“Henry.” He said it firmly, softly, his eyes locked onto hers and holding her there.
“Henry.” She blinked against the sting of tears she would rather die than shed.
“You’re shivering. It’s cold out here. Come with me, Persephone.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her along the terrace to the end, and she stumbled along beside him.
She noted belatedly that while the terrace was indeed well lit, there were no well-placed chaperones in evidence anywhere. There wasn’t anybody out there at all, in fact. Henry paused at the top of the stairs at the end of the terrace and looked at her, one brow raised.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course.” And she did.
He led her down the stairs and around the side of the house, down a path to one of three glassed-in gazebos that each flickered with soft light from small stoves and candles within. “We won’t stay away long,” he told her as they climbed the steps of the farthest gazebo from the house. “You’ll be ruined, and we can’t have that.”
“My aunt would be thrilled,” she muttered as she moved closer to the wood-burning stove, extending her hands and reveling in the warmth.
“I can’t imagine your aunt would want you ruined.”
She heard the smile in his voice even as she shook her head. “My aunt would be so happy to have me off of her hands. She now has it in her head to marry me off to the village doctor.”
He was silent for a moment. She looked at him and realized her mistake. Her aunt wanted Penelope to marry the village doctor, not Persephone.
She exhaled. “That is, well, she just...” Penelope rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes, hating that she’d ever agreed to write that stupid letter for Persephone in the first place. The charade was tumbling about her, and fast.
She turned at the feel of his hand on her elbow, and he gestured to a bench seated close to the stove. She sank onto the soft cushion and sighed.
He sat next to her, one ankle propped atop the other knee, and regarded her carefully. “Let me understand this. Your aunt wants Penelope to marry the village doctor.”
“Yes.” She swallowed. “What did I say?”
Henry shook his head. “When did this come about? Has it been long in the planning?”
Penny shook her head and looked down at the black mask she still held in her hands. Her pink mask now rested atop one very well-muscled thigh, and she swallowed, feeling suddenly very warm. “Tonight, on the way here to the ball, in fact, she encouraged Penelope to set her cap for Doctor Fitzroy. She would then feel absolved of her responsibility to my mother if we both married. She despairs of Penelope ever making a match with anyone, regardless of trade or station, and she hit upon the idea just before we arrived here tonight.”
“And how does Penelope view the matter? Does she fancy the good doctor?”
Penny thought of Persephone’s love and affection for Gilroy, and the ghost of a smile played around her lips. “She does. Very much.” Penny swallowed and turned her attention to the small fire in the stove. “My aunt is hopeful, of course, that Pers—”—she bit off a curse—“that I make a good match. A splendid match. Truly, Henry, we ought not to be out here long by ourselves. If she notices I’m gone, she will allow a certain amount of time to conveniently lapse and then launch a search for me in hopes of finding me in just such a situation. You would be forced to do the honorable thing, and I would rather face her wrath eternally than to see you coerced into a marriage you do not desire.”
“And if I do desire it?”
His husky voice drew shivers down her spine, and she tore her gaze from the captivating flames to the light and shadows they cast on his handsome face. He wasn’t grinning; there was no amusement anywhere, either on his features or in his demeanor. He placed his arm across the back of the bench and leaned toward her, his leg brushing against hers. “Perhaps you should let me decide for myself.”
“Well, that’s just the thing—you wouldn’t be deciding. You’d be forced, and besides,” she looked away again, cursing the burning sensation she felt in her eyes, “there are things you don’t know about me, I haven’t been completely—”
He placed his fingers on the back of her neck, his thumb rubbing slowly across her skin. “What’s in a name?” he whispered, and she strained to hear it.
Confused, she wrinkled her brow and opened her mouth to respond when his lips found hers, effectively silencing anything she might have said and driving every sane thought from her head. He slid his other hand to her side and then around her back, gently pulling her closer until she was pressed tightly against him. With a sigh, she tentatively reached her hands to the hair at his collar and tangled her fingers in the thick, black strands. He groaned and deepened the kiss, tracing his tongue subtly across her lower lip before trailing his mouth along her jaw to a sensitive spot on the side of her neck, just below her ear.
