by Rose Lerner
She stepped onto the freshly swept dirt floor just ahead of Nev. Unlike many of the laborers, the Baileys had two rooms. Since the Baileys’ little bedroom had been given up to the invalid, the children’s bed in the corner of the main room was now to house Mr. and Mrs. Bailey. The children were to sleep on blankets by the hearth. A table and a few rush-bottomed chairs comprised the whole of the furnishings, apart from the kettle, a pot or two, and the poker. But at least it was well-tended, the family’s clothes were not too ragged, and the room smelled fresh and clean.
“Mr. Garrett was kind enough to give us some fresh straw, to change out the mattresses,” Mrs. Bailey said in explanation.
Penelope thought of the furniture her mother was probably even now spending hundreds of pounds on, and her conscience smote her. But she smiled and tried not to look self-conscious as Mrs. Bailey exclaimed over the basket Penelope had brought, with real tea, a chicken for broth, and milk and butter for gruel.
“I tried to bring enough so that Mr. Bailey could have some too,” Penelope said. “How is your leg, Jack? I mean to ask the nurse to look at it before she goes.”
“It’s very kind of you, your ladyship, but I’m sure there’s no need for that,” Mr. Bailey said. “It’s doing very well. I’ll be on my feet in no time.”
Penelope did not think that could be true; he had been injured three weeks ago and still could barely rise from his chair. “Well, we’ll see. How did the girl take the journey?”
“She’s sleeping,” Mrs. Bailey said. “I don’t think she’s quite in her right mind just yet-feverish, of course. She had trouble swallowing water when she was brought in. But I’ve opened the window; the Norfolk air should do her good.”
Penelope and Nev went into the second, smaller room. It held nothing but a bed and a chair; the sick girl was in the bed, and the chair was occupied by the nurse, a stout woman who was bathing her patient’s forehead with a cool cloth and encouraging her to drink some water. Penelope stepped forward, and for the first time she saw the sick girl’s face.
The sudden buzzing in her ears drowned out the Baileys’ fierce whispered conversation from the room beyond. The girl’s blonde hair was dirty and tangled, and her elfin face was too thin and flushed with fever. But Penelope recognized her instantly.
It was Amy Wray.
Thirteen
Penelope wished her head would swim, that she would faint, anything-anything to make the present recede just a little from her consciousness. Anything to draw Nev’s attention away from the pitiful wreck of his former mistress. But she did not. She could not. She was not built that way. She stood there, cold in the afternoon sun, and watched her life unravel around her in perfect, precise detail.
In an instant Nev was at the bedside. “Oh, God,” he said in a low, terrible voice. “Is she-will she-?”
Penelope felt the knot climb in her throat-high enough to make her bite the inside of her lip to keep from screaming, not high enough to inconvenience anyone.
“I think she’ll pull through, my lord.” The nurse rose from her chair and bobbed a perfunctory curtsy. “But I couldn’t say for sure. She’s been sick an awful long time, more’n a week; don’t seem to know where she is half the time and burning up with fever. She really shouldn’t have traveled, but the air in London is so close this time of year, it might have killed her all on its lonesome. She’s lost too much blood.” The nurse made a clucking sound in the back of her throat. “That’s what comes of opposing nature.”
That was when the worst of it hit Penelope. Miss Wray was here because she had aborted an unwanted child. Nev’s unwanted child. She was seized with a horrifying thought-had Nev known? Had Miss Wray told him, that night at the theater? Had Nev concealed this from her? For the first time since they had entered the room, Penelope looked at Nev’s face. She could only see part of his crooked profile, because he was turned away from her to look down at Miss Wray. His face was gray.
Miss Wray shifted restlessly. “Nev,” she moaned.
Penelope froze, her eyes darting to the nurse.
The woman frowned. “She keeps saying ‘never.’ Who knows what’s going on in her head? I hope she isn’t scared, poor thing.”
