by Bliss Bennet
At last! Pennington House, the London residence of the Viscounts Saybrook for the past sixty years. The memory of the last time she had been here, that tantalizingly brief month during the spring of her seventeenth year when she and Papa had talked politics and hatched plans, debating into the wee hours over potential suitors, made her smile. How differently the words “When you are married” sounded when uttered by Papa!
But then Lord Saybrook had grown sick and died, and all their plans for forging a marital alliance that would also forward the cause of political reform fell by the wayside. Yes, I’ll see that Theo takes up the cause in your stead, she’d whispered by her father’s deathbed. And I won’t forget it, either. Not like Jane Carson, and Cissy Hubbard, and the others who abandoned politics as soon as they married. Husband and household, bedding, breeding, and babies, all left wives far too little time for any pursuit beyond the domestic. No, far better to remain right here, at Pennington House, working by her brother’s side, than to risk taking on a husband.
“Theo! We’re here!” She raced up the main staircase in a manner certain to earn her the label “unladylike” in most ton households. Shedding her pelisse and muff, she rushed down the corridor, opening doors right and left. “Theo?”
Dust shrouds had been removed from the furniture, and the windows, recently cleaned, gleamed with light. But each room felt empty, unlived-in; the smell of polish, not people, greeted her at every door. Had she truly expected Pennington House would still hold her father’s scent, tobacco and sunshine and starch, even after it had vanished from the house where he had died?
“Miss? Please, allow me.” A tall man in Saybrook livery bowed, then opened the only door on the corridor that still remained closed.
Her brow wrinkled, then cleared. “Hill, isn’t it?” At the footman’s answering nod, she added, “Please, Hill, where might I find my brother?”
The footman smiled. “Remember me, do you, then, miss? Ah, your father’s daughter, to be sure. You may find Master Benedict in what we are to call his studio, in the attic next to the maidservants’ room. Master Kit has taken lodgings in Duke Street, I believe.”
“But I’m looking for my eldest brother. Don’t tell me that sluggard is still abed?”
She hesitated at the threshold of the room Hill revealed. The music room, with its overstuffed armchairs and gleaming pianoforte, purchased by Papa just before he brought her to town that last time. How he loved it when she played just for him. Her fingers begin to trace out the notes of his favorite ballad against her thigh.
She jerked them to a halt, her hands clenching.
“My apologies, miss. I haven’t seen Lord Saybrook these many months.”
“Months? What, is he not residing at Pennington House?”
Hill started, his eyes growing wide. “No, miss.”
Chagrin must have made her exclamation sharper than she had intended. But to come all this way, and discover Theo not even here. . .
Sibilla pressed a palm, hard, against her sternum. Had she been the one to drive him away, with her cruel words and stinging accusations over their father’s sickbed?
“Thank you, Hill. That will be all,” Sibilla said, dismissing the servant before he could catch sight of the tears threatening the corners of her eyes.
Descending the staircase at a pace far more sedate than she’d taken while climbing it, Sibilla made her way back to the entrance hall.
“Oh, my dear girl, what luck. Not a soul on the square witnessed your untoward flight.” Aunt Allyne juggled a bandbox, a book, and her reticule by the front door. “The dear Lord looks after his orphans and strays, so he does. Now come, meet Bridget, the abigail I’ve—”
“Aunt,” she interrupted, “Hill tells me Theo is not living here. Why did no one inform me?” Papa gone, and now Theo, too?
“Ah, brothers,” her aunt answered as she allowed Hill to most properly divest her of her outer garments. “Such provoking creatures! They do say that sisters are ever so much more obliging. Even if your father had been my brother rather than my nephew-in-law, I doubt he would have listened to my advice and agreed to allow you to remain in London rather than traipsing down the countryside to nurse him. After your mother died, Saybrook always did like to keep you close to pay him court. But your nursing didn’t help much in the end, though, did it, my child? ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ just like my own dear Mr. Allyne, may they both rest in peace.”
