The bed might be an heirloom, however, like the lady’s desk in her own sitting room. For all Penny knew, her husband had been born in that enormous bed. Heavens, he might expect the next viscount to be conceived there! She thought about that for a moment while she ran her fingers down the sleeve of a paisley robe that lay across the pillows. Then she thought about how no nightshirt was laid out with the robe. Oh, my. No, she would not consider naked men making babies on this monstrous mattress.
She had to wait to find out if he wished to keep the bed or use it for kindling, but she could get rid of the offending fabric right now, this very minute.
Penny kicked off her slippers, climbed up onto the thick bedding, and started pulling. The velvet was sturdy, the seams well sewn. She pulled harder. She piled the pillows to stand on, higher, and grabbed more of the fabric in her hands. Then she got down and went to fetch West’s shaving razor. Ah, that made the job much easier, starting the cuts so she could tear the velvet in her hands.
So her wandering, womanizing husband was out on the town—rip. So he hadn’t wanted to be married—rip. So she was still a blasted virgin—rriiip. And no infant was going to be conceived, born, or dreamed of, not in this bed, not any time soon. She pulled so hard she fell off the bed.
Luckily a wad of velvet cushioned her fall. She climbed back up and kept cutting and tugging and cursing. Soon she had shredded fabric thrown all across the bed, the floor, the entire room, enough to make curtains for the Drury Lane Theatre, it appeared. Now the bed was open and airy and of better proportion for the room. If West was cold under the naked canopy, so what? He had her money. He could afford more coal for the fireplace. He would not have her to warm his sheets, not if he came home from some other woman’s bed. Oh, no. Penny was not going to be just another of his conquests.
On the other hand, the one still holding the razor, Penny was as torn as the velvet. She wanted to be West’s lover. She wanted to lie next to him, to fall asleep in his arms, warmed by his body after a night of pleasure. She wanted what Lady Bainbridge said every woman deserved. She wanted the impossible: West’s love. She knew he’d never love a cold woman, not her hot-blooded husband. But how could she live with him—or herself—as the poor, betrayed wife?
Her thoughts were in chaos, but she would not leave West’s room looking as if a band of berserk barbers had run through it. She neatly gathered all the fabric and folded it into a pile for the servants to carry away tomorrow. There were enough large pieces for capes or quilts, if any of them wanted to sew for their own use. Her father would approve of that, not wasting good material.
She looked at the soft mound, under the window. No, it should not go to waste. So she went down the hall to Nicky’s empty room and fetched George.
“Here is a nicer bed,” she told the pug. “And you already like West. He’ll need the company, the cur.”
Three o’clock, and Penny was finally asleep when she heard the commotion below. She pulled on her robe and rushed to the head of the stairs to look down, grabbing up an ugly vase from the hall table in case she needed a weapon. Instead of housebreakers, however, there was her husband, staggering under the weight of his half-conscious brother as Parker, a coat thrown over his nightshirt, and one of the new footmen rushed to help. Both brothers were disheveled and dirty and smelled of smoke.
He’d said he did not smoke. He’d said he did not drink to excess. He’d said he wanted to make their marriage work. By staying out all night, getting drunk and in brawls—on their first night in their new home together? Penny was so angry she almost tossed the ugly vase down on his head.
The inconsiderate bounder had even woken her grandfather, who was feeling his way down the hall, his nightcap askew and his feet bare. Marcel was coming behind him, yelling about riots and revolutionaries, waving Mr. Littleton’s slippers in one hand, a fireplace poker in the other. Penny was ashamed that her beloved relative and his servant should see her new husband in this state. She was more embarrassed that Grandpapa and Marcel would realize that West had not come home after dinner, had not spent the night with his new wife. She supposed all of London would know, with the Westmoreland brothers’ hell raking. The gossip columns were bound to be full of Lord Westfield’s philandering in the morning. Sick at heart, she started to go to her grandfather, to turn him back to his own room.
