by Rose Lerner
Penelope could tell him. Perhaps-perhaps he felt the same way. Perhaps she could be happy. He liked her, he cared about her, he’d told her again and again how much-
But she couldn’t even think it without a sense of impending horror so strong she could not get round it. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t let herself believe that he might return her feelings. What if she were wrong?
Knowing that she burned for him while he thought her a very nice girl was bad enough. But if he knew it and pitied her and tried to be kind-and if he knew, moreover, that she had hoped-
She had to compromise. She would stay and see him every day and never tell him how she felt.
But she knew that she couldn’t do that either. She couldn’t compromise on this. Always before she had been in control of herself, the one thing she could have mastery over, and now she was come to the end of that control.
Nausea washed over her again in dizzying waves. She needed time. Time to think, time to come to terms with herself. Time to hide, she told herself scornfully. And, What of it? she snapped right back. Her head felt like it was inside out; she just needed a little time-
Nev opened the door between their rooms. She turned, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She had never felt more unglamorous. He looked fresh and rumpled and happy and handsome beyond bearing, and she could not speak.
“Have a head, do you? You didn’t drink much, it shouldn’t be too bad. After you’ve drunk some tea and had breakfast, you’ll feel right as rain.”
The thought of breakfast made her gorge rise; he must have seen it, because he came forward and brushed her hair back from her face. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch.
“I know it sounds all wrong,” he said, and she thought how very dear his voice was, how it was the first thing she had loved, without knowing it, “but bacon and eggs are just the thing when you feel rotten the morning after drinking.”
Breakfast with Nev. She remembered him licking honey off her fingers, and tears stung her eyes. She felt so sick, and she just wanted to lie down and have Nev read to her. Sing to her, maybe.
“What’s wrong, sweet?”
If she went down to breakfast with him she would stay. “I’m going home.” As soon as she blurted it out, she was choked with longing. Her mother might not understand, but she would hold her, she would stroke her hair, she would love her. And Penelope could lie in her familiar bed and eat familiar English food and feel safe.
There was a moment’s pause; then Nev said, as though he must have misheard her, “What?”
“I need some time to think. We both do-Nev, you know things have been awful. And I’m the one who got all your people arrested, it’ll be easier without me. I’ll go stay with my parents for a while. I can’t think here, Nev, everyone hates me-” Oh, God, she sounded like a child. She sounded pathetic and she wanted to slap herself. But it was the truth.
“I don’t hate you!”
She turned her face away.
“Surely this isn’t necessary. Tell me what’s wrong. Surely we can compromise-”
She flinched. “No,” she said. “No. I’ve been compromising all my life.”
“I just-I don’t understand. Last night-” He didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence.
Last night I made it plain to the entire neighborhood that I worship you passionately? Is that what you were going to say? she wanted to shout, humiliated. Instead she said, “I’m very sorry for my behavior last night. I know I must have embarrassed you sorely.”
“Penelope, what is going on? What happened? Are you really serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious!” she said angrily. “Why is it so hard to believe?” She knew the reason was her own foolish behavior. She couldn’t meet his eyes. She couldn’t even look at him, not when his disbelief and hurt were plain in his voice. Take it back, a voice whispered. Apologize. You’re being selfish and foolish and all kinds of irrational. But she wanted to be selfish, damn it. She wanted to do what was right for her, just this once. “I can’t stay, Nev. I need to think. I’ll just go home, for a while, and then we’ll see. We’ll talk. Whatever happens, I’ll make sure you keep the money, I promise-”
“Hang the money! This is your home!”
She stared. He stalked toward her, looking as if he would grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Backing hastily away, she trod on a wilted chrysanthemum. The smell made her gag.
“Just tell me one thing. Last night, if I had let you tell me how you felt, is this what you would have said?”
God, his eyes were blue.
“Are you telling me that-that was a goddamned goodbye present?”
She was against the wall now, trapped. She couldn’t let me believe that, but-
The door opened and a white-faced Lady Bedlow flew in. “Louisa’s eloped!” She took in the scene. “Penelope, dear, what on earth are you wearing?”