The danger was over for the moment, but Penelope could not enjoy the reprieve. Of course the nurse had no idea. But the Baileys would surely recognize the name. Someone would, anyway. Soon everyone at Loweston would know that the new Lord Bedlow had had his mistress brought to Loweston under his wife’s nose. Then the neighbors would find out, and everyone would know; everyone would look at her with pity or thinly veiled contempt. It would be confirmation of everything-that Nev didn’t care about her, that the new Lady Bedlow was a citified fool who couldn’t see what was before her eyes.
Miss Wray tried to push away her blanket. “Nev.” Nev swallowed convulsively and balled his hands into fists.
Penelope blinked; the horror receded a little. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” she said to the nurse.
“Oh, begging your pardon, your ladyship, it’s Rawley.”
“We appreciate your coming all this way, Rawley. I hope you will explain to the Baileys what is required for Miss Wr-” Penelope stopped, panicking a little.
“Miss Raeburn,” the nurse prompted her.
“Yes, of course,” she said gratefully. “Miss Raeburn’s care. And I hope you will oblige us by looking at Jack Bailey’s leg before you go. Lord Bedlow can sit with the patient for a few minutes, if you will step into the other room.”
“Certainly, your ladyship.” Rawley stepped back to let Penelope leave the room ahead of her. “Just call me if you see any change, my lord.”
Penelope didn’t look back; she couldn’t and still keep her wits about her sufficiently to get them all through the next ten minutes without a scandal.
Mr. Bailey was still grumbling that his leg was fine, but Mrs. Bailey, face set, said to Rawley, “Please, if you could look-”
“It’s what her ladyship was just asking me to do. Sit down, Mr. Bailey.”
Mr. Bailey sat reluctantly on one of the rush-bottomed chairs. Penelope sank down on the other and tried to think what to do. They could hardly send the girl away, not when she was so ill; to be moved again might kill her. Nor could they ask someone else to nurse her who might not recognize Nev’s nickname or whom Penelope could trust; the secret the disappointed Baileys and their friends would create in explanation would no doubt be worse than the truth.
She could find no solution but to try to brazen it out, and take the scandal and humiliation with grace when it came. Penelope had lived with pitying, contemptuous glances all her life. She could do it again. Since Miss Wray-Penelope was still thinking of her by her stage name-was so sick, at least there could be no suggestion that Nev was carrying on with her in his home, which might have injured Louisa’s reputation.
It was not Nev’s fault. Even if he had known his mistress was carrying his child and had kept it from her, it was certainly because he had thought it would hurt her. It was painfully evident from his reaction that he had not known their invalid would be Miss Wray. Nev was sorry and worried for his mistress, and when he had had time to compose himself he would be sorry and worried for Penelope. She could not add to his burden by unreasonable complaints or recriminations. She could not even wish that Nev cared less for Miss Wray’s danger; it would make him a lesser man.
No, there was no use blaming anyone. It was no one’s fault that Penelope was miserable, and so no one but her should suffer because of it. There was no use being angry, no use crying, no use doing anything but making the best of it.
Penelope felt robbed: cheated of her anger and her sorrow.
A low groan made her look up. Rawley had unwrapped Jack Bailey’s leg. It looked awful-red and swollen and raw, and not entirely straight. There were two ghastly holes near the knee, as well: one on each side. Penelope could not imagine what they might be. Rawley must have been equally puzzled, because Jack was saying, “I fell on the pi
tchfork, don’t you know.” Penelope swallowed and didn’t let herself look away. You have little enough to complain of, she told herself.
“Mrs. Bailey,” Penelope said when the leg was wrapped up again, a nauseating eternity later.
Mrs. Bailey turned to look at her, looking drawn and apprehensive. “Yes, Lady Bedlow?”
“I-please take good care of Miss Raeburn.”
Mrs. Bailey nodded. “Her mother knew yours, is that right? Was she a friend of your’n?”