West looked up. “I am sorry to disturb your rest, sir,” he said, not seeing Penny in the dark hall, and sounding remarkably sober for a man in his condition. “But there was a fire at General Fitzgerald’s place, and everyone at the club raced over to help. Well, some of the members went to watch, making bets on whether the house would fall,” he added in disgust.
“I once painted the general’s portrait,” Mr. Littleton said, straightening his cap. “Is he safe? His family?”
“Everyone in the house got out in time, although I do not know the condition of the rooms or your painting.”
“That’s all right, as long as no lives were lost.”
“The insurance-company firemen were already there, with their bells and whistles. They did a fine job. A spark had landed on a tree in the garden, though, spreading the flames, and I worried about the horses in the mews behind the house. I sold some of those horses to the general myself. We could hear them starting to panic over the servants’ shouts and the fire.”
The vase slipped through Penny’s fingers onto the carpeted hallway. There was a fire?
West had handed Nicky over to the servants, who were half carrying him to the kitchen, where Mrs. Parker could tend him.
“We are both fine,” West called up the stairs, “and all the horses were saved, so please go back to bed.”
Her grandfather leaned on Marcel’s arm and returned to his own room, while Penny raced down the stairs. Before West could follow the others to the kitchen, she grabbed his arm and turned him around, so she could inspect her husband for injuries. He seemed more dirty than hurt. Now she could see the soot on his cheeks, and smell manure. She brushed his hair back from his forehead to make sure, while he stood patiently, a smile on his tired face. He was in one piece, it seemed.
“What happened to Nicky?”
“Oh, he thought I should stay behind, now that I have responsibilities. You.” He brushed her cheek with a dirty hand, then winced when his sore knuckles touched her face.
Penny took his hand in hers, gingerly bending the fingers to see if any were broken. “You need some ice on this,” she said, starting to lead him after the others to the kitchen, but he held her back.
He kept her hand in his, bringing it to his lips for a whisper-soft kiss on her fingers. “My valet will bring it later. I told Parker to roust him, but your touch is far more gentle than his anyway. Truly, I am fine.”
Penny did not want to relinquish him into the care of someone else, either, now that she knew he was safe. There was soap and water in his dressing room, enough to start, so she headed for the stairs, then paused. “But you still have not said what happened to your brother. Should we send one of the footmen for a surgeon?”
“No, he will be fine, especially with Mrs. Parker’s ministrations. He’s mostly suffering from the general’s gratitude, in the form of the most potent rum punch I have ever tasted. My punch barely stopped him.”
“You hit your brother?”
“I could hear the horses,” he said, as if that explained everything. “We had to move them out, where they could not smell the fire. He was holding on to my arm to keep me from going into the stables. Then he said if I went in, he went in.”
“So you hit him?”
“I couldn’t chance losing my little brother, could I? I swore on my father’s grave to look after him. He came after me anyway, the clunch. Thank goodness he did, because the grooms were busy fighting the fire.”
“Nicky was a hero?”
He nodded. “Damned good man to have at my side.”
“Nicky?”
“He did complain about his new waistcoat being ruine
d.”
“And you were rescuing horses all this time?”
“Not quite all. The general insisted we celebrate with him after we found other stabling for the cattle. I had no time to send a message.”
“Then you were not . . . ?”
“Not . . . ?”
She did not answer, just wiped at his face with the sleeve of her robe.
He grinned, through the grime. “What, did you think I was carousing?”
“I did not know what to think when you did not come home,” she confessed.
He kissed her, dirt and all, halfway up the stairs. “Ah, Penny, when will you learn to trust me? I said I would not betray our vows.”
She turned away, climbing the last steps. “But you left.”
“I came home.”
“You won’t always. I know it. Someday you’ll be gone.”
“Never.”
“What about Lady Gre—?” Penny would not say the name.
“I ended all my connections before traveling to your grandfather’s. You have to start believing me.”