Sibilla bit her lip, hard, determined not to allow her grief to show. It would only lead to another of her aunt’s sermons on accepting death with perfect resignation to the will of the Almighty.
“But just think, my dear,” Aunt Allyne said, linking her arm through her niece’s. “Once you are married, you’ll no longer be troubled by such trying creatures as brothers.”
One hundred and forty-eight. One hundred and forty-eight!
Sibilla bit back a most unladylike curse. Surely she’d be able to persuade Theo to take up his parliamentary duties long before the count could reach a thousand. . .
Across Mayfair, in the London residence of the Earl of Milne, Sir Peregrine Sayre, too, was counting. The number of acres one needed to enclose to feed the average herd of sheep. The number of men brought into the Guildhall Justice Room each week for thieving, and the number of those who were convicted and transported. And, most recently, the number of men who had voted against the disenfranchisement of Grampound, the first move toward reforming representation in Parliament. And, of course, the number of favors Lord Milne would need to provide to reward them for said support. Praise heaven he’d finally been able to convince Milne to champion the bill, despite the earl’s conservative leanings. One fewer time he’d have to compromise his own principles just to keep in his patron’s good graces.
Per sighed, laying down his quill to rub the tension from between his brows. Such glorified accounting hardly did justice to his skills as a politician, garnered over six years of working with the earl. But Milne had seemed unduly anxious of late. Best to humor him, especially when he was so close to persuading the earl to support his candidacy for a seat in the House during the next election. If Per had to count all the fleas on all the rats in all the alleys of London to set Milne’s mind at ease, then by God, count fleas he would.
Before Per could take up his quill again, a long arm clad in the richest superfine reached over his shoulder to snatch it up off the desk.
“Still totting away, my good fellow? If one didn’t know any better, one might believe my father ran a countinghouse. How will I ever live down the shame?”
Viscount Dulcie, Lord Milne’s scapegrace of a son, perched on the edge of the desk, twirling the stolen pen between nimble fingers. With others, Per’s natural reserve held him aloof, but somehow he could never stand on ceremony with the irreverent lord.
“Do my ears deceive me? Or did I truly hear the word shame emerge from your lips? Surely Lord Dulcie has no acquaintance with the sentiment?” He made a lunge for the fluttering quill, but Dulcie danced away, just out of reach.
“How could I not feel shame when all the world blames me for your absence from society? If you do not take steps to address the gossip, my good name will soon lie in tatters.”
With a swift feint, Dulcie darted in, attempting to tap the quill against Per’s nose. But this time Per was quicker, catching the smaller man’s arm and turning it behind his back.
“What has your good name to do with my refusal to waste my time on parties and routs?” Per had cultivated a reputation for indifference with the ladies of the ton for a purpose and had little interest in abandoning it without good reason.
“Beast! Give over or you’ll rip the seam. Here, have your dratted pen, for all the good it shall do you.”
He gave a grunt of satisfaction as Dulcie let the feather drop from his fingers.
“A bully as well as a recluse!” Dulcie accused, rubbing at his arm in an aggrieved manner, as if Per had actually done him an injury. “No wonder they can
’t stop chattering about you. Ladies will hanker after the enigmatic, violent fellows, fools that they are. And then they have the gall to blame me when you ignore them.”
“Of what, precisely, stand you accused, besides the abuse of perfectly good pens?” He lifted the feather to reveal the top of its shaft tipping over at a drunken angle.
“Why, of encouraging your most unnatural tendre for me, of course, dear boy,” Dulcie replied, his lips quirking in amusement. “For what other reason would the ladies of the ton believe you would squirrel yourself away in our house, eschewing all their charms?”
Per uttered a silent curse. Dulcie typically took care to keep his liaisons with those of the opposite sex far from the public eye, wary of allowing any whiff of scandal to touch his family. But had Milne’s increasing insistence that his son marry and produce an heir led his son to rebel and deliberately court scandal? And was Per to be sacrificed on the altar of Dulcie’s dramatics?
