by Bree Verity
“A fairy godmother with a black eye isn’t a very good look.”
“I can’t imagine it would be.” Fenella smiled at her mentor, who despite her words, had a half smile on her face and a twinkle in her eyes.
“Well, I suppose so long as you think you can get out of the radius of his swing quickly enough, that would be the best option,” Eldryth agreed after a pause for thought, “although I doubt it will have any effect.”
“It may not,” agreed Fenella, “but at least then I will have gone down all the reconciliation paths I could.”
“And reconciliation is preferred over trickery.” Eldryth nodded. “You’re right, Fenella. Go, with my blessing.”
Fenella flew out of the room, preparing her next foray in her mind as she did.
* * *
It was no surprise to find Mr. Penny once again at one of the gaming hells. They were full of the saddest of men; ones driven by desperation to hope their luck would drag them out of penury, and then others, the foolish ones with too much easy money and not enough brains to know how to hold on to it. They were easy targets and Fenella disliked Mr. Penny even more knowing he was only here to fleece the easily fleeceable.
She found him in company with his friend, Sir Walter whose oiled mustache she had also come to despise. She had discovered that Sir Walter was not only his friend, he was also his banker, but with a reputation of severity when it came to his customers’ money. He would not hesitate to put his beaters on to anyone who owed his customers, and they, happy to have their debts chased for them, turned a blind eye to Sir Walter’s brutal methods. He was not, Fenella thought, a man to cross, if she could help it.
She could feel both of their eyes upon her, suspicious and vaguely malicious, as she approached them. She nodded, knowing not to hold her hand out for a shake this time.
“What do you want, Commodore?”
The question was blunt from Mr. Penny, but nothing that Fenella did not expect. He had expelled her from his house, after all. Sir Walter turned away from her in contempt, leaning against the long bar and ogling the serving wench behind, who seemed to appreciate the attention.
“I want you to give up your ridiculous engagement.”
Fenella too, was blunt and unsmiling.
“And why would I do that? Especially at your bidding?” He scoffed.
“Because Mary Prior does not love you.”
Mr. Penny pointed at Fenella, a light in his eyes. “And there you are wrong. The stupid chit worships me.”
To Fenella’s surprise, Mr. Penny removed a carefully wrapped package from his inner pocket and produced the very Valentine that Mary had accidentally sent him. He handed it to her, and Fenella read the sentimental, but fairly banal, poem contained within:
Your love will always stand at the top of my heart
You have earned that rightful place.
It is a thing of beauty that we should never part
‘pon our future to be based.
“You see?” replied Mr. Penny triumphantly. “She begs me to marry her.”
Handing the card back, Fenella was surprised. Mr. Penny seemed to genuinely believe Mary loved him. Even if he had no capacity to love back, he seemed to be strangely gratified that someone loved him. Fenella wondered for a moment if she should pop his bubble.
But then she looked at his aura again, the dreadful choking blackness, and knew that she could not let Mary be forever connected to this monster.
“Mary sent that Valentine to you in error.”
Mr. Penny’s jaw tightened, and his arm shot out, his fingers taking Fenella’s wrist in a vice-like grip. “She did no such thing.” Sir Walter turned around to them and murmured something in Mr. Penny’s ear that Fenella could not hear, and he relaxed his grasp on her wrist, the smile on his face not reaching his eyes.
“You lie, Mr. Commodore,” he said softly, with clear menace behind the words.
“I do not,” replied Fenella, trying to keep the vibrations of her thumping heart out of her voice. “She meant to send you an entirely different type of verse, and that one was supposed to go to her true love.”
There was silence for a moment as Mr. Penny contemplated this before Sir Walter butted in. “Why should Mr. Penny believe you?” he said, hauteur in his nasally tones. “It seems that all you are trying to do is cause a wedge between Mr. Penny and his beloved.”
“His beloved,” scoffed Fenella. “Why, he doesn’t even know the meaning of love.”