They had reached his rooms, but instead of washing the soot and the dirt and the blood off West, they were busy spreading it onto Penny. The fire at the general’s house couldn’t have been half as hot as the air between them. Then there was no air between them, only a few layers of clothing, which were quickly—
“Your ice, my lord.” His valet came in, then a footman with more hot water, and Parker with his wife’s salve and bandages.
“Damn,” West cursed at the interruption. “The only thing missing is the dog.”
“Grrr.”
Chapter Seventeen
Miss McC. hated the man her parents wanted her to
wed. They hated the man she loved. The young lady
pretended to kill herself, having read about some-
thing similar in a play. Neither gentleman would
chance marrying a female of such unstable mind.
Her parents locked her in the attic.
—By Arrangement, a chronicle of arranged marriages, by G. E. Felber
Lady Bainbridge moved in the next morning, all abuzz with the news. Most of London was talking about the heroic viscount and his brother. General Fitzgerald was singing their praises to every news reporter who came to interview him. The general’s house was smoke filled and water damaged, and his wife was having nervous spasms—but his horses were safe. The papers recounted West’s army career to fill more columns, his own horse-breeding efforts, and, of course, his rakish past. His hurried marriage also got its fair share of interest, so West and Penny were the topic of the day. The early, arranged match, the connection to the banking industry, the arrival of an eminent artist at the viscount’s house, all were printed, read, and digested over breakfast by the Polite World.
“You’ll be inundated with invitations now,” Lady Bainbridge told Penny. “So you really do not need me at all.”
“Oh, yes, I do,” Penny said, thinking that now she would be even more on show, like some sort of circus performer whose whole history was written on the play-bill. She’d find no quiet entrances, no gradual joining of West’s circles, only more glare, more gossip. Parker had already presented her with a silver tray overflowing with cards from the curious, and it was just after breakfast. Had they written them in their sleep? Tittle-tattle must fly through London like sparrows through the trees.
“I have never met half these people and I have no idea which invitations to accept, which to refuse.”
“See which ones your husband prefers. I can eliminate a few as unsuitable, climbers wanting to attach themselves to the newest comets through the social sky. And I know which hostesses will be helpful later, which will be offended if you fail to appear. But Westfield will have preferences.”
Which meant Penny had an excuse to visit West in his room after seeing Lady Bainbridge settled in a suite that was not too dreadfully decorated. Regrettably, she encountered West’s valet just coming out of the bedchamber. According to the man, Lord Westfield was still fast asleep. He never woke when George barked to be let out, or when a footman came to remove the torn velvet.
Master Nicholas, the man reported, had awoken, clutched his sore head, and swore he was dying. Marcel made him a potion consisting of rum and raw eggs, which cured him of complaining, if nothing else.
Penny decided to spend the time waiting in continuing her survey of the house, with Mrs. Parker assisting to identify family pieces. She was too on edge to concentrate on her lists, though, so excused herself to the housekeeper and went out through the glass doors in the rear parlor to the terraced gardens behind the building. There she found a little piece of the country, a welcome, warming spot with the morning sun shining on overgrown flower beds, untrimmed trees, roses needing pruning, a knot garden gone wild. Her father had not touched a single weed, thank goodness. Of course not, when few would see the results.
Penny wished she could find a pair of thick gloves, her old boots, and pruning shears and start working immediately, but knew she would have to hire a gardener instead. She’d be too busy to play in the dirt, too involved in playing her new role of lady. Still, she’d have the gardens brought back to order as soon as possible, so she’d have a refuge from the coming social storm.
She did stay outside, despite the chill in the air, and pulled a few vines away from the roses, not wanting to face her future just yet. Her husband was a notorious figure, more so than ever. Penny always knew he was dashing and daring. He’d been her ideal for a decade, after all. Now everyone else knew his worth, too, which made her even less of a good match for him. They’d all disapprove of her the more.
