Penny’s feet adhered themselves to the floor, and her astonished gaze fitted itself to the large man, her brain scrambling for a sense of cohesion, of rational thought. He wasn’t supposed to be in the vicinity yet—and certainly not in the front parlor! He also wasn’t at all how she imagined him to be. The reality was much, much worse than she’d supposed. He was well over six feet, looked as though he could easily till the earth with the best of his tenants, and he was so handsome her breath stuck in her throat. Her carefully constructed fantasy world crumbled around her as she began to see spots before her eyes and reminded herself to take in a much needed gasp of air.
“Penelope!” Aunt Millicent snapped her out of the fog and gave a curt nod.
“Oh!” Penny bobbed a slightly unsteady curtsy and managed, “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Your Graces,” before she made her way to the settee on legs that felt near collapse. She sank next to Persephone, painfully aware, as she breathed deeply in and out, that her hair was in disarray from being outside in a fairly impressive breeze and her bonnet still hung limply over her arm. She knew without looking that Aunt Millicent was glaring daggers at her; she’d told Penny more than once to keep the bonnet on to protect the coiffure.
Penny subtly attempted to tuck the errant strands of hair behind her ears and refused to make eye contact with her aunt. Her brain still spun in confusion as to the presence of Their Graces and why on earth Real Henry looked nothing like Letter-Correspondence Henry. Life was cruel. They might have at least enjoyed some pleasant conversation at the autumn festival had he not looked so very... overwhelming. Now she would be fortunate to be able to string two sentences together. She focused on Persephone’s voice, which seemed as though it was reaching her at the end of a very long tunnel.
“. . . made arrangements to be here in time for both days of the autumn festival, isn’t that lovely?” Persephone grasped Penny’s fingers and clasped them tightly.
Penny managed to mumble something in the affirmative and look up, very much up, at the man standing at the hearth. His attention was focused solely on her face, a light smile playing on his lips. He blinked, then cleared his throat. “I must admit, the resemblance is remarkable. I wonder if even your relations have difficulty distinguishing between the two of you.”
Aunt Millicent laughed, and Penny looked at her, making a concerted effort to abstain from narrowing her eyes. “Oh mercy no, Your Grace. They are as different as night and day, these two. Well, you can surely see just in demeanor alone.”
Heat suffused Penny’s cheeks, and she straightened her shoulders, mortified that her aunt would be so dismissive in front of company.
Aunt Millicent waved a hand in their direction. “Persephone is beautifully accomplished in all domestic arts. Penelope feels more at home running around in the woods.” The woman’s smile was wide, but didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Penny wished more than ever that the house were situated over a sinkhole—not a large one, perhaps, maybe just one directly under her side of the settee. She happened to glance at the duchess, who regarded Penny with an assessing eye. Penny braced herself for a blast similar to the one lobbed by her aunt. Even the most veiled barb had the propensity for bloodletting.
“Miss Timely,” the duchess said. “I must admit you remind me of myself at your age. I much preferred fresh outdoor air to the confines of the parlor.” She smiled a bit, and the expression placed a stamp of beauty on features that hadn’t dimmed with age.
Penelope nodded, at a loss for words, finding her throat suddenly tight. It had been a very long time since anyone had attempted to alleviate her sense of embarrassment. Her mother had been the last. Penny glanced at the duke, who was looking at his mother with one brow raised. The duchess returned his regard with one brow of her own cocked.
“Penny is an amazing artist,” Persephone said, and Penny wanted very much to kick her. Persephone would have no way of knowing that Penny had told the duke on more than one occasion about her preferences in sketching and watercolor.
The duke tilted his head, his expression one of polite interest. “Oh, may we see your sketchbook, Miss Timely?”
Penny’s heart stuttered to a stop and then resumed with a ferocious thump. Her sketchbook was full of fossils and rock formations. “Oh, I couldn’t,” she stammered. “I... that is, rather my efforts are quite...”
