by Desconocido
“The boys,” she said. “He shot at the boys.”
“Jerome and Delmar got a little flesh wound on an arm,” Ashton said as he stroked her hair and watched Penelope’s cousins look over Charles. “Dead?”
“Quite thoroughly,” replied Leo Vaughn.
A moment later Dobson and some men showed up. He quickly took down all the notes he needed to report the crime and close the case. Ashton halted him as he began to leave, however.
“I think we need to go to Hutton-Moore House now,” he said.
It was the last place Penelope wanted to go, but she nodded. “Charles claimed the authorities would believe he was in Spain. There is a chance that he and Clarissa intended to slip out of the country as soon as he had rid himself of me.”
“And there may be more proof there of their crimes,” said Dobson, who was already striding out the door.
Penelope said a quick thank-you to her relatives as she and Ashton hurried after Dobson. She was not surprised to look out of the carriage window and see the adults in her family who had come to rescue her, along with her brothers, following them. The moment they pulled up in front of what would soon be the Wherlocke House again, she was glad of their company.
It was quiet in the house and there were trunks lining the hall ready to be packed into a carriage. Penelope suspected those trunks held a great deal more than clothes. It would be just like Clarissa and Charles to try and take all they could in case they were not able to return and claim her wealth. A wealth she was not sure of yet, she reminded herself as she followed Ashton up the stairs, both of them matching Dobson’s quiet steps.
Even before Dobson flung open the door to Clarissa’s bedchamber, Penelope had guessed what they would find. He had given her no time to speak, however, and the wide grin on his face told her that had been intentional. Clarissa was sitting astride a man, both of them naked and, for a moment, completely oblivious to the fact that they were no longer alone.
“Now, I had heard she was cold,” murmured Leo as he peered over their shoulders. “That looks mighty warm to me.” He placed a hand over her eyes just as Clarissa noticed the people standing in the doorway and screamed.
Things began to happen very rapidly. Clarissa and her lover, Sir Gerald Taplow, were forced to get dressed beneath the watchful eye of Dobson. Her cousins, uncle, and aunt were in the study searching through the papers. Ashton helped them even as he kept a close watch on Penelope who, with her brothers’ help, was going through the trunks to make certain they held only clothes. She had made it clear that she was letting Clarissa go but that the woman would leave with nothing that was not hers.
“You sure you want to let her go?” Dobson asked as he watched Clarissa order her trunks packed, her lover no longer in sight.
“We really do not have anything we can charge her with, do we?” Penelope noticed that Clarissa revealed no grief over the fact that her brother was dead. She had been more upset over the things Penelope had liberated from her luggage.
“Nay, not a thing. From what the lot in the study say, she never even signed anything save for the betrothal papers.” He winked at her. “Lord Radmoor has already burned them.”
Talk of burning papers made Penelope recall what she had wanted to do the moment she had regained control of her life, her house, and whatever money might be left. When Olympia came out of the study to hand Dobson some of the papers Charles had stolen from Earnshaw, Penelope slipped away to join the others in the study. Even as she stepped up to Ashton, she knew he held the markers Charles had been holding over his head.
“These are mine, I believe,” she said as she snatched them from his hands.
“Yes, they are.” He was not sure what she was going to do and his thoughts were not clear enough to guess. Penelope Wherlocke was a very rich woman and they had only begun to look through the papers they had found.
“Good.” She gave them a quick glance to be sure they were the markers she sought and then threw them all into the fireplace.
“Penelope!” Ashton hurried over to the fireplace but there would be no salvaging the markers. “That does not clear the debt.”
“Does it not?”
“No. This is all yours now and that means the debt I owed is also now owed to you. I am sure Charles bought them with your money as are you.”
This was not sounding good. “You cannot expect I would dun you for your father’s debts? Not after all you have done for me?”
“I did what any man must do. As I will continue to do.” He kissed her and started toward the door. “You are certain you are not hurt.”
“Nay, I am not hurt.” But I think I am about to be, she thought.
“Good, then, since everything is in order and you have a great deal of help, I must be on my way.” He started out the door.
“When will you be back?”
Penelope inwardly cursed herself for asking the question. It sounded weak, as if she was begging him to return. She would if she had to, but with so many standing around hearing every word they said, she could not, would not, humble herself.
“As soon as I have put some things in order.”
“Well, hell,” she muttered as she watched him leave.
“A man has his pride, m’lady,” said Dobson as he moved to stand beside her.
“Bugger his pride,” she grumbled and Dobson laughed.
“I thought it a very fine gesture,” said Argus. “In time he will as well.”
“Uncle, for months the man searched for an heiress or at least a woman with a healthy dowry for a bride. It is what got him entangled with the Steps. What am I right now?”
“A very wealthy woman. Daresay when we are done, you will be an heiress.”
“And where is the man who was looking for just that?”
“Now, Pen, he just said he had a few things he needed to straighten out.”
“What things?”
“His debts, I suppose.”
“Which brings us back to that wealthy bride. Which brings us back to me. I am now wealthy and he could marry me, thus clearing up the last of his debts.”