Penny’s first encounter with society’s scrutiny came far sooner than she expected. A gentleman was sitting with West in the parlor when she came back in through the glass doors. Botheration, she had wanted him to herself this morning, and besides, here she was with her hands dirty, her hair windblown, grass stains on her skirts from where she could not resist kneeling to pull up a weed. She thought about fleeing back the way she had come, but both men were standing at her entrance, the stranger slowly and with difficulty, leaning on a cane. He was somewhat older than West, a dignified gentleman with silver at his temples and a military bearing, but a pleasant smile to counteract the lines etched in his face.
She hadn’t thought much about West’s friends, but supposed them to be libertines, dissipated, debauched, drunken. This man appeared to be none of those. Before Penny could make her excuses, he politely apologized for calling unannounced, at such an early, unfashionable hour.
“I fear I am used to running tame here, my lady, so never thought twice about coming to see for myself that West survived the fire and the general’s gratitude. I understand some of the firefighters are still asleep in the ashes. I am sorry to intrude.”
Penny liked him immediately, for his graciousness, for his pretending not to notice her ragged appearance, and for his caring enough about West to hurry to his side. Mr. Michael Cottsworth, formerly Major Cottsworth of His Majesty’s Cavalry, was a fine figure of a man despite his obvious limp. He was also West’s good friend, she learned, confidant, and adviser. Penny realized that just as West had wed her family along with her, taking in Grandpapa and Marcel and George, facing dinner at the Goldwaites’, she had to tolerate his circle of acquaintances. She was glad Mr. Cottsworth was one of them.
She offered to ring for refreshments, but the men had just eaten a late breakfast or an early luncheon, and Mr. Cottsworth had duties at the War Office, although he was retired from active duty. Penny invited him to attend dinner at her father’s that evening—Sir Gaspar would be delighted to have another wellborn gentleman at his table—but the former soldier refused, citing a previous engagement. He did not give the least hint of any disinclination to sup with a mere knighted banker, which raised his esteem in Penny’s eyes even further.
In return, he asked if they were to attend Lady Alder shott’s rout. Penny looked to West, who nodded
.
“Then I would be honored if you would sit out a dance with me, that we might become better acquainted,” West’s friend said. “I regret I cannot offer for a waltz, but I fear your every moment will be spoken for as soon as you arrive if I do not get a jump on the other chaps.”
Penny agreed, with pleasure. Now she had another friend. West looked pleased, too, which added to her happiness.
After the gentleman left, West and Penny went over the other invitations that had arrived.
“Zeus, it appears we will need a social secretary to handle this mess or you’ll spend half your days answering correspondence.”
“Lady Bainbridge offered to help.”
“Good.” He was studying the names on the cards, putting them into piles. “We do not need to attend every function or go out every night, not as newlyweds. I already told Parker to deny us to callers rather than fill the house to the rafters with gawkers, especially until you decorate the place to your liking and select your new wardrobe. Some of these are invitations to teas or ladies’ at-homes during the day. You do not have to accept any but the most important until you are ready. Lady Bainbridge will know which. But you’ll want to meet enough people to feel comfortable when it is our turn to entertain. And I wish to be seen with the pretti est woman in London on my arm.”
Penny blushed, and West laughed. “Lud, you are so easy to fluster. I doubt that will last past your first ball when every gentleman lays his heart at your feet.” He looked down, to see her slippers covered in mud. “Speaking of feet, why don’t you show me what kept you out of doors so long?”
He followed her back to the gardens and listened to her plans to restore them. He did not know a rosebush from a rhododendron, but he loved the sparkle in her eyes and the smile on her lips when she pointed to this scraggly shrub, that broken-limbed bush.
So he kissed her. He’d enjoyed many a tryst in abandoned gardens with pretty women, but few in the sunshine where people might see, and never with one who belonged to him. Not that he considered Penny as a possession—she’d likely darken his daylights for thinking such a thing—but she was his wife, his to cherish, his to kiss in the morning . . . and all night if he could convince her.
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