by Nina Mason
Taking great care, he climbed the icy steps and, with some effort, tried to open the door. It wouldn’t budge more than a gap. Peering through, he saw that a sizable pile of dead leaves and broken branches prevented its progress.
Forcing his way inside, Rollo shook his head at the mess and disrepair he beheld. How would he ever refurbish this place? The work and money required to get it in good enough shape to let out seemed staggering at present.
Outside, the horse whinnied and snorted. Something scuttled nearby. He saw eyes in the shadows. Lambent and greenish gold, they stared at him unwinkingly from the back of the hall. Seeing they belonged to a feral cat, which no doubt fed on the mice and rats, he walked on, crushing leaves and twigs underfoot. When he came to the door leading into the parlor, he lifted the latch and went in.
The boarded windows made the room too dark to see much of anything. As Rollo felt his way along, he bumped a small table, knocking over a candlestick. He righted the base, put the taper back in the socket, and groped in his pocket for his Vesta case. After two or three strikes against the plate, the match caught with a hiss.
With the smell of brimstone heavy in his nostrils, he lit the wick and picked up the candle. The light revealed the decaying bones of the elegant room he remembered: the once-gleaming wainscoting was warped and water-stained, the hand-painted wallpaper was peeling in swaths, and the grand, white-marble mantelpiece had been blackened by soot and grime.
Inside, his disappointed heart was in equally poor condition.
He went upstairs to have a look around, checking his fob-watch frequently. When it was almost time to meet Penelope, he returned to the first floor. Hearing her knock, he hurried into the entry hall, kicking aside the debris.
Rollo’s stomach tightened as he opened the door. There stood Penelope, like the heroine from one of Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic novels. Yes, yes. She could quite easily be Adeline from The Romance of the Forest, seeking refuge inside the ruined abbey she happened upon in the dark woods.
But which of the male characters was he? The evil Marquis who sought to seduce her? The noble Louis, who loved her in vain? Or Theodore, the condemned man who returned her love?
Or was he perchance a composite of all three?
He studied her as he considered the question. Her golden hair hung in ringlets around her face and at the nape of her neck. The rest was pulled back into a mass of cascading curls. Fixating on her mouth, he watched the color come and go in her bottom lip as her front teeth worried the plump flesh there. When the tip of her tongue darted out to bring moisture to the area, the urge to kiss her overpowered him.
Fighting the compulsion, he moved his gaze southward. The wind was blowing her frock in a way that revealed to him the most intimate contours of her figure. The small swell of her belly … the gentle curve of her hips … the long muscles of her thighs … the soft triangular rise where her legs and hips converged.
As desire surged through him, he recalled the long-ago day he’d first shown her his penis. She asked to see it and, when he said she could—for why would he deny either of them that amusement?—she opened the flap of his breeches.
As she regarded his upstanding member with undisguised fascination, he got a wicked idea. Penelope might be proper, but she also had game. “Kiss it,” he told her. “Go on, I dare you.”
She made a face of disgust before sportingly bending to the challenge. As her petal-soft lips brushed the tip, pleasure shot through him with such blistering intensity, he nearly embarrassed himself.
When he regained his senses, he said to her with a devilish smile, “Now, I double-dare you to lick it like a lolly-pop.”
With narrowed eyes, she met his gaze across the length of his body. “What will you give me if I do?”
God be praised. She seemed willing. “The same gift you will be giving to me.”
She blushed scarlet. “Is that even possible?”
“I have read that it is.”
His father kept a copy of The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, a book banned in England, in his library. At night, Rollo would sneak downstairs and read a chapter or two by candlelight. Needless to say, he found the narrative not only titillating, but also exceedingly illuminating.
Up to that point, however, he’d only read about the delights of the flesh. And reading and doing were very different things. How long he’d wondered what it would feel like to be inside Penelope … or to receive her oral caresses down there.
Well, the latter felt bloody brilliant, he discovered as soon as she wrapped her mouth around his cockstand. When she added suction to the equation, he came off within seconds.
Penelope disengaged at once and stared in wonder at his spouting member. “Goodness me,” she cried, meeting his pleasure-drunk gaze head-on. “I did not expect that to happen. You should have warned me.”
“There was no time,” he replied, shamefaced.
As Rollo returned to the present, a new thought turned his blood to liquid fire. Had she extended to Frank the same favors she’d extended to him? Had she let him go even further? Had she allowed that dirty claim-jumper to put his cock in her? Judas God. If he had not already, he certainly would on their wedding night. Unless, of course, he could compel her to call off the marriage.
He still had time, he reminded himself to ease his distress, though not nearly enough to instill confidence.
He smiled at her to hide his apprehension. “Good morning, Sweet Pea. Did you sleep well?”
“No.” The word came out in a puff of white.
“Neither did I.”
Lowering the hood of her cape, she looked past him into the deteriorating manor. “How bad is it inside?”
“It can be set to right,” he said with more optimism than he felt, “given enough time and money.”
“I suppose so,” she said. “But it does seem a shame that they put you and your father out only to let the house fall into disrepair.”
