“You are the most understanding friend I have, when it comes to Lord Elmsley,” Lydia had admitted earlier while waiting for his arrival. “Everyone else thinks I’m daft to dream about him, even my sisters do, as they find me quite uninteresting compared to the other unmarried ladies. But you don’t, which makes me think you too know how it is to love someone who is quite unapproachable.”
“I too have a man of my dreams,” Penny had said, not able to keep the emotion out of her shaking voice. “I spend every day, every hour, and every minute longing for him, wishing for him to come here and fulfill my heart’s boldest wish.”
Lydia had given her a radiant you-and-I smile, and Penny had hugged her new friend tightly. In some strange way it felt good to have someone who was going through the same thing and who understood how she felt. Charmaine was trying hard to be understanding and supportive, but she had her sudden marriage with the brooding Sin to handle, which drained the energy out of her.
As if on cue, her sister, beautiful as ever in a vivid blue dress, joined them with three glasses of a suspect greenish liquid and handed Penny and Lydia one each.
“Are you sure it’s lemon?” Penny asked with a grimace and took a sip of the vile fluid, the only thing being served during the evening.
Charmaine frowned down into her glass. “I think so. I’m sure I tasted a hint of lemon last Tuesday when I had a glass.”
“If I’m going to come here one more Tuesday to have one more glass of this, I’m going to turn into a prune or something else as wrinkly. Lord, it’s vile.”
Lydia, who must have felt the need to defend her hometown’s refreshments, took a big sip.
“It’s not so bad,” she declared through her pursed lips. “It’s actually quite refreshing.”
Charmaine couldn’t help but laugh, and immediately the surrounding men took a step closer to them. Even Lord Elmsley’s gaze stopped roaming for a second, taking in the radiant beauty, and an appreciative little smile started to play on his lips.
“Oh, he’s coming here!” Lydia seemed close to fainting, and she took deep breaths to calm herself. Penny patted her hands.
“I told you Charmaine is like a jar of honey to a bear: men can’t withstand her, and they come running.”
“I beg your pardon?” Charmaine said, profoundly offended, but Penny ignored her sister’s outburst.
“It’s even better now she’s married, because she’s off the maybe-wife list, and instead you will stand next in line to be courted.”
“Or you.” Lydia breathed, as Lord Elmsley closed in on them. “You are much prettier than I am. If he has to choose between the two of us, he will most certainly choose you. I know I would.”
“Then we will make sure he chooses you.”
Charmaine rolled her eyes at them before she turned toward the man who stopped in front of her with an elegant bow. “Lady Chilton.”
“Lord Elmsley. How nice to meet you again. Let me introduce my sister, Lady Penelope de Vere, and her friend, Miss Lydia Woodley.”
Lord Elmsley nodded coldly to Lydia before he bent his head over Penny’s hand and gave it a peck that came served with a lecherous glance from his blue eyes.
Oh, he was a libertine, all right, and if she hadn’t been too caught up in Rake’s web, her heart might have fluttered just a little in response. But as it was now, she only gave him an indifferent half-smile which made him frown a bit at her. He obviously wasn’t used to being met this coldly by a young miss.
“Lady Chilton, would you mind if I borrowed your sister for the next dance? It would be an honor for me.”
“Oh, the honor would be hers, I guarantee you,” Charmaine soothed him. “But unfortunately my sister will have to decline, as she has already promised my husband this dance.”
“I’m sad to hear this. Then maybe you would do me the honor?”
Charmaine declined most elegantly. “I already promised this one to our host. But Lydia here is, amazingly enough, still available.”
Lord Elmsley’s smile faded as he shot a fast look at the blushing maiden, and it wasn’t too hard to see he had no difficulty understanding why she wasn’t spoken for. As the gentleman he was, he couldn’t deny Charmaine her offer, and with a forced smile he held out his hand toward Lydia, who breathlessly let him lead her out onto the dance floor.
“We have to find Sin,” Charmaine said as the couple disappeared into the crowd. “He will have to remove himself from the gambling tables long enough to dance with you.”
“I can sit this one out.”
“No. You. Will. Not.”
Knowing too well there was no point in trying to revolt against Charmaine when she used that particular tone, Penny let her sister take the lead in the hunt for her unaware dance partner.
Sin left the gambling tables with a disappointed sigh. “I guess I have no say in this?”
“None.” Charmaine’s voice was cold as ice. “Penny needs you to dance with her.”
“For Penny I’ll do anything.” Sin said, just as icily, and Penny sighed. Those two were never going to have their happy ending if they didn’t get over their differences soon. So Charmaine had in some way lured Sin into marrying her. So what?
It wasn’t as if he had married a complete scarecrow, after all. Charmaine was every man’s dream. Unfortunately, it seemed she was the dream of every other man but Sin.
Penny could only hope the two of them would find a way out of this coldness between them, and as soon as Charmaine couldn’t hear them she told him so.
“You could be a bit nicer to her.”
“Why?” Sin snorted. “She’s not worth it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know exactly what she is like, so let us leave it at that.”
