In for a Penny (26 page)

When the door was shut, he drew in a deep breath and rang the bell.

“Davies, will you decant a bottle of brandy for me?”

Davies’s eyes widened. Of course the entire household knew of his recent puritanism. Nev tried to look as if
he
did not see anything unusual about his request. What made it so odd was that Davies had decanted probably hundreds of bottles for him, over the years.

“Of course, my lord, at once.” Davies didn’t move. Then, abruptly—“My lord, is everything all right?”

Nev wanted to snap at him, but he was touched by the man’s concern. “Everything is splendid. I am simply in the mood for some brandy.”

Davies nodded, and in a few minutes he was back with a full decanter and a snifter. After the man had left the room, Nev poured himself a glass. He stared at it, turning it in his hand. This was it, then.

For a moment he was tempted to pour it in the grate and tell Penelope he had drunk it. But that would be ridiculous. He was a grown man, and he refused to be afraid of a damn glass of liquor. He took a small sip. It tasted just as good as he remembered.

The warmth spread down his throat, all the way to his stomach. But there was no time to savor it. Penelope must be ready by now. He smiled and gulped the brandy down.

Changing into his nightclothes, he already felt himself affected. His hands were clumsy on the ties of his dressing gown. He hadn’t eaten in a few hours, and he had grown unaccustomed to liquor.

To his surprise, being drunk was not the seductive paradise he had created in his mind during these last few months of sobriety. He felt a little happier, that was all. He could still remember his problems but they seemed smaller, further away.

Penelope wasn’t far away, though. She was in the next room. His smile grew. He had been afraid he would want another glass; at that moment he didn’t want
anything
that would delay getting to Penelope.

He didn’t bother to knock. Penelope was waiting; she was on him before he got two steps into the room. Her mouth was sweet and warm, and the heavy embroidered silk of her robe was smooth and sensuous under his hands. There was a heady floral scent in his nostrils.

“You did drink the brandy,” she said happily when he finally pulled his mouth away from hers.

“You told me to, didn’t you? I—” He got a good look at her and stopped talking. She was wearing a dressing gown made of the same fabric that covered the ridiculous new settee. In the candlelight the golden dragons glimmered and the contrast of the dark blue silk with her pale skin was shocking. The robe covered most of her; all he could see was her head and neck, her bare feet, and the ends of her fingers. It reminded him of that first night at Loweston, of Penelope swathed in her nightshirt. There were three great purple chrysanthemums curling in her loosely pinned hair. “You—you—where did you get chrysanthemums?”

She smiled. “My mother grows them in our back garden at
home. I asked her to send me a few plants. I didn’t tell her why I wanted them.”

Penelope had gone to all this trouble for him, because of a chance remark. “You’re the best wife in the world.” Pulling her forward by her wide yellow sash, he crushed her mouth beneath his. He felt for the ends of the sash and worked them free. His fingers told him the best part, but he didn’t believe it until he pulled back and looked.

She was naked underneath.

Nev had died and gone to heaven. He raised one hand to her breast, filled with intoxicated wonder. “So beautiful. So damned beautiful…Sorry, dashed.”

She hummed in satisfaction. “Come here.” She tugged him over to the settee. He sat, reaching for her eagerly, but before he could kiss her she climbed on top of him, pushing him back against the cushions, and trailed openmouthed kisses down his neck. “Nev.” Her breath was hot against his skin. “Mine.”

“Yours,” he gasped.

“I bought you. I bought you and you’re mine.”

He nodded, drunk on happiness and desire, and threaded his fingers in her hair. A chrysanthemum fell to the floor and filled the room with fragrance.

Penelope woke up feeling happy, although she didn’t remember why. It was late, nearly ten o’clock. She ought to be up doing things, but somehow it was all right that she wasn’t. She was wearing—she was wearing a Chinese silk dressing gown and sleeping in Nev’s bed. His hand rested lightly on her waist. She smiled.

However, she also had to use the necessary. She sat up gingerly, trying not to wake Nev—abruptly nausea washed over her and her head ached. At the same time she remembered everything that had happened the night before.

Oh, God. She had exposed herself utterly. Figuratively
and
literally. She barely made it to the basin in her room before being sick. So this was a hangover.

But it was worse than that. She had wondered about love, she had wondered if Nev loved her and if she loved him, but it had been almost like a game; she had never quite believed in it. It was real now. She was in love, she loved him madly. She had always thought that grand passions were a myth created by fools to explain their own weak-willed behavior, and now their reality was blinding. Penelope felt as if she had turned a corner on an ordinary London street and seen a great dragon coiled there.

She took deep breaths and tried to be still; every movement made the nausea worse. She loved Nev. She would have told him so, last night. She was pitifully grateful that he hadn’t let her.

Still, he must know. She had barely stopped touching him the whole evening. Everyone must know. Edward must know. Oh, God, had she really tried to take her hair down in the carriage? Had Nev really had to