by Rose Lerner
He was in every particular as she remembered him, save that he was dressed from head to toe in black, and his blue eyes were anxious and grave. She realized that Evans had not announced him as Lord Nevinstoke, but as Lord Bedlow.
She stood without thinking, and her book fell to the floor. In an instant he had stepped forward, bent down, and returned it to her. She was conscious that her fingers closed too tightly on the book; he was very close, an odd expression in his eyes. His nearness affected her, alas, just as she remembered.
“Has something happened to your father, my lord?”
He looked away and stepped back. “You are very perceptive. My father was killed Wednesday before last.”
“You mean-the day after I saw you at Vauxhall?”
He smiled. “You remembered me.”
She had been so shocked by his news that at first she had forgotten to listen to his voice. Now she experienced the full effect of the pure vowels and husky overtones; her pulse sped up. “I am so sorry to hear about your father.”
“Thank you,” he said, then stood silent. “Dash it, this is awkward.”
“I own I am a little surprised to see you.”
“I suppose I had better out with it. My father had run into debt before he died. A great deal of debt.”
Penelope’s heart plummeted into her boots. She struggled for composure. “I see.”
“The long and short of it is, I’ve come to ask you to marry me.”
Four
Though she had been half expecting it, the world seemed to stand still a moment; then it started again, with a stutter. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me correctly, I assure you.” He ran a hand through his hair, confirming her impression that its disorder was unfeigned, then took a few steps back. “Do you-do you think we might be seated?”
She chastised herself for a poor hostess. “Of course.” Resuming her seat, she gestured to him to do the same.
She had meant for him to take the chair placed conveniently a few feet off, but he, misreading her gesture, seated himself beside her on the window seat. He leaned forward, his elbows on his spread knees and his hands clasped.
“I’ve no intention of offering you Spanish coin. I need your money, very much-oh, how much! I don’t know how I’m to manage without it.” His mouth twisted. “I never thought about money till I hadn’t got it, you know. And now there’s candles and black gloves and ink and my sister’s dowry”-he had begun to tick these off on his fingers as he went; it had the air of a familiar pattern of thought. But he caught himself and shook his hands, ending with, “oh, and a thousand other things I never gave a moment’s thought to! How do people contrive who haven’t money?”
Penelope had never had to contrive without money; she had still been a babe when her father began to make his fortune. But she knew how it was done. “With tallow and small dowries, I’m afraid.”
He flushed. “I daresay I look a regular wastrel to you.”
He did, and Penelope hated insincerity. Nevertheless, the words flew to her lips without her thinking them. “Oh, no!”
He gave her a rueful smile. She tried to ignore its effect on her. “You’re a sweet girl. And that was what I meant to say. I can’t deny I need your money, but I still wouldn’t offer for you if I didn’t feel we could rub along tolerably well together.”
His words warmed her more than they should, but that didn’t mean she had lost all sense. “We’ve spoken together for all of five minutes in our lives, my lord. How can you possibly know we could rub along well together?”
“I can tell.” He hesitated for a moment; then he slid closer to her on the window seat, tilted up her face to his, and kissed her.
Penelope had been kissed before, once or twice. (Not by Edward, of course. He had always been all that was respectful, never given her more than a chaste kiss on the brow or the cheek.) She had found it awkward, wet, and extremely unwelcome. But Lord Bedlow’s mouth was warm and coaxing against hers. It was not really one kiss, but several in quick succession, and she found herself instinctively responding. It was clear that Lord Bedlow knew what he was about. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and a feeling that was unfamiliar and hot and uncomfortable-at least, she thought it was uncomfortable, but she wasn’t sure-began to stir in the depths of her body. She ached in places it wasn’t ladylike to think about. And for all she still hadn’t decided if the new feeling was uncomfortable or not, she was sure she wanted more.
When he raised his head and let go of her chin, she half expected him to smirk or look triumphant. But he only looked pleased and flushed; his blue eyes, when he opened them, sparkled a little. “And you like Arne’s arias.”
