Julian had been right when he scolded her for not adding his name to that list. She would not have to explain anything if she had an affair with him. He would know why. He would understand the cost.
She could have an affectionate affair with a good friend and not a superficial liaison. It would not be humiliating and cheap. When it was over, they would still be friends.
She pictured the affair, explicitly. She imagined him walking through the door, his chest naked, as it had been in the boat. She felt him lying in this bed and touching her breasts. She saw him braced above her, and her body imagined him entering her.
The fantasy made an intense arousal shudder through her.
She reached for her wrap.
She would go down and he would be awake, waiting for her.
She just knew he was thinking about her as she did about him. The cottage almost moaned from their wanting to complete what had started on the sand.
They would have this affair and the earl would divorce her.
She would be free.
She opened her door.
New images entered her head. They killed her purring anticipation. She froze with her hand on the door latch.
She pictured Julian being discussed in the House of Lords when the bill of divorce was proposed. The accusations in Glasbury’s petition would be ruthless and cruel, treating her lover like a scoundrel.
Julian’s motives would be impugned. His lack of honor made explicit. The newspapers would print every word, too, and everyone would read it. Everyone. The scandal would be public and the scorn unrelenting.
Many of his clients would abandon him. Other solicitors would refuse to deal with him. Even her brothers’ use of his services would be compromised. If he were named by an earl for criminal correspondence with a countess, it could ruin him.
That was a lot to ask of him, no matter what pleasure he received in the bargain.
He was just being noble and kind. That was really what those kisses had been about. He was offering the damsel in distress an easy rescue, even though the dragon would burn him horribly while he saved her.
He was just being a good friend.
She released the door. It softly closed.
This was her problem, not his. Her youthful mistake, and her wasted life. It would be inexcusable to drag him down with her.
She returned to her bed with a sadness in her heart that she did not understand or expect. She tried to contemplate her other, less selfish choices.
“I did not know that you could cook.”
Julian turned at the sound of Pen’s voice. He had not heard her come down. His eyes had been watching the fish sizzle in the pan, while his head had been imagining how Glasbury would word his divorce petition.
Should it actually come to a divorce. He did not think it would. If Pen had an affair with Julian Hampton, of all men, Glasbury would want to do more than merely ruin his wife’s lover.
She looked over his shoulder. Her close presence had his blood burning again. “Did you catch that this morning? You must have risen early.”
Very early. He had not slept much at all.
Nor had she.
He had heard her steps on the boards above him in the middle of the night. He had heard her pace toward her bedroom door.
Toward him.
He had silently urged her on, his teeth on edge from the intensity of his desire, his brain exhausted from the battle he waged against the urge to walk up those stairs.
Each of her footfalls above him had sent edgy shards through his skull and blood. Her long pause had maddened him. He had cursed violently when she retreated.
He slid the fish onto two plates and carried them to the dining room. Pen brought along the tray with tea and bread.
She looked very lovely in the soft light coming through the northern window. Her dress this morning was more fashionable than yesterday’s. Green, with ivory lace at the neck and black braiding on the bodice and skirt, it encased her snugly to her narrow waist, then flared into a wide skirt over the feminine hips he had watched rise to his caresses yesterday. Full sleeves tapered to long cuffs tightly closed by long rows of buttons.
She had managed to get into stays and multiple petticoats today. She had felt the need to wear some armor.
When those steps above had stopped at the door, he had guessed that she would.
“I have decided what to do, Julian.”
“Have you decided what to do, or what not to do?”
“I do not even know what that question means.”
Yes, you do, damn it.“Please, tell me your plan.”
She put all her attention on pouring them both tea. “It is not really a plan. I have only decided what my next step should be.”
Not making love with Julian Hampton; that much he already knew.
He ate his breakfast, letting her decide when to favor him with an explanation. He greeted this turn of events with silence, because the reaction seething in him had no gentle words.
“I do not like that Glasbury is controlling this,” she said. “He gets a whim and I am left to choose misery or scandal. That is not fair. Not to me and not to … whomever I would use to create that scandal.”
“The world is not fair. The law on marriage certainly isn’t. Resenting that does not solve your dilemma.”
“No, but last night it made me angry enough to see another option. He thinks time has made him safe. I do not think it has. He assumes it would be my word against his should the truth come out. It need not be.” She looked at him. “Cleo could support my accusations.”
He sat back in his chair, surprised. “You would not use me, but you would use that child?”
“She is not a child any longer.”
“She was half mad by the time we got her out.”
“It has been years. Time heals much. Perhaps it has healed her.”
“I am astonished you even consider—”
“She may wantto do it. She may yearn to denounce him. Have you considered that? I think she remembers those years with a different view now. If I were she, I would hate him, not fear him. I would want some justice.”
