Not only that, she didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of her fear. He hated her father. How much more joy would he get from his revenge if she cowered? If she wept?
The only control she had was in what she chose to keep hidden and what she chose to show.
Still, fear wound itself around her in cold coils like a viper.
Marriage, and all that it entailed, was a mystery to her in many ways. She could vaguely remember her mother and father speaking to each other. Her mother had always seemed pale and drawn. The sort of lonely Penny often felt. She could not remember her parents together. Many girls could take cues from the way their parents acted together—good or bad—and try to ascertain some of the mysteries therein. But she had not even had that.
She had felt confident that the Duke would make it right. That he would treat her with patience and that he would help her understand not only her duties as a duchess, but as a wife.
She had no such confidence in a man like Lachlan Bain.
What would he want from her? And how quickly?
Her entire body trembled at the thought.
She had such vague ideas of what passed between a man and a woman. She was a voracious reader and it was a topic she found quite curious. Her father’s study was mostly absent of books that contained such topics, but she had a skill for finding mentions of copulation. Between horses. Chickens. Every so often hints at it between men and women.
She knew just enough to be mortified by the thought and little enough to feel as if she might as well know nothing at all.
‘No, that is not what I have in mind. I have no patience for the reading of the banns, but I will purchase for us a special licence. We can get married immediately.’
‘What is the purpose of that?’
‘A wedding in a church. Legal in England. Gossiped about in England.’
‘I think you’re underestimating the power of an elopement.’ She didn’t know why she’d said that. She didn’t want to elope.
‘Not at all. But I take great joy in forcing your father to witness the event. At the same church where you might have married His Grace.’ Somehow the Duke’s honorific sounded like an insult on his tongue, the slight twist his accent making the word sound a vile curse.
She frowned deeply. ‘You’re playing a game.’
‘Perhaps. One of logic. Chess, I think.’
‘I don’t fancy being a chess piece.’
‘I don’t think a chess piece gets to choose which game it’s a part of. And that is all you are. A pawn.’
She had thought it impossible to be dismissed any more thoroughly than she often was by her father on a given day. Lachlan Bain proved it was in fact possible to make her feel yet more insignificant. Not a skill she would have listed as a high priority in a husband.
‘Will I be given a chance to speak to him?’
‘Your father?’
‘The Duke.’
‘I don’t own your time yet, lass. If you’ve a desire to go and speak to him, that’s your decision.’
‘How very generous of you.’
Her toast was now rebelling in her stomach.
Did they eat toast in Scotland? She didn’t know. In all her reading she hadn’t studied the food of Scotland. She hadn’t thought it would be relevant to her. It turned out it was desperately relevant.
‘Do you eat toast?’ The question came out quite a bit more plaintively than she had intended. Of course, of all the things she could have asked about, the presence of toast should perhaps have fallen to a lower priority.
It seemed imperative at the moment, however.
That granite face contorted into an expression of shock, if only for a fleeting moment. And were she not half so distressed she might take it as a victory.
‘Toast?’
‘I don’t know very much about Scotland. My father’s library is thin on the subject.’
‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘No toast. Nothing but haggis and porridge.’
She felt ill.
She suddenly wished she had been able to enjoy that toast more, if toast was about to become a rare commodity in her life.
‘Well, I’m certain there will be many things to adjust to.’
‘I see you’ve met.’
Penny turned and saw her father standing in the doorway. He looked a stranger to her. They had never been close and his gaze had never held any great affection for her, but even that sense of familiarity that she’d had from living within the same walls for so many years was absent now.
This man was selling her to pay his debts.
This man had put her in an impossible situation, where her life would only be given value if it saved his.
It hadn’t been any different, of course. Her marrying the Duke of Kendal. In her father’s eyes, it had been his accomplishment. The value in her existence.
But at least she had wanted that.
She did not want this. Not at all.
But the big Scottish brute was correct. If she refused, she wouldn’t be marrying the Duke of Kendal anyway. The Duke was utterly and completely above reproach. His reputation was spotless, not just because he was insulated as a man of high position, but because he was a man of the greatest of integrity.
There had never been rumours of improper behaviour, secret children, gambling or any of the other vices that often gripped the peerage.
If she were to be disgraced, her family name and reputation damaged, the Duke would want nothing to do with her.
No matter what, there would be no saving that relationship.
So she had to swallow hard, had to lower her eyes to avoid allowing her father or Lachlan to see the distress in them. And she had to give the consent that Lachlan had been so confident she would give.
It burned at the last remaining vestiges of her pride to do so.
She was her father’s property. Pretending otherwise was a luxury of the past. Remembering Lachlan’s words about chess pieces, she had to reluctantly acknowledge to herself that she had been a far happier chess piece when she had been in a different game.