Penelope liked Arne a great deal. She suspected she had liked the kiss a great deal too, but it was civil of him not to point that out. “Still, that is hardly a basis to be considering matrimony,” she said, as severely as she could when her pulse was racing and she knew she was blushing all over.
The pleased light died out of his eyes; turning, he stared out the bow window. “I know it. But I’ve tried everything else.”
She pitied him sincerely. “Have you no other way of making money? Surely you needn’t rush into a marriage that-that cannot be what you wish.” She looked away, conscious of her folly in fishing for a compliment when he would have had to be an idiot to contradict her. “I know it isn’t done, for a gentleman of your class to engage in business, but-I remember you told me that you thought it was clever, making money.”
“Well, I am not particularly clever.” His crooked profile was bleak.
She wanted-she hardly knew what, but to touch him, to comfort him.
“And I need money right away, a great deal of it. I’ve sold off my mother’s favorite estate and my father’s guns. I’ve sold half the silver and most of the horses and all the jewels my mother hasn’t hidden under her mattress. I’m putting the town house up for sale tomorrow-but it won’t cover a tenth of the debts. I’ve sold everything I can think of, and it isn’t enough. The only thing I have left is myself.” His self-mocking smile was out of place on his boyish face. “I know it’s not a very good bargain.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that she was very sorry, but it would be the height of imprudence even to consider, etc., etc.-and heard herself say, “All right then.”
“You mean you’ll marry me?” He turned back to her, his face lighting up.
Again her tongue moved without consultation with her brain. “Well-yes.” Even in the midst of her consternation, his smile was contagious; she found herself smiling foolishly back.
“Oh, this is wonderful! Thank you!” With an effort he looked more grave. “I hope I am sensible of-you won’t regret it.”
She regretted it already. Had she really consented? Had she lost her mind? Faintly she said, “Thank you, my lord.” She ought to back out-to tell him she’d made a mistake, that she hadn’t considered-but she knew she wouldn’t. Some part of her didn’t want to.
She squared her shoulders. “I shall do my best to be a good wife to you, even if I’m not the wife of your choosing. I see no reason why two people of good sense and amiable dispositions should not find a tolerable measure of conjugal felicity, even if they are not, perhaps, united by those bonds of affection and familiarity which one might wish.”
He looked a little bewildered by this speech, but he said, “Precisely my sentiments.”
She was still caught in the grip of a sense of unreality. “You have already spoken to my father, I presume.”
“Of course. He said he would let me ask you myself, but-to be honest, I don’t think he had any expectation of your agreeing.”
Penelope’s eyes widened, the scene to come already clearly before her eyes. “Here-I shall undertake to make him keep his word, but perhaps you had better not talk it over with him now. I know speed is important to you, but can you come back tomorrow to arrange all the details?”
His eyebrows rose, but he answered, “Certainly.”
“Will eleven o’clock answer?”
“Very well. He will agree, won’t he?”
“I believe he will.” Privately, Penelope wasn’t sure. “Only-you’d better bring a statement of your debts with you. Have you got one?”
He looked abruptly frustrated. “Not a good one, no. New bills come every day, and-I’ve no head for numbers, Miss Brown. I’ve added it all up enough to make my eyes ache and come up with a different answer every time.”
Here at least she was on sure ground, and the sudden sense of her own competence bolstered her. She smiled at him. “Well, I cannot help you with your other problems until we are wed, but that one I can help you with now. Has anyone ever taught you to cast out nines?”
“What is that?”
“It’s a method for verifying sums. Here, come over to the writing desk.” She scribbled a short column of numbers and totted them up. “This won’t catch all mistakes, but it’ll catch most.” She showed him what to do. “…Now when you add up all the one-digit numbers-again ignoring any nines-they ought to be the same as your sum. Do you understand?”
His eyes were narrowed in concentration. “Do it once more?”