She was on fire, every nerve ending, every cell. “Henry,” she whispered, cradling his head in her hands. “I must tell you, I must...”
Henry found his way back to her mouth again and kissed her repeatedly, thoroughly, driving her to a pitch she had never known existed. He finally pulled his mouth slowly from hers and framed her head in his hands, his forehead resting on hers, breathless. Penny exhaled softly, caught on a tide of sensation and emotion that had her seeing stars.
Cold reality intruded when she heard laughter outside, and voices approaching from the direction of the house. She froze, and Henry pulled back, looking into her eyes. “I cannot pretend I’m not tempted,” he said.
“To what?” She stared at him, confused.
“To get caught with you here, like this.”
Her breath snagged in her throat, and she stared at him, horrified to realize that nothing would make her happier. “Henry, I—”
He shook his head. “I won’t enter into this by ruining your good name.” He looked at her intently, and something hovered at the back of her mind, something she was certain her muddled brain wasn’t comprehending. “We will do this properly. I’ll come to your house tomorrow and inform your uncle that I intend to court you.”
He stood and pulled her up with him. He must have assumed, however, that she could walk. She felt absolutely boneless after his sensual assault, and she found herself slightly vexed that he seemed able to function perfectly well while she was two steps from falling on her face. He tugged her along behind him, slipping down the steps, out of the gazebo, and around behind the back. As the small group of people progressed past the first two gazebos, Henry pulled her quickly to his side and wrapped his arm around her waist. He ran with her from one gazebo to the next, shielding her and pausing to look around the corner before finally grasping her hand and running for the mansion.
Rather than heading straight for the steps, however, he veered off to the side and pulled her into the garden, where the trees, while having lost most of their leaves, still provided temporary shelter from prying eyes. He spun her around and fitted the mask to her face, tying it carefully and then patting rather ineffectually at the back of her head.
“I’m afraid I may have dislodged a couple of pins,” he murmured, and she heard the amusement in his voice.
She laughed softly, torn somewhere between delight that he wanted to be with her, to make something more out of their friendship, and despair that it would all soon come crashing down when he realized she was a liar. She’d tried to tell him, more than once. And now, when she searched one last time for her voice, her words caught in her throat at the feel of his lips along the side of her neck. He pulled her shoulders toward him, her back against the solid plane of his chest, and she closed her eyes. He wrapped his arm around her waist when she sagged against him, and she shivered as his breath fanned against her skin.
“Go,” he finally murmured. “Go back inside. I’ll return in a few minutes. If we do not have another chance to talk before you leave, then know I will come for y
ou tomorrow. Will you be there?”
She nodded, tears stinging in her eyes, and this time she was unable to keep them from falling. First one and then another escaped and trickled along her cheek beneath the mask. Before he might notice, she pulled from his embrace and ran for the shelter of the house, cursing herself for ten times a fool and wishing more than anything she could avoid seeing his face when she finally found the courage to tell him the truth.
Chapter Eight
Henry leaned a shoulder against the tree and watched Penny run for the house. He cursed himself up one side and down the other for not just letting her tell him what he knew she had to say. He hadn’t wanted her worries or fears about what he might think to intrude on the moment. He’d wanted to show her that his affections for her were real, that it didn’t matter if her name was Persephone or Penelope, that whatever reason she’d begun the correspondence as her sister must have warranted the subtle deception.
He cursed and exhaled, willing his ardor to cool enough that he might reenter the ballroom without looking like a teenage boy flushed from his first burlesque show. By the end of their conversation in the gazebo, he’d begun losing track of which sister they were actually discussing. When she mentioned that Penelope had tender feelings for the village doctor—Fitzgibbons? Fitzhugh? Fitzcad?—his heart had pounded in his ears, and he’d felt a mad surge of jealousy over a man he’d never met. But was she speaking of her own affections or Persephone’s?