If such rumors—no matter how patently false—were to reach Lord Milne, Per’s dream of sitting in the House of Commons would die a speedy death. And how then would he work toward parliamentary reform, toward giving the people of England a real voice in the running of their own government? How would he ever make restitution for the suffering he had caused?
“Surely, Dulcie, you didn’t—you haven’t—”
“Of course not. You think I’d share the story of your crushing rejection?” Dulcie gave a dramatic shudder. “Why, no man’s amour-propre could withstand such a blow! If only I’d known then how often you frequented whorehouses that first year you came up to town, I’d never have mistaken your true proclivities. You must tell me, why ever did you stop?” The viscount settled in Per’s chair, chin propped on his hands, eyes wide with curiosity.
How the hell had Dulcie caught wind of that old scandal?
For a moment, Per had the urge to give in to temptation and confess his own past mistakes. But if he spilled his budget to a gossip such as Dulcie, the entire ton would soon know that he’d haunted London’s brothels and gaming hells during that ghastly year after he had come up from Cambridge for reasons completely unrelated to his own amusement. A rumor of lewd behavior with Dulcie would be nothing to the revelation of those sordid secrets.
If, in fact, such a rumor even existed. . .
He took a step toward Dulcie, frowning as suspicion grew.
“Now, you’ve no need to punish me for bearing bad tidings,” Dulcie said, jumping up from the chair and holding out his hands in supplication. “Indeed, I bring you the means to dispel such scandalous tittle-tattle. All you must do is drag yourself away from this tedious pile of papers and accept the dinner invitation my parents will so kindly extend. Chat amiably with a chit or two, turn a page of music for another, and you’ll quiet the gabblemongers forthwith.”
“One dinner invitation? No balls? No routs? No tedious musicales?”
“Only dinner, Per. Lady Butterbank will be in attendance, so if you snub me, we’re certain to dispel this scurrilous scandalbroth brewing among the gossips. Lord knows that woman loves to tattle.”
“Yes, almost as much as you do.” He retreated to his chair, crossing his arms in disgust.
Dulcie chuckled. “Lady Butterbank does give me a good run for my money. But I see no reason not to throw her a juicy bone now and again. You’ll attend, if only to give her a reason to rise the next morning?”
He found himself unable to maintain a grudge in the face of Dulcie’s good humor. “If I must,” he conceded.
“And, if you would,” Dulcie added in a suspiciously offhand manner, “you might consider a Miss Pennington as one of the recipients of your somewhat dubious charms. Another nobleman’s daughter up from the country, ready to make her bow to the king, my mother tells me. Ill dressed and whey-faced, I’ll wager. And from bucolic Lincolnshire, no less!”
“Dulcie,” he growled, eyes narrowing as he rose from his seat to tower threateningly over the far shorter viscount. “If I discover you’ve created this ridiculous rumor only to extricate yourself from yet another of your father’s matchmaking schemes. . .”
The viscount raised one eyebrow as he backed through the door. “Why the earl thinks I’d have anything to say to a schoolgirl who has spent far more time communing with cows and cabbages than engaging in intelligent conversation, I cannot begin to imagine. But you, Sir Peregrine, should be more than suitable.”
Per lunged, but caught only the sound of laughter as the viscount beat a quick retreat.
In truth, this Pennington girl must be a gorgon if Dulcie required his help to free himself from her clutches. Perhaps he would attend the Milnes’ party, if only to watch the sport as the earl tried once again to entice his son into the matrimonial lists. And might he even teach Dulcie not to tease him with false gossip?
The corner of his mouth quirked as he tapped his quill against the table. Just what words should he whisper in the ear of the whey-faced Miss Pennington to suggest Viscount Dulcie harbored a tendre not for Per, but for her?