“Show them your sketchbook, Penelope,” Aunt Millicent ordered.
Aunt Millicent clearly had no idea what Penny had been sketching for the last two years.
Penny glanced desperately at Persephone, whose eyes suddenly widened in awareness. “Oh, Aunt, you know how modest Penny is concerning her artwork. I never should have mentioned it; she is most humble about it.”
Penny clutched the sketchbook in her lap and wished for a sinkhole big enough to sink the whole settee this time.
Persephone, mercifully, changed the subject. “We are most thrilled you will be in attendance at the entire festival, Your Grace,” she directed to the duke. “And you will take part in the masquerade ball, of course?”
He inclined his head and gifted Persephone with a smile that made Penelope’s heart race. “I have it on good authority, in fact, that the ball will be held at Wilmington this year. I suppose it might be rather awkward for me to decline.”
Persephone laughed her perfect, delicate, duchess-appropriate laugh, and Penny died a bit. The entire affair was rapidly progressing from bad to worse. Not only would the man be at the masquerade ball, it was to be held in his home. His extremely large home. Where she would feel gauche and very much an impostor. Why was the ball not to be held in the village square, as always?
As though anticipating the question, the duchess said, “The local farmers are quite convinced we shall have inclement weather tomorrow night, and we cannot very well cancel such a grand event.”
“Of course not, Your Grace,” Aunt Millicent gushed. “And how wonderful and kind of you to open your home to the villagers.”
Penny rolled her eyes. As though Millicent wasn’t a villager herself. She felt the duke’s gaze on her and glanced at him, chagrined beyond words to have been caught. His lips twitched, but he remained quiet.
Persephone’s grip on Penny’s hand had tightened to an uncomfortable degree. “I do hope the bonfire and supper in the park will go ahead as planned the following night,” Persephone said. “It would be such a shame for rain to spoil the whole of it.”
“I suppose it remains to be seen.” The duke smiled again, and Penny felt a surge of fury at her sister, who had sucked her into a mess that was sure to leave Penny humiliated and brokenhearted. Perhaps the worst part of it all was the fear that she would no longer exchange letters with Henry—that either something she said or did in the next two days would ruin all prospects for future correspondence. And the crowning indignity of it all was that she was going to pretend to be Persephone. There was no way out of it now. She didn’t imagine in a million years that His Grace would look kindly upon being duped.
Chapter Three
Henry looked at the two young women seated side by side on the small settee and wondered how Miss Persephone Timely had convinced her twin to correspond with him in her stead. He had known there was something rather off about Persephone’s demeanor after the first ten minutes he and his mother had visited with her and the superficial aunt. Persephone wasn’t at all what Henry had imagined, not that he was disappointed in her appearance, quite the opposite, but she just wasn’t the same as the woman with whom he’d exchanged letters and bits and pieces of his soul. He decided she must simply be nervous, or putting on a show for her aunt, her behavior something the relative perhaps expected of her.
But then.
The front door had opened, and the breeze blew in a version of Persephone that quite took his breath away. For those few moments before she realized she wasn’t alone, she had a light in her eyes—almost like laughter—and a freshness about her that brightened the entire room. The smile on
her lips had died, faded in the face of her confusion, and he realized as he saw the shock in her eyes at Persephone’s introductions that he was looking at the woman he’d actually been writing to. It was all there in her slightly mussed attire, the fact that she’d been enjoying herself outside, the fact that her bonnet was looped over her arm rather than on her head. This was the one who had quite captured his heart with her intellect and dry wit, with her unusual interest in paleontology—and she had quite set his blood pumping with that delectable admission.
Twins. Of course. For a reason clearly unbeknownst to the aunt, Penelope had stepped in for Persephone when the duchess had written that blasted embarrassing letter requesting an introduction between her son and the paragon, Miss Timely. He had been beyond irritated with his mother when she’d handed him “Persephone’s” first letter and admitted her hand in the introduction, and he’d had every intention of tossing the thing into the fireplace. There was something, though, in the wit behind the letter writer that captured his interest. She couched her own amusement at the entire tableau with all the right words and phrases. The sarcasm, though veiled, registered with him immediately. He couldn’t help but respond.