Umbrage tightened his stomach. “How funny that you should say so. For I had the very same thought just now as I explored the wreckage inside.”
His own derelict interior tremored as she moved nearer to him. He bent to kiss her cheek, inhaling her heady rose-water fragrance. Though red from the cold, her skin felt warm against his lips.
He prayed she might turn so that her mouth would meet his. When she didn’t, he stepped back, nursing his disappointment. In the pale gray light of the overcast morning, he could see the fine lines the years had wrought at the corners of her eyes and mouth.
Penelope flushed under his gaze and looked away. “You must have been surprised to learn of my understanding with Frank Blackmore.”
“I was indeed,” he said, startled by her bluntness.
She turned back to him with tears in her eyes. “Please believe me when I tell you I remained true to you … and my promise … as long as I was able.”
Rollo’s anger rose in step with his anxiety. “Why must you break your promise now? For you need only break off the engagement and marry me instead of Frank.”
Desire struck a match inside him. Seizing her by the upper arms, he pulled her to him and captured her mouth with his. When she parted her lips a touch, he pressed his tongue between them. She tasted of marmalade and happier times. He savored her flavor, and everything else his senses took in as her mouth yielded to his. The sweet perfume in his nostrils. The pliant flesh under his fingers. The warm, willing body molded to his like a well-cut garment.
All of these delights were torn from him when she abruptly pulled away. “I can’t do this.”
His bloodless brain failed to comprehend her meaning. “Can’t do what, Sweet Pea? Kiss your future husband?”
“That’s just it.” She forcefully extracted herself from his embrace. “You’re not my future husband. Frank Blackmore is.”
The words were more painful to Rollo than the musket ball he took in the shoulder at Plattsburgh Bay. Desperately, he sought her gaze, but she was looking out toward the frozen p
ond where they used to skate in winters gone by.
Needing an outlet for his frustration, he bent to pick up a large stick and struck at the snow with it. “And whose idea was that?”
“Ultimately, the decision was mine.” After a pause, she added, “I’m sorry, Rollo, but I waited for you long enough. Too long, some would say. The best years of my life, many more would remind me. And I would have to agree with them.”
He felt like a man hanging from the edge of a cliff by a vine that might snap at any moment. “The best years of your life are not behind you, Sweet Pea. They are ahead of you—as my wife.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’ve made up my mind. I must give up my romantic fancies and marry Frank. I owe that much to my parents, who have been so generous and patient with me.”
He threw the stick as hard as he could toward the woods. He might have known she was doing this to please her parents. “And what of your promise to me?”
There was a long silence before, she said (rather more coldly than he felt was deserved), “What do you want from me?”
“Only your promise to marry me instead of Frank.”
“I cannot make such a promise, as I’ve already explained.”
Her words impaled his heart. “Penelope! You cannot mean that.”
“And yet, I do.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “Do you mean it now?”
“Yes,” she said into the cape of his greatcoat.
He softly kissed her cheek and ear. “And now?”
“I do.” With some effort, she extricated herself from his hold.
“Oh, Penelope,” he cried as the direness of his situation began to dawn. “This is insufferable! This is madness. Will you not see sense?”
She licked her lips, which were slightly blue from the cold. “I have given my word and cannot take it back.”
“You gave it to me first.” Bitterness spread through his system like poison. “Why do you find it so easy to break your promise to me, but not to Frank Blackmore?”
“I find none of this easy,” she said grimly.
“Then yield,” he implored. “If not to me, than to your own heart. For I cannot believe it has turned as cold toward me as you pretend.”
“You’re being unfair.” She dashed at her eyes with a gloved fist.
“No, Sweet Pea. It is you who is being unjust—to both of us.” Taking her by the shoulders, he tried to bring her eyes back to his. If only she would look at him, he would know what she felt in her heart. Meanwhile, his own heart burned in his chest like a red-hot coal. “Since I met you, I’ve had no eyes or thought for anyone else. You are my one and only. My past, present, and future. The first one I think about when I awake in the morning and the last one on my mind when I close my eyes at night. When I was away, nothing mattered apart from making my fortune so I could come back for you. To redeem myself … and finally be happy.”
He drew a deep breath of frosty air before going on. “But perhaps I’ve been a fool to build a castle out of a childhood promise. And yet, even now I can’t accept that all the things we said to each other were so trifling or juvenile. Are you sure you feel as little for me as you pretend? Do you remember that day we slipped away from the others and met in the summerhouse? Do you remember the things we said to each other?”
“Please. I beg of you. Say no more.”
Her face was as white as the snow on the ground. But for once, concern for her emotional state didn’t stop him from speaking his mind. He had to tell her how he felt; had to make her understand.
“All these years, I have loved none but you. You have been my beacon, my touchstone, my symbol of hope. For you alone, I planned my future. For you alone, I carried on through the terrible fighting and longing. You are part of my being, Sweet Pea. You are my heart; my essence; my life spring. Without you, I will become a cast-off cocoon whose butterfly has flown away.”