It was all confusing, and he’d allowed his emotions free rein, very nearly ruining her in the process. It would have been so much easier, of course, to do as he’d said and let them just be discovered together alone. Problem solved, special license obtained, married within a week.
But if Penny was in love with someone else, if her affections were truly engaged with another, he was going to have to find the integrity to let her go. He shook his head as he finally made his way back to the house. Integrity suddenly seemed very overrated. He reached the doors leading to the ballroom and stood there for a moment, searching for a magenta dress and dark golden curls that had been slightly mussed. He bit back a satisfied grin as he remembered her response to his less-than-subtle attack on her mouth. The grin faded and was replaced with a grim determination that when it came to Penelope Timely, he wasn’t going to roll over without a fight. Her feelings for him, her genuine friendship with him that had risen from their letters and taken on a life of their own—they meant something. He could search all of England and well into the continent and never find another woman who was enamored of old fish remains and geologic formations.
His eyes continued a restless sweep of the crowded room, and he finally found her, standing with her twin and leaning forward to listen to a handsome young man who hovered close to the two women. A wave of jealousy washed over him as Penny laughed at something the man said, and he clenched his teeth together so tightly his jaw hurt. The vicar walked by Henry with a plate full of food, and Henry caught his attention.
“Who is that young man over there with the Timely twins?”
The vicar laughed as he popped a cheese ball into his mouth. “Masquerade ball, Wilmington. You’re not supposed to know who anyone is until midnight.”
Henry stared flatly at the man and refrained from snapping that it was almost a certainty everyone in that room knew everyone else, mask or no.
“That’s the Ellshire village doctor, Gilroy Fitzroy. Handsome lad, fresh out of university. Lucky to have him here—he’s already delivered three babies and cured a few fevers. Even rescued my grandson’s puppy from the river last week.”
Of course he had. The man delivered babies and rescued puppies. What kind of name was Gilroy Fitzroy, anyway? Parents must not have liked him much to have saddled him with that rhyming monstrosity. He took cold comfort in that thought as Penny smiled again at the doctor, and Henry felt it like a punch in his gut. His mind cast back on the conversation in the gazebo, uselessly trying to remember her exact phrasing. Either Penny or Persephone definitely had feelings for the paragon puppy savior, that much had been abundantly clear. He wondered if he could scare the physician away from Penelope by alerting him privately to her affection for dead sea creatures.
Disgusted with himself for being so petty, he leaned his shoulder against a pillar and observed the crowd as they counted down the minutes until midnight and then removed their masks with much cheering and laughter. His gaze found Penny’s face once again, and he took immense satisfaction that her eyes were focused entirely on him, not on Fitzroy. Henry gave her a salute, his mouth quirking at her resulting blush. He hoped she was remembering every last moment of their episode in the gazebo.
There was one thing he knew for certain, the duke and the doctor were likely to come to blows.
Penny tore down the hallway after her sister and yanked the bedroom door open when Persephone slammed it in her face. “Have you completely lost your senses?” Penny hissed as she looked with growing horror at Persephone’s resolute face. “You cannot go to Gretna Green with Gilroy!”
“I am, Penny, and nobody will stop me.” Persephone pulled a dress from her wardrobe and laid it out on the bed, tapping her lip.
Penny groaned. “Please do not tell me you are making a Plan.”
“Of course I am.” Persephone paused in her Planning to throw a dark look at Penny. “Do not even consider telling anyone about this, Penny, or I shall... I shall... I shall tell Aunt Millicent it was your idea to write to His Grace in my stead and that you forced me to comply!”
“Uh!” Penny gasped at her sister in outrage. “That is just villainous, Persephone! And you cannot go, please. I need you here today. His Grace plans to inform Uncle Horace of his intention to court me—you.”