“Are you going to offer her justice, Pen? Will you sue to divorce him, and bring it all out? Or just use the threat of her testimony to make Glasbury continue the arrangement with you as it has been all these years?”
Her expression said it all. She hadbeen thinking that strengthening the threat would make Glasbury retreat.
She had concluded that maintaining the arrangement would be the easiest solution.
Anger flashed in her eyes. “Do you think I like this limbo in which I live? That I welcome it?”
“I am sure you do not. However, I also think if Glasbury had not made this move, you would have accepted it forever.”
“Because I am such a coward?”
“No, because it means that no one gets hurt except you. But I think he will do whatever he can to make sure that he either has you back, or is free to have another wife. So think hard before you take your next step, and be sure you are prepared to stay the course.”
She rose to her feet. “My next step does not require me to stay the course, because I will not be choosing it yet. I only want to know if that path is open. I want to know how she fares, and if she could do this, and if she wants to.”
She left the room to make sure he could not argue with her anymore.
He let her go because a storm had blown into his head.
Julian paced out into the garden, his blood hot with rage.
She was going to do it again. Retreat to half-measures. It had worked before, after all. She assumed it would again.
He went to the stable and threw himself into work to release the explosive resentment in him. He rarely got this angry. He could count the times he had on one hand. Most of those times directly related to Penelope.
There had been the day he learned she was to marry.
And the day he confronted Witherby.
The worst t
ime, however, had been when she visited him in chambers and confided the truth of her marriage.
He had been very young at the time, just twenty-one and in the process of taking over for a senior solicitor who had managed the Duclairc family’s affairs for decades. Although just three years into his clerkship, with two more to go, he already directed most of the legal work in that office and everyone knew it. His future seemed paved with happy prosperity.
Then, on a late winter day, sweet, good Penelope had entered his chambers, sat down, addressed him as Mr. Hampton, and told her story.
She was embarrassed and frightened and had not looked at him. He was too stunned to do more than listen. He had fought hard to keep his face impassive, but with each sentence he wanted more and more to find Glasbury and thrash him bloody.
Eventually her composure broke. So did his heart. He remembered touching her arm in impotent reassurance, battling the impulse to take her in his arms and swear an oath to provide salvation.
While she cried out her heart, images finally entered his mind, showing what she described and all the details she avoided telling. A terrible fury raged in him. He almost strode from the chamber to find a gun to go kill the bastard.
Instead he had hidden his outrage and enumerated her choices like the damned, logical, dispassionate servant he was supposed to be. He made sure that she understood that doing nothing meant living in hell, however. A hell that would only get worse.
“Now that you know this is not normal, any cooperation will count against you later, should you try to divorce,” he explained.
Her eyes widened. “I am sure no court would think any woman would cooperate, Mr. Hampton.”
“There are women who enjoy such things, madame.”
“There are? You do not think that Anthony would claim that I… that I…”
“He undoubtedly would.”
She almost cried again. Instead a new resolve entered her eyes. “Then I must get away, mustn’t I?”
“I think that is clear. Let us consider your choices in that regard.”
There were damned few. She could try to divorce him, claiming adultery and cruelty. A divorce through Parliament would leave her free to remarry, but women almost never succeeded in obtaining them. Worse, any parliamentary action would be preceded by two trials: first a church divorce, and then a civil proceeding against Glasbury.
Divorce“a mensa et a thoro” through the church alone would not permit remarriage for either of them, but she stood a better chance there. The judges were growing more lenient in matters of cruelty. A woman no longer had to prove her husband had done life-threatening violence. But such a divorce would leave an earl without a son, and that detail might badly affect her chances, even though it should not.
“Either way would be very public,” she said. “I have read how the testimony is printed in the papers. All of it, no matter how sordid. Even theTimes loves the spectacle and profits handsomely from it.”
“I think that your circumstances warrant accepting the embarrassment, Countess.”
“My family will be caught up in it. No matter what my justification, they will be hurt.”
“Your brothers will bear it for you.”
“But Charlotte… she is still a child. It will badly affect her chances of a good marriage when she comes out. The family finances are not good, and if she is tainted by such a scandal…”
He could not lie to her, much as he wanted to. He could not promise that her younger sister would not be hurt.
But his heart yelled in rebellion at the way her objections became steps away from the protection only divorce could bestow.
“To be safe, you must divorce him. If you only leave him, you are at his mercy.” He said it more severely than he intended. “At any point he can sue to have his conjugal rights restored. He does not even have to sue. He can force you to return to both his home and his bed and no one will stop him.”
“There must be a way to ensure he never does that. There is, isn’t there?”
There was.
He had bargained hard when he went to Glasbury. He had pushed the man as far as he dared, then pushed farther. When the meeting was over he had handed Pen the half-victory she had chosen. Not freedom, but sanctuary.
