by Rose Lerner
Nev nodded. “He would never have wanted that.” Penelope didn’t think anyone else caught the way his mouth twisted over the words. “You old-timers are the backbone of this place. You’ve lived here since before I was born, haven’t you?”
Penelope was amazed how well he did this. She was nearly paralyzed with shyness and distaste, but Nev sat easily at the Kedges’ table, looking not at all out of place, the sun from the window glinting on his cinnamon hair and candor shining in his blue eyes. Tom Kedge would be eating out of his hand.
Kedge puffed out his chest a little. “I have indeed. Why, I remember when you was that big, running about wanting to play with the workhorses!”
Nev smiled at him. “I was hoping you might advise me on what is best to be done to get things back in shape.”
“I am so glad you asked,” Mr. Snively began. “I’ve been keeping a list-”
Penelope grimaced, and Nev flashed her a laughing look. “That is wonderful. My wife is fond of lists as well. But I should like Mr. Kedge’s opinions on agricultural matters first.”
Kedge chewed on his lower lip. “It’s going to take work. Unless you’ve got a lot of the ready at your disposal, it could take a long time too.”
Penelope thought wistfully of the hundred thousand pounds in trust for their children.
“The soil just isn’t up to snuff,” Kedge said. “If you could afford a few head of cattle, that would help quite a bit.”
“Cattle?” Nev asked. Penelope was equally at a loss.
Kedge roared with laughter. “You know what they say in these parts. Muck is the mother of money!”
Mr. Snively wrinkled his nose in distaste. Penelope, seeing it, hastily smoothed out her own features.
“Mr. Kedge-” Penelope was unsure if it were wise to ask, but she was desperate for an answer of some kind and foresaw a long conversation full of manure and farming implements if she did not. “We drove past the fields on the way here, and-the men did not look happy.”
Kedge chuckled. “You should have seen them in ’16! Lucky for us, the worst have been transported. Poachers and malcontents, the lot of ’em.”
Mr. Snively sniffed. “I cannot agree. The threat of revolt is as real today as it was in ’16. Indeed, if I may just drop a word in your lordship’s ear-I worry that certain of your tenants are far too lenient with their men.”
Penelope frowned. “What do you mean by ‘too lenient’?”
“Allow me to warn you, my lady, against the tales of hardship you will surely hear. I see you are delicately bred with tender sensibilities”-Penelope tried not to stare in disbelief-“and these sneaking folk will seek to impose upon you in hopes of money.”
“And which of my tenants are you accusing of overleniency?” There was a slight edge in Nev ’s voice. “Not Mr. Kedge, I presume.”
“I hope not!” Kedge laughed loudly.
Mr. Snively permitted himself a dry chuckle. “Certainly not. Tom’s laborers come to church on Sunday, every one, if they know on which side their bread is buttered, and afterward they work a half day.”
Well, that explained the vicar’s enthusiasm, Penelope thought.
“He had the idea from Mr. Coke,” Mrs. Kedge said.
Mr. Snively raised his eyes to Heaven as if Mr. Coke were to be found there. “That man is the benefactor of Norfolk, and it would be a great thing if everyone who held the souls of these rough folk in their hands would do as much. The rest of your tenants’ men spend the Lord’s day in drunken idleness, and you know they say the devil finds work for idle hands.” He looked at Nev significantly. “Poaching.”
Kedge shrugged. “I’d rather have them poaching than burning the barns.”
Mr. Snively folded his hands together with a very grave air. “I am afraid I cannot agree. I know Sir Jasper is most concerned. Nothing discourages the blackguards, not even the increased severity of the laws. Even Sir Jasper’s spring guns do nothing to deter them.”
“Spring guns?” Penelope asked. “What are those?”
“They are dangerous and criminal,” Nev snapped. “They are designed to shoot anyone who sets off a trip wire, and they will maim or kill a dog or a-a passerby as often as a poacher. Does Sir Jasper really still use them?”
