A Season To Remember

by Gayle Ava Stone, Jerrica Knight-Catania, Catherine

  Penny loved her siblings dearly, but she was growing rather tired of them always treating her like a helpless child. She was eighteen now, a grown woman, and very capable of taking care of herself. A stroll through the Lockwells’ small garden shouldn’t have been such a cause for alarm.

  “I wanted to be alone,” she said at last, hoping the air of finality in her tone would put an end to the conversation.

  Of course, it didn’t.

  “You should have taken someone with you,” Miranda said.

  Penny wished they were children again so she could pull her sister’s hair or scratch her with her overgrown fingernails. It wasn’t very mature or ladylike of her, but really, the moment called for it.

  “Wouldn’t that have defeated the purpose of being alone?” she countered.

  “Hush, both of you.” Calista stepped between them. She must have sensed Penny was about to pounce on Miranda. “Devlin and Louisa are ready to go home.”

  A half hour ago, Penny would have welcomed this news. To go back home, curl up in her bed with Wilhelmina, and forget about her silly little troubles. But then she’d met Flit.

  She turned toward the garden, but he was nowhere to be found amongst the flowers and hedgerows. It was kind of him to remain hidden, she supposed. Though whether it was out of self-preservation or to protect Penny’s reputation, she couldn’t be sure.

  “All right, then,” Penny said with a sigh. “I suppose it is getting rather late.”

  Her sisters exchanged odd glances. Calista’s said: I told you so. Miranda’s said: You were right.

  What were they playing at?

  “Well, what are we all standing here for if Devlin and Louisa are waiting for us?”

  “That was a lie,” Miranda admitted.

  Penny raised her brows at her sister in complete disbelief, then turned to Calista, usually the more sensible one among them. “What is this about?” she demanded.

  “You shouldn’t want to go home, Penny,” Calista started. “You fought tooth and nail for this Season, yet you’ve spent most of it hiding out in gardens and willingly leaving parties early. What ever is going on?”

  Penny drew her lips together in a straight line and breathed deeply through her nose. She shouldn’t have to explain herself to them—she didn’t want to, that was for certain. But at least they still cared. She’d thought them both so wrapped up in their own romances that they had ceased to notice her. And here they stood, with their beaux inside waiting for them to dance, making sure she was all right.

  Of course she was all right. At least, she would be eventually. She hoped.

  “Don’t you want to dance, darling?” Miranda took her hand in hers and patted it comfortingly. “You’re awfully good at it.”

  It was true—she was a rather good dancer. She couldn’t stop her mind from wandering to Flit and whether or not he might be a good partner to her. He seemed strong and sure-footed, yet lithe, graceful. At first blush, he seemed a perfect partner.

  “What’s out there?” Miranda asked, and Penny turned to her abruptly. She hadn’t even realized she’d turned to the garden again.

  “A lot of flowers and dirt, of course,” she replied, grateful for her quick thinking.

  But Miranda clearly didn’t believe her. She narrowed her eyes—a movement that was meant to intimidate—and stepped closer. “You’re lying.”

  Blast her sisters. Why wouldn’t they just go away and leave her alone? It was nice they cared, but goodness, they were infuriating.

  “Shouldn’t you be inside with your fiancés?” Penny’s tone was slightly more biting than she’d intended it to be, and Calista reared back in shock.

  “Is that what this is about?” Calista’s asked, worry marring her brow. “Are you feeling left out?”

  Oh, heavens. What had she gotten herself into? If she tried to explain it to her sisters, they’d never understand. She was younger, it was her first Season. Calista had endured three Seasons and a wretched fiancé who had run off with her best friend while they were in mourning. Calista had had her fair share of heartache, but no one had ever told her she wasn’t entitled to be heartbroken. Penny had a feeling she wouldn’t be allowed the same liberties with her feelings, which was why she preferred to keep them to herself.

  It was time to apply a different tactic to this conversation.

