She had barely opened her books before there was a quiet knock on the door, and a servant announced a visitor, offering a card on a tray.
Lady Clarissa Colton.
The card lay there on the tray before her, like a dead snake. What was she to do about it? ‘Tell the lady that Adam is not at home.’
The servant looked pained. ‘She wished specifically for you, your Grace.’
‘Then tell her I am not—’
‘Hello.’ Clarissa was calling to her from the hall. She laughed. ‘You must forgive me, darling. I have viewed this as a second home for so long that I quite forget my manners.’
‘I see.’ Penny had hoped to load those words with censure. But instead they sounded like understanding and permission to enter, for Clarissa pushed past the servant and came into the sitting room.
She sat down next to Penny, as though they were confidants. ‘Adam and I are old friends. Particularly close. But I’m sure he must have told you.’ Clarissa was smiling sweetly again, but her eyes were hard and cold. She reached out to take Penny’s hands, giving them a painful squeeze. ‘And when I heard the good news, I simply could not stay away.’
‘News?’
‘Yes. He told us last night, at the party. Everyone was most excited.’
‘Party?’ Obviously, there was much Adam had not told her. And now, she was left to parrot monosyllables back to Clarissa, until the horrible woman made the truth clear.
‘Ooo, that is right. You did not know of it.’ Clarissa made a face that was supposed to represent sympathy, but looked more like concealed glee. ‘Adam came to our house last night after dinner. Not for the whole evening, as I had hoped. But he could not bear to disappoint me. The man is beyond kind.’
Far beyond it, as far as Penny was concerned.
‘We knew you would not mind, of course, for you did not wish to come. In any case, he told us about the ball.’
‘Ball?’ She had done it again. Why in heaven could she not find her tongue?
‘That you will be hosting, to celebrate your marriage. I am sure it will be the most divine affair. Your ballroom is magnificent, is it not? And Adam uses it far too seldom…’
Obviously, for she was not even sure of its location since her husband had neglected to show it to her. She nodded mutely, along with the flow of Clarissa’s words.
‘It is more than large enough to hold the cream of London society. We will begin the guest list this morning, and the menu, of course. And in the afternoon, we can see about your gown.’ She glanced down at Penny’s sombre grey day dress. ‘I do not know what fashion was like where you came from—’
‘I came from London,’ Penny interjected.
‘But these clothes will hardly do. We must fit you with a new wardrobe, gloves, perhaps a turban for evening. With an ostrich feather. You will adore it, I am sure.’
Penny was quite sure that she would look ridiculous with her hair dressed in plumes. And that was probably the point of the suggestion.
‘We will go to my modiste, together. And I will instruct her on just how you must look, to display your true self to the world.’
There could not be a more horrifying prospect than that. Must she be polite to this woman, for the sake of her husband? Or could she say what she thought, and risk making a powerful enemy?
‘Penelope. So sorry to intrude, I had no idea you were entertaining.’ Adam stood in the doorway, still in his riding clothes, expression unreadable.
‘That is all right, dear. You are not interrupting anything of importance. Only discussion of our ball.’
Discussion had been a charitable way to describe it. ‘Clarissa says that you announced it at her home last evening. It was most unwise of you to give the secret away before we set a date.’ Or before telling your wife.
He seemed to pale ever so slightly at being caught out. Then he regained his smile and said, ‘So sorry, darling. I could not help myself.’
‘Really?’ They would see about that. ‘No matter. Clarissa has come to offer her help in the matter, if I need it.’
Adam smiled again. ‘How kind of her. But I am sure you have the matter well in hand, so she needn’t have bothered.’
Clarissa laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Adam. She will have no experience in handling a gathering of this sort. She knows nothing of our set, or what will be expected of her. And you have thrown her into it, assuming that she will not embarrass herself. It will be a disaster.’
Penny hardly dared breathe, for fear that Clarissa would notice how close to the truth she had come.
But Adam waved his hand and shrugged. ‘I doubt it is so hard as all of that, and Penny is a most enterprising and intelligent woman. No need for you to bother about it. But thank you for your concern. Let me show you out, and we will leave my wife to her work.’
‘I could not think to leave the poor creature in the state she’s in.’ Clarissa spoke as if Penny was not in the room. ‘At least convince her to leave her books long enough to go shopping, like a normal female.’
‘You were going shopping, eh? Well, I know how much you enjoy that, and we mustn’t keep you from it. Perhaps, some day, when Penny is finished with her book, you may come back for her. But for now…’ Adam reached out a hand to her.
Clarissa weighed, just for a moment, continuing the argument against the chance to be nearer to Adam, if only for the short walk to the door. Then she smiled up at him and said, ‘Very well, then. There is nothing for it—if you wish me to go, I must go.’ She rose, and linked her arm with his. ‘And perhaps you can be persuaded to tell me what I must purchase, so that I look my finest when I return for the ball. I do wish to look my best when in your presence.’
She watched them leave the room, Clarissa smiling brightly and leaning on Adam as if she could not manage to walk the few steps to the door without his support.
