begun circling, and everyone was fishing

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  for an invitation to one of Patricia Westmoreland's famous suppers.

  As Penny no longer made the rounds in Polite Society, her peers were dying to find a route into the Westmoreland mansion, where they could feast their eyes upon her and decide if any of the wild stories they'd heard had the slightest basis in fact. Thankfully her mother had immediately shut down the flow of people coming into the house, a surprising move considering that it was now mid-April, the Season upon them once again, and all of the beau monde arrived for the festivities.

  The dearth of celebrations had been her mother's only concession toward acknowledging that something out of the ordinary had befallen her only daughter. Yet, Penny had no misconceptions about what had prompted the change. The lack of parties had nothing to do with Penny's period of personal distress and everything to do with her mother's hating to have their name connected with any sort of scandal. The entertainments would remain modestly unpretentious until the members of the ton found something else upon which to focus their attention.

  Just then her father's voice cut through the din of table noise, surprising her into alertness.

  "A small shipping dispute ..." he was explaining.

  "With an American, you say?" asked the man with whom he was conversing.

  "Pendleton," the duke said casually. "Lucas Pendleton is his name. He's trying to leave the country, but I've asked to have his ship detained. Possibly seized."

  "Cargo and all?"

  "Yes," the duke answered. "The man trifled with something precious that belongs to me. I intend to see that he pays, and pays dearly, for his rash act."

  Penny looked up from her plate to notice her father watching her intensely, as though he'd hoped she'd overhear the snippet of information. In the three weeks she'd been home, it was the

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  first and only occasion any mention had been made of Lucas or what had ensued while she'd been away.

  She hadn't realized the Pendleton brothers were still in England, having assumed that they had fled the moment the blackmail attempt had fallen apart. In her floundering state of private despair, it had never occurred to her that her father had sought Lucas out, had harassed him in some fashion, maintaining ulterior plans wit
h regard to his person and property.

  Didn't the duke understand that she just wanted Lucas out of their lives? She had no desire to run into him or talk with him or pass him on the street. The pain that any type of encounter would bring was beyond imagining.

  All eyes were upon her as she spoke for the first time during the meal. “What will you do with this American once you've gotten your hands on him?''

  “I haven't decided what punishment will be severe enough."

  Does he think he's doing this for me? she wondered as she stared him down. Was he acting out of the misguided impression that revenge must be taken on her behalf? Or was he proceeding for the same reason he always used to justify his behavior: that he was a wealthy, powerful peer of the realm who hated being bested by anyone?

  Was it so important that he have the final say as to who would be hurt the most? And who would be the victims? Lucas's brother? Harry? Paulie? Perhaps it would be Lucas himself. Would the duke have him publicly whipped? Transported? Hanged? She couldn't suffer to imagine any of those punishments meted out to the man she had once loved so desperately.

  Clearing her throat, she asked, "May I be excused?"

  "Certainly, darling," her mother said, barely sparing her a glance.

  Penny rose and hurried from the dining room to the back of the house, passing through the family's sunroom. It was dark, and she cautiously wound a path through the collection of plants and foliage and out onto the terrace, where a few lamps were lighting the pathways into the garden. Gazing up at the sky,

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  she couldn't help wondering where Lucas might be. Was he at that very moment looking at the same stars? Was he contemplating all the damage he'd accomplished? Did he ever think of her as she thought of him every minute of every day?

  Footsteps sounded, and her father stepped out of the house behind her. He had her trapped. Quite effectively too, but maybe he had the right of it. It was long past time they had it out.