Mr. Snively changed tack impressively. “Unfortunately, he does, though I have urged him against them many and many a time. They are, alas, not in the tradition of Christian forbearance. It is not easy for sinful men to turn the other cheek, but so we must strive to do, else our own souls shall become as black as the pitch-smeared faces of these poachers. I see your lordship is a true follower of our Lord.”
They had been traveling along the road to Loweston Grange for less than a minute when Nev said fiercely, “I should have told you before. Never, under any circumstances, set foot on Greygloss land if I am not with you. If you are in our woods, and you come to a fence, do not go over it. Sir Jasper uses mantraps and spring guns to catch poachers. It isn’t safe.”
Penelope was touched. He needed her alive, of course, to keep the interest on the hundred thousand pounds that remained, and even if he wished for his freedom she hardly imagined him capable of arranging her death; but there was surely a measure of real concern in his looks. “I never heard of such a thing,” she said. “It seems barbaric.”
“It is. If a man is poaching, he must take his chances. But a spring gun doesn’t look before it shoots. I cannot credit that Sir Jasper has not taken them down, after what happened.”
“What do you mean?”
Nev ’s profile was grim. “Sir Jasper’s wife was killed by one of the guns, two years ago. She ought to have known better than to go walking in Sir Jasper’s coverts, but-well, no one knows what happened. She was found with a bullet through her head.”
Penelope shuddered. “How awful!”
Nev shook his head. “I still cannot believe the guns haven’t been taken down.”
“And yet, it appears that Sir Jasper has put a deal of energy into improving the district. Perhaps he is a good man, with simply this one mania against poachers.”
“The district does not seem much improved to me.”
Penelope could not argue with this. “Maybe it would have been even worse without the changes,” she said uncertainly. “ Nev, what exactly happened in ’16?”
“It was a bad summer. It rained a lot. The harvest failed in a lot of places. There were riots all over East Anglia -didn’t you hear about them?”
She felt her cheeks heating. “Oh! I suppose I did. There were riots at Loweston?”
“Nothing big. They smashed up some things. It was worse in other places, I think. I remember at Cambridge, there was talk of arming the students to put down the riots.”
Penelope couldn’t help a smile. “That sounds rather…ill-judged.”
Nev smiled ruefully back, and something warm unfurled inside her. “I didn’t think so at the time, but yes, it probably would have been.”
Eight
Nev missed the city. It was dark now, and in London he would have been out with his friends or spending the evening with Amy. The sounds of bustle and life and other people would have been outside the window. If he’d liked, he could have gone to a concert. He wanted music with a pain like homesickness. Even the songs of the nightingales, which he had loved as a boy, did not comfort him.
The only sounds of real, human life were the rustlings from the next room. Nev was ashamed to see Penelope; ashamed that he had brought her here to face a thousand impossible burdens he was totally unequipped to bear. And he was tired of making polite conversation with a stranger who was somehow also his wife and who had already witnessed some of the least proud moments of his life.
But anything was better than standing alone in his father’s room, looking into his father’s mirror, and wishing there were some of his father’s brandy in the decanter. He knocked at the connecting door, and at her soft invitation, he opened it.
He was unprepared for the wave of longing that went
through him at the sight of her. She was sitting cross-legged in bed, a stack of heavy ledgers in front of her and a branch of candles on the night table. She looked up and smiled at him. Her night rail enveloped her almost completely, but she had rolled up the sleeves to reveal slender forearms and hands, and he could see one bare foot peeking out from under her crossed legs. Her hair was not yet braided for the night, but it was out of its daytime knot and tied back with a black satin ribbon. The end of the ribbon was almost, but not quite, disappearing into her night rail’s prim neckline. Nev swallowed. The month since he had last slept with a woman seemed like a very, very long time.
Damnation, she was his wife! Why did it seem so wrong to untie the ribbon, lay her back on the bed, and make love to her?
She looked so young, and he had seen her frowning worriedly in the brief instant before she looked up at him. A worry caused by the sorry state of his affairs.
As his silence stretched, her smile grew uncertain. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, of course,” he lied. “How are the books?”
