How sweet the weight and feel! “I can help you.”
“Can you?” Thaddeus’s expression turned hopeful. He stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a string.
Cheverley sat on the chair, rested the bow against his shoulder and instructed Thaddeus how to fasten one end of the string. The boy’s rapt attention was rain on parched earth.
“Now,” Chev stood, “there are many ways to bring the string to the other side, but with a longbow of this size, this is the method I’d recommend.”
He placed the bow at the corner of his left foot. He stepped over the bow and hooked the top of the bow in his right arm.
“Would you mind handing me the string?” he asked.
He took the string, and, using his body weight, bent the bow while simultaneously stretching the string and then securing the string to the top of the bow. He tested the tautness of the string. Perfect.
“Ha!” Thaddeus laughed aloud. “You made it look easy.”
“The trick”—he winked—“is steady movement.”
Thaddeus grin faded. “It must be awful to be an archer and not be able to shoot.”
“Who says I cannot shoot?” He nodded toward the door. “Come outside.”
Chev retrieved his bow from his pack. He allowed Thaddeus to handle the bead and the mouthpiece before he strung the yew. Then, Thaddeus handed him an arrow from his quiver.
He aimed the arrow at a distant tree. He drew the string to maximum tension.
Muscles strained through his jaw and neck, banding tension that reached all the way to his spine. He shot. The arrow struck a leaf from a branch, bending back the branch and pinning the leaf to the trunk.
“Brilliant!” Thaddeus’s jaw dropped. “Your neck popped out when you did that.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Can you teach me?”
Something softened in Chev’s chest. He indicated Thaddeus’s bow. “Why don’t you try again?”
Thaddeus ran his finger down the string. “Stiff as a switch.”
“Stiffer, actually,” Chev replied.
Thaddeus copied Chev’s stance, properly positioned the bow and pulled. “Still nothing.”
“Don’t rely solely on the muscles in your arm, use your whole body.”
Thaddeus tried again and pulled back just enough to send his arrow flying, but without much control.
“Well, son of a—” Thaddeus arrested his speech. “Do you have time to practice some more?”
Strange warmth passed through Chev as he agreed. By the time Thaddeus hit his first mark, they’d ventured more deeply into the wood, and the sun had hung low in the sky.
The day had grown later still when Thaddeus reluctantly decided he must return.
“Practice,” Cheverley said. “And in time, you’ll be quite skilled.”
“How long did it take you to learn to shoot?” Thaddeus asked.
“Years,” Cheverley replied. “And I’ve spent the last two months adjusting for my arm.” Cheverley sighed into the disquieting silence that followed. “I took a musket ball to my wrist,” he explained, “and, yes, sometimes it still hurts.”
“I wouldn’t have thought to ask.” Thaddeus squinted one eye. “Actually, I was going to ask if you would practice with me again.”
Extraordinary boy.
Well done, Penelope.
Thaddeus was confident without arrogance, honest without yielding authority. He’d be dammed if he didn’t wish to spend as much time as possible getting to know his son.
And, Cheverley had no intention of leaving Cornwall before inquiring into Emmaus’s suspicions.
“If I practice with you,” Chev offered, “will you tell me truthfully about what goes on at Ithwick?”
Thaddeus frowned. “The men there are no one you’d wish to know. Greedy. Violent. Crude.”
Emmaus had intimated as much. Which was exactly why he intended to find out as much as he could. One could not fight what one did not understand.
“If they are so ill mannered,” he asked, “why does your mother permit them to stay?”
Thaddeus’s eyes hardened. “Pardon?”
Chev’s chest warmed. He softened his voice. “No insult to her ladyship was intended.”
Slowly, Thaddeus nodded. “Mother believes it is her duty to care for the duke. His Grace has improved, but he is not yet well enough to order them off his land.”
His Grace. Spoken as if the duke were a stranger, not a grandfather.
