by Rose Lerner
“Well, it’s wasted now. Unless you want to lick it off?” She spoke sarcastically, as if she were proposing an obviously implausible alternative.
“Of course I want to lick it off. But I said I wouldn’t touch you till we knew each other better, and-”
Penelope looked at him in perplexity, then laughed. “A few weeks of celibacy, and this is what men descend to!”
“It’s not that,” Nev told her with sudden conviction. “It’s you. You’re driving me mad. Just watching you eat breakfast is enough to make me want to-”
“Really?” A mischievous light came into Penelope’s eyes, and she raised her honey-spattered fingers to her mouth. She sucked lightly on her index finger, then withdrew it, letting her mouth drag open. Then she licked a drop of honey off her lip.
She was teasing him, he realized-to her, this was no different than the tickling or the fighting over that absurd list. It was only a game. She felt nothing.
Nev ’s eyes narrowed. He was fairly sure he could do something about that.
He rose from his seat and bent over her, one hand flat on the table. Grasping her wrist, he pulled her honeyed hand toward him; she only resisted for a moment. He took the same finger into his mouth and sucked it gently. Penelope’s eyes widened. He slowly pulled the finger in and out of his mouth and watched her eyes glaze over. He moved on to the next finger, and the next. Then he kissed her.
She gave a startled gasp and let him. He began gently, coaxingly, and she melted like honey, her mouth soft and pliant beneath his. He nipped at her lower lip, and when he teased with his tongue her mouth opened under his. She did not know what to do, that was clear, but she followed his lead willingly enough, sending her tongue forth to touch his lightly.
Nev was disarmed by the utter honesty of her response. She had never done this before; she wasn’t letting him kiss her because she wanted anything from him. She was his, his to teach. She had never known passion, he was sure of it. Nev could scarcely wait to show it to her.
His hand still around her wrist, he drew her out of her seat and set her on the edge of the table, the teapot and the rolls forgotten beside her. When he stepped between her legs, she murmured a little in satisfaction, and he felt it everywhere.
He pulled her closer, pressing his erection against her heat. There were too damn many layers of black fabric in the way, but he ran his hands up along the bones of her corset and closed one hand over her breast. She sighed and relaxed as though she had been waiting for it-but only for a moment. When he brushed a thumb over her nipple, she tensed like a bowstring. He drew back to watch her. She kept her eyes closed, but her whole body was waiting-it was as if she were listening very carefully for the opening strains of an overture. Her face was flushed, and her hair was coming down, and she seemed aware of nothing but his hands. He drew a finger across her nipple again, watching, mesmerized, as her breath came faster. She made no sound-it was as if she did not know how to react to pleasure. He squeezed her breast, and she shifted restlessly. Nev groaned in pleasure and frustration at the friction against his cock.
She shivered at the sound, pressing up against him. Nev pushed back, and she opened her thighs wider and took a shuddering breath-
“I’m just up from town, Nate. I told Hathick there was no need to announce me, I-oh!”
He turned around, sure this was all a horrid dream, but it wasn’t. His mother was standing there, immaculate, her golden hair piled on her head.
He stepped frantically in front of Penelope. “God damn it, Mother, do you never knock?”
“Nate! Such language! You ought to know better how to behave to a lady! I saw no need to knock. I am sure it never occurred to me that you would be mauling your wife at breakfast as if she were a common trollop.” His mother sniffed, and for one furious, unfilial moment Nev would have liked to break her neck.
Penelope was tugging her skirts into place, bright red all over. Her eyes were open and full of horror.
“Go and wait in the parlor, Mother. I’ll be out in a moment.”
“You’re going to make your mother wait in the parlor?” Lady Bedlow asked. “I’ve had nothing to eat, and-”
“Go,” Nev said, with a firmness that surprised him. It surprised him even more when his mother actually left the room in a huff.
He turned. Penelope had mostly righted her clothes, and her hair was back in place, but she looked utterly wretched. His mother was right; he had no notion of how to behave to a lady. He had let his desire overcome what little sense he had, and he had exposed Penelope to ridicule. Of course one could not treat one’s wife as one might treat one’s mistress. No matter how enticing she was or how much honey she spilled on her fingers.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I should have been more careful.”