She shook her head sadly. “After the first week here I thought the two of you were warming up to each other, you seemed almost happy together for a while. But lately you have been behaving as if you were deadly enemies. What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
He sighed. “Please, Penny. Leave it be.”
She couldn’t continue when he so directly asked her not to, and she nodded, resigned. “All right. But just think of one thing—your marriage is for the rest of your lives. Is this hatred between the two of you what you want to live with?”
“It’s not hatred. It’s more disappointment, I would say. And no, this is not what I want in my marriage. But your sister is quite a handful, and not so easy to get through to sometimes.”
“Tell me about it.” Penny sighed, and Sin chuckled.
“I guess you should know, my dearest little sister by marriage.”
They shared a loving smile, feeling the bond of sibling-hood between them, even though they were not blood relatives. But she had practically grown up beside him, and the bond was still there and had only become stronger by his marriage to her sister.
“I’m sorry to be the one saying this, but we can’t stay on much longer. Duty calls, you know.”
“I know.” She sighed, defeated, unable to hide the overwhelming sadness filling her heart. “We have been here for a month now, and he still hasn’t shown. I guess I must soon admit the truth—he doesn’t want me.”
“Maybe he never got the message?”
“Of course he did. He would never stay away from Pendragon knowing his best friend and his niece had their first babies, and Fanny promised to make sure he got the hint about me going to Gretna Green, so he could save me, even if she would have to spell it out to him.”
“It’s strange, though, him not showing up yet. We all know how much he cares for you, and to not come here for you… It doesn’t make sense.”
Penny wished she had the same confidence regarding Rake’s feelings toward her. But the more time passed, the more her sureness faltered, and now she was beginning to believe he would never love her.
She sighed heavily as the dance ended, and Sin laughed as he grabbed her hand. “You are
pathetic.”
“I know I am, and I apologize. But do you know what? I think you’d better get used to it, because soon you will have to see me get more and more pathetic every day, for the rest of my pathetic life.”
“Are you trying to prepare yourself for a life as a spinster?”
She giggled as he gave her a look of exaggerated shock, and she whacked him on the shoulder in a sisterly fashion. “Behave, you vile monster. You should ease up on the laughter and instead consider how dark life will seem for you from now on.”
“Oh, really?” Sin laughed. “You can’t scare me. There’s no way you, my dear little Penny, could make my life into bloody hell.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she said between her teeth, together with her best version of an angry glare.
“You keep forgetting I’m not so easily scared,” Sin said as he halted at an empty sofa in the corner of the ballroom, where Charmaine’s maid stood, looking extremely uncomfortable. “I’m married to your sister, remember.”
“Are you now?” Penny tried her best to look just as wickedly amused as Rake in his best days. “And yet you seem to have no problem with her being surrounded by lecherous men, who all want her to admit to being lonely and to let them entertain her while her husband does his best to ignore her.”
Sin’s eyes darkened as he turned around and looked at his wife who, as Penny had said, was outrageously outnumbered by men who each wanted nothing more than to become her latest lover.
When he hesitated, she rolled her eyes toward his back. “You have to choose, Sin. Either you care or you don’t care. What you can’t do is stand at the side and watch your chance for marital happiness walk out the door on another man’s arm. I know Charmaine, and she’s pretty upset with you and feels quite abandoned. I’m a bit afraid she soon will do something drastic to catch your attention, and as she’s not as smart as I am she will probably put herself in a situation she can’t control.”
Without looking back, Sin barged across the dance floor, and Penny giggled as he without mercy grabbed his wife’s hand and hauled her away out through the front door. Charmaine’s expression was a funny mix of surprise and expectation, and Penny wished them all the luck possible. They were both too good to be avoiding each other as they did.
“Your sister is a happy woman,” Lydia said as she sank down in the sofa beside Penny. “It must be wonderful to have someone who loves you as much as her husband obviously does.”
“You think?” Penny lit up.
“Of course he does.” Lydia snorted. “Even a child can see he is crazy in love with her.”
What an uplifting thought, if it were true. Sin in love with Charmaine made it possible for a much better ending for that married couple than Penny had hoped for earlier.
“If only Lord Elmsley would look at me with a fraction of that love, I would die happy.” Lydia sighed. “But I’m afraid he’s stubbornly refusing to see my potential as a possible wife. He practically threw me toward you before scurrying away in the opposite direction.”
“One day, perhaps?”
Lydia sighed again. “Perhaps. But to be completely honest with you, it will probably never happen. He just doesn’t seem to understand we are made for each other.”
Her smile was filled with self-humor, and Penny couldn’t help wishing Lydia would get her heart’s desire and end up as Lady Elmsley. She was such a wonderful friend and deserved to be happy.
“But then again, I wouldn’t mind not becoming Lady Elmsley if that man became mine.”
Lydia sounded almost breathless and without second thought Penny turned and looked in the same direction her friend was staring—and forget to breathe too.
There, in the middle of the ballroom, looking more fashionably handsome than ever, stood Rake in perfect splendor.
With an amused arched eyebrow, he took in the gaping crowd with his usual wicked smile, searching the awed faces for one special one: hers.