Penelope recoiled inwardly at the suggestion-at the idea that someone might look at a piece of Covent Garden ware and think she was Penelope’s friend, that she was like Penelope. “No, but-” She did not know what to say. She only knew that she could not bear it if Miss Wray died; it would be, somehow, too much injustice all at once, and Nev would be so miserable. “And take care of Jack’s leg, please. If you need anything at all-if anyone needs anything-please let us know. I-I couldn’t bear it if anyone died, and I might have prevented it.” She felt near tears.
Mrs. Bailey laughed a little. “I wish we’d had you when my Rosie took sick.”
Penelope’s throat closed. She had met the Bailey children, and none of them were named Rosie. There was so much pain, everywhere, and there was nothing to do to fight back, there was nothing anyone could do but bear it.
“Here now,” Mrs. Bailey said, “don’t take on so. Let’s get Lord Bedlow to take you home.”
Nev drove silently, without looking at her, his hands white-knuckled on the reins. Penelope did not quite trust herself to speak anyway. They arrived at the house, and Nev handed the cart over to a groom. He offered Penelope his arm to climb the steps and opened the door for her, and all that time he did not turn to her. There was a tension to him that Penelope didn’t understand. He took her hand and pulled her up the stairs after him and into her room. Shutting the door behind him, he finally, finally turned to look at her.
Before she could even catch a glimpse of his face he was crushing her to him, his arms around her. Despite all her misgivings and her fears, she relaxed against him. Her sense of hopelessness receded, melting into his warmth. A small, petty part of her could not help a fierce joy that whatever he might feel for Miss Wray, it was she, Penelope, who was his wife, and she to whom he turned for comfort.
“Oh, God, Penelope,” he said against her hair in a broken voice. “If that were you-if-”
She pulled away a little, surprised, and he kissed her fiercely and did not stop. She let everything burn away, all the bitterness and worries-they were consumed in a great rush of fire. She kissed him back with everything that was in her, her hands gripping his shoulders hard enough to hurt; she was his wife, she was his, she wanted him, that was all that mattered.
He pressed hot, urgent kisses on her neck and shoulders. “I need to see you.”
Shaking, she turned around and let him unbutton her gown with hasty, fumbling fingers. She did not think, at that moment, that she would have cared if he ripped the gown apart; damn the expense, damn the embarrassment of lying to the dressmaker about what had happened.
She was wearing her most intricate set of stays, with a double row of laces down the back. He cursed, low in his throat, and Penelope said, barely able to get the words out, “Penknife-my desk-”
He paused for a moment, and then he snatched up the knife and cut the laces. Her corset fell away in three panels, she tore off her shift, and she was naked.
She remembered the first time she had stood before him naked. She’d been nervous, and he had looked her up and down and smiled and touched her, oh so gently. This was nothing like that. He swept her with his gaze, once, and then he bent and took one of her breasts in his mouth, sucking hard. She cried out-she couldn’t help it-and he bore her back until she fetched up against the bed. Taking hold of her waist, he pushed her down so that she sat on the edge of the mattress and he knelt between her spread legs, his hands firm around her buttocks. There was nothing else, no warning, no gentleness, before he dipped his head between her legs and sucked her center of sensation into his mouth.
She had never imagined anything so shocking. It felt-it felt hot and urgent and indescribable. Nev’s cinnamon hair brushed the inside of her thighs and his tongue teased her there and it was faster and hotter than anything she had ever felt. Then Nev jerked her forward with his hands and thrust his tongue inside her.
Penelope braced herself on the bed and let her head fall back. Nothing existed but white-hot pleasure. She moaned and pleaded and said words she had barely been aware she knew. And then, faster than she had thought possible, she was racked with waves of pleasure so intense they were almost painful.
For a minute afterward, she simply sat there with her eyes closed, feeling Nev’s grip on her loosen. She did not quite want to look at him. What had happened was too intense-it seemed wrong to look and speak as if everything were ordinary. She was afraid he would look unchanged. But finally she opened her eyes and looked down.
Nev met her gaze for a long moment; she did not know how to read his expression, but the tension of earlier was eased. Then he closed his eyes and leaned his head against her thigh, his thumbs tracing small circles on her skin. “Penelope,” he murmured.