“If there’s no rain tomorrow,” Thaddeus said finally, “the men will likely be throwing weighted disks on the lawn—that is, if they do not drink themselves into oblivion this evening.” He flashed a grim expression. “Tonight, there’s to be a soiree. Everyone important for miles has been invited.”
A soiree? With the duke too ill to attend? Just what was going on at Ithwick?
“If you will allow,” Chev said, “I would like to escort you home.”
Chapter Six
FROM PEN’S PERCH at the duchess’s window, she studied the edge of the forest, searching for any sign of her son. Evening shadows muted the colors of day, gathering quietly in the space between day and night.
In other circumstances, she might have luxuriated in the twilight—day’s harsh judgments had hushed, night’s secrets were about to be revealed.
Not today.
She stopped herself from biting a fingernail. Instead, she rubbed her bottom lip.
Why had she agreed to allow Thaddeus to return to Pensteague on his own?
Not that she could outright forbid him, even if she wanted. Thaddeus’s smile sheathed razor-sharp resolve, much like his father.
In Chev, she hadn’t grasped the essential nature of his need to take charge and to protect. In fact, she hadn’t truly understood Chev until she mothered his son.
Through Thaddeus, she’d come to understand Cheverley in many ways. She pressed her forehead against the glass. Now, however, it was too late to make use of what she’d learned. And what she understood did not make Cheverley’s loss—or the hubris he’d displayed—any easier to bear.
Thaddeus had been thrilled when he discovered one of Cheverley’s first bows. He’d asked if Chev could shoot through twelve axes—a legend Chev himself loved to perpetuate.
“Not through the axes. Through holes in the axe handles.” She told Thaddeus the truth, hoping the truth would sift through the heart of Thaddeus’s romantic ideals. “Skill isn’t magic. Your father spent years testing his strength against different combinations of arrow weight and bow stiffness until he could shoot through all twelve handles.”
Men were impressed with Chev’s “magical” strength.
She’d been awed by his inventive planning.
She meant to encourage the latter in her son.
So much like his father, that boy. Soon, Thaddeus would transform excited dreams into ingenious remedies. And, if she weren’t careful, then, like Chev, he’d be gone.
But could anyone separate the engineer from the wanderer, the adventurer? Were they simply different sides to curiosity’s coin?
Behind her, Mrs. Renton tsked. “Come away from the window, my lady. You aren’t yet properly dressed.”
As if anyone looking up from the courtyard below could tell her shift and stays were all she wore beneath her dressing gown.
“Of course,” she said, moving into the room and preparing to be dressed. “I was just watching for Thaddeus.”
“I wouldn’t worry, my lady. He’s likely occupied with the new sailor who’s arrived at Pensteague.”
“A new sailor?” She frowned. She preferred to question any new arrivals before they saw Thaddeus.
“When Emmaus stopped by the kitchens today, he told me a captain arrived yesterday evening. Master Thaddeus is likely peppering the man with questions about life at sea.”
“No doubt.” If Cheverley were a subject at Cambridge, Thaddeus would take a first.
Thaddeus requested stories from the men C
heverley had led, the men Cheverley had called friend...anyone, really. In the absence of direct information, he collected other details. In his mind, he pieced them all together like precious puzzle parts, creating a phantom father.
“Not to worry.” Carefully, Mrs. Renton laid Penelope’s dress out on the bed. “The captain did not claim to have known his lordship.”
Penelope set aside the pang of disappointment.
“And,” Mrs. Renton continued, “I doubt he’d be a harm to anyone, what with him missing his arm.’”
“Poor man,” Penelope replied. The last sailor in a similar circumstance stayed only a few weeks before deciding London’s gaming hells were a more interesting use of his time. She prayed for true healing this time.
Mrs. Renton picked up the dress. “Ready?”
She nodded, lifting her hands.
The heavy velvet buffeted as the fabric slid down over her torso and tumbled to the floor. Mrs. Renton fastened hooks, and the bodice cinched over her breasts. Penelope held still as Mrs. Renton then began stitching the navy-inspired braid Penelope had woven over the hooks.