And so, for the second time in twelve hours, Nev found himself making the carriage ride to Greygloss. But this time, Louisa wasn’t with them. How had everything gone so terribly wrong? It was worse, even, than those two weeks after his father had died, before he had proposed to Penelope. Then there had been hours of books and faulty arithmetic and a faint, persistent grief; now there was a jagged hole inside him. He had thought he had fixed everything. He had thought that with Penelope by his side, everything might come out all right in the end. Just last night, it had seemed as if, maybe, everything was all right.
But he had fixed nothing at all. Instead, he had failed in every way imaginable. His sister was gone. His best friend was gone. His wife was leaving.
Penelope was leaving. God.
What was he fighting for? Who was he fighting for? What was to be his reward when he had pulled Loweston out of the hole it was in? He might as well give up. He might as well go bankrupt tomorrow.
He might as well get drunk and find someone to blow his brains out.
The thought snapped him out of his stupor of self-pity. What would Penelope say if she knew how morbidly he was thinking?
He clung to the last hope he had. He would bring Louisa back. Percy was a faster driver than either of them, but if Nev and Thirkell spelled each other they could overtake him. And when Louisa was safe home, he would talk to Penelope. She was a sensible girl; she would see reason. She had to, because Nev could not imagine how he would live if she did not.
She said she might come back. She said she just needed a little time to think. But what was there for her to come back for? Everyone hates me here, she had said. And the only answer Nev could give her was that he didn’t. If she didn’t want him, then there was nothing for her at Loweston.
He had thought she did. Last night she had been so warm and sweet and she’d wanted him-hadn’t she? She didn’t seem to want him now.
He looked at his wife, leaning back against the seats with her eyes closed and her mouth set in lines of nausea and pain. She looked so pale and tired and unhappy. I’ve compromised all my life, she had said. All he had ever wanted from her-besides her money, he reminded himself bitterly-was for her to be herself. To do and say what she wanted, what she needed. Now she was, and if that meant leaving him, could he really ask her to stay?
They pulled up at Greygloss. Nev put his thoughts aside and ran up the steps. He banged on the door, but it was several minutes before the butler opened it. “I’m sorry to intrude so early, but I have urgent business with Lord Thirkell,” Nev said, grabbing Penelope’s hand and pushing past the startled butler. “If I might just take my family to the breakfast room first-”
“Nev,” Penelope said. “Please-”
He dragged her into the breakfast room and flung her down in a chair. He poured tea and filled a plate with eggs and bacon and toast and set them in front of her. “Eat. It will make you feel better. I’ll be back soon.” He turned back to the butler. “Take me to Lord Thirkell’s room.”
He followed the man to Thirkell’s door and banged on it, hard. There was no
answer. Thirkell always slept like a log. Nev pounded harder. “Thirkell!”
“My lord,” the butler said in pained accents, “people are sleeping.”
“And I want them to bloody well stop, that’s the point. Thirkell!”
His fist was raised to pound again when Thirkell opened the door, and Nev nearly hit him in the nose. Thirkell blinked bleary eyes at him. “Nev?”
“Thirkell, I need your help. I need to borrow your racing curricle.”
Thirkell yawned. “You can’t. Percy’s got it.” Then his eyes widened and he clapped a hand over his mouth.
Nev realized abruptly how very, very stupid he had been. He could not understand why he had not tumbled to it immediately-perhaps because he had been so distracted by Penelope’s announcement. Of course Thirkell was in on it. The spiked punch, when Lady Bedlow was so susceptible; Thirkell’s guilty face; Nev, I need to tell you something.
Nev had no one left now-no one to help him. He wanted Penelope so badly it hurt, physically hurt. He clenched his teeth.
