by Bolton, Ani
“But is there no one in Cornwall who is a more suitable partner for you?” I asked. “Someone who would be better matched in income and elegance? They say you are a rich man with a high lineage. I have some means, but I am a nobody.”
“There is no one else I can have.”
A wealth of meaning infused the terse statement: misery, fury, loneliness. The latter I detected only because I knew all about loneliness, how it crept out in weak moments to canker simple pleasures. Roger Penwyth and Persia Eames: two lonely strange people who did not know the movements to a minuet everyone else was born knowing.
“Has your guardian and Sir Grover contracted you to my cousin Damon?” he asked with a note of bitterness as my silence drew out. “Or do you hesitate because you harbor tender feelings for him?”
I thought on it. Despite Damon’s perfidy, I still felt a swell of love for him. There were no strange undercurrents when we spoke, no dark moods to negotiate. Turning my back on Damon would be to turn my back on a life where I could live amongst those who saw me as a woman, not a witch.
Except that now the Cornish godly knew what I was. They would never rest until I was dead.
Despite my initial reaction to Roger’s offer, I began to consider it more thoughtfully.
I had no doubt that Roger would protect me. I only had to hearken back to the snarling anger he displayed earlier as the villagers closed in--a rogue wolf guarding his kill from the rest of the pack. And apparently my affinity did not repel him.
Roger, like Damon, also had a mistress. But I did not care if Roger carried on with Tamzin Fulby, for I did not love him. Damon, because I loved him, would break me again and again over his women until I was nothing. Even then I might have considered the marriage and taken what scraps I could, except I knew I could never live with his contempt.
Between my lashes I peeped at Roger waiting for my answer to his question about Damon. His gaze was intent, and through his accustomed expression of sullen melancholy I could see anxiety lurking there. I don’t know why, but I knew that for all his wildness and inclination for solitude, Roger needed me in a way few others would. We were both outsiders; that alone united us.
Grinding down a surge of hope, I probed further. “Why do they call you The Penwyth.”
“That is my name,” he replied, surprised.
“Not a Penwyth. The Penwyth. I heard it while you were wrestling Jack Toddy, and again, just now, before the . . . stoning.”
“The name is only a feudal remnant of long ago, when the Hundred was divided into princedoms. Folk here still use the old titles for the few family lines left after the coming of the English.”
I felt there was something he wasn’t telling me, but he moved a step closer, a silent step.
“How is it that you know how to wrestle?” I said hurriedly. “Tom Pyder tells me it is an old Cornish custom.”
“I was initiated early into the wisdom of learning to defend myself. Brutes like Toddy are two a-penny on the streets of St. Ives. He was wrestling for the money. I, for something else.”
“Which was?”
“Can’t you guess?”
The timbre of his voice changed over the last words, burred and smoky, slithering over my sensitized skin.
“You haven’t given me an answer,” he murmured.
“I cannot bear children,” I rushed out, my last defense. “My clubfoot . . . it is the sign of a barren womb.”
“I don’t want you for that.”
His voice drew a velvet line down my neck. I shivered, feeling the air about us grow charged and thick.
The last of the light faded away. Roger became a shadow, outlined only by the blotting of stars. A twig snapped under his heel, my only clue that he approached.
I huddled deeper into his coat. The smell of his skin infused the fabric, a blend of lavender and a man’s sweat. Intoxicating and frightening, I could feel myself being drawn by him again, into a place I was not certain I wanted to go.
“There is something between us, Persia, is there not?”
His voice stroked my throat, seeping down between my breasts.
“A certain . . . sympathy.”
Oh, his voice. . .
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Ah, so you feel it too? When you look at me with those eyes of yours, fogged as if you’ve just woken from sleep, I want to lay down in you and forget everything, forget it all except your eyes and your blushing cream skin . . .”
Lassitude rippled up my spine. “To speak truth, this beguilement disturbs me. No--it frightens me.”
“And entices you as well.”
Tears of hunger formed at the corners of my eyes. “Yes.”
Roger now loomed behind me. Every nerve tensed but he made no move to touch me. Only his voice slid over me, tendriling down my belly.