“Such a wonderful idea.” Mrs. Renton mumbled over pins, which disappeared into the seam one by one. “I never would have thought the duchess’s court clothing would have enough fabric in the skirt alone to make you such a beautiful dress.”
“Thank heaven for the panniers popular in the duchess’s time,” Penelope said.
“And for the new, slimmer style.”
After Mrs. Renton finished stitching, she stepped back and gasped.
Penelope winced. “Was that a good gasp or a bad one?”
“See for yourself.” Mrs. Renton gestured to the gold-gilt mirror.
Stepping in front of her reflection was like peeping into a different world—an imaginary world. Penelope didn’t recognize the woman in the glass. The crimson velvet emphasized her lips’ deep red, her cheeks’ subtle flush, her hair’s highlights, and her dark eyes’ contrast. The effect was striking. And the white, tasseled braid served its purpose—a tribute to Chev.
“Lord Cheverley would be speechless if he could see.”
Penelope’s heart panged, and she turned away from her likeness.
Mrs. Renton held out white gloves of the finest kid leather. “Your gloves.”
They weren’t her gloves at all. All of this—the room, the fabric, the gloves, even the pins in her hair—belonged to the late duchess. She was, for the night, in borrowed clothes, on borrowed time.
She looked like a duchess. She felt like a fraud.
At Pensteague, she was the proprietress of a haven. In this world, she was nothing without Cheverley. But that wasn’t the reason she ached.
She’d no doubt Chev would have been speechless if he could see her now—and desperately attempting to get her out of the clothes Mrs. Renton had taken such pains to get her into.
Then again, Chev had been complimentary of everything she’d worn—from her simple laborer’s clothes to the breeches she’d borrowed when she’d helped him plane their bed.
Especially the breeches.
Mrs. Renton tsked as she withdrew jewels from the bag on the dresser. “If only you’d let me do something equally dramatic with your hair. A loose twist would be so much more attractive. Are you sure you won’t change your usual style?”
“Yes.” A tight, serviceable knot would do. She had to draw a line.
Mrs. Renton clasped the duchess’s pearls around Penelope’s neck. The beads rested against her skin, heavy and yet soft.
“Oh, my lady, they look as if they were made for you. Mr. Anthony’s sure to burst in fury.”
That had been the idea. “He’s been intent on my discomfort. Acting in kind is only fair.” And perhaps, in his anger, he would reveal something he did not mean to reveal.
“I know you don’t wish to be at Ithwick at all.” Mrs. Renton’s eyes misted. “But having you preside over an Ithwick gathering...well, it is the rightest thing that’s happened in a long time. If only—”
“Let us not indulge fancy.” She interrupted with a pat to Mrs. Renton’s arm. “Tonight, I must be on my guard.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Renton sniffed. “Yes, of course.”
Penelope returned to the window.
Dusk made black paper cut-outs of the trees, completely hiding the path to Pensteague, but the un-doused carriage lamps glowed, creating peek-a-boo pockets of day.
She spotted Thaddeus by the stables and exhaled. Then, her gaze fell on his companion—the new sailor. The captain.
He was tall and thin with untied hair that cascaded down his back. Despite his slender frame, he moved with dangerous grace, untamed—predatory, even—as if he were aware of all things seen and unseen.
His shadowed face tilted up toward the window.
Penelope stepped back, touching the pearls at her throat. Was it fear that had soaked her with watered ice?
She shook her head. Clearly, the pending confrontation with her adversaries disturbed her usual calm.
“Thaddeus is on his way to the kitchen gardens. Will you go down and greet him? And will you thank the captain for ensuring his safe return?” Her own examination of the man would have to wait.
Mrs. Renton nodded.
She kissed Mrs. Renton’s cheek, catching a whiff of lavender-scented talc. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Mrs. Renton.”
“Likewise, my lady.”
Penelope set aside thoughts of the captain, set back her shoulders and prepared for the battleground disguised as a polite soiree. All that stood between Ithwick and ruin was one woman and an aging housekeeper.
