by Jane Ashford
“Of course.”
“There you are then.” She spread her hands.
“What I do not remember, or say rather comprehend, is the idea that my mother was gathering information about them.”
“And your father, of course.”
“Of course?”
“He must have been helping. Well, the letters said as much. She…enlisted him.”
Daniel felt as if his world had been turned upside down. In a matter of minutes, his parents had gone from self-absorbed vagabonds to government spies. The absences he’d resented had a purpose larger than his individual concerns. The conversations he’d always found vacuous were in fact diversions. But had it been necessary to divert him?
Miss Pendleton was leafing back through the letters. “This friend of her father’s that she mentions. Perhaps he was in the government.”
“My maternal grandfather had political connections.”
“That would explain it.”
“They might have told me, given me some hint at least.” Not when he was a child and liable to let something slip, but later. Why had they never trusted him?
“I suppose they developed a habit of secrecy,” said Miss Pendleton.
“What?”
“Well.” She spoke slowly as if thinking it through. “They would have had to learn to hide in plain sight. To seem guileless, so they would be quickly dismissed. I imagine that such a pose could become…engrained. Perhaps it had to.”
“So they were never genuine for a moment.” Bitterness tinged Daniel’s tone. He couldn’t help it.
The charming little wrinkle that appeared in Miss Pendleton’s brow when she was puzzling out a problem deepened. “If your parents were quite different when they were at home, someone might have noticed. London is full of travelers. And as I have reason to know myself, once suspicions are aroused against you, they run wild.”
Daniel considered her point. It made sense. And yet it didn’t make him feel better. “It’s rather worse knowing that they had important secrets and didn’t confide in me. When I thought they were simply shallow, I could…shrug them off.”
She put a hand on his arm. “I would guess they thought they were protecting you.”
Or themselves, Daniel thought. “They might have given me credit for some intelligence, and discretion.” This new information felt like another layer of judgment reaching out from the past to condemn him.
Miss Pendleton shrugged. “My father always saw me as a child, even when I was managing his estate better than he could.”
Her hand remained on his sleeve, a spot of warmth. Her head was bent over the scatter of papers on the desk. Daniel took in the lovely line of her cheek, the grace of her slender frame.
“It’s strange that our mothers were such good friends,” she said. “It feels like a…link, doesn’t it? Even though we never knew.”
The warmth spread through him, gaining heat as it rose. Daniel noticed that the house was quiet around them. The mantel clock showed that the servants would be off to bed soon. They must be wondering about Miss Pendleton’s continued presence. Wondering and whispering perhaps. Exchanging sly grins or raising eyebrows in disapproval.
When she looked up and met his eyes, desire flashed though him. He wanted all the things the gossips whispered about, and more. He wanted to sweep the damned papers from the desk and lift her onto it. He wanted to cover her with kisses. He wanted…everything. “My desires are not your responsibility,” she’d said. Very well, but what about his own? They were, and he had to keep a rein on them.
They’d been behaving with a reckless lack of formality. Some would interpret that as disrespect. Or careless, confident possession. Fury filled him at the idea of anyone seeing her that way. He had to take more care. Which did not mean folding her in his arms and shielding her from all harm, much as he wished that it might.
Daniel stood. His chair rocked with the force of his movement, and Miss Pendleton jumped. “I must get you home,” he said.
“Get me home.”
“At once.” He started for the bell rope, then didn’t ring. Why draw more attention to their long tête-a-tête? “We’ll go to the stables. You have your gig?”
Miss Pendleton rose, her hands resting on the desktop as if for support. “And if I don’t wish to go?”
“You don’t understand—”
She cut him off with a gesture. “My understanding has never been in doubt, whatever else was suspected about me. I know very well what I mean when I say I would like to stay a while. Here. With you.”
Every fiber of his body leapt at the invitation in her blue eyes. If he touched her now, there would be no going back. “People will think—”
“People have thought I was a dupe or a liar or an outright traitor to my country. People are idiotic.”
“Some are,” he acknowledged.
“Quite a large proportion. I have decided to disregard them.”
“That is more easily said than done,” Daniel replied. “We live within society.” If he took what he wanted—what they both wanted?—she would be ostracized.
“I do not. I have no social position. All that is lost to me. So I can do as I please.” Her voice wavered slightly on the last word.
He had to turn away from the appeal in her face. It was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done. “Nonsense.” The word came out harsh.
Miss Pendleton stepped back.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I do not?”
“No, you don’t.” He wanted to mend matters, not bring further ruin upon her. “You are still a baronet’s daughter. What would your father, your mother think?”
She flinched as if he’d hit her.
Daniel’s hands reached out of their own accord. “Miss Pendleton.” He hadn’t meant to say that last bit. Emotion choked him.
She picked up the bonnet and shawl she’d tossed onto one pile of boxes and strode out the door.