She shook her head. “I ought not to have allowed it, I know that very well. I suppose she is right. I am common at heart. I must be.”
“You are uncommon generous. She shouldn’t have said that. I really am sorry-this hasn’t been a good time for her.” Lady Bedlow had never stood up well to strain. When seven-year-old Nev had broken his nose falling out of a tree and, frightened by the amount of blood, had gone crying to his mother, she’d fainted dead away. You couldn’t blame her; she couldn’t help it. It had been Lord Bedlow who had stanched the bleeding and called the doctor, he remembered; and who had told him, not unkindly, that a gentleman didn’t cry, no matter how bad the pain. For a moment he missed his father.
Penelope’s eyes filled with sympathy. Thinking of someone else seemed to ease her discomfort. She smoothed her skirts, straightened, looked competent and reassuring again. Penelope, Nev thought, was naturally responsible. “Of course it hasn’t, poor lady. I promise you, I shan’t regard it in the least. Go on.” She smiled. “And please, tell her anything she wishes to take to the Dower House is hers.”
“You’re too good to me,” Nev said, and meant it.
She looked down and blushed. She was so easy to please. Nev wished his mother at Jericho.
“You can’t talk to Penelope that way, Mama,” he said.
“Oh, I see how it is. Just because she is willing to allow you liberties that any self-respecting young lady would scorn, you’ll take her side against your own mother!”
“If being kissed by her husband is a liberty any self-respecting young lady would scorn, I am glad Penelope is a Cit!”
“At the breakfast table, Nate? Where do you get it from? Your father would never have dreamed of doing such a thing!”
He would never have dreamed of doing such a thing with you, Nev thought. “Penelope has done us all a very great favor, Mama. I wish you could be civil to her.”
“Oh, civil I shall certainly be-I would not dream of stooping to her level with vulgar scenes and catty remarks,” Lady Bedlow said, with a sort of unhealthy agitation. “But you cannot expect me to be grateful that she is lording it over me, in my home, turning my son against me, using my breakfast parlor as if it were a brothel-” Her face was white. Nev looked closer and saw the dark circles under her eyes.
“Come here, Mama,” he said gently, and held out an arm.
She flew to him, with a muffled, “Oh, Nate! It’s been so dreadful-”
He stroked her hair. “I know, Mama. I know you didn’t mean it.” And for the moment he believed it.
Nine
Penelope watched in disbelief as the dowager Lady Bedlow’s servants carted away a sofa, an ormolu clock, a painting of two shepherdesses, a small table, and-well, most of the other furniture Penelope remembered seeing in the parlor. The morning room and the master bedrooms had already been despoiled the night before.
“How much furniture can she fit in the Dower House?” Nev asked, bemused. “I’ve been there, and it’s just not that big.”
Penelope couldn’t help laughing. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything she wishes to take. Were you fond of those things?”
“Not particularly. But we can’t afford to replace any
of them, can we?”
“No, but we can’t afford to entertain either, so who’s to know?”
Nev grinned. “It’s clear you’ve never lived in the country. The servants will tell everyone in the neighborhood by tonight.”
Penelope felt a slight pang. She so wanted to make a good impression in the neighborhood. On the other hand, she reminded herself, people would hardly like her more for a show of vulgar wealth. “If those things make her happy, I don’t mind. I’ve never liked Fragonard, anyway.”
“Who?”
Penelope felt another, greater pang. Her mother would have recognized the name. So would Edward. “The man who painted those shepherdesses. I’ve always preferred Boucher.” She realized he wouldn’t recognize that name either, and flushed.
“What are you doing today?” he asked.
“I’m going to visit the laborers.” Penelope tried not to sound as nervous as she felt. “Isn’t the lady of the manor supposed to do that? They always do in books.”
Nev looked uneasy. “I suppose so-who are you taking with you?”
Penelope did not quite like the idea of venturing into those rough cottages. She couldn’t shake the image of the lean, grim men in the fields. She had told herself not to be fanciful, that none of them would dare lay a finger on Lady Bedlow, but at Nev ’s evident concern her fears flooded back. “I thought I might take one of the grooms, to drive the cart.”