Anything else could wait.
~~~
Thaddeus disappeared into the house and the door to the servants’ entrance clicked closed. Chev moved back until entirely concealed within the shadows of the hedge.
Night had nearly settled. But the terrors of sightlessness were nothing compared to his son’s safe return to Ithwick.
Thaddeus would be back in the schoolroom in no time, and with a little suavity, he might even be able to convince Mrs. Renton that he’d been there for quite some time.
Just as Chev had done more times than he could count.
Silently, he followed the garden path inlaid with stone, moving like a spirit—like a man long-dead.
But when the pathway split, he hesitated.
The stone path turned back toward the courtyard and the tall, lighted windows of the conservatory. The other way—the way he’d intended to go—wasn’t marked but led to the edge of the wood.
He glanced to the heavens.
Evening stars had appeared, and the waxing moon would soon rise from the sea. But for a few hours, darkness would reign. If he chose to linger—the light of the risen moon would ease his way back to the gamekeeper’s cottage. He moved toward the courtyard, not because of the moon but because of the chance he might see her again.
Penelope.
Her feminine silhouette in the duchess’s window had drawn his gaze like a beacon. There’d been a brief, indescribably transcendent moment of recognition, which panic, then pain, had flushed away.
Still, he longed for another look. A closer look.
He scowled. Why entertain such madness? Hadn’t being introduced to his son caused enough bitter-sweetness for one evening?
When Thaddeus sunk his first arrow into the target Chev had fashioned, the boy had whooped and smiled, and Cheverley’s armor had been pierced with an altogether different kind of arrow—a deadlier arrow, an arrow that locked him into place when the only way to survive was to keep moving.
The fist-that-did-not-exist ached, hanging tight and heavy at his side.
Move. He had to move.
One footstep. Then another. Then another. And suddenly, he found himself in the courtyard, hidden just beyond the glow spilling onto the slabs of slate.
The glass separating him from the soiree guests was more than mere sand and ash, melted and then reformed. It was a barrier as un
crossable as the River Styx—the mythical boundary between the living and the dead.
The people inside were alive, glittering. He was nothing more than a wraith—a moving swarm of vengeful anger.
First, he recognized the long-time local magistrate, Sir Jerold—much unchanged but for the color of his hair. The man Jerold spoke with stood with his back facing the window, but his stance claimed authority.
Chev’s gaze moved through the room until he found Lord Thomas, his cousin, in a circle of people too far away to identify. One among them, a woman, was heavily veiled.
Penelope?
No. Though familiar, the veiled woman’s form was all wrong.
Then, the conversation that had filled the night air like the rumble of a distant sea, ceased. Tingling danced up his spine. He turned toward the entrance.
Breath and time ceased.
Pen. His Pen.
The wind in the hedges sighed, at last.
~~~
Penelope believed she possessed the power of “right,” and she believed that power made her capable of vanquishing men of greed and ill-intent.
But facing a sea of faces—some lustful, some hostile, and all of them marred with the volatile mix of haughty condescension and bitter envy—and armed with only a pretty dress, she suddenly understood the truth.
The men she hoped to vanquish were the same men who had written the laws and owned the courts. They were the same men who commanded all arbiters of power from the armies to the customs houses, to the lowly inquests in pubs.
Against them, the power of “right” was a meager weapon at best.
Pen swallowed as she was announced, feeling the weight of the duchess’s pearls resting against her dried throat.
Give me strength.
Mr. Anthony—standing next to Sir Jerold, the magistrate—made a motion for the music to resume, and the rise of conversation followed. Then, Anthony stretched out his hand in a silent gesture screaming with authority.
Borrowed authority—less his right than the duchess’s pearls were hers.
She made her way across the room, iron in her gaze, steel in her fixed smile.
“My dear Lady Cheverley”—Mr. Anthony clasped her fingers—“how good of you to join us.”
His Duchess at Eventide Page 6