Persephone looked at Penny with an assessing glance that raised the hairs on Penny’s arms. “It seems to me, then, that I had best be on my way. You will continue to be me, and I will elope with Gilroy as you. I am leaving her a note she won’t find until she readies for bed tonight. Nobody will be the wiser until it’s too late, and until then, Millicent won’t care one whit that you’ve disappeared.”
Penny winced. “That is cruel, you know.”
Persephone’s gaze softened for a quick moment, but it was gone before Penny was certain she’d even seen it. “She’s a ridiculous woman, Penny, and we both know it. I’ve not been a good sister to you at all since Mama died, and I believe the best thing I can do for you is leave. Today.”
“Persephone.” Penny’s panic grew, and she plunked herself down on her sister’s bed, feeling more like the dramatic twin since, well, ever. “He will not want me when he learns what I’ve done.” Her eyes burned with tears yet again, and it made her angry. “Our whole relationship is based on a lie!”
Persephone studied her carefully as she folded an armful of undergarments and placed them into an open trunk at the foot of the bed. “Did you write to him in my voice? That is, did you say things you knew I would say, write about the things in which I have an interest?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Did you tell him you were the older of two twins, that we live with an irascible aunt who loves you the most because you’re accomplished in the domestic arts and your sister can never measure up against you?”
“No, but I—”
“So, you wrote as yourself and did not pretend to be me other than signing my name at the bottom of your letters.”
Penny paused. “Yes, however—”
Persephone plunked her hands down in the middle of the heap of frothy unmentionables and stockings. “Then what could possibly be the problem? Aunt Millicent? Do you believe she’ll prevent your association with His Grace? Lock you in the attic? Have you shanghaied or shipped off to the colonies? Penny, I am going to marry Gilroy, and you are going to marry your duke, and she will have nothing to say in the matter.”
Penny stared at her suddenly practical sister. “Then why are you eloping?”
Persephone shot her a wry glance and folde
d a blouse. “Do you honestly think she’ll willingly allow me to marry Gilroy? Of course not. That is why I must do it this way. By the time she screeches her objections, the deed will be done and it will be too late.”
Penny frowned. “Be certain you consummate it, then. She’ll probably insist on an annulment and demand proof.”
Persephone gaped at Penny before tipping her head back in laughter. “Penny, how wicked you are!” she said when she finally caught her breath. She set her clothing down and crossed to the other side of the bed. Her laughter still playing on her face, she reached down and put her arms around Penny. “I do love you, Pen. More than anything. And Millicent is an absolute beast.”
Penny returned the embrace, closing her eyes until Persephone finally released her and straightened. “Now then, I must go in the next twenty minutes. Millicent will return from the milliner’s in less than an hour, and I cannot be here. I need you to wear one of my dresses and pretend to be me one last time. It will serve you just as well when His Grace comes over to declare his intentions.”
Penny smiled sadly at her sister. “At least one of us will be happy. I’m afraid to admit I don’t know His Grace well enough to predict his reaction.”
“You didn’t lie to him about who you are at your core, Penny.” Persephone smiled at her fondly before whirling around and pulling a pink dress from her wardrobe. “Here, wear this one. And for heaven’s sake, fix your hair.”
Millicent gaped at Penny, her eyes shining. “He is speaking with your uncle, Persephone! I knew you could do it! You are going to be a duchess, my girl, and we shall take the ton by storm.”
Penny bared her teeth in what she hoped resembled a smile. Persephone had been gone for nearly two hours and should reach the border and cross into Gretna Green by nightfall. All Penny had to do was maintain the charade long enough to give her sister the time she needed to marry her love. And then consummate that love. Penny held back a snicker and smiled with narrowed eyes at her aunt instead. If it weren’t for her own impending misery, she’d have relished the apoplexy Millicent would soon be experiencing.
Timeless Regency Collection: Autumn Masquerade Page 22