“I almost told you, Nev.” Thirkell’s words tumbled over each other and meant absolutely nothing, because Thirkell had helped Louisa and Percy. “I wanted to tell you, but you know how Percy is, and you had been awfully rough on him, and I had promised silence faithfully-there’s no help for it now, you know. Percy and my curricle, and such a head start-”
“It is very early in the morning to be talking of curricle racing,” Sir Jasper said, appearing at Nev’s elbow. Oh, God, Sir Jasper. Lord knew what he would do if he found out how matters lay. He might take his disappointment out on anybody-on Nev’s people, on the poachers, on little Josie Cusher. It had to be hushed up as long as possible.
“Oh, we weren’t-” Thirkell broke off with such obvious guilt that Nev very nearly laughed at the whole absurd situation.
“We weren’t talking of curricle racing,” he said. “Mr. Garrett’s mother has been taken ill, and he borrowed Lord Thirkell’s curricle to go see her. But he has left his luggage behind him, and we were wondering if it might catch up with him.”
“I see,” Sir Jasper said. “Is that what brings you here so early?”
“My mother lost an earring,” Nev said. “She was so distressed that I offered to drive over directly.”
Sir Jasper was too well-bred to inquire further into what Nev was all too aware was a paltry lie, and one he did not even trust his mother to corroborate. But he could think of no other way to explain the dowager countess’s presence.
Though they had been the only people in the breakfast room when they arrived, by the time Nev, Thirkell, and Sir Jasper entered it again, it was full of guests and the bustle of conversation and silverware and morning papers. Nev’s gaze instinctively turned to Penelope. She was eating, methodically, her color somewhat restored. But her drained, unhappy look was as pronounced as ever.
Sir Jasper greeted Penelope and Lady Bedlow graciously. “I will instruct the servants to search the ballroom and hallway for your earring at once. I know it is irreplaceable.”
Lady Bedlow’s startled gaze flew to Nev. He gave her the smallest nod he could manage, and to her credit she said, “Yes. It has my dear husband’s hair in it, you know.”
“But where is Miss Ambrey?” Sir Jasper asked. “Still abed, no doubt?”
Lady Bedlow’s small store of subterfuge was used up. She flushed crimson and stammered something in which, “Louisa,” “a school friend,” and “taken ill” were discernible, but not much more.
Nev looked at Sir Jasper to see how he took this. The man was no fool. Nev was prepared for skepticism, perhaps even anger. But he was shocked by the pure violence of the baronet’s emotion. His face was chalk white, his eyes dark furious slits.
Nev’s heart sank. Louisa and Percy had made him and his people a powerful enemy in the neighborhood.
Penelope stood abruptly. “Nev, I’m going to be sick.”
“You, fetch a basin,” Nev snapped at a footman.
“No time,” Penelope said in a tiny voice.
This, at least, was a crisis Nev felt equipped to deal with. Hurrying to the side table, he unceremoniously dumped the bacon in with the sausage and brought her the pan, cursing as it burned his fingers. The poor girl was promptly, violently sick; the breakfast hadn’t had time to do her any good.
“I’m so sorry,” she said miserably as he wiped her mouth with his handkerchief. “I’m so sorry about everything.”
“It’s all right. It’s not your fault.” He wanted to be angry with her, but she looked so very mortified. Sighing, he gathered her up in one arm and let her bury her face in his jacket. He signaled to the footman to take the soiled pan away and looked round at the assembled guests over Penelope’s head, daring them to look even the smallest bit amused.
Several were hiding smiles, but Thirkell’s aunt said comfortably, “It is embarrassing, isn’t it? I remember when I was expecting my third, I cast up my accounts on my husband’s new Persian rug. Oh, he was furious!” Soon all the married ladies were swapping stories about their morning sickness.
Penelope, however, had gone rigid.
It would never have occurred to Nev, otherwise; she had been drunk the night before. There was nothing out of the way in her feeling sick. But he glanced down and met her eyes, her mouth a stunned O, and the word expecting echoed in his ears very loud.
He tried to remember when she had last had her monthlies, and could not recall. “Are you-?” he asked under his breath.
“I don’t know.”