Olympia stepped up and put her arm around Penelope’s shoulders. “A man can be a foolish beast,” she said, ignoring the grumbled complaints of the men in the room. “An heiress for a bride, a whopping big dowry, was what he had been looking for. He did not expect anything more than a mildly satisfactory marriage, was willing to sacrifice himself for his family. Then, he met you, and suddenly that just was not good enough. From what Lady Mary told me, Radmoor has been very busy trying to get out of debt before he marries, has long expected to get out of his betrothal with Clarissa. Now, Penelope, he is determined that money not stand between him and his wife. I would say that he wants to come to you as an equal or at least as a man with no debts and some money in his purse.”
Penelope thought about that for a moment. It did make sense and her aunt was well known for her ability to read people. It did not ease the sting of his abrupt departure by much, though. It still held the stink of pride about it, as well. And if Ashton nurtured hopes of coming to her as an equal in wealth, by the looks of what her family was discovering, that could well take years.
“It is still just his pride,” she muttered. “Or it is me.” She hoped she did not sound as pathetic to the others as she did to herself.
“It is not you,” Olympia said firmly. “It is pride and men can be very odd when it comes to pride. A man’s pride is easily stung.”
“Mustn’t make fun of a man’s pride,” said Dobson, pausing in his collection of more of the papers Charles had stolen from Earnshaw. “Sometimes it is all a man has left.”
“It might have helped if he had told me what the things are that he needs to straighten out and how long he thought it might take him,” said Penelope.
“He will be back when he is ready,” said Olympia.
“Will he? Well, that is just fine. We shall see if I am willing to take him back when he is ready, shall we?” And she w
ould be and they all knew it, but she silently thanked them all for not saying so. A woman had some pride as well.
Chapter Twenty
Two weeks was long enough, Penelope decided as she absently devoured her substantial breakfast, barely tasting the food she was shoveling into her mouth. She ignored the way the boys watched her warily as she ate. Penelope knew her moods had been unpredictable of late, but she felt she had good reason for that. The man she loved had seen to the moving of her and the boys into the larger, well-staffed Wherlocke House and then left her there so he could continue to straighten out a few things. Whatever that meant. Two weeks seemed enough time to straighten things. Where was he?
Her confidence in his feelings for her had faltered badly after the first week with no word or sight of the man. It would have collapsed completely during the second week if not for the visits of his family, his mother and his sisters assuring her that he was working hard. Working hard for what? she had ached to ask, but good manners had always stilled her tongue.
She had hired her cousin Andras as her solicitor and they spent many hours going over the tangled records kept by the old and new barons as well as all the papers her parents had left behind. Clarissa was destitute but Penelope found herself a little richer every day. Clarissa was also far away in Yorkshire now, having married an aging earl with embarrassing haste. The woman should have hesitated a little, Penelope thought and almost smiled.
Clarissa had undoubtedly thought she was marrying an old man she could easily manipulate. Instead she was now tightly secured on a distant, remote estate where it was rumored the old earl worked diligently to produce the heir he so desperately needed. Dobson had assured Penelope that Clarissa was well secured by the wily old earl, who was as strong as an ox and would probably live another twenty years. He had told her that he and the earl had had a nice long talk and the man had no intention of allowing his young wife to go where she pleased, when she pleased, or to have any control over any money, especially the money that would be left to the children he wanted. The woman would be spending her breeding years in Yorkshire giving the earl as many children as he could breed off her.
Wherlocke Warren was no longer her concern, either. The boys were with her, and Uncle Argus was busily restoring the place to its former glory and then some. The family had purchased the Pettibone House and were already in negotiations for two others in the area. Penelope was fairly sure they planned to bring the area back to its former respectability and make it a family enclave. It would allow more of their family to come to London and live unconcerned about curious neighbors seeing things that could refresh old rumors about them.
Everything was working out so well except for her relationship with Ashton. At the moment, she had none, was not even enjoying an affair with the man. She spent far too many nights lying in a too cold bed missing him. Her fears, her grief, over that state of affairs were rapidly turning into anger. He at least owed her an explanation for his desertion.
“It will be fine, Pen.”
Penelope looked up from her congealing eggs to find Paul standing by her chair. “Will it? Did you see that or but hope it is so?”
“I know it.” He patted her shoulder. “I know it. So does Olwen.”
She found that boy standing at her other side holding one of his drawings. “You have had a vision?” She struggled not to let her hopes rise.
“Aye.” He thrust the drawing at her. “See?”
Her first thought was that Olwen’s drawing skills had vastly improved. The house in the picture was a huge English manor house, stately and massive with wings on each side of the main building. The window tax alone must be crippling, she thought and idly wondered if that still stood. On the vast lawn in front of the manor were her boys and little Juno. Horses could be seen in the distance. Then she looked at the couple standing behind a pair of windows that reached from the ceiling to the floor, staring out at the children on the lawn. The man was definitely Ashton. He stood behind her, his graceful hands curved around her belly. Her very large belly.