But when you were a chess piece, you did not get to choose. And any illusion of freedom had been just that. An illusion.
All that was left was her pride. The walls of that shiny jewellery box she’d built to hold all her pain.
She would not allow it to break now.
There was no point weeping. When she had been a bereaved five-year-old there had been no point to it. She’d wept and wailed and gained only her father’s ire. She doubted she’d get anything more at twenty-two.
Penny had had, for a few sweet months, hope in a softer future at Bybee House. A life that had seemed too beautiful to be hers. And lo, it had turned out that it was.
But that hope had only existed inside her for such a short time, by comparison to what she knew best. Grim acceptance.
She knew how to protect herself. She knew how to find worlds of information in books, a salve for her soul in one-sided conversations. A sense of accomplishment in saving animals about the estate.
She knew how to move in limited quarters with grace and skill.
In short, she knew how to survive.
She would survive Lachlan Bain as she had survived everything else.
‘Everything is settled then,’ she said softly. ‘I accept your very generous offer of marriage.’
CHAPTER THREE
Her father had told her expressly that he would speak to the Duke, but she felt that she had to speak to him. She felt that she owed him some sort of explanation. It occurred to her as she approached the house that the Duke might not care at all for her explanation. But something had driven her here, far too late in the day and without a chaperon, which she knew would have been a death knell to her reputation were it not already to be killed at the hands of a Highlander.
She felt as if she were dying. She had planned a life here. Over the past space of time the Duke had been courting her she had easily slipped into imagining what it would be like to call this place home.
It was the grandest residence she’d ever beheld. Nestled into rolling green hills, surrounded by lakes which provided fresh fish and backed by a forest filled with stags and boars, ensconced by great gardens that provided fresh herbs and vegetables, as well as cheerful English blooms, and orchards filled with apples, the estate was well able to sustain not only itself, but nearly all of the homes in the vicinity.
The limestone façade was stately without being imposing, the great white pillars that flanked the doors giving it the gravity of a Grecian temple. And indeed, the man the residence contained had the quality of a god.
It was warm inside, always. So much more comfortable than the manor house in Avondale could ever be. Adjacent to the great hall was a great, sweeping staircase with frescos of heavenly bodies painted along the walls and looming overhead. She’d always found it to be slightly intimidating. As if the man were really a god and was thus surrounded by angels.
There were many parties given at Bybee House, though she’d always had the sense the Duke was not the driving force behind them. Or rather, his desire for parties was not. They were something he did, rather, to please his family and to continue maintaining appearances fitting for a man of his status.
The Duke’s father was long dead. Hugh Ashforth had assumed the title at twenty and had set about restoring the dignity to his family name that his father had destroyed with a life of debauchery, or so Penny had heard the servants whisper. The Duke’s mother remained in residence, along with his much younger sister and his ward.
Penny had grown close to them all. She had never been surrounded by women in such a way. And it was that which had given her such a strong sense of home. Of family.
For the first time in her life she had felt as though she would be part of one in a true sense. But not now.
She shrugged off the brief fear that she might cause a scandal by turning up alone after dark. What did it matter? She was hurtling headlong into a scandal and there was no stopping it.
Lachlan was right.
That she would abandon the engagement of marrying the Duke to marry a soldier—a Scottish soldier—was going to create waves that would roll throughout all of London, if not all of England.
None of it would have mattered had it only been her. But she was betrothed to the Duke of Kendal. That would ensure that the scandal was far-reaching. She was sorry that it would touch him. It would. There was no avoiding it.
And she could not offer a full explanation, not without dragging unsavoury aspects of her father’s character into the foreground, and a good portion of the reason she was marrying Lachlan in the first place was to avoid such a thing.
But she wanted to say goodbye. To this man who had never as much as touched her ungloved hand. This man who had made her feel as though she might, on some small level, matter even a little bit.
A man who had given her hope for a future that was softer, more civilised, and warmer than any reality she had yet inhabited.
She blinked back tears. Her throat had felt raw the entire day, as though she was coming down with an illness, though she suspected it was simply despair.
After she knocked on the door, she was ushered inside immediately, her arrival announced promptly.
The Duke was in residence, which was a blessing, she supposed. He could have easily been in London, seeing to business.
She had to wonder if part of her hoped that he might’ve been, if what she truly wanted was a chance to say goodbye to her friends, his sister and his ward.
Her heart thudded a dull rhythm, echoing in her ears, as she stood in the entry of the home that would have been hers. She gazed at her surroundings with longing.
The lovely marble floors, the walls the colour of a robin’s egg. It was beautiful. Though she ignored those frescoes, because she felt now as if the angels judged her.
But it didn’t matter now. It wouldn’t be hers. And neither would he.