  “Oh, Calista, I could never begrudge you your happiness! You know that.” She pulled her sister into a hug and held on tightly. When they pulled apart, she reached out for Miranda’s hand. “Nor you, my dear Miranda. I—”

  She looked back toward the garden. She hated to do it—to spoil the perfectly romantic and private moment they’d shared in the garden—but she had no other choice.

  “The truth of the matter is…I had a secret assignation in the garden.”

  Miranda and Calista reared back with simultaneous gasps. Then Miranda ran to the banister and looked over the edge, peering into the dark.

  “I don’t see him. Is he still out there?”

  Penny grabbed her sister’s hand and pulled her away from her lookout. “Even if he was, he wouldn’t appear now for your amusement.”

  Ignoring their banter, Calista asked, “Why didn’t you tell us, Penny? Who is he, anyway? And how long has this been going on?”

  “I’m not sure it’s any of your business,” she replied haughtily. And here they’d always thought she couldn’t keep secrets.

  “Well, this is entirely unfair.” Miranda punched her fists to her hips. “You knew all about our courtships.”

  “This is hardly a courtship.” It wasn’t anything, really, other than a chance meeting with a complete stranger in the garden.

  “Why?” Miranda asked, and then promptly gasped, her eyes growing round. “He’s married, isn’t he?” she hissed.

  “Lord above, you have a wild imagination.” And Penny was done trying to deflect their questions about her non-existent suitor. How she wished they’d been telling the truth about Devlin and Louisa. She wanted more than ever to be alone with her own thoughts. “I’m going back inside,” she announced as she brushed past them.

  As she started to walk away, she heard Miranda say to Calista, “Perhaps we should stay here. This mysterious gentleman has to come back up this way sometime soon or risk being rained upon.”

  This halted Penny in her tracks. She looked up at the sky. When had those dark grey clouds moved in? The moonlight was completely obscured, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “Don’t you dare,” she said, whirling around to face her sisters again. “Haven’t you two got better things to do with your time?”

  As if on cue, Miranda’s fiancé, Lord Harrison Casemore, appeared in the doorway. Miranda seemed to forget all about Penny and her phantom beau at the sight of Lord Harry. She ran to him, a saccharine smile pasted on her lips as she approached.

  “They’re about to play our waltz, darling,” he said, placing Miranda’s arm in his and disappearing into the house.

  “I suppose I ought to find Tristan.” Calista turned to Penny and took her hand. “Are you certain you’re all right?”

  Penny nodded. “I’m fine. Now go. Find your earl.”

  Drake Lockwell, Viscount Flitwick, was not usually one to eavesdrop. He’d done it a few times in his life with disastrous results. Like the time he’d overheard his mother and father arguing when he was a young boy. He’d been intrigued because he’d never heard them speak to each other, let alone yell. But despite the fact they had an unspoken agreement whereby they completely ignored one another, Father had still found it unacceptable that Mother had taken a lover.

  Just thinking about it made Drake feel rather ill. No one should ever have to hear the words mother and lover in the same sentence. Especially not a nine-year-old boy.

  And the other time…well, he preferred not to think about it. But truly, relations with women of the night ought to be private!

  This conversation, however, had proved to be rather interest
ing and quite entertaining. Listening to Miss Penelope—Penny—dance about her sisters’ questions gave him an even higher respect for the girl. He had a feeling she didn’t get much of that from her family. The youngest children rarely did. Look at his brother Damien, after all. Drake had always found him immature, reckless, and sometimes downright idiotic. Oh, Damien wasn’t stupid—he’d always been the smart one in the family—but knowing what was in the pages of scientific tomes and knowing how to behave in polite company were two different things. Even now, well before midnight, Damien had already imbibed far too much, and at his own party, no less. Surely Isabel would be taking the bottle away from him sometime soon.

  At any rate, Penny, though incredibly young and seemingly innocent, had a fine head on her shoulders. Very, very fine, if he was being honest. Though most people looked better bathed in moonlight than they did in the light of day, so perhaps he ought to save judgment for a brighter meeting.