He could not tell what she felt. He could not even tell what he felt. It would be a great difficulty, if Penelope really meant to be gone. And then, she might stay for the sake of the child, and the thought made him furious. But despite all these rational considerations, there was something very much like joy being born in his heart: a hopeful, infant joy.
He turned his head so that Penelope would not see him smiling, and spied Sir Jasper going out the door. He ignored his irrational flash of unease. “Here, sit down. I’ll get you a cup of tea.”
Penelope sat, a look of shock still on her face. Nev crossed to the tea service and was just adding the obscene amounts of honey he knew Penelope liked when Mr. Snively raced in, sweaty and gasping for breath.
For once in his life, the vicar didn’t bother with polite greetings. “Where is Sir Jasper? He must come directly!”
“He just stepped out,” Nev said. “What is the trouble?”
“He’s needed to read the Riot Act. The folk are forming up here and at Loweston, and they mean to free the prisoners!”
Eighteen
Sir Jasper rode down the drive, the shade of the Montagu oaks heavy on his face like a corpse’s shadow in the hot Paris summer. In the fields, his men’s faces twisted with hatred as he passed. Fear grew within him, hot and thick.
It was all slipping away, everything he had worked so hard for. He had spent his life keeping the wretches in his district from revolting. He had spent countless hours on the bench and spent a fortune to discourage poaching and sedition, he had enclosed the commons, he had spent years painstakingly guiding the late Lord Bedlow in everything, he had built up contacts and relationships, he had spent his life. Other people were happy, but not he. He had worked so hard, always, to make sure that everyone was safe. To make sure his sons never had to hide in the attic and watch an old man hanged on their doorstep.
He laughed, a strangled, high sound he didn’t recognize. What sons? His wife had been barren and was dead, and Louisa was gone, eloped with the steward because of Bedlow’s mismanagement and that bitch Lady Bedlow, who had somehow tricked him into thinking it was her the steward had his eye on, and not beautiful Louisa, the pride of the neighborhood.
And now the Cit countess was breeding. Breeding! She would have a son, and all that money would be assured, and together that wretched family would lead the district straight to Hell. Loweston would be ruined and Greygloss with it, and then the whole country would go, slipping an
d sliding into bloody revolt like at St. Peter’s Field.
As sudden and fierce and unstoppable as a revolution, something inside Sir Jasper rose up and said No more. It was all that bitch Lady Bedlow’s fault. Bedlow would have seen things Sir Jasper’s way easy enough if she hadn’t always been there with her idiotic town notions. The district was up in arms, and she’d made Bedlow think he could stop it with a few hocks of ham.
Without her degenerate influence, Louisa would never have dreamed of running away.
Sir Jasper was going to stop this. He had tried to do it kindly, to see that no one was hurt. They had been too willful. It was too late for that now.
Amy felt herself waking up and fought against it. It was no use, but she didn’t open her eyes. As long as she kept her eyes closed, she might still be in her charming, sumptuous bedroom in London and not a wretched, dirty hovel. Of course, even with her eyes closed, she could tell she was lying on a hard cot, not her huge featherbed. She had worked so hard not to live like this. She could not wait to be better and go back to London, away from sweet, handsome Nev and his likable wife who made her green with envy.
It took her a moment or two to realize she was hearing voices, and that they had woken her up. Agnes and-Sir Jasper, she realized. She tried to be pleased. The baronet had been visiting her regularly ever since she was well enough; she rather thought that was one reason the Baileys had wanted to get rid of her. She had quickly learned that Sir Jasper was not popular among the local people.
She didn’t like him either, though she could not put her finger on why. He simply made her hackles rise. Stop being fanciful, she told herself. Open your eyes and charm him. The thought exhausted her. In a moment, she promised, and snuggled deeper into her blankets.
Sir Jasper broke off. “Is she awake?” Amy heard him coming closer and stooping down to look at her. “Amy,” he said softly, his breath hot on her face.
She did not know what in his tone made her do it, but she shifted and sighed, as if still asleep, throwing an arm over her face. Feigning sleep was one of Amy’s many professional skills.