“It’s too early to tell.” She turned back to the books and absentmindedly ran the end of her quill over her mouth in a way that might have been designed to drive Nev crazy, but in reality had nothing to do with him. “Can you look at something for me?”
He wasn’t sure what useful knowledge he could possibly impart, but at the moment he was willing to seize any excuse to cross the room and sit on the edge of her bed. “Yes?”
“There are several different handwritings in these. This one”-she pointed to an illegible scrawl-“is Captain Trelawney’s. There are two before that, though, and they alternate. It’s generally this one, but every so often, this one shows up.”
She pushed the ledger toward him. He looked where she pointed, at the two neat hands-and recognition slammed into him like a runaway horse. “The more frequent one is our late steward, Mr. Garrett’s,” he said slowly. “The other is his son Percy’s.” It was Percy’s bookkeeping hand, fine and precise as an accountant’s. His ordinary hand was larger, more slanting, and much, much harder to read.
Her brow wrinkled. “Percy Garrett. That name sounds familiar.”
He reached out and took the pen from her. She gave it up without a struggle, but when he began to tickle her ear with it, she shrieked and leaped sideways.
“Ticklish, are you?” He had intended to distract her and himself, and he succeeded. A few moments later he could think of nothing but Penelope, wriggling and giggling and showing intriguing flashes of limb as she struggled to escape. Finally she went on the attack, seizing his hand and trying to wrest the quill away. He leaned back, misjudged, and fell sideways onto the bed. Penelope overbalanced and sprawled on top of him.
They both stilled. Nev could plainly feel the soft give of her breasts and the curve of her hip through her night rail. She shifted, letting go of the pen. Nev didn’t dare move for fear she would feel his erection. Her hair had come loose; it brushed his face as she pushed herself upright. He sat up, and she edged away, laughing, holding up her hands as if she thought he would start tickling her again.
He put the pen down. It would be so easy to slide after her and kiss her. He knew she would let him. And then he would take off that oversized night rail, and then-then he would take her virginity. What if he hurt her? There would be no more tickling and giggling then. She would shy away when he touched her.
“Good night, Penelope.” And then, because he couldn’t help himself, he reached out and ran a lock of her hair through his fingers. It was smooth and warm and silky, and he almost gave in to his desire after all.
“Good night, Nev. ” She smiled shyly at him. He let go of her hair and went back to his own room.
Lying in bed, he listened to the scritch-scritch-scritch of Penelope’s quill. There was something comforting about it.
The following day Nev rode over to pay a call on Sir Jasper. He would have liked to bring Penelope, but he couldn’t think of an excuse, and it would have looked odd anyway. Sir Jasper had not bothered inviting a female relative to be his hostess since his wife’s death. If Nev had dragged Penelope along, Sir Jasper would have known at once that it was because Nev didn’t know what he was doing on his own.
As an adult Nev had seen Sir Jasper only rarely, in town; he had never been impressed by him. But here in Greygloss’s beautiful, well-kept entrance hall, after a ride through Greygloss’s prosperous home farm and rich, sweeping lawns, it was different. The baronet even looked different, the very picture of a country landowner in well-cut riding clothes, his dark hair graying at the temples. He wrung Nev ’s hand in a very friendly way, though, and Nev tried to feel heartened.
“I’m glad to see you,” Sir Jasper said. “There are a number of things I’ve been meaning to speak to you about. But it would be a shame to waste such a fine day indoors, and I daresay Lady Bedlow would like a fine quail for dinner.”
Nev had never done much shooting. Percy wasn’t legally eligible to hunt game, and leaving him behind, or worse yet asking him to beat the bushes like a servant, had been unthinkable. Wandering about with Sir Jasper killing birds and talking about the estate sounded unutterably dreary, but he plastered on a smile and agreed.
It turned out that Sir Jasper did, in fact, have a number of things he’d been meaning to speak to Nev about: the insidiousness of poachers, the importance of a firm hand, various people in the district who were not to be trusted, and details of crop rotations and planting potatoes and drainage that Nev knew he would have forgotten by the afternoon. It didn’t help Nev ’s mood that, unpracticed with the long fowling pieces, he failed to shoot a single bird.