It wasn’t long before the Duke appeared in the entry. He was a tall man, his fine clothing perfectly tailored to suit his athletic figure. A navy coat over a white shirt, buckskin breeches and the finest boots she had ever seen. He was impeccable, even at home.
Though, she supposed she should expect nothing less of him. He was ever mindful of his image. A man in his position never did know when company might arrive.
There was a hardness to his handsome face though, a severity and sternness in his eyes she had never had directed at her before.
She understood at once.
Her father had been here already.
‘I needed to speak to you…’
‘Without a chaperon?’ The note of judgment in his voice was unmistakable.
With the angels looming overhead, he made a thunderous picture. He was the sort of man she’d found it difficult to look at when she’d been on good terms with him. Now, having earned his displeasure, it was nearly impossible.
She took a breath and pushed her fear down deep. Locked it away. ‘I didn’t want to rouse Mrs. McCready from her bed, so, no. I felt this was important and it could not wait.’
‘And I find propriety to be important. As ever. Regardless of the situation we find ourselves in.’ He turned his head slightly. ‘Beatrice, perhaps you would like to formally bear witness to this interaction, as a female relative who is lurking in the shadows to eavesdrop on the conversation anyway.’
She heard timid footsteps, and then Lady Beatrice Ashforth appeared from an alcove, her hands clasped in front of her, her expression sheepish. Knowing Beatrice as she did, Penny didn’t believe her friend was sheepish at all.
She had first met Beatrice covered in mud and distraught in a field, out exploring without her brother’s permission. The Duke of Kendal disliked it when anything moved without his say so.
A sickly child, Beatrice had spent her life being cosseted and overly protected. Prodded by doctors and barred from playing outdoors, exerting herself or upsetting herself. Beatrice did not like to do as she was told.
Beatrice was also loyal to her brother with all that she was.
‘I have spoken with the Earl.’ His tone was dark and forbidding and she would have never ascribed those words to him before. He had always been polite. Solicitous.
A man who had never taken a liberty beyond taking her gloved hand in his to help her down from a carriage.
Now, she did not know where that man had gone.
‘I assume he explained—’
‘About your affair with a Scottish soldier?’ The words were clipped, short and shocking. ‘Yes.’
‘My…what?’
He had done it. Her father had taken a burning arrow and fired it directly into the fortress of her reputation, not caring at all that it would reduce her to ash. Destroying his reputation would have taken hers along with it, but it was only her… Yes, he was keeping his own hands clean by making it her sin.
She had never thought him cruel, but this was cruel. Or the act of a truly desperate man. But she had never thought he would sacrifice her like this.
She had always felt as though he’d protected her at least.
But it was only ever physically.
He had locked her in that room with her grief when her mother had died, willing to let her sob until she was ill, alone.
This was much the same.
‘Do not worry,’ he said. ‘I have no desire to see your reputation in tatters. Your upcoming marriage will do that for me.’
And he would not have to sully himself with base gossip. He didn’t say it, but it hung there in the air. All of the men involved would manage to stay above it.
The closest he’d co
me to debasing himself was saying the word affair at all. A word that touched on dark, illicit acts that Penny couldn’t even form imagery for in her mind.
And he believed she had done it.
That’s what happens when you’re a chess piece…
‘I bid you goodnight,’ he said, turning and leaving her.
She could only stare after him, the sound of his footfalls on the marble floor, along with the air of disdain lingering behind long after he was gone.
A piece of her heart withered as he left.
Hope. Extinguished.
The life she’d dreamed of vanishing around her.
If the very walls of the manor dissolved she would not have been surprised in the least.
But they remained. And worse still, so did her friend.
Her friend, who she knew would be…perhaps not her friend now.
Penny turned to Beatrice, who was still standing there, looking pale, large eyed and filled with confusion, hurt. Anger. Beatrice had been her friend these past months, but any kinship they might have shared was gone now. Stolen by Penny’s father’s lies. And she would have to be content to let the Duke believe them, as contradicting them might cost her father his very life.
Surely Beatrice should know the truth. Beatrice, who had scarcely ever had a Season due to the overprotective nature of her mother and older brother. A childhood spent in ill health had caused all of them to treat her as a rare and fragile flower. Penny knew that Beatrice resented it and yearned for a more normal existence, hence her wanderings in the forest. Penny understood that. The wildness that was deep inside her.
She had thought they recognised it in each other, though they had not brought themselves to speak of it. Penny had been afraid to. If she gave away too much of what she was before her marriage to the Duke…well, she’d been sure he’d find her lacking.
It didn’t matter now.
And what she needed in the moment was not the Duke of Kendal. She needed Beatrice’s friendship. For she found as she stood there, the thing she grieved the most was the loss of her friend. Beatrice was the first woman she’d ever befriended. She’d been so lonely and having someone else her age to speak to had only ever been a dream until they’d met.
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