His evident amazement that the trick worked a second time made her want to laugh. “Here, let me try,” he said, scrawling an example of his own in a sloping Italian hand. “Jupiter! That’s astonishing! However did you come to know such a thing?”
She looked down. “I sometimes help my father with his books.” Keeping the books of a brewery was not a proper occupation for a young lady. It was a moment before she could raise her eyes to his, knowing she could not but be lowered in his esteem.
His eyes were filled with such azure wonder that she caught her breath. “I knew you were just what I needed!”
She laughed. “Perhaps you had better bring your man of business with you tomorrow.”
But all laughter was at an end when Evans arrived to show him out. Any moment now her mother or father would come in, and she would have to admit what she had done. She would have to admit that she had agreed to spend the rest of her life with a man of whose character she knew nothing-or worse than nothing! A man, in fact, of whom she knew only that he had a spendthrift father, a taste for strong drink, and a very pretty mistress.
He likes music, an insidious voice whispered inside her. And he kisses well. She flushed with mortification. She had always prided herself on her self-command, her firmness of purpose. Yet she had staked her future on one throw of the die; she had agreed to give herself, body and soul, to a handsome young man on the strength of a kiss. She was a weakwilled, foolish girl, indeed. Her eyes ran listlessly over the desk-and lighted on Edward’s letter.
She had forgotten Edward! Her eye dwelt in horror on his familiar neat script. This weekend, an associate insisted on taking me on a tour of Paris’s most picturesque Gothick churches, though I assured him I have no part in the great fad for all things Gothick that ensnares so many of my countrymen. But I think you would have enjoyed hearing the organ of Notre Dame de Paris-it is larger than anything you can imagine, and though I could not judge myself I am told that the organist is prodigious talented.
What was she going to tell Edward?
Penelope was still staring at the letter when her father walked in a few minutes later. “My, you got rid of that Bedlow fellow quick, didn’t you? I told him it were a waste of time, but he seemed awful set on talking to you, and I knew you’d be able to send him about his business with a sight more tact than I could.” He noticed her dazed face. “He didn’t insult you, did he?”
She took a deep breath. “I accepted his offer, Papa.”
“What?”
She nodded.
“But-but-call him back and refuse it, then! The blackguard’s a fortune hunter. I thought you would know that.”
Though she had been longing to do that very thing when her father had walked in, she stiffened. “I did know it, Papa. He was very honest with me. He is coming tomorrow at eleven to discuss the settlements with you.”
Mr. Brown turned very red. “I shall certainly not receive him! A wastrel and spendthrift if I ever saw one! He showed me a pathetic calculation he had made of his debts. An illegible scrawl. The boy can barely add!”
“Yes, Papa,” Penelope said more strongly, angry with her father for being so unfair to Lord Bedlow, who was doing the best he could. “That is why he wishes to marry me. He was not brought up to understand money.”
“Your dowry was to set you and your husband up in life and make you comfortable, not to redeem the mortgages of some profligate lordling!”
“You never wanted Edward to have it either.” She knew that it was childish to be so contrary, but the more her father stormed, the more she clung to her rash decision. “His father’s profligacy is not Lord Bedlow’s fault. Anyway, it is too late now to repine. I have given him my word.”
“Much his lordship will care for the word of a Brown!”
“That is no reason to cheapen it! How many times have you told me that once you’ve shaken hands on a deal, you cannot shrink from it?”
As Penelope was finishing this fine speech, her mother entered the room. Mr. Brown’s face seemed to cave in a little. Turning on his wife, he said, “This is all your doing! Filling her head with notions of lords and family seats! I hope you will be happy, Mrs. Brown, when your daughter is the countess of a run-down, drafty, out-of-the-way place with holes in the upholstery.”
Mrs. Brown stared. “George, whatever are you talking about?”
“She’s said yes to that Nevinstoke you’ve been yammering on about, that’s what! His father’s got himself killed and now he’s bound for the Gazette unless he can marry an heiress, and your daughter was fool enough to accept him.”