“Have you thought about becoming a justice of the peace?” The baronet seemed to be slowing down after an hour of solid advice. “There are a number of offenses that cannot be tried by one magistrate sitting alone, and it would be invaluable to have two in the district. Your father was considering it, but alas he never found the time before his death…”
Nev doubted that his father had seriously been considering anything which sounded like so very much work. He didn’t relish the idea himself. “I hadn’t thought about it,” he said honestly. “But I will think about it now.”
Sir Jasper looked at his face and laughed. “But enough of business! Is your family returning to the neighborhood soon?”
“Any day now.”
Sir Jasper smiled. “Wonderful. It will be a pleasure to see your charming mother again-and of course Lady Louisa.” He paused meaningfully.
Nev ’s refusal of Sir Jasper’s suit hung awkwardly in the air between them. Trying to think what to say, Nev tramped ahead, searching the underbrush for signs of movement.
“Stop! For the love of God, stop at once!”
Nev froze, and saw the tripwire two inches from his thigh.
Sir Jasper pounded up. “Oh, thank God. I thought I warned you about the spring guns in this area.”
He had, and Nev felt the worst sort of fool. If he hadn’t stopped in time-if he had been shot-what would have become of his family? Of Loweston? Of Penelope?
Penelope would probably be better off as a widow. A hundred thousand pounds, no one to answer to, no Loweston to worry about. He shoved that thought aside.
If he had accepted Sir Jasper’s offer to buy, the baronet might have put up spring guns at Loweston. The idea repulsed Nev more than he had expected.
At the end of the day, he still hadn’t managed to shoot anything. Sir Jasper gave him two quails anyway. Nev had to struggle to accept the birds gracefully.
Nev and Penelope were eating breakfast. At least, it had started out that way. Somewhere along the line, it had shifted into Nev watching Penelope eat breakfast. She ate a good deal, but very neatly. She cut everything up into ladylike bites, chewed slowly, and washed it all down with ladylike sips of tea. It was refined, sensible, and a little too careful, like everything about her. Just now she was spreading a thin layer of jam on her toast, with an adorable
frown of concentration.
“Are you going to cut your toast into tiny pieces too?” he teased.
She flushed. “Of course not. Whoever heard of cutting up toast?”
“I just wondered.”
She looked away. “When my parents sent me to finishing school, the girls made fun of me for how I ate. I suppose I overcompensated.”
Nev felt guilty suddenly, and angry. “Wretched cats. You ought to have eaten with your elbows on the table and your fingers in the food. That would have shown them.”
“Perhaps, but it wouldn’t have been very attractive.”
“Who cares?”
“I rather think you would. You’ll have to sit across the breakfast table from me for the rest of your life.”
A life sentence. Penelope only, always, forever. Nev thought of all the times he had eaten breakfast with Amy. They would rise late and make their way to the breakfast room, and Amy’s cook would make them buttered eggs and crumpets. Amy hadn’t had good table manners-she ate quickly and used her fingers sometimes. But Nev had never minded; it just meant he could eat as messily as he wanted too. They would always laugh and talk and read each other things from the morning paper, and sometimes he would feed her strawberries. Of course, he and Amy would have just risen from a night of lovemaking. He and Penelope hadn’t even kissed since his proposal.
Penelope began to take a bite of her toast, then pushed it away, with a blush and a little laugh. “I can’t eat it now, you’ve made me embarrassed!”
Nev wondered if he would ever know the right thing to say again.
“I suppose I’ll have more tea.” She poured herself a cup and reached for the jar of honey. But as she opened it, she glanced up at Nev. She fumbled with the spoon, and honey flew all over her fingers.
Nev stared at the sticky molten gold sliding down his wife’s ink-stained fingers.
Penelope saw his fixed look and misinterpreted it. “Don’t look at me like that! I know I’m hopeless!”
“That’s not it,” Nev said with utmost sincerity. “That…looks like it tastes good.”