“Imagine how it would be between us, Persia. Begin to imagine as I do . . .”
My lids closed.
“Imagine,” he whispered.
His breath heated the skin of my neck, and without volition I imagined tangled limbs and the scent of joined flesh; secret sounds and whispered words; the swooning flight of senses.
I bit down on my cut lip against a cry of pain. My skin burned in a sulfurous fume of unresolved passion; desire smoked from my hair and fingertips.
In the darkness his eyes gleamed as they regarded me. Oh, he knew what I was thinking. He knew everything about me, and I knew nothing about him at all.
“Will you have me?”
There was only one answer I could make.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Ungrateful slut!” Lady Penwyth shrieked. Her hand lifted to deal me a slap.
“Jocasta,” Roger rumbled warningly.
We stood in the parlour. Candles had been brought in against the night, turning the blue walls into a cavern of trembling shadows. Sir Grover’s and Lady Penwyth’s gentry guests had already gone home, leaving behind an ocean of card tables, empty wine glasses, and cake crumbs.
Lady Penwyth’s groomed fingers balled before she lowered them. “How dare you promise yourself to Roger Penwyth, of all men on this earth,” she hissed. “Are you aware of how much he hates us?”
“I think we all know there is only one in this room whom I am close to hating,” Roger said softly.
I flicked my eyes to Sir Grover. His were chips of ice, causing me to shiver.
“Lady Penwyth,” I began, willing my voice not to tremble, “I do not choose Roger over Damon because of any malice, please believe me. Roger--”
“Roger, Roger, Roger!” she screamed again. “How dare you use his christian name to me? This affair is of a longer duration than I had realized. How long have you two been conspiring behind my back?”
“There has been no conspiracy,” I insisted on the verge of tears.
“Well, it cannot be love that binds you,” she spat. “Is it lust? Look at you, hair disheveled, clothes stained with dirt. Have you been lying with him in a hayrick or behind the henhouse where anyone might see you?”
The level of Lady Penwyth’s anger shocked me. I had expected her to be upset, but her venom frightened me. Involuntarily I moved a step closer to Roger, who seemed coldly amused by Lady Penwyth’s rage.
The front door slammed, causing me to jump. Damon strode into the room, hair ruffled, features animated, step springy.
“Ah Miss Eames, there you are. You’re a dashed saucy puss to hide from me all day. I’ve been looking for . . . you . . . is the card play over already? Did a mouse get in and upset the guests?”
“Mouse indeed,” Sir Grover murmured. “Why don’t you ask your cousin what has happened?”
“Roger?” Damon’s voice hardened with dislike. “And why should I do that?”
Damon’s puzzled expression began to turn to alarm as his eyes darted back and forth between Roger and where I stood in his protective shadow. “No,” he began, enlightenment dawning. “No.”
I began to wring my hands. “Damon, I know th
is is a disappointment--”
“You and Roger? It cannot be true!” Damon’s face tightened in a mask of rage. “You foolish girl. You’ve ruined everything! How could you be such a damned fool?”
Roger’s arm jumped up, but I quickly put my hand on his sleeve.
“I would be a fool indeed to marry you,” I replied, stung. “I overheard you in the orchard speaking to that girl.”
“Girl?” Lady Penwyth asked sharply. “What girl is this?”
“You were in the orchard?” Damon repeated. He still regarded me as if he'd like to strangle me, but a trace of guilt softened his fury. “Oh damn.”
Lady Penwyth’s chest swelled as if another shriek were building in her. “I asked you a question, Damon. What girl is Miss Eames speaking of?”
“It does not matter,” Sir Grover interjected coolly. “You see now of what comes of allowing sentiment to cloud a simple transaction. We should have bound the chit to Damon before she arrived.”