Fourteen
Stomach knotted, eyes hot with humiliation, Penelope eased her gig through the gates and onto the lane that passed by Frithgerd, following a mounted stable boy holding a lantern. The head groom had insisted on sending this escort, saying milord wouldn’t like it if they let her go off on her own, and Penelope hadn’t been foolish enough to argue. She’d never driven alone at night. Fortunately the lane was familiar, and her horse steady. Reassured by the light ahead, he clopped placidly along. Unfortunately, that left her free to remember how Lord Whitfield had practically shoved her away. She’d offered herself to him, and he’d refused! Her cheeks burned. The look on his face… What had it been before he turned his back? Disapproval? Revulsion?
Penelope’s nails dug into her palms. Propriety! Men used the rules to manipulate others, and then ignored them when they became inconvenient. She’d thought Whitfield was different. She’d been feeling so close to him, after reading those letters together. She’d assumed he felt the same. Hadn’t she learned by now never to assume? Hadn’t a host of assumptions fallen about her ears over the last year? People she trusted had abandoned her. Rights she’d relied on had proven flimsy as wet paper. And now this man she’d come to care for—yes, she had to admit it—had turned away. Miss Pendleton he had called her, as if that girl still existed, and yet he’d wanted to sneak her out of the house like a disreputable secret. Where had she gotten the ridiculous idea that she could ever have what she wanted?
The stable boy raised the lantern higher, illuminating the turn at her own road. Penelope guided the gig onto it.
What could she have? He’d taunted her with her birth. Yes, a baronet’s daughter was an acceptable, if not brilliant, match for him. But her brother’s disgrace had altered everything. Perhaps that was it. He’d realized that a connection to her would taint him as well. Society wouldn’t reject a viscount, but t
hey would titter and whisper. And if he had any political ambitions… Penelope made a throwaway gesture. Her pride, trampled and tattered though it was, reared up and rejected that picture. He was right. No sort of liaison was possible. She would erase the idea from her mind.
Penelope blinked. She was not going to cry. She was done with tears. Determination, independence, anger—these were there to sustain her.
Rose Cottage appeared ahead, its stone walls pale in the light of a half-moon. Penelope drove her gig around to the barn, thanked the stable boy, and endured Foyle’s scold as she climbed down. Kitty gave her more of the same when she went inside, piqued that her mistress had gone visiting without her. Penelope promised never to do so again and escaped to her bedchamber. There, tossing down her shawl, pulling off her bonnet, she looked at the familiar furnishings, a bit large and grand for her new dwelling. She was lucky to have this refuge. Things might have gone so much worse for her. She ought to be grateful. She was. Yet it was so hard not to yearn for an impossible more.
* * *
In a cozy parlor at Frithgerd, at that moment, the Earl of Macklin was curious and restless. To a man used to the bustle of London society, or of large country house parties, the place seemed very quiet. His book didn’t hold his attention. Instead, he was staring at the open page, wondering what mysteries preoccupied his host and their pretty neighbor. Beyond the obvious, of course. Was he wrong to leave them so often alone? Miss Pendleton wasn’t his responsibility. Whitfield was his main concern. And she’d made it clear she didn’t want advice from him. Yet she excited his ready sympathies as well. Her situation was unusual, perhaps more than she knew.
Arthur sighed, closing his book. Interference didn’t come naturally to him. Among his family, he generally waited to be asked for aid before stepping in. His impulse to help a set of young men visited by grief had surprised him. He smiled. It had surprised everyone who knew anything about it and mystified countless others who didn’t. A duchess whose renowned summer house party he’d skipped this year was convinced he was concealing a scandalous intrigue. One old friend had asked if he was ill; another had posed oblique questions about financial reverses. Arthur’s “disappearance” from his customary haunts kept tongues wagging even now. On top of that, helping had proven more complicated than he’d imagined. Still, the transformation of his nephew in the spring had been extremely satisfying.
Buoyed by that thought, Arthur set his book aside and made his way to the estate office. He discovered Whitfield there on his own, hunched over the perennial litter of papers on his desk but not reading any of them. Arthur spoke his name twice, with no effect. Finally, he tapped the younger man on the shoulder. Whitfield lurched upright as if he’d been struck. “You were a thousand miles away,” said Arthur.
“Not quite so far.” Whitfield looked like a man who’d sustained a stunning blow and was struggling to recover.
“Miss Pendleton is not here?”
“She went home some time ago.” He checked the mantel clock as if calculating the interval.
Arthur surveyed the scattered letters and notebooks before him. “Are you making progress?”
“Ha, we’ve wandered into the realm of fantasy. Further in, I should say.”
“What do you mean?”
Whitfield sat straighter, visibly gathered his faculties, and tapped the notebooks. “It seems that my mother was a spy.”
“What?”
Arthur’s host launched into a tangled story of codes and correspondence. “So we’ve solved the mystery of the Rose Cottage legacy,” he finished. “But we’ve uncovered another.” He frowned down at the desk. “Or a fairy-tale adventure. There seems little mystery about it.”
“May I see this key?” Arthur asked. Whitfield handed it over. Arthur ran his eye down the page, compared phrases in one of the notebooks, then another. He was puzzled, then astounded, then concerned. “I think you should put these in your strong room until we can make some inquiries.” He examined the younger man’s blunt features. “If you will allow me? I have a trusted friend who would know if there’s anything in these speculations.”
