“Peppered, My Lord?”
“No,” the Earl shook his head, “Pepper will only aggravate my already-tender stomach.”
“And why is your stomach so delicate?” Lady Penelope asked.
“Too much wine and scotch,” Lord Allerton grimaced. “Russell had another vigorous political gentleman debate assembly last night again, and I must admit that I drank too much of each without thinking about the next morning ramifications. Mr. Moore, I think a glass of milk would be best.”
Swanville was there too, I would bet.
“Oh, here,” Lord Allerton said while fishing into this jacket and producing a card, “Russell thinks you might appreciate the opera at the Theater Royal in London this weekend. It is a musical adaptation of The Comedy of Errors or…possibly The Tempest.” His face scrunched up before rolling his eyes with a sigh. “Well, it’s one or the other, sister dear. I did not listen too closely.”
After taking a cup of warm milk and bidding his farewells to the two, Lord Allerton left to the room, and Heath turned back to the sitting lady. Lady Penelope had a particular exasperated look on her face before she shook her head softly.
“I wonder what topics those meetings take on to make my brother look so stressful?”
You would rather not know, Penelope.
Her name, sans the Lady, felt strange in his mind but even though it rang oddly, but it felt…right. Miss Bell then came into the room and greeted him gaily.
“My Lady,” the lady maid then said after. “A few sections for your new wardrobe have arrived.”
Puzzlement is clear on Lady Penelope’s face. “New…wardrobe?”
Miss Bell arched an eyebrow, “A month ago you asked me to send in your measurements to Lady Ophelia from the Les Merveilleuses Boutique in London, remember?”
Lady Penelope blinked, still oblivious.
“You wanted more dresses and a few fitted breeches,” Miss Bell voice dipped at the last few words into a hush.
He saw Penelope shoot a frantic look to him but pretended that he did not see her look or had heard Miss Bell’s words. His face was schooled into polite indifference, but his lips were threatening to quirk at the corners.
“Oh…” she mumbled, “that.”
A curious idea that Penelope would have preferred a lot more breeches instead of the dresses ran through Heath’s head, and his lips did curl. As she went back to her tea and bun, Heath asked Miss Bell if she needed anything and to her polite refusal, left them.
He took a quick trip to the kitchen to tell Mrs. Burcham about the Earl’s request for pheasant soup and reentered the dining room to hear Lady Penelope and Miss Bell whispering like thieves over a plan to steal the Crown Jewels. To make their culpability even more obvious, they stopped immediately while seeing him. Lady Penelope was red and Miss Bell a mottled shade of pink. He just arched an eyebrow as they looked at him.
“Is there something on my jacket I should know about?” he asked and even looked down rather facetiously at his immaculate clothing.
An unladylike snort came from Lady Penelope.
“Excuse me,” Miss Bell said, while still pink-faced. “I will be in the library, My Lady.”
With her gone, the privacy they had from before came back, but only this time, there was a sense of awkwardness to it. His eyes lit upon the card and again, trails of jealousy slithered through him.
“I imagine, Lord Allerton will ask Miss Bell and me to accompany you,” he said. “To the Opera, I mean.”
“He will,” the lady added with a sigh. “Eddie loathes archaic language and poetry, and pair them together he acts as his teeth are being pulled, one by one. He will spend hours in a meeting hall with men twice his age and debate on bland laws and systems with feverish forte, but when the mere suggestion of enjoying that aspect of our vivid culture comes into play, he balks.”
“Hm,” Heath mused, “think of it this way, would you rather a day of hunting in humid weather with a group of men hooting and hollering than curling up with a book before the fire with a cup of warm sweetened milk?”
Her nose wrinkled at the image of hunting, and he knew she saw his point. “Men have distinctly different interests than women, My Lady.”
Lady Penelope’s eyes met his shrewdly, “You don’t…do you? You know The Divine Comedy.”
“Well…some men,” Heath amended with a shrug. “Lord Masseur had a rather extensive library and I had a rather pressing urge to increase my mental landscape.”
“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, ché la diritta via era smarrita,” Lady Penelope said in fluent Italian.
“Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost,” Heath translated almost immediately.
Instantly, he wanted to cringe—which footman knew Italian? He was fearful that he had given her a reason to ask him questions—questions he was not ready to answer. “Canto one.”
Lady Penelope’s smile was a self-satisfied. As she passed by him, she stopped just beside him and looked up at him under her lids. “There is more to you than what meets the eye, isn’t there?”
Her words had a question but still felt rhetorical and he did not answer, not for a lack of words but for a lack the right words. He watched her walk away and a small smile tugs his lips. “Perhaps.”
Chapter 18
The theater in London was monstrously huge; the ground floor where the audience sat ran up to the stage. Gaslights were up ahead and lit the stage. After entering, Lord Hillbrook had extended his gloved hand to her and led her up to the stairs to a private box.