  Drake drummed his fingers on the stone wall against which he’d been leaning for the last fifteen or so minutes while he waited for the women to clear the veranda. He wasn’t a terribly patient man, and he was starting to think that perhaps he didn’t want to wait until another chance meeting to see Penny again.

  He laughed quietly, remembering his initial shock upon learning her identity. He’d known her brother, Devlin—and Simeon, may he rest in peace—for a good many years, and the way he’d spoken of his sisters—the youngest one in particular—had not prepared Drake for tonight’s meeting. In his mind, the littlest Bartlett girl wore short skirts and ringlets and a giant bow atop her head. In his mind, she was a child, like Clarisse.

  In reality she wasn’t a child at all, but instead, a rather fetching woman. Well, in the moonlight, but he’d established that fact already.

  Drake returned his attention to the conversation taking place above him.

  “Perhaps we should stay here. This mysterious gentleman has to come back up this way sometime soon or risk being rained upon.”

  Damn. Nosy little chits, weren’t they? One of them had previously leaned over the edge of the balcony in search of him. He refused to take even a breath as long as she was there. Young ladies seemed to have heightened senses when they were on the hunt for men—they could hear the slightest grunt, smell the faintest cologne—Drake knew better than to move a single muscle despite the cloak of darkness over him.

  “Don’t you dare,” came Penny’s voice, and Drake couldn’t help but smile. Clearly she was looking out for him, and there was something rather sweet in that. “Haven’t you two got better things to do with your time?”

  A male voice came from afar, calling one of the sisters to him, and then the other sister—once she’d made sure Penny was all right—departed as well. Drake assumed Penny would follow. She’d be foolish to linger out of doors after all that.

  He counted to sixty and then decided it was probably safe to climb the stairs and attempt to sneak back into the ballroom, hopefully without any of her sisters seeing him. He bounded up the stairs and rounded the corner at the top, only to smack hard into something…or someone, rather.

  A loud gasp reached his ears, followed by the faint scent of rose water, as the woman’s face lay against his chest, her hair practically in his nose. She would have stumbled backward, but Drake held tight to her shoulders to make sure she didn’t lose her balance and take a tumble on the hard stone patio.

  “You may let me go now, Flit,” came the woman’s muffled voice, and it took him a moment to realize that it was Penny he held against him.

  Well, it took his brain a moment to realize it was Penny. Other parts of his anatomy were rather excited about having her in such close proximity.

  Damn.

  He set her away from him, trying to focus on less attractive thoughts, like his grandmother’s saggy chin or horse manure in the streets. None of it was working, thanks to the way the breeze picked up strands of her hair and blew them across her perfectly rounded cheeks. Or the way her heavy breaths made her more-than-ample breasts rise so high that he was certain they would pop from the edge of her dress.

  Good God, those things were distracting.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, slightly breathless.

  “Trying to go back inside without—” He paused, realizing they were out in the open where anyone could see them. He clamped a firm hand around her arm, just above her elbow, and pulled her back around the corner, out of sight of the ballroom. “Without being seen,” he finally finished on a whisper.

  “Oh, of course,” Penny replied. “But I should probably go in first.”

  “I thought you had gone in already. What were you doing going this way?”

  Even in the darkness, he could tell she was blushing. She swallowed hard and tipped her head down. He didn’t normally find bashfulness terribly attractive, but on Penny…

  “I—I was coming to find you,” she said timidly.

  He knew why, but a man always liked to have his ego stroked a little by the fairer sex, so he asked, “Why?”

  “I just wanted to say thank you.”

  Hm. That was unexpected. He’d thought perhaps she’d come back out to claim a kiss, not to say thank you. “I didn’t realize I’d done anything to warrant your gratitude.”

  “But you have.” She gave him a shy smile. “So, thank you.”

  Flit opened his mouth to ask her to please elaborate, but she turned so abruptly to run up the stairs again that he didn’t have the chance.

  Ah, well. He still wished to see her in the light of day, so he supposed an afternoon visit on the morrow would be in order. Maybe then he’d find out what she was so grateful for.