“Castlereagh?”
“An associate. Better able to keep things quiet.”
Whitfield hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, I would like the truth. As soon as possible.”
“I’ll draft a discreet inquiry. We can send a messenger tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
Arthur waited for more. When none came, he added, “Miss Pendleton is very clever.”
“Not as clever as she thinks, perhaps.”
“What do you mean?”
“A pair of fools,” Whitfield muttered.
“You and I?” Arthur knew he hadn’t meant this, but he wanted to hear more. Whitfield was obviously laboring under a weight of emotion.
“What? No.”
“You and Miss Pendleton then?”
“What are you suggesting?” The younger man’s tone had gone belligerent.
“Suggesting? Nothing. Wondering? A good deal.”
Whitfield glared at him for a fiery instant. Then he looked down, his jaw tight, fists closed. “Damn it all,” he said. He pushed his chair back so hard it nearly toppled over, then sprang up and strode from the room.
He’d forgotten his mother’s notebooks and their revelatory code. Arthur gathered up the pile and carried it to his bedchamber, where he made use of the key in the writing desk there to lock all away until they could be transferred to the estate strong room. Sitting down to write the promised letter of inquiry, he wondered uneasily about the prospects for a truculent viscount and the ruined daughter of a baronet.
* * *
Penelope didn’t return to Frithgerd the following day, nor for several days after that. She received Henry Carson at Rose Cottage and conferred with him on the progress of work on the bath. She attended to her own affairs, baked an apple tart with Kitty and Mrs. Hart, joined the dogs on their patrols of her property. And through it all, she tried not to think of her beguiling neighbor. Without the least vestige of success.
Her mind was full of him—bent over estate records, chasing goats, cutting pastry with boyish concentration. And kissing her, of course. Caressing her until her senses swam. And lastly, refusing her advances.
That word burdened her when she thought of their most recent encounter. It made her cheeks burn. What did he think of her now? That last was terribly important, because—left alone to reflect—she’d realized that she cared very much about his good opinion. About him. The stark truth was, she’d fallen in love with her unexpected viscount. And she wanted much more than stolen passion.
Walking with the dogs, she would fall into a daydream of a future with him, smiling at the notion that she was better at running his estate than he was. He would admit it. Indeed, that was part of his charm. He had no difficulty doing so. On the other hand, he was more at ease in the world. He could show her the way to go on among notables like Lord Macklin, who still intimidated her a little. And so they would pass their days. Then there were the nights, of course. She couldn’t leave out the nights. Dreams of his touch haunted her sleep. She would happily spend her life with Lord Whitfield. Daniel.
At this point, her fantasy always came tumbling back to earth. No one was talking about marriage. The idea, which would have been implicit had they met at a round of ton parties, had never arisen. He wasn’t thinking of it. She shouldn’t be. And even if he did, it was impossible. Yoked to her social ruin, Whitfield would be pitied at best, rejected at worst. Penelope knew how it felt to have acquaintances edge away, turn their backs. She’d had a bitter taste of that when she moved out of her father’s house. She wouldn’t bring such a fate down on him. And was she to give him his cottage back as a dowry? Every feeling revolted. She needed to become accustomed to the life she had, rather than some castle in the air. If she worked at it, she would find content
ment in her lot. And she would not yearn. She refused to yearn!
On the following day, however, the object of these reveries came to see her.
“I beg your pardon,” Whitfield said when she opened the front door.
He clearly hadn’t expected her to answer his knock. But Kitty had walked to the nearby farm for milk and eggs. Foyle had taken the gig into the village to look for some bit of ironmongery he needed. Penelope no longer had the scope, or the staff, to turn away visitors with the fiction that she was not at home. The pretense would be ridiculous without the insulating layers of a great house. No, he was here, and they were alone together.
Whitfield strode into her parlor and stood before the fireplace, slapping his riding gloves against his leg. As usual, the room seemed smaller with him in it. His energetic presence filled the space, even as it eased an ache in Penelope’s heart. A joy that she shouldn’t have allowed to take root expanded in her chest. She was so very glad to see him. Dangerously glad.
Daniel shifted from one foot to the other. It had been only a few days since they met, but he’d missed her dreadfully. The estate office seemed dusty and vacant without her stimulating presence. The construction project had lost its savor. He’d had to see her. And now he didn’t know what to say. The memory of their last encounter vibrated between them. He’d made a mistake. And yet he’d done the right thing. He was having difficulty reconciling those two facts. Of course he’d had to refuse when she’d offered to stay. No tinge of dishonor could be allowed to touch her. But oh, how he wanted her! He’d thought of nothing else ever since. One part of him called the rest an idiot for missing the chance to make her his own.
She stood there looking at him. The lovely lines of her face and form were so familiar now. She’d become an integral part of his world. She hadn’t asked him to sit. This was all her fault for speaking their longing out loud. They should just go back to the way they’d been. And was pretending that he didn’t desire her with every fiber of his being really what he wanted? Damn this confusion. If he’d lost her, he didn’t know what he was going to do. “Some of the things I said the last time we met were…inappropriate.”