“Take Jack.”
She nodded. “Is there anything I should take with me, do you think? Or would that seem like charity and offend people?”
“I don’t know. Shall we send to my mother and ask her?”
Penelope hesitated. In a moment, she knew, she would say yes, because it was the sensible thing to do. But a tiny, foolish part of her did not want Lady Bedlow to know how unequipped Penelope was to be a countess.
“Here, how’s this? We won’t take anything with us this time, but we’ll note what people need and go back in a few days. That is-would you like me to go with you?”
She looked up, unable to keep the relief off her face. “Yes, but not if you have other things to attend to.”
“Nothing that can’t wait.” His slight hesitation told her he hadn’t had any plans at all.
Penelope realized quickly enough that even if she had filled every corner of the cart with food, it would not have made up what these people lacked. The cottages were tiny, ramshackle, and threadbare. A straw pallet, a kettle, and perhaps a table with a chair or two were the usual furnishings; fuel for a fire at which to boil the kettle was a rare luxury.
Some of the laborers seemed embarrassed by their poverty; others sat with an air of grim satisfaction, seeming to say, Look, and see how I live! Penelope did not know what to say or what to ask; she tried not to look too obviously at the privation. Nev seemed able to make polite conversation-to ask about children and histories and employment, and get, sometimes, something more than respectful monosyllables. Penelope tried to at least commit names to memory, but each lean, prematurely weathered face seemed to blend into the next.
One, however, stood out: Aggie Cusher. She was a young woman, even rather pretty, despite straggly blonde hair, a lined face, and a few missing teeth. She wore a bright satin ribbon in her hair, and it looked as out of place in that cottage as a golden saltcellar would have. A skinny blonde girl of eight or nine, in a dress several sizes too small for her, pounded oats at the table; an unhealthy-looking child, perhaps two-and-a-half years old, played in the corner.
“Welcome, my lady, my lord, Mrs. Joe Cusher at your service-that is, I’m Agnes,” the young woman said softly enough, and bobbed a curtsy, but there was an indefinable air of hostility about her.
“What a lovely ribbon,” Penelope offered.
“Thank you.” Agnes almost smiled, glancing at the little girl.
The girl paused in her pounding. “I gave it to her. I earned the money myself.”
“I’m sure your mother is very proud of your hard work.” To Penelope’s surprise, a shadow passed across Agnes’s face at these unexceptionable words.
“I work for Mr. Kedge,” the little girl said.
“And does Joe work for Mr. Kedge too?” Penelope asked. It was a rhetorical question, to fill the strangely awkward silence; they were on land leased to Tom Kedge.
“He did.” Agnes’s gaze flicked to Nev for a moment.
“Oh, I’m sorry-are you a widow?” Penelope asked.
“Joe ain’t dead,” Agnes flashed.
The boy in the corner looked up. “Papa went to ’Stralia,” he said, very clearly.
I should have seen that coming, Penelope thought, angry with herself. “Do you do all right on your own?” It was a foolish question. Agnes was alive, but for any other definition of “all right” she very clearly wasn’t. And there was no answer that wasn’t humiliating.
Nev went into the corner and sat down across from the sallow little boy. He pulled something from his pocket and spoke to him in a low tone. Penelope forced herself not to strain to hear what he was saying and listen to Agnes.
“I do all right,” Agnes said. “I have help from friends in the village. My brother sends me money from America when he can, and my daughter, Josie-” Tears glimmered in Agnes’s eyes. “I’d like to keep her at home”-Josie rolled her eyes-“but we used to spin for the woolen manufacturers in Norwich, and since the mill opened up there’s no more of that work.”
“Are you able to get help from the parish?” Penelope asked.
Agnes’s face twisted. “No, my lady. I’ve lived here ten years, but Mr. Snively says I haven’t got a settlement. Mr. Snively says I’d have to go home to Harwich and go on the parish there.”
“We’d have a settlement if you married Aaron,” Josie said.
Agnes turned bright red. “Don’t make me slap you, Josie Cusher! I’m already married to your father, in case you’d forgotten.”