Turning away, she brought her hands to her face. “Please, Rollo. You are breaking my heart.”
“Not half as much as you are breaking mine.”
“I was wrong to agree to meet you.” She moved away. “I should have said what I had to say in a note.”
“Why did you not say it last night, instead of giving me reason to hope?”
“Because I wasn’t sure last night,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “But, upon further reflection, I realized how scandalous it would be to break my promise to Frank. I gave him my word, Rollo, which binds me to him not only by honor, but also by law. To break my word would destroy my reputation, bring scandal upon my family, and perhaps result in a lawsuit for breach of promise. It is not a simple thing. Surely, you comprehend as much.”
She was right, but he still didn’t like it. Nor was he going to give up his claim so easily. Her promise to wait for him might not be as legally binding as a marriage contract, but it was still a covenant as far as he was concerned.
When she started to leave, he circled around to block her way. “Look me in the eye,” he demanded. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me anymore.”
“I can’t.”
Hope swelled behind his breastbone. “Because you still do?”
“Because it wouldn’t be fair to Frank to speak so intimately with another man. I had hoped that, with you now living so near, we might be good neighbors … and good friends again in time. But perhaps I’m expecting too much. I’m still very fond of you, but you went away and … well, never mind. What’s done is done. It hardly matters now, so I won’t ask for explanations. When you came back, I was so happy to see you, so glad you were still alive, and so very sorry I’d not been able to … to keep my promise to you. But we were only children then—foolish children who believed love could overcome all obstacles.”
“I still believe it can.” Although she was doing her best to hide her feelings, he could sense the emotional battle waging inside her.
“I know you do.” She turned to face him. “And, if there was any way of making it up to you, I’d gladly do it, but …”
“There is a way,” he said. “You can keep me company over the holidays—for the sake of old times and new friendship. Do you remember how much fun we used to have this time of year?”
She eyed him askance. “Do you promise to play fair?”
He crossed his fingers behind his back. “Of course, if that is your wish.”
“It is,” she said, regarding him cagily. “We can be friends and nothing more. Is that understood?”
Despite her dour looks and firmness of tone, he did not believe her. Actions spoke louder than words, after all, and the way she’d reacted to his kiss gave him reason to hope. If she was as set against him as she pretended to be, she would not have yielded to him at the outset of their meeting.
Now, he had the time and opportunity to bring her around. Twelve days and nights. He just hoped he could win her over without having to resort to ungentlemanly behavior. Then again, all was fair in love and war, was it not? Is that not what Frank had said? Yes, it was. And, as far as Rollo was concerned, winning her back would count as a triumph on both scores.
“Fine. We shall be friends and nothing more.” After a pause, he added with feigned joviality, “Now, tonight, I thought we might go for a sleigh ride in the moonlight. What do you say to that?”
A frown creased her frost-burned features. “I say it sounds awfully romantic for two friends.”
“Even if I behave myself?” Behind his back, his fingers remained crossed.
He waited on pins and needles while she took her time considering his suggestion. “Well,” she said at last, “I suppose it would be all right … if you will give me your word as a gentleman to remember I am engaged to another man, and therefore, conduct yourself accordingly at all times.”
“I shall,” he assured her. “I promise.”
This time, he did not cross his fingers because, as far as he was concerned, he was not being false. Not wholly, anyway. For she had asked only for him to re
member her troth and act in accordance. And that was precisely what he intended to do.
Chapter Five
Throughout the evening meal with her parents, Penelope struggled to come up with an excuse to satisfactorily explain why she was leaving the house alone after dark. Obviously, she dared not tell them the truth. Taking an unchaperoned sleigh ride with a gentleman—especially one other than her betrothed—simply wasn’t done.
At least not in so-called “polite society.”
She continued to ruminate as she picked at the food in front of her. Normally, she was fond of Bombarded Veal and Beef Tremblant. Tonight, for some reason, despite the tempting smells, she could not bring herself to lift the meat to her mouth. She’d had no interest in the white soup either, even though it, too, was one of her favorites.
When the footman came in to clear the table for the next course, Penelope set down her fork in defeat. Raising her gaze, she found her mother eying her with what might have been concern, but was more likely disapproval.
“Was the food not to your liking?”
“It was delicious.” Penelope forced herself to smile. “I simply find I have no appetite this evening.”
Mama’s brow furrowed reproachfully. “Well, I hope you aren’t coming down with something that will spoil your wedding. It would not do for Frank to return to a bride in less than peak condition.”
Though somewhat irked by her mother’s lack of concern for her welfare, Penelope now had the perfect excuse to absent herself for the rest of the evening. If she pretended to be unwell, she could retire early and, when the time came to meet Rollo, she could climb out her bedroom window and down the trellis just beyond—the way she used to do back when they were sweethearts.
“Now that you mention it, I do feel a bit under the weather,” she told her mother. “Perhaps I ought to excuse myself.”
“You should indeed,” Mama agreed. “Though not before dessert. I asked the cook to make pineapple ices especially, knowing how much you like them—and they will not keep.”