“Oh, George, you’re in a taking for nothing. Penny wouldn’t be so foolish, would you, Penny?”
Penelope’s face heated. “I am not foolish. But-but I did agree to marry Lord Bedlow.”
Her mother stared at her in incomprehension. “Why?”
Penelope was conscious that she did not know; embarrassment made her stubborn. She tilted up her chin. “You ought to be pleased, Mama. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Brown’s eyes narrowed. “George, may I talk to Penny alone for a moment?”
Mr. Brown grumbled, but he left the room.
“Penny, what on earth has come over you?” Mrs. Brown asked. “Are you angry with us for something?”
“My decision had nothing to do with you!” Perhaps if her mother had come in first, Penelope might have yielded to her persuasions and sent an apologetic refusal after Lord Bedlow. But now it was too late. “You seemed to like him well enough when you met him. You introduced us to him. You looked him up in Debrett’s the moment we arrived home. What was your purpose, if not exactly what has transpired?”
“I meant you to know him a bit longer first! You needn’t make me out to be some kind of heartless schemer. Why shouldn’t you marry a man with a university education? A man who’s seen something of the world? Who’ll take you to Venice?”
“Edward’s traveling!”
“Pooh, Paris,” Mrs. Brown said, who had loved Paris the one time she had managed to convince Mr. Brown to take her there. “What are you going to tell Edward?”
Penelope’s face crumpled. “Oh, Mama, I don’t know! I didn’t even think of it until Lord Bedlow had gone, and then-”
Mrs. Brown frowned. “Lord Bedlow must have been very persuasive.”
Penelope blushed. “I felt sorry for him.”
A corner of Mrs. Brown’s mouth twitched. “Is that what the young folk are calling it nowadays? When I was a girl we said we was sweet on a boy.”
“Mama,” Penelope snapped, “I am not sweet on Lord Bedlow.”
“Then why are you blushing like a bonfire? I never saw you look like that after half an hour in Edward’s company.”
Penelope raised a hand to her flaming cheeks. “I’m merely
a touch discomposed.”
“He didn’t do anything he oughtn’t, did he?”
“Of course not,” Penelope said reflexively. And then, because she hated lying to her mother, “He did kiss me.”
Mrs. Brown was silent a moment. “And did you like it?”
“Mama!”
Mrs. Brown folded her arms. “Don’t you ‘Mama’ me. You’re asking me to let my baby girl marry a man she’s spoken to twice, who’s only after her money, and I am not going to even think about it if you didn’t like the way he kissed you.”
“Mama!” But her mother was implacably silent. “I liked it,” she said very, very quietly.
Mrs. Brown nodded.
“And-and he isn’t only after my money.” Penelope hoped it was the truth. “That is-he was mainly after it, and he wouldn’t have offered for me without it, of course, but-he said he wouldn’t have asked me if he didn’t think we could rub along tolerably well together. And he likes Arne.”
Mrs. Brown’s face softened-a little. “That composer you’re always on about? What a coincidence.” She sighed. “He did seem a nice boy.” After a few more moments’ frowning thought, she said, heavily, “I’ll speak to your father. We shan’t be too hasty, but there’s no harm in talking to the boy, I suppose.”
Nev ’s heart was pounding as he and his father’s man of business waited on the Browns’ steps at five to eleven the following morning. He was sure, perfectly sure, that Miss Brown would have thought it all over and realized what a poor bargain she was getting.
He did not feel much reassured when they were ushered into Mr. Brown’s study and found the brewer and a dapper young clerk in earnest consultation over a ledger so heavy it made Nev ’s eyes ache just looking at it.
The face Mr. Brown turned on him was not particularly friendly. “Well, you’ve ensnared my daughter, so I suppose there’s nothing I can do about that.” He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “If I refused the dowry you’d skip off readily enough, but the girl says to me, ‘Didn’t you teach me that once you’ve shaken hands on a deal, there’s no turning back?’ And bless me if I didn’t. Has your man here got an accounting of your debts?”