“Aaron-” the little girl began to insist.
“Does Mr. Snively decide who gets poor relief?” Penelope broke in.
Agnes looked at once relieved and disgusted. “He’s the head of the Poor Authority, isn’t he?”
Penelope’s eyebrows rose. Mr. Snively hadn’t mentioned that. “I’m sorry. I’m new here, and there are a lot of things I don’t know. I hope you will be patient with me. I mean to help you and the other people here, if I can.”
Agnes’s gaze dwelt almost insultingly on Penelope’s fine clothes and smooth hands. Penelope’s gown was plain, but it was neat and clean and new. Agnes’s dress was none of those things; it was ragged and threadbare and dirty-not even patched, because the fabric was too thin to hold stitches.
“If you wished to go to Harwich, I daresay we could pay your coach fare,” Penelope tried.
“How would Joe find me then?”
“Couldn’t you write to him?”
Agnes looked almost pitying. “I don’t know how to write.”
“I could write it for you,” Penelope offered.
Agnes sighed. “Thank you, but I wouldn’t know where to send it-he don’t have a proper address, like.” She paused. “’Tisn’t like for you, your ladyship. Joe and I don’t write to each other. Joe did send me word once or twice, at the beginning-but he had to pay someone to have it writ, and then he’d to pay to send it, and then I’d to pay to get it and find someone who could read it back to me. A year ago, a letter came, and I hadn’t the sixpence to pay the postage.”
Penelope’s eyes widened. “But-”
Agnes shrugged, hard-faced, but Penelope saw real grief in her eyes. “The baby was sick.”
Penelope wanted to ask more, to clamor Wasn’t there anything you could have done? The thought of the unclaimed letter filled her with-it wasn’t quite frustration, and it wasn’t quite anger. It was more like a restless need to do something. Penelope had always believed that if you put your mind to it, worked hard, and didn’t whine, there was no reason you shouldn’t solve nearly any problem. She was beginning to r
ealize that she had never had such huge, hopeless problems as this woman.
There was an unexpected sound in the tiny cottage-the little boy giggled. “Do it again!”
Nev reached forward and pulled a shining sixpence from behind the boy’s ear. He clapped and reached for it, but Nev twirled his hand and it disappeared. Penelope’s heart sank-but she had misjudged Nev. “Look in your pocket,” he said.
The boy did-and there was the sixpence! His eyes went round-and then he closed his fist on it, and put it behind his back. “It’s gone,” he said, slyly.
“Kit, give Lord Bedlow back his sixpence,” Agnes said in a low voice.
Nev looked startled. “He can keep it.”
“I couldn’t-” Agnes stopped herself. “Thank you.” Penelope had always supposed that pride was the one thing that could not be taken from you; now she saw she had been wrong. “Say thank you, Kit,” Agnes said, almost desperately.
But Kit could not say thank you. He could only stare at his fist, and then at Nev. Josie too was staring. Nev shifted awkwardly.
As she and Nev were leaving, Penelope heard Agnes say, with a catch in her voice, “Tomorrow we’ll go into town and buy some real bread. Would you like that?”
“Can we buy some bacon too?” Kit asked.
“Not this time, sweetheart.”
Penelope thought of her own generous helping of bacon at breakfast that morning. Nev must have been thinking the same thing. “Tell Cook to send them some bacon.”
“Can we?” Penelope wanted to, but-“It wouldn’t be fair, unless we sent them all bacon.” She did not know how to talk about Agnes’s indefinable anger. Would a gift of food trample the woman’s pride too far?
“Then we’ll send them all bacon.”
“But we can’t afford it. Not until New Year’s, at least.”
“It seems ridiculous to say we can’t afford something, after seeing that home,” Nev said stubbornly. “We’ll stop eating bacon ourselves and send them that-”
She was touched-she hated being the parsimonious, logical one. But her accountant’s mind could do no other. “ Nev, we’re two people; we don’t eat much bacon to begin with. And the servants eat what we leave. If we don’t eat bacon, they can’t eat bacon. There must be other things we ought to spend the money on first. I don’t know-plows, or something.”