The letters had increased in length and substance, and he’d desperately wanted to meet her in the flesh. More than once he’d forced himself to stay away from Ellshire, completely enthralled with the woman’s letters and not wanting to put a premature end to a correspondence that was not only enjoyable and funny, but heartfelt and real. Because they’d never met, she had no preconceived notions about him. She didn’t know what he looked like, nor he her, and he had made a point to not describe himself. Those very physical traits that had served him well with ladies of all sorts in his years at Eton and Oxford had become tiresome of late. The money, the title, his appearance. He was gushed at by debutantes and winked at by the ladies of the ton who were bored in their own marriages to wealth and titles. Persephone knew only that he was a duke, and had a rough idea of his age. And those things never came up in the course of their written conversations. Except he now knew, as surely as he was the Duke of Wilmington, that the woman he’d been sharing his heart with was Penelope, not Persephone.
Penny.
He tried the name in his mind and quite liked it, again taking in her windblown appearance and wanting very much to grasp her hand and yank her from the room, away from her mean-spirited aunt and well-meaning but superficial twin sister. He was grateful beyond words to his quick-thinking mother, who had rescued the young woman from the aunt’s cruel comments. Anyone who knew the duchess, however, would have known the act for what it was. He held back a snort. His mother? Enjoying the fresh air? He could no more see the duchess running through a meadow with a sketchbook in hand than he could see her on the moon. She had met his father at a horse race, however. Hmm. It merited some thought.
He took his eyes from Penelope with some effort and regarded Persephone, who was laughing merrily at something the duchess had said and carrying the conversation well. Her sister seemed too mortified to say more than a handful of words. His hands itched to grab Penny’s sketchbook and examine her drawings. He would bet his entire ancestral seat it was full of trilobites and seashells. His lips twitched, and he found his gaze straying to her face again. One of her dark blond curls escaped from behind her ear where she’d tucked it and framed her face, coming to rest just beneath her jaw line against her neck.
She looked at him—probably against her better judgment—and his heart quite stopped for a moment. He found her absolutely stunning. Persephone sat with her skirts perfectly draped, likely her feet and ankles placed together just so in proper formation on the floor. Penny’s knee bounced a bit, and her fingers clutched the sketchbook so firmly her knuckles were white. She placed her sketching pencil behind her ear, probably without even realizing she did so, and chewed on her bottom lip as her gaze skittered away from his and landed instead on her aunt, whose glacial stare was enough to make his insides shrivel a bit. It was with a surge of protective anger that he watched Penelope’s shoulders slump just the slightest bit, and she quickly removed the pencil from her ear.
When she was his duchess, he would stand behind her, with his hand on her shoulder, and he would lean down and whisper in her ear that she was twice the woman her aunt was and that she ought never to give the woman the satisfaction of seeing her wilt. He frowned. When she was his duchess? Where had that come from? He examined the thought from all angles and realized it didn’t matter. He had known in the back of his mind that he wanted this one woman when they were only three months into their correspondence, and he decided he would meet her at the Ellshire Village Autumn Festival. What he hadn’t expected, though, was that the woman of his affections was playing a bit of a game that had him rabidly curious.
He really should get her alone for a moment and tell her he knew what she and Persephone were doing. But then, he found himself more than a little intrigued—and not a little aroused—at the thought that she may well have determined to see the thing through to the end. That she was uncomfortable was clear to him. That she had the courage to pull the deception off, however, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. And as he looked again at Millicent Fanbecker, he was inordinately proud of his future wife. He barely resisted the impulse to rub his hands together.
Let the games begin.