Mr. Penny made a quick move as if to come in closer to Fenella, and every nerve and sinew in her body prepared to ward off the bigger gentleman’s attack. Luckily, Sir Walter held him back with a strong grip around his upper arm. “Of course the lad would say that,” he said in a soothing voice directly in Mr. Penny’s ear. “You bested him. He speaks only as a spurned lover.”
Mr. Penny seemed to take Sir Walter’s words into consideration. Fenella watched as the fury on his face subsided. “Yes,” he said with a sneer. “You’re just a sore loser, Commodore. I suggest you take yourself elsewhere and drown your sorrows. Or salve your wounds in the arms of one of the lovely ladies that work around here.” He jerked a thumb at the serving wench behind the bar, who thrust her barely covered breasts out in open invitation, a wanton smile on her face.
While Fenella realised with regret that her final ploy hadn’t worked, she had learned something interesting. Sir Walter seemed to hold some sway over Mr. Penny. He was able to keep the volatile gentleman from taking actions that might damage him. Fenella filed the snippet of information in the back of her mind.
Without another word, she stiffly bowed to Mr. Penny and Sir Walter, pointedly ignoring the serving maid, and made her way out of the room with dignity.
She already had the inklings of the next plan in mind.
Chapter Twelve.
Handing his gloves and hat to the butler, Mr. Penny said smoothly, “I have come to visit my fiancée. Kindly let her know I am waiting.”
The butler bowed and withdrew and Mr. Penny strode into the parlor as if he owned it, ostensibly taking in the tasteful display of ornaments, arrangements and light that filled the room, but really, working to keep his anger just under the façade of calm he wore.
When the message was relayed to Mary, she turned to Louisa, paling. They were both in the upstairs morning room, where the broad sunlight made it easy to work delicate, technical embroidery, or to sit and daydream. Both Mary and Louisa’s needlework frames lay unattended.
Louisa’s eyes shone alarm at Mary. “You must get Mama or John to accompany you,” she said, taking Mary’s hands. “Mr. Penny is terrifying and changeable. What if he has come to… to dishonor you?”
Louisa’s penchant for fearing the worst calmed some of Mary’s alarm. She chuckled. “I daresay he would not choose to do that on a bright, sunny morning in my father’s front parlor,” she said dryly.
“Even so, you should have accompaniment.”
“But Mama is abed with a megrim, and John and Papa went to look at something on the estate.”
“Then who, pray tell?”
Mary patted Louisa’s hands and stood, going over to the mirror above the fireplace to tidy her hair. “I shall go by myself,” she announced. “I am not afraid of Mr. Penny. He is simply a little… unusual.”
Behind her, she heard Louisa screech, “Unusual? He’s a far sight more than that, Mary. Do be careful, I beseech you.”
Mary kept her fingers crossed that Mr. Penny had not heard Louisa’s words and it was with a breath of relief she found him to be fair of face, waiting patiently in the parlor. Mr. Penny had never been an unattractive man by any means. In fact, those who did not know him often called him one of the more handsome men in London.
Mary herself may have used that epithet for him once, but not anymore. She had witnessed some of his business dealings and the way he dealt with the lower classes and now, he was quite as far from handsome as she could place him.
With those thoughts in
mind, she dropped into a deep curtsy. “We did not expect to see you today, Mr. Penny,” she said evenly, allowing a drop of censure into her tone.
“The matter on which I wish to speak to you could not wait.” He took her hand and lifted her out of the curtsy, his cruel, lustful eyes on her. It was all Mary could do to keep from shuddering under his perusal.
Instead, she deftly twisted out of his hold and moved smoothly away. “Indeed, I wonder what kind of a matter would require such haste?”
“The kind where the groom begins to question his fiancée’s faithfulness,” he replied and Mary paled, inordinately pleased that her face was turned away from him. Her mind immediately turned to Sir Percy, however she was also confused, since she and Sir Percy had never engaged in any untoward behavior.
“Oh?” Mary said, hearing the shake in her own voice. “Have you been listening to tales told out of school, then?”