“Sarah would not allow it, as well you know,” Lady Penwyth shot back. “But who would have thought the girl would take up with Roger? It goes beyond reason and sanity, Roger over Damon . . . though I should have suspected something when I saw Roger today at the Revel. ‘What’, I asked myself, ‘could lure the hermit out of Lyhalis?’ It could not be merely to torment me, for that had become well-worn sport. Oh, I worried, and for good reason.” A crimson flush burned through the powder covering her cheeks. “Husband, you should never have allowed him to fetch her from St. Ives. He has overset her mind from the beginning!”
“Exhibit control, if you please.” Sir Grover’s smooth voice sliced through his wife’s rising hysteria. “This is only the opening move, eh, Roger lad? The girl is only angry at Damon for the moment.” Sir Grover’s eyes went to his son, who nodded imperceptibly.
Damon moved forward, pulling the skirt of his coat away from his hips to show me the languid sway of his figure better, a ghost of his impish grin curling the corners of his mouth. “Now Miss Eames, see reason," he murmured appealingly. “It's not too late. Tell Roger here that you weren't thinking clearly when you accepted him. You know it’s me you want. Oh, I’ll put aside the girl if you insist, for I had no notion it would bother you. And I would never annoy you consorting with women of our own rank--that would be crude. Reconsider, won’t you?”
I stared at Damon’s remorseful expression, contrition writ on every line of his face, and felt a faint pull of his magnetism. Roger’s face, by contrast, was distant and cold. In the ordinary confines of the parlour, he seemed as remote as the quoit of his namesake, standing impenetrably in the midst of a howling storm. I saw no trace of my heated lover from the garden, and he made no effort to dissuade me from Damon. Indeed, his silence was fiercely held.
A doubt began to form in the back of my mind.
“In love, Persia m’dear, it is never too late,” Damon murmured, seductively.
Suddenly I was furious and heartily sick of it all--the way my stepmother expected me to accept my preordained future without a murmur of dissent; the way the Penwyths tried to bully me with every expectation of success; the way Damon presumed I would fall into his arms after a pretty show of regret.
I took a deep breath and winced as the air abused my cut lip. “It is too late for you.”
The pout on Damon’s face twisted to an ugly rage.
“Then take your second serving in Roger,” he snarled. “You’ll find him poor fare after me. All his riches won’t be enough to console you. You’ll think of me night after night. And when he goes mad like his father, don’t come crying back to me--I won’t be waiting.”
He flung himself to the sideboard, black anger soaking his eyes as he poured a tumbler of brandy. “You will remember this day with regret, Miss Persia Eames,” he muttered. “And so will you, Roger.”
“Do you see how unhappy you are making everyone?” Lady Penwyth rounded on me. “How selfish can one girl be? I can barely contemplate the gossip that will run rife in the neighborhood tomorrow--the glee at the scandal. My God, how am I to hold my head up in service on Sunday?”
“Madame, the curtain has yet to fall on this melodrama,” Sir Grover remarked coolly, unmoved by the outbursts. “Miss Eames has acted impulsively, as can sometimes be expected from a young women’s soft nature. Thankfully we have laws now to curb the little upsets that foolishness will cause. For there is still the matter of your guardian’s permission, Miss Eames. The law will not permit you to marry without it--and a wise law it is. For once, Lord Hardwicke did sensible gentlemen a favor.”
Hope glittered in Lady Penwyth’s eyes. “Yes, Sarah will not countenance this defiance. I will write to her now and apprise her of your naughtiness, though it does not cast a pretty light on our guardianship--”
“I’ve already written to Mistress Sarah Eames,” Roger said.
Lady Penwyth’s steps faltered on her way to her writing desk. Damon’s chin rose from where it had sunk into his neckcloth, and even Sir Grover seemed mildly intrigued.
“You’ve . . . you’ve written to my stepmother?” I croaked.
Roger kept his expression blank. “I’ve acquainted her with my affairs. For you see, I know the law as well.”
My mind raced. Writing my stepmother for permission to marry me meant that Roger had put methodical action into achieving our union well in advance of today.
Suddenly Roger grinned at Sir Grover, a blinding flash. “Mistress Eames writes that she is rather impressed with the extent of my estate . . . and the settlement I dangled before her.”