Chapter Four
Penny walked along the bustling village street with Persephone, and regrettably, Aunt Millicent, the following day. She wore Persephone’s signature pink clothes, and tried very hard not to roll her eyes every time she caught her own reflection. The effort to be Persephone for the duration of their visit to town was weighing on her most ardently, and she threw a scowl at her sister from beneath her annoyingly pink bonnet.
Persephone was convinced she could feign a sore throat and slip into the small apothecary where Dr. Fitzroy kept his practice. She’d begun priming that particular pump earlier in the morning, telling Aunt Millicent—as Penelope—that she was feeling scratchy in the throat. Millicent had dismissed her with barely a glance and a suggestion to gargle some salt water when they returned from the village. She also expressed, through pursed lips, a concern for Persephone’s health, stating that if Penelope should make her sister ill, all prospects with His Grace might well be squashed. Penny didn’t understand why His Grace would lose interest in someone merely because said someone had a scratchy throat, but she kept this to herself.
The village bustled with significantly more excitement than usual. The autumn festival was upon the town, and anticipation hung heavy in the air. Vendors with carts full of gourds and pumpkins stood next to storefronts boasting sales of all sorts, ranging from ribbons, to gloves, to the most recent fabric from London. The village’s two small cafés were filled to capacity with townsfolk and visitors, and three stands next to the cafés sold roasted chestnuts and cups of chocolate, warm and lovely. The air smelled crisp and fresh, and Penny closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the cool breeze that carried delicious scents up and down the streets.
“Perhaps a cup of chocolate might soothe your throat, Penelope.” Penny gestured to the stands and nudged her sister. Hot chocolate would be just the thing to soothe her own irritation at having to wear pink.
“No sweets,” Millicent interjected from behind the two girls. “I do not want to pay the seamstress to take your seams out. Besides, Persephone, I’m surprised you would even suggest it, knowing that the next few days with His Grace are crucial! You mustn’t put on an ounce!”
Penny’s nostrils flared, and she clenched her teeth together to keep from saying something she’d regret. She glanced at Persephone, who regarded her with a scowl.
“No, I shall be fine without any chocolate.” Persephone slowed her steps and cast her eye across the street. “But I do wish to stop by the apothecary and see about some soothing drops. I should hate to share a sickness with you, dear sister. Aunt Millicent has the right of it. You really cannot afford to become ill.”
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br /> Penny glared at Persephone, but slowed her steps. She wanted to tell Persephone that she was going to ruin their charade before it had even begun; Penny never gave credit to anything Aunt Millicent said, and their aunt would likely notice the comment.
“Well!” Aunt Millicent slowed her steps, as well. “That is very astute of you, Penelope. You see, dear, even your sister realizes you must remain in good health.”
“I suppose we should cross the street, then, and visit the apothecary,” Penny said through tight lips.
Persephone looped her arm through Penny’s. “An excellent idea.”
The threesome crossed the street, and Penny wondered how Persephone planned to have any sort of meaningful conversation with Dr. Fitzroy when not only was she pretending to be someone other than herself, but with her draconian aunt standing watch.
Her answer came soon enough as they neared the shop and Aunt Millicent pulled back on Penny’s arm. “You needn’t accompany her in there, Persephone. In fact, we probably ought to limit your close association with Penelope for the time being. We don’t want her illness spreading. It’s bad enough that you must ride in the same coach together.” Millicent frowned and motioned at Persephone with her chin. “Go in, then. We shall wait here.”
Persephone scampered into the shop with more energy than someone ill probably ought. Penny looked at her aunt for a long moment, surprised that she was surprised. “But she’s alone, Aunt, and unchaperoned. It’s not at all proper. What of her reputation?”
Millicent waved a hand in the air. “Honestly, Persephone, do you truly believe your sister’s reputation is at stake? We needn’t worry she would speak overlong or intimately with anyone; the girl is entirely too much like your dead father.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “He never did carry on a normal conversation, either.”
Timeless Regency Collection: Autumn Masquerade Page 19