“Nay, rather tales told directly from the horse’s mouth.” He swept back around in front of her, causing Mary to stop rather abruptly rather than crash into him. She was far too close to him, she could feel the heat radiating from his body, and the malice that oozed from his every pore.
She tried a dismissive laugh. “People will say whatever they think will produce the greatest scandal. You of all people should be quite aware of that.”
“Yes. Yes they will.” From within the folds of his jacket, Mr. Penny produced a document. Mary was shocked to see it was her very own Valentines card, the one meant for Sir Percy. She colored, wondering just what Mr. Penny had in mind.
He leaned back against a nearby table, crossed his feet and opened the card. Conversationally, he said, “The verse is simply dreadful, my dear, but the sentiment is clear. However, I have received word that the sentiment was, in fact, intended for another.”
Mr. Penny’s cool demeanour was of concern. Mary could see the anger, in the back of his eyes and in the tightness of his jaw. His shoulders were stiff, and his hand clasped hard around the top of his cane.
“I blush to confirm it, sir, but that is, in fact the case. The valentine you received was meant for another.”
“I see. And does this… other… make your heart leap when you set eyes on him?”
“Why, yes. Yes he does.” Mary made the mistake of failing to concentrate on Mr. Penny, instead allowing her mind to wander to the beloved face of Sir Percy.
“And was I, instead, supposed to receive a… vinegar valentine from your lovely self?”
Mary’s scared gaze flittered up to Mr. Penny’s, which was confirmation enough.
Before she even realised anything had happened, Mr. Penny’s hands were around her throat. His eyes, bloodshot and far from sane stared into hers, his mouth pulled into a snarl of cruelty.
Mary pulled ineffectively at the monster’s fingers, trying to loosen his grip, but to no avail. She could feel her face going red, then purple as the delicate blood vessels in her neck were constricted, and the fluttering fingers of a swoon entered her eyes. The world went grey, then fuzzy then…
Slap! Mary was suddenly brought back to full consciousness by a hard, painful open-handed slap across her face. She gasped and covered the red welt with her own cool hand.
“That is for dishonoring me,” Mr. Penny said in a terrifying voice of calm that could only come from the mouth of a madman. “I am your fiancé. You will never speak of me in anything but the most glowing of terms.”
“But please, I do not wish to marry you,” Mary pleaded, placing a hand on his arm, only to be struck again, this time across her cheekbone, which split, leaving a bloody mark on Mr. Penny’s glove that seemed to heighten his malice.
“You will marry me, Lady Mary Prior, because your father and I have already organised it. I have had the banns read. It is all proper and in order.”
“But I do not love you.”
Mary gasped, surprised at the words that had come out of her mouth. She covered her mouth with her two hands and stared in horror at Mr. Penny who stood as if carved out of marble, his hard eyes and the hard planes of his face shown in stark relief in the bright morning sunlight.
Then he wrenched Mary into his arms and forced a long kiss upon her. It was not a tender kiss, nor was there anything friendly about it, the kiss was purely Mr Penny’s brand upon her lips, leaving her with no illusions that it was he who owned her, that he held all the power over her. At the end, he flung her away, as if disgusted by her.
“Mark my words, girl, we will be man and wife just as soon as it is legally available,” he said. “And no more stupidity from you, lest you want me to creep into your chambers and anticipate your vows. And I believe you share your room with your younger sister as well. I wonder at her training in lovemaking.”
“You shall leave my sister alone,” Mary warned, eyes flashing. “I will kill you, make no mistake, if you ever lay a finger on her or any other member of my family.”
“Then all you need to do, my dear, is to keep your side of our bargain.”
Mary wanted to weep, wanted to gnash her teeth, wanted to kick over the vase of ferns that sat beside her, but she did none of those things. Instead, she took a deep breath, clasped her hands in front of herself, and said. “It shall be done.”
“Then I shall take my leave of you,” said the blackguard, opening the doors and calling for his hat and gloves, and leaning back into the parlor to call gaily, “Adieu, my love,” before being shown out of the house.