Tears pricked Penelope’s eyes. She put a hand on his head, running her fingers through his hair. He tilted his head against her palm like a tired puppy. “I love your hair,” she said softly.
He smiled with his eyes closed, his same familiar small pleased smile.
“Let me-you didn’t take your pleasure.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He meant to be considerate, but it stung her. He had turned the world over for her, and he did not want her to give him anything in return. He had possessed her-branded her as his with his mouth and his hands. All he had to do was touch her, and tiny fires sprang up under his fingers. She wanted to do that for him. She wanted to render him incapable of chivalrous consideration. “It matters to me. Teach me to do something new for you. Please. There must be something-something like what you just did for me.”
“That-” He sounded as if he were having difficulty speaking. “That isn’t something you ask a lady to do.”
That would have stopped her, once; but now she rebelled. “I’m not a lady.” She felt the familiar sting of it-but she felt something else too. She wasn’t a lady; she could not control her base urges when Nev touched her, she could not keep herself from moaning and writhing and spreading her legs. But Nev liked her pleasure, and there was something he wanted that he could not have asked a lady for.
“Penelope-”
“I’m not. Nev-please, when it comes out that Miss Wray is here, everyone will know-everyone will say that I-that you-that I can’t satisfy you. I don’t want it to be true, I want-”
“Penelope, please, don’t ever do anything for me because you think you have to. I-” He reached up and cupped her breast. “You satisfy me,” he said intently.
She smiled, but she persisted. “Would it feel as good if I did it for you? Used my-my mouth-?”
He swallowed. Penelope saw sudden heat in his eyes before he closed them, trying to hide it from her. He nodded, once.
“Then let me-please-”
He pressed his lips together and nodded again. “Penelope-” His voice was thick. “Promise me that if you find it distasteful at all, you won’t do it again.”
“I promise.”
Nev stood. Penelope could see his masculinity straining against his breeches. “Kneel down.”
Nev watched Penelope get up off the bed and kneel in front of him, her expression triumphant but nervous. This was a bad idea, too intense, too much to ask, too much-but there was nothing to be done about it, because Penelope on her knees in front of him was the most irresistibly erotic thing he had ever seen. Her hair was still in its neat coil, and the bright sun that came through the gap in the curtains made a stripe across her stomach and thighs, and Penelope, proper Penelope, was going to suck him in the middle of th
e afternoon. Nev could no more have stopped this than he could have stopped an avalanche.
Amy, pale and wasted, flashed through his mind. Guilt smote him, that he was teaching his wife new sexual tricks while Amy might be dying a mile off. And yet the thought seemed far away. It could not begin to drown his utter focus on Penelope’s kneeling form. When had familiar, comfortable desire become this furious hunger?
He wondered if he should have undressed to make this easier for her. That didn’t matter either; he couldn’t wait. “Unbutton my breeches. Er, please.” She gave him an amused glance and reached for the flap of his breeches, and with every slide of button through buttonhole Nev’s arousal built. He watched her small, capable hands as she unbuttoned his breeches and his drawers as if she had done it a hundred times, although she never had-always before they had been in their nightclothes, with the exception of that first time in the folly, and then he had dealt with his clothing himself. Then, her hand casually resting at the base of his cock, she looked up at him for further guidance. She looked nervous, but Nev thought she was a little eager too.
He licked his lips. “Take the tip into your mouth.” It came out as a hoarse whisper. She obeyed him. Her hot, wet mouth that he had kissed so many times closed around him, and he almost came just from that. She didn’t move, her tongue pressed patiently against the underside of his cock, and finally the thought pierced Nev’s pleasure-shrouded mind that she was waiting for further instructions. He cleared his throat. “Just-just take it further in and then out, and keep your mouth tight around it.” He wasn’t going to last long enough for her to need more instructions than that.
Penelope gripped him tighter with her hand, took him in deep-and promptly pulled off, gagging.
He winced. “Sorry, I should have said-”