A sanctuary now threatened.
He left the stable, cleaned off his boots, and washed his hands. He strode through the house. Out on the terrace he looked at the beach. A blue dot stood on a strip of sand.
His anger was not entirely altruistic. It was partly, perhaps largely, the frustration of a man who wanted a woman so much he would have her any way he could.
She had lived for a long time in the keep they had built years ago. It had served her well. He could not blame her if she wanted to try and repair its walls, rather than ride out to meet the enemy.
Compared to the safety she had found in that fortress, the chance to have an affair of convenience with her friend and solicitor would not carry much appeal at all.
He went down to the beach and joined her.
“Cleo is still in Yorkshire with Mrs. Kenworthy,” he said. “I will take you to her.”
chapter 10
Having decided to make the journey, they prepared for it at once.
Julian rode his horse to the nearest town, Billericay, to hire a gig so he could collect Pen and her trunks. The plan was to secure her a room for the night in a safe place in the town, while he returned to London. There he would find a woman to travel as Pen’s companion, to preserve respectability.
They decided to stay in small inns until they reached Yorkshire, and to travel under false names. She would be Mrs. Thompson and Julian would be her cousin, escorting her to a wedding in the Lake District.
After Julian left, Pen walked through the cottage, realizing that she would be a little sad to leave. She had rediscovered an old friendship here, one that had become obscured over the years. Mr. Hampton had become Julian again, and she would always remember this retreat as the place where that had happened.
She collected her treatise from the desk. When she got to Billericay she would post it to Mrs. Levanham. Then her comments could be compared to the ones others had made, and a final draft prepared. The lessons she had learned from the disaster of her life might make a difference for other women someday.
Up in her chamber, she set about packing her trunks. She was finishing with the large one when she heard Julian return. The sound of wheels came down the lane, then the thump of the kitchen door from below.
She tucked the last few items in her trunk and went to him.
Halfway down the stairs, she halted abruptly. Alarm immobilized her.
She could already see the legs of the man who waited.
The garments were not Julian’s.
The boots paced toward her, and the rest of the man came into view. Her stomach sickened.
Glasbury smiled up at her. “Welcome back to England, my dear.”
Panic swelled in her head. She half-turned to run and hide, even though she knew there was no place to go.
“Come down, Penelope.”
She battled to hide her horror. He enjoyed seeing that too much, and she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing what he did to her.
He stood right at the base of the stairs. He would not move as she descended. That forced her to brush against him as she took her last step and aimed around him.
He grabbed her arm. “No kiss? After all this time?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“I would like a kiss, my dear.”
She glanced out the window. He had not brought his state coach. No insignia marked this one. Only the coachman tended it, and he was not in livery. “Ask one of the horses to kiss you. If it refuses, you can enforce your prerogatives with impunity.”
“Not only on horses, Penelope. On all that I own.” He pulled her closer and pressed a kiss on her lips.
Her stomach heaved. She held in the bile and jerked her arm free. He let her go, but
his expression said it was his choice, not hers.
He paced around the kitchen, viewing it with distaste. “So Hampton tucked you away in this hovel. It was annoying to have to track you down. It would have been simpler if he had just told me where to find you.”
“I insisted he not do that. How did you find this place?”
“I merely learned what property he owns, and had my people check it. When they reported last night that a woman was living here, I knew it was you.” He peered into the next chamber. “Has he been staying here with you?”
“He has been in London. No doubt many people can attest to that.”
He went to the garden door and gestured. When the coachman lumbered in, the earl pointed to the stairs. Glasbury strolled into the library while his man went up for her trunks.
Pen followed the earl, desperately glancing around for any evidence that Julian had recently been here, hoping she could hide it before the earl’s gaze took it in. She had not been alone with Glasbury since she left him, and she was terrified. A visceral tremor shook all through her.
“This is such a crude place. No servants. No comforts.
You will be much relieved to be back on Grosvenor Square, I am sure.”
“I am not going back to Grosvenor Square.”
“Of course you are.”
“Not willingly.”
“Your will does not concern me. Only my rights do. If you show the grace and obedience to which you were bred, I will be kind. If you force me to drag you out by your hair, I will punish you.”
Punish.He liked that word. He caressed the sound with his voice as he spoke it. He gazed at her with his slack mouth in a cruel smile. His eyes reflected memories of punishments of the past.
“Why now, Anthony? After all these years, why are you so determined to have me return now?”
“You broke our agreement.”
“I did not.”
“The world thinks that you did. So do I. Also, I received a letter last spring. An anonymous one. It included a copy of an odd treatise, written by a deranged woman raving against marriage.” He looked at her as if she were a stupid child. “Did you really think that I would stand by and allow you, my wife,to publicly condemn my right to control my family and household?”
The Romantic Page 10