Mary teetered to a chaise and collapsed on it. Her throat burned, the flesh tender and bruised. The pain from her cheek was unbearable and she could feel blood dripping from the wound down on to the collar of her morning dress. But nothing was as bad as the knowledge that Mr. Penny had no interest whatsoever in releasing her from their twisted engagement.
She sat, still and unseeing for a solid twenty minutes before her sister came in. Louisa took one look at her and shrieked for the butler, “Keaton, bring Mrs. Flanigan with the salves and ointments and ask cook to put on a strong pot of comfrey and mint.” She fell to her knees beside Mary and pushed her hair back from her damaged cheek. “What has this monster done to you?” she said gently. But Mary could only look at her, her throat still too raw to whisper more than a word or two, and Louisa noticed the bruises beginning to appear on her neck. “Did he try to choke you?” she asked, aghast. Mary nodded.
“Did he do… anything else?”
Mary shook her head.
“Oh my dear, I told you that you should not have spoken to him alone. Just wait until father gets back and hears about this. I think you can be certain your Mr. Penny will be seeing himself off from this house with alacrity!”
But sadly, when Papa did return, he did not see things quite the same way Louisa did.
“It would be a matter of your word against his, love,” he said, his distress clear. “And if he proved that you were the unfaithful one, he could sue for almost all of your portion.”
“But Mary is in the right, Papa,” argued Louisa. “It’s very clear to see she has been abused, and by someone much stronger than she.”
“A judge will ask for the proof that it was, indeed, Mr. Penny who inflicted the injuries,” replied the Duke. “And from what I can gather, there was nobody else in the room with you.”
“No, there wasn’t,” replied Mary in little more than a whisper, head bowed. Several hours had passed and, while she was able to talk, it still hurt her throat a little to do so.
“You should certainly never have seen him alone. You should have sent him away until I was available, or your mother. Had you followed the rules of propriety, Mary…”
“I know father, all of this might not have happened. But it has happened.” She took a painful swallow before continuing, “Now if you’ll all excuse me, I wish to go upstairs and bathe my wounds then call Heather to see what she can do about covering them up for this evening’s ball.”
“The ball!” gasped Louisa. “You’re still going to the ball?’
�
��Of course,” Mary replied, no life in her voice. “It is the crush of the season. Everyone who is everyone will be there. And so, our family needs to be there.” Her voice grew fainter the more she said, and she seemed to sway on her feet. But even as her father, sister and Keaton moved toward her to prop her up, she regrouped and said, “Thank you, your assistance will not be necessary.”
With slow, deliberate steps she climbed the stairs to her bedroom and quietly shut herself away inside.
She tottered to her bed and lay upon it, her head spinning. All of Fenella’s attempts had resulted in failure. She should have known that Mr. Penny would not relent. He was far too calculating a gentleman to give up on such a good thing. Mary knew her portion was her charm; she should have known that Mr. Penny would only pursue her because of that. Now that he had the opportunity to get his hands on her money, he was like a bulldog with a bone – nothing would make him let go.
And Percy? Percy was lost to her completely.
Chapter Thirteen.
Fenella felt the red opal chips in the back of her eyes fire up, and the smoke around her ankles was instantly dark.
She had watched Mary and Mr. Penny’s interaction on a device that displayed the picture on a transparent screen. Around the picture, lines of text in a strange language scrolled constantly, giving Fenella all kinds of data about the situation.
Fenella was furious, not only at Mr. Penny but also at herself for providing him the ammunition to damage Mary. She should have anticipated that he would react. It was clear from his aura that he had no real self-control. And who better to take his anger out on than his significantly weaker fiancée?
From behind her, Eldryth placed a hand on her shoulder. “What is done is done,” she said in a surprisingly soothing voice. “All we can do now is to move forward.”
Fenella’s jaw tightened. How could she move forward? Everything she did only resulted in making the situation worse and worse.
And how could she rescue Mary from Mr. Penny’s clutches when she could not understand his motivations or his methods? It went against everything she had ever been taught about humans. In fact, he wasn’t human at all. He was more like an animal, a vicious, caged animal that enjoyed toying with its victims.