Clasped in Penelope’s unoccupied gloved hand was her slender, gold opera glasses, her program for, indeed, The Comedy of Errors, and her fan. She managed to lift the ends of her silk gown as she ascended the stairs to the private box, with Mr. Moore and Martha a few steps behind her.
A thrum of wary anticipation that had started running inside her breast from the moment Lord Hillbrook had helped her into the carriage was even harder now that they had reached the place.
She was helped into a soft-padded seat and smiled. The air was cool, and the darkness around them gave the air a sense of mystery. The patrons filling the lower seats were a dull noise in her ears. Penelope had never been to the theatre before. She had only heard tales of beautiful actresses and performances that lifted the words from the page and brought life to the inked characters.
“Comfortable, My Lady?” Lord Hillbrook asked with a smile.
“Very,” Penelope fidgeted warily while looking around the box before looking out to the stage below. It struck her that they were in the very middle, the perfect place to see all that transpired below. “Oh, this view is marvelous. How did you get us such a perfect box, My Lord?”
“I would tell you,” he said slyly. “But a man has to keep some secrets to himself.”
Her lips pressed tightly, trying to stifle her smile but then allowed herself to laugh softly. “In keeping with those that I still do not know about you.”
Stephen’s voice was low and smooth, “If you will allow me, you will know more soon enough.”
Looking quickly at him, Penelope felt her stomach twist in wariness just as a call for silence came, and a moment later the curtain lifted and the play begun with a musical introduction of indeed, The Comedy of Errors.
An offstage voice sang about the life of the great Greek city of Ephesus and then the music grew a bit ominous as the characters Aegeon, Gaoler, and other attendants entered into a lifelike hall of Duke Solinus’ palace.
Each character was dressed appropriately, with the monarch in rich blues and purples and the officers in their state uniforms. The merchant of Syracuse, condemned to death for violating the ban against travel between the two rival cities, was in drab prisoner browns and his hair was wild. The characters’ dress was so detailed that even their sandals were made to fit the time.
She felt the anguish in the merchant
’s voice when he said, “Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall, and by the doom of death end woes and all!”
Her anxiousness was soon forgotten as she was immersed into the play, laughing at the hilarious moments and her hand clenching on her skirt in moments of suspense.
By Act Four, when the merchant was mistaken to be the husband of the wife of his missing twin, had his own slave guard the house, effectively keeping the real husband barred from his own home, had Penelope was laughing to the point of tears. She found herself leaning onto Lord Hillbrook’s arm while mirth wracked her body.
Lord Hillbrook was chuckling beside her, either being humored by the play itself or giving into her infectious laughter. His fingers threaded with hers and at the touch, she twisted her head to see him smiling at her warmly. It was dark, but she managed to see his eyes glimmer like sapphires.
Suddenly, she felt the tightness in her throat as anxiousness flooded her once again, erasing the majority of her mirth. She cleared her throat, offered him a weak smile and tried to immerse herself back into the play.
Finally, when the abbess resolved her mistake and it all ended happily; Penelope sagged back into her seat and breathed out deeply in satisfaction and relief for a happy ending.
“That was more enjoyable than I had thought it would be,” Lord Hillbrook said contentedly.
“Really?” she spoke while shooting a look over at him. “It was all I expected it to be, more actually.”
The patrons below slowly streamed out of the auditorium below, and Penelope was content to let them go. “That was delightful…thank you, My Lord.”
A strangled noise came from Mr. Moore—who she had forgotten had accompanied them—and she looked over at him. She saw his black clothes had merged into the darkness in the box as he held up a hand to his mouth and cleared his throat.
“My apologies,” he said quietly.
She turned back to Stephen whose eyes were a tad hard before they flickered to her and went softer. She frowned a little, why was Hillbrook getting irritated at Mr. Moore for a cough?
Stephen checked his watch fob and replied, “I think we should get you back home. It is getting late and I would hate for you to have dark circles under your beautiful eyes on the morrow.”
“That’s very…sweet of you,” Penelope cringed. She was not all that comfortable with Hillbrook’s flirtation…was that it? Was the man flirting with her? She did not know how to identify flirtation if it held a blaring red sign in front of her face, but she still felt uneasy. Thankfully, Lord Hillbrook had not seen her grimace, and she breathed out her relief silently.
“Mr. Moore,” she said over her shoulder, trying to get a respite from Hillbrook’s gaze. “Please send for the carriage.”
Baron Hillbrook stood and extended his hand to help her up and then his arm after she had gotten to her feet. His gloved hand folded over hers and she tried to smile. They left the box with Martha trailing behind. When they reached the foyer, they paused to put on their coats.
The approaching winter season lobbed chilly air to their faces as they left the opera house, and she could taste the bite of frost. They did not wait long for the carriage and Mr. Moore alighted nimbly. The door was opened, and Stephen helped Martha in first so she could sit in the back.