“This is truly what you saw?” she asked Olwen, hope leaping to life in her heart with such speed and strength it was almost dizzying. It was the first real taste of hope she had had since Ashton had walked away two weeks ago.
“It is. There were other things I think I will add later as it is a good drawing. Belinda was there with a man in a very fine uniform. Almost all of the Radmoors were there. And do you see this man over here?”
A tall man stood in the shadows at the edge of a stand of trees. “Brant. Oh, dear. He is alone, very alone. I can almost feel it.”
Olwen nodded. “He will be for a while. He is wounded and needs to heal. So, you see? It will be fine.”
“I hope so.” She gave a little start when a small hand slid over her stomach. “Delmar?” She looked at the boy who had nudged Paul aside and he gave her a brilliant smile.
“You can wait for Ashton for he will come, but you might want to hunt him down and give him a kick,” Delmar said as he removed his hand. “Babies need their fathers.”
“B–b–” She cleared her throat. “Babies? Not baby?”
“Nay. Babies. Two. A girl and a boy. Ashton will come for you but, I think, it might be best if you hurry him along.”
Penelope sat there for several minutes with her hands pressed to her belly. She had suspected she was with child, for all the signs were there, but she had pushed the concern aside with hard work. There was no ignoring it now. Her confidence in Paul and Olwen’s predictions faltered for only a moment. If they said she and Ashton would be together, then they would be. And if she had to nudge that prediction into coming true, she would do so.
She looked at her brothers, who both simply quirked one brow in her direction, revealing that they, too, believed in what Paul and Olwen said, but were leaving the decision in her hands. She stood up and grabbed the last of the cinnamon rolls. As she hurried off to her bedchamber to dress appropriately for pushing a man onto the path fate had chosen for him, she ignored the laughing cheers of her family.
Ashton was shaking but he was not sure if it was with delight or shock or a little bit of both. He was rich. Filthy rich, at least as compared to what he had been. Unbeknownst to him, his friends had gathered up enough money to almost double their investment and asked only that he repay his share of the original investment. Pride had nearly made him refuse, but he had swallowed it. They had given him a gift, helped him in the only way they knew how, and he would not hurt or insult them by refusing it. He had thanked them profusely, paid the rest of his share out of his much improved funds, and was still struggling to accept his vast change in fortune.
“I can pay Penelope for those markers now,” he mumbled and winced when Cornell smacked him on the back of his head.
“She burned them as a gift to you,” Cornell said. “Consider it a thank-you for all you did although I believe it was inspired by a great deal more than gratitude.”
“Yes.” He suddenly grinned, his future looking so bright it nearly blinded him. “Yes, it was.”
“And she certainly does not need the money. The lady is an heiress. Word is already leaking out about that.”
Ashton quickly set down the papers he held when he realized he had started to crush them in his hands. Penelope would soon be besieged by men eager to share in those riches. Men would be doing their best to woo his Penelope into their arms. That could not be allowed. He blinked away his growing fury at all those unknown men when a brandy was shoved into his hand.
“Drink,” said Victor. “A toast to our success!”
All five men cheered and drank the brandy. Ashton felt calmer when he was done, his mind cleared of shock over his good fortune and jealousy over suitors Penelope did not even have yet. Then he grimaced. He had not even sent her a note in a fortnight. Wooing her back into his arms might not be so easy.
“So, when will you marry the girl?” asked Brant.
“As soon as I can,” replied Ashton wi
thout hesitation. “Once she will speak to me again. I just realized I have not even sent her a note in the fortnight since she and the boys were moved into Wherlocke House. Kept thinking I would see her soon and could talk to her in person. Much better than a note.”
“Except when it has been a fortnight since you last spoke to her.”
“There is that.”
“You shall just have to woo her,” said Cornell. “Flowers, mayhap some bonbons, although I suspect the children will eat all of them. Ah, and what about the children? You will not have her without them.”
“I know. I do not mind. The west wing at Radmoor is already being readied for them.”
“Confident bastard.”
“I was until about a moment ago. I shall just have to explain everything and beg for her forgiveness. Penelope cares for me. She is not a woman to take a lover unless she did care for the man.”
“Fool, she loves you. Any idiot can see that.”
“Some idiots like to hear the words before they get all cocky and sure of themselves.”
“Yet you are having a wing of your house prepared for her children.”
“That was as much out of hope than anything else.” He frowned when he heard someone approaching the door, Marston’s low somewhat urgent voice and measured footsteps following. “Now what.”
The door to his study opened and Ashton’s eyes widened. There stood his Penelope, an apologetic Marston peering over her shoulder. She was dressed as fine as he had ever seen her, having obviously bought herself some new clothes. The green of the gown brought out the green in her eyes and complemented the soft, creamy rose of her skin. The gown was cut a little low in his opinion, far too much of her lovely soft bosom exposed to the eyes of others. A kick to his chair brought him to his senses and he stood up.
“Penelope, can I help you?” he asked and was not surprised to see Cornell roll his eyes.
“I need to speak to you,” she said, some of her bravado seeping away as she looked at his friends.