  A knock came at Penny’s door that afternoon, followed quickly by the click of the latch as Miranda barged into her room, a more reluctant Calista following behind. She turned from her vanity where she’d been preparing for afternoon visitors and eyed them both curiously.

  “May I help you?” she asked when neither said anything.

  They exchanged another one of those strange glances and then Calista asked, “Is there anything you wish to tell us, Penny?”

  “About last night?” Miranda finished, and Calista gave her a warning glance.

  Penny’s cheeks grew warm, and being that it was the middle of the afternoon, she couldn’t hide behind the cloak of darkness. Instead, she whirled on her vanity stool again to face the mirror. Redder than a ripe tomato, blast them.

  “Not that I can think of,” she said, trying to remain as nonchalant as she could under the circumstances.

  “Nothing?” Miranda’s voice went up nearly an octave. What were they trying to get at?

  Penny shook her head and squeaked out an, “Uh-uh.”

  Miranda came up behind her, put her hands on Penny’s shoulders and leaned down so they were practically cheek-to-cheek. “So if we told you that Viscount Flitwick was downstairs in our parlor, that wouldn’t mean anything to you?”

  Oh, heavens! He’d come here? To see her? Penny gasped and jumped from the stool, nearly knocking Miranda over in the process.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Penny demanded, but she didn’t wait for an answer. She was already out the door and headed for the staircase.

  By the time she reached the parlor, she was out of breath, panting like a dog on a hot day, so she paused just outside to catch her breath and smooth her skirts. Heavens, what was he doing here? She hadn’t expected this. She’d hoped for it, of course, but never dreamed he would actually come calling on her.

  Did she look all right? She was wearing her most comfortable day dress—a simple white muslin with ruffled trim and a pale pink ribbon just under her bust. But comfortable didn’t always mean flattering.

  She cast a glance to the stairs, wondering how long it would take her to go back up and change, when his voice came from the doorway.

  “There you are, Miss Penelope,” he said, his voice sending shivers up and down Penny’s spine.

  She whirl
ed to find him leaning against the doorway, so calm, collected. The complete opposite of how she felt just then. And his stunning appearance didn’t help matters any. Goodness, what a fine specimen he was. She might not have been so candid with him the night before had she been able to see him properly—surely her tongue would have tied itself into knots and prevented her from saying a single word.

  Today, he wore tight buckskin breeches beneath a pair of shiny, black hessians. His legs were so perfectly shaped, and the way he crossed one over the other and folded his arms across his crisp white shirt…

  “Is everything all right, Miss Penelope?” he asked, his brow furrowing in concern.

  Penny said the first thought that came to her mind. “What are you doing here?”

  Flit must have thought this amusing, for he burst into laughter. It was good to see not everything changed in the light of day.

  “Come in and sit with me, won’t you?”

  Penny shook her head. “Of course. Where are my manners?”

  “You needn’t stand on ceremony with me, Miss Penelope. You’re far too interesting for me to want to change your candid nature.”

  “Well, not everyone would agree with you,” she replied as she tugged the bell pull. “I’m afraid my family members see me as a child still. It’s quite frustrating, really.”

  She settled on the settee directly across from the green striped French chair he occupied.

  “Is that why you thanked me last night?”

  Penny stopped her fidgeting and looked up at him. “Why yes, it is,” she said. “It’s refreshing to be around someone who doesn’t treat me like I ought to still be in leading strings.”

  Flit gave a little chuckle. “Leading strings, no,” he said, and Penny got the distinct feeling that he meant she ought to wear some other kind of strings. How odd.

  “Did you ring, Penny?”

  Miranda burst through the doorway, all smiles and mischief. Penny gave a pleading look to Calista, who entered the room a bit more elegantly, but she simply shrugged, as if there was nothing she could do about their gregarious sister. However, though she would never be nearly as forward as Miranda in this situation, Penny had a feeling Calista was just as interested in finding out about her relationship with Flit as Miranda was.