Penny did not realise that she was still clutching a pencil in her hand until the thing snapped under the pressure of her fingers. The gall of the woman. The infernal nerve. To come into her house, to point out her flaws and to rub her face in her husband’s perfidy. The rage simmered in her, as she waited for Adam to return.
Before he was near enough to speak, she met him in the hall, and demanded, ‘What is going on?’
‘Penny. The servants.’ He said it as though the lack of privacy should be sufficient to contain her temper.
But she was having none of it. ‘The servants might also want to know the amount of extra work you have brought to this house, for you have certainly set us all a task. We are to have a ball, are we? Do we even have a ballroom? Clarissa seems to think so, but I do not know, myself.’
His ears turned slightly red, which might indicate embarrassment, but nothing showed in his voice. ‘It is on the third floor. We have not had time for a whole tour—’
‘Because we have been married less than a week. I have lived in this house for only two days, and at no time do I remember any discussion of our hosting an entertainment.’
He backed her into the sitting room, and shut the door behind them. ‘The subject came up yesterday evening.’
‘When you were at Clarissa’s party. Another thing you made no mention of.’
‘And I do not remember, in any of our discussions, the need to inform you of my whereabouts at all times. In fact, I specifically remember our agreeing that our social lives would remain separate.’
‘An agreement which you chose to violate when you invited all of London to our house and neglected to inform me. While I can hardly complain over your choice of entertainments last evening, it embarrasses me when your hostess chooses to come to my house and make me aware of them.’
She glared at him, and watched the guilty anger rise in his face. ‘I do not like what you are implying.’
‘I did not think you would. But that is hardly a denial, is it?’ She waited, praying that he would tell her she was wrong, and dishonoured them both by thinking such horrible things.
Inste
ad he said coldly, ‘It does not suit you to be jealous over something that was over before we even met.’
The admission, and the easy dismissal of her feelings, made her almost too sick to speak. ‘I am not jealous, Adam. What cause would I have? You know that our relationship is not likely to be close enough to merit jealousy. But I am disappointed, and more than a little disgusted. I had thought you a better person than that. And to carry on in such an obvious fashion, under the very nose of a man you claim as friend…’
‘Perhaps, if I had married a woman who wished to be at my side, then there would be no cause to wonder at my relationship with another man’s wife.’
She laughed in amazement. ‘It is all my fault, then? That you choose to make a fool of yourself over a married woman?’
‘I am not attempting to make a fool of myself. I am endeavouring, as best I can, to make our marriage seem as normal as possible to the rest of the world. But apparently I am failing—already there has been talk about you.’
‘Only because Clarissa spreads it, I am sure. Better that they should talk about me than the two of you.’
He made no effort to correct her. ‘If we do not appear together in public, and supremely happy, everyone will say that I am keeping you out of sight because you are an embarrassment to me.’
‘What do I care what people think of me?’
‘Apparently nothing, or you would not look as you do.’
One, two, three… She closed her eyes, to stop any chance of tears, and continued her counting. She had known he would say something about her looks eventually. How could he not? But she had hoped, when the time came, it would be as a casual statement of the obvious. Then she would be better prepared, and could agree and laugh the pain away. But he had been so good about not commenting. To have it thrown back in the heat of anger had taken the breath from her and her argument with it.
She made it all the way to nine and then blurted, ‘If you had a problem with my looks, then you should have thrown the licence on to the fire when we were in Scotland. There is nothing I can do to my appearance to make it a match for yours. No amount of money will turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.’
He waited until she was through with her outburst, and then said, ‘Do not turn soft on me, now that I need you to be strong.’ There was no kindness in his voice, but neither did he seem angry. ‘Our initial plan will not work. At least, not while we are in London. And so I am making another, and I expect you to obey me in it. If you do not wish to follow my advice, I will allow Clarissa to return and badger you into your new role as duchess. She is better qualified to teach you how to navigate in society than any other woman I know. But she can be amazingly stubborn and surpassingly cruel. Do you understand?’
She bit her lip and nodded.
‘First, you will not, nor will I allow you in future to, refer to yourself as a sow’s ear, a lost cause, wasted effort, nothing, nobody, or any of the other terms of scorn. Self-pity is your least attractive feature, and not one I wish to see displayed in my home for the duration of our marriage.’
When she was sure her eyes were dry, she opened them and glared at him.
‘Very good. You look quite like a duchess when you are angry with me.’
She could not tell if he meant to be amusing, but she had no desire to laugh.
He stared down her body. ‘Is all your clothing like this?’
She nodded. ‘Practical. Easy to care for.’
‘Dull. Ugly. Drab.’
‘I put foolish things aside when my father died.’
‘And how long ago was that?’
‘Two years.’
‘Two years,’ he repeated. ‘And you are still dressed in mourning. You are a bride, Penny. And to see you dressed so is an insult to me. It is as though I pulled you from weeping on a grave, and forced you to marry.’
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I will wear my old things. I have more than enough gowns in storage, hardly used since my come-out.’
‘But they must be…’ he added quickly on his fingers ‘…at least five years old.’
‘They are not worn, so I have not needed to replace them.’
‘But hardly the first stare of fashion.’
She laughed bitterly. ‘As if that would matter.’
He let out a growl of exasperation. ‘You listened to nothing of what I just said. Very well, then. My patience is at an end.’ He seized her by the wrist and threw open the door.
She pulled her hand away. ‘What do you think you are doing?’
‘What someone should have done a long time ago. You are coming with me this instant, Penelope, and you will remedy the sad state of your wardrobe.’
‘There is nothing wrong with the clothing I have. It is clean and serviceable.’
‘And totally unfitting for the Duchess of Bellston.’
‘I never asked to be the Duchess of Bellston, and I fail to see why I should be forced to conform to her needs.’
It was Adam’s turn to laugh. ‘You are the duchess, whether you planned it or no. When you decided to pull a stranger from the street and marry him, it never occurred to you that there might be complications?’
She sneered. ‘Of course. I suspected if I was not careful that I would have a husband eager to waste my money on foolishness. I was willing to allow it to such a degree as it did not interfere with my comfort or my studies. And I was right to be concerned, for you have breached both boundaries with this request.’
As she watched, her husband became the duke to her again, drawing in his power in a way that was both intriguing and intimidating. His voice dropped to a barely audible murmur. ‘Well, then. I am glad I have fulfilled your worst fears. We must set something straight, if we are to live in harmony.’
He meant to dictate to her? Reason fled her mind, and was replaced with white-hot rage. He had no right to do this, no right to tell her who she must be, if she was to be his wife at all. One, two, three…
‘The wardrobe I am suggesting is in no way wasteful. Think of it as a uniform, nothing more. You wish to be left in peace? Then you will find it easier to deflect notice if you can play the part of a duchess with reasonable facility. The clothing I am suggesting will make this easier and not more difficult.’
Four, five, six…
‘It will be expensive, but I have seen the statements from your bank, and you can most certainly afford it. If it helps, think of it as no different than you would allow me to purchase for my mistress. You had allotted an expense of this amount, hoping to keep me occupied so that you could work. Think for a moment the level of stubbornness and bullheadedness that you must project if you allow me to spend the money, but will only berate me for it if I wish to spend it on you.’
Seven, eight, nine…
‘I take your silence for assent.’ He rang for a servant and ordered the carriage brought round. ‘I will deposit you at a modiste, and you can work out, between you, what is best done. I care not for the details, as long as the project is completed.’
Ten. And still she could not find a hole in his argument.
‘And if you balk or resort to tantrums, I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you there, for you are behaving as a spoiled child over something that any other woman in the world would enjoy.’
The nerve of the man. Very well, then. She would go to the dressmaker, get a few simple gowns in the same vein as those she owned, and escape the ridiculous display that he intended for her.
She rode in silence with him, still irritated by his insistence on controlling a thing that he could know nothing about. Before her come-out, she had had more than her share of pushy dressmakers, shoe sellers and haberdashers, all eager to force her to look a way that did not make her the least bit comfortable. She had lacked the nerve to stand up to them, and had felt no different than a trained pony at the end of it, paraded about to attract a buyer.
And it had all come to naught.
The carriage pulled to a stop in front of an unassumi
ng shop in a side street, far away from the hustle of Bond Street. Adam stepped down and held out his hand for her, but she would not take it. Unlike some women she could name, she could manage to walk without the assistance of Adam Felkirk.
The horses chose that moment to shy, and she almost fell into the street.
But her husband caught her easily, and pulled her into his arms, and safely to the ground. Then he had the gall to smile at her. ‘This is what happens when you try to resist me. There is no point in it. I suggest you surrender, now.’
She glared at the shop in front of her. ‘And do you come here often to purchase clothes for women? Or is this the store that Clarissa was threatening me with?’
‘I have never been here before, and I have no idea where Clarissa would have had you go. This shop was frequented by my mother.’ His smile turned to an evil grin. ‘She decorated the sitting room that you enjoy so well. Since it does not matter to you what you wear, the fact should not bother you at all.’
She had a momentary vision of herself, clothed in bright pink organza, and could not control her grimace.
Adam nodded. ‘I will leave you to it, madam, for you know best what to do. But do not think you can return home without purchases, for I am taking the carriage and the driver will not return for you for several hours.’ He looked at her servant, hanging on the back of the carriage. ‘I will leave Jem with you.’ He tossed the man a sovereign. ‘When the carriage comes back, if you can carry the purchases in one trip, she has not bought enough. Tell the driver to leave and return in another hour.’
And her own servant, who she should have been able to trust, pocketed the coin and bowed to his new master.
Adam looked to her again. ‘When you are home, we will discuss the ball. Do not worry yourself about it. My mother had menus and guest lists as well. I am sure they will serve, and we can pull the whole thing together with a minimum of bother.’
Chapter Eleven
Penny watched the carriage roll away from her. Damn the man. He knew nothing about anything if he meant to pull a ball together with the help of a woman who, she suspected, had been dead far longer than her own father. Clarissa was right: it was a disaster in the making.
Miss Winthorpe's Elopement Page 11