“I’ll wager she is.” Sir Grover murmured. His face crimsoned under his white wig, and for the first time I felt a prick of fear. Sir Grover had lost his temper.
Roger held his smile, taunting Sir Grover who bit his lip as if holding back a roar of fury.
After a suspended moment, Sir Grover gave a slight shudder, as if shaking the emotion from his heart. “No matter. I will write Mistress Eames myself and remind her of her obligation. I too have choice settlements to offer . . . and she would not like to cause a rift with her sister.”
Lady Penwyth sputtered gratefully.
Roger sighed. His hair had come completely unbound from the ill-tied queue, flowing over his shoulders in a river. Only the cut over his eye saved him from looking like an archangel. “I did not want to do this.”
“I say,” came a sleepy voice from the parlour door. “Have I intruded on a family chat?”
“What the devil are you doing here?” Damon muttered sulkily over the rim of his glass.
Henry DeVere ambled in, unruffled by Damon’s rudeness or Sir Grover’s thunderous expression.
“The card game is over,” Sir Grover said, “and my son’s pockets are to let. There are no pickings for you tonight, DeVere.”
Mr. DeVere paused during his workman-like bow in the direction of Lady Penwyth. “That is a very uncivil greeting, Sir Grover. I wouldn’t be here at all except at the express appeal of Mr. Roger Penwyth, who asked me to pay you a courtesy call this night. I told him that it was not necessary, for you and I were men of business--there could be no resentment among the pragmatic.”
“And what is it that I’m to be pragmatic about?”
The brows over Henry DeVere’s sleepy eyes shot up. “Why, that I mean to make a run for it. Hadn’t Penwyth told you?”
“Make a ‘run’ for what?”
“The county seat, of course. I mean to stand for the election this summer. I’ve always fancied adding ‘MP’ to my ‘Esq’.”
Sir Grover gave a bark of laughter. “You cannot mean it, man. To win an election takes money, years of cultivation, a study of progressive principles, securing high support--”
Henry DeVere did not look offended at all by Sir Grover’s unflattering disbelief. “I know--such a lot of work! I thought I would never have the constitution for it. Running about the county socializing with the freeholders . . . and the promises one is forced to make, well, I hope I can remember them al
l when the time comes. Luckily the difficulty of securing the high support is solved, so there is one less empty promise on my conscience.”
Sir Grover looked as if he were smelling something unpleasant. “And whose man are you to be?”
“Lord Sidney’s.”
“Impossible.”
“Yes, yes, I know the two of you have had an understanding for years. But that’s what makes it all so intriguing. Lord Sidney is growing much concerned with your level of debt--not that it approaches anything near his--aristocrats exist on a plane far above ours. But when I mentioned that Damon Penwyth owed me a deal, he became troubled.”
Over by the sideboard, Damon’s skin turned ashy.
Sir Grover fiddled with his ruby ring. “What nonsense. Five hundred? It’s nothing.”
Mr. DeVere’s expression was one of profound regret. “It pains me to tell the father that his son has since increased his indebtedness to me by five-fold.”
Sir Grover turned slowly toward Damon.
“I thought my luck would turn. It always does,” Damon protested. A shrill note edged his voice. “I will win it back. It’s only a matter of time. Father, don’t look at me like that!”
“Faro is not Damon’s game, I’m afraid,” Henry DeVere remarked sadly to Sir Grover. “And so his debt, combined with your leverage to open your new wheal, and the recent spate of spending on this marvelously entertaining Revel--” he gave an encouraging smile to Lady Penwyth--“have conspired to convince Lord Sidney that he should look to one who manages his private affairs more prudently.”
Mr. DeVere’s sleepiness vanished. “Expect Lord Sidney’s letter in tomorrow’s post.”
Icy rage flooded Sir Grover’s face. “You may try, Henry DeVere, Esq. but you don’t have the blunt or the cunning to overturn me.”
Mr. DeVere’s eyes shifted briefly to Roger. “Well, I’ve said enough. My, this wasn’t as unpleasant as I thought it was going to be. Lady Penwyth, Miss . . . Eames, is it? Good evening to you both. Penwyth--”