“My Lady,” he smiled and with a gentle touch helped her inside before following.
Slipping her glasses and program into the reticule, Penelope settled her bag on her lap and smiled. “Have you been to the theatre much, Stephen?”
He shook his head, “I would not say much, but I have been a few times in the last six months or so. I saw an amateur production of Othello and a reproduction of The Beggar’s Opera and a German one whose name I cannot pronounce or remember. However, I realized that it was a bit paltry and pathetic that I was there alone and decided that the next time I would come with someone dear to me.”
This means that I’m dear to him…? Does it?
“I am…flattered?”
Again, his demeanor—this flirtation—was disturbing her and she squirmed in her seat. His laugh was soft. “Your perplexity is entirely too enchanting, Lady Penelope.”
Feeling a bit uncomfortable, she began to speak about the play and relive the best moments that resounded with her. Her chatter was interrupted by Stephen’s interjection and comments. His slight critique of some of the character’s portrayals egged her into a debate about how misconceptions could force people to form skewed opinions of those around them.
“Like I did with you,” Penelope added lastly, a bit tenderly being forced to be truthful. They had this conversation before but somehow, she felt it needed repetition. Her answer was his smile and a kiss to the back of her hand.
It was then she realized that the carriage was slowing and a quick glance out the window told her that they were approaching her home. The wheels came to a stop, and she was itching to leave the carriage. His flirting—something that should have made her heart flutter—something that would make any lady’s heart flutter—was beginning to feel like slime oozing down her skin.
The door opened, and she could have sworn she was looking at an aberration. Mr. Moore was holding the door. “My Lady?”
Reaching for Mr. Moore’s gloved hand, she alighted the carriage while Stephen was just behind her, assisting Martha out. When the doorman opened the door, Martha said her curtsied thanks and goodbyes to Lord Hillbrook. Mr. Moore seemed to merge into the background when she turned to the Baron.
“Thank you, My Lord,” she smiled as best as she could. “I had a wonderful time.”
He bowed. “The pleasure was all mine. I think there is a menagerie passing by this month. Would you like to see it?”
Could she blatantly refuse him? Was that too rude considering how nice he had been?
“Er…I would be delighted to,” she said with some level of wariness in her voice.
“Good night, Lady Penelope.”
“Good night, My Lord,” she said as he moved toward the door. With the door closed behind him, she let out a breath that she had not known she had been holding.
Turning, she spotted Mr. Moore standing there. His visage was expressionless as usual, but she felt that something else, irritation or something of the sort, was resting behind his impassiveness.
“Thank you, Mr. Moore,” she said while stifling the urge to yawn before him.
“You are welcome, and sleep well My Lady,” he said with a bow.
As he walked off, Penelope felt confounded. She had misunderstood Stephen, but Mr. Moore was a puzzle that she could never solve. Every time she believed she had slotted a piece in place of the picture that made up his whole, she was forced to yank it out and start over from scratch.
Shaking her head, she went off to her bedroom ready for Martha to help her undress. As expected, the maid was there, already undressed to her nightclothes. Dropping her reticule onto a dresser, Penelope sat and tugged her shoes off and wiggled her toes.
“Tonight was…” she trailed off, “surprising.”
“Because of Lord Hillbrook?”
“Yes,” she added. “I had taken him for a man who leaned to tragedies or political dramas like Hamlet of King Lear…but to be treated to a comedy…I am delightfully taken aback.”
She stood as Martha helped her out of the dress and her undergarments and into her nightclothes. “I wonder what else he can spring at me next?”
“I suppose you will have to see, then,” Martha said in her usual shrewd tone while fixing Penelope’s brushed hair under a silken cap.
“I suppose I will,” Penelope added while standing up and wishing her maid a good night. She did not dare tell Martha how she felt with Hillbrook’s flirtation. Perhaps she was overthinking it, and fatigue was coloring her assessment the wrong shade.
I’d probably have a clearer head in the morning.
She settled into her bed, lazy thoughts running through her head about Stephen, but gradually, her attention changed to Mr. Moore.
The man is more mysterious than a …. ugh, I don’t even know what to liken him to. I suppose I am honored that he told me about his childhood…I am honored actually but then…that evening in the stables when he could not speak to me. Why did I feel such pain that he could not look me in my eyes? But then…the other morning, I swore his soul was in his eyes with apology. Where am I with Mr. Moore?
That question went through her mind in loops and swirls, lulling her to sleep, and instead of the man who was wooing her, her mind was filled with Mr. Moore.
Waking up to a gray sky and cool winter wind, she had a thick wrapper on and went to the nearest window, and she felt worried again. Hillbrook’s advances should have flattered her, but she felt skittish. Pulling the sleep cap off, she shook her head and let the wild curls fall. Raking her fingers through it, she plaited a long braid.
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