“Who is that?” Lydia whispered beside her.
Penny took a deep, shaky breath. “That is the man of my dreams.”
“Oh, goodness me. I must admit I do understand you wanting him. Lord Elmsley is nothing compared to him. Nothing.”
Penny couldn’t agree more, and as she stood up she knew no one was anything compared to the man who stood there silently searching for her. That wonderful, sarcastic, loving libertine was one of a kind, and what was even more perfect was that he was all hers.
With a whimper that came from the depths of her soul, she started toward him. As if he could feel her presence, he tensed slightly before turning toward her and nailing her with his dark eyes.
The crowd, which seemed to sense something extraordinary was happening, moved back and let Penny pass without obstacles, and in the end she couldn’t contain herself. Without caring about her outrageous behavior, she ran and threw herself into Rake’s waiting arms, flinging her arms around his neck and burying her face deep into the crook of his neck.
His arms moved around her waist and hugged her closely to him. She could feel his hands shaking as they stroked her back hesitantly, as if he hardly could believe she finally was there, where she belonged, in his arms. She tightened her grip around his neck and heard him chuckle in response.
“Penny, my love, I want to live a long and prosperous life with you, so could you please let me breathe a little. Otherwise this happiness will have a fast and sad ending right here on the ballroom floor.”
She loosened her grip slightly but still refused to let him go. She knew she was acting scandalously, but she didn’t care.
Rake had come, and nothing else mattered.
Without another word, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her through the still-gaping crowd, not stopping until he’d found an empty room where they could be alone, without an audience.
“I might be a bit presumptuous,” he said, as he put her feet on the floor again, “but I do get the distinct feeling you are a bit happy to see me.”
His amused voice, trembling with emotion, brought tears to her eyes, and she was unable to hold them back. Her heart felt ready to explode out of sheer happiness.
“I am,” she whispered into his neck.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
He laughed and forced her head back so he could look into her teary eyes. “Oh, yes, you are.”
“A little, maybe.”
He smiled into her eyes with all the love in his heart and without the usual wickedness, and she felt wrapped in a soft blanket of happiness, as her tears continued to flow.
“You know, a man with less confidence than I have would start to wonder by now if you really are happy or sad to see me.”
She giggled and loosened her hold on him. “Let us be thankful, then, for you being such a confident man.”
“I still have to admit I do wonder.”
His admittance of how insecure he felt made her heart ache. Had she really been such an ogre toward him, acting selfishly and without regard to his feelings?
She wiped the last tears away and looked up into his smoky eyes as she put a hand gently against his cheek.
“I love you.”
“I know.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why do you ask if I’m happy to see you, then?”
He let go of her and went to a small window, turning his back to her before he answered her. “Because it has never been enough for you before.”
She frowned at him. “What has never been enough?”
“Love.”
Lord, what had she done to this proud man in her silly hunt for confirmation? She felt almost nauseous as she looked at his stiff back where he stood by the window, hiding his face from her.
“I just want you.”
“Are you sure?”
“That’s all I ever wanted.”
He turned around and looked at her directly with his dark eyes filled with the insecure emotions he couldn’t control, and for the first time she noticed how tired he lo
oked, how dark the smudges were under his eyes.
“Is it really? Because that’s not the impression I’ve gotten during the last year and a half.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered and took a hesitant step toward him. She stopped as she noticed how he stiffened even more. He wasn’t ready to let bygones be bygones yet, but she knew she should be grateful he seemed finally willing to talk to her.
The funny thing was that now, when he was obliging her, all she wanted was for him to shut up and kiss her. She wanted, no needed, him to tell her with his mouth and his roaming hands exactly how much he loved her. Unfortunately, he had tried that for a year and a half and she hadn’t listened to him once, had only been looking for verbal confirmation.
She looked at the closed door and the key in the keyhole, and an idea came to her from nowhere. She hid a smile from him as she slowly moved toward the door.
“Bloody hell, Penny, you can’t leave me now!”
She ignored his frustrated outburst, and when she reached the door she locked it tightly before starting to unbutton her dress. She turned slowly and met his dark eyes, filled with pain and confusion.
With a secretive little smile she moved back toward him, with every step trying to show him how much she wanted him, and she saw him lose his breath for a moment.
“Penny…”
“Rake,” she purred as she let the dress slip down her shoulders and end up on the floor in a cloud of expensive fabric. Clad only in her thin chemise and silky stockings, she stopped in front of him and lifted her hands to her hair. She removed all the pins, and the honey-colored mass tumbled down her back.
He staggered backwards.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I don’t?”
She let a finger follow the row of buttons in his jacket and felt his chest tremble as he took a shaky breath.
“No. You can’t possibly understand what you are doing to me. Please stop, Penny, before I do something both you and I will regret later.”
“Why will we regret it?”
He pushed her hand aside as it reached his chin, and she laughed huskily. He trembled even more.
“Because you want to talk, and if you don’t stop this I can’t do anything else but kiss you.”
Never Had a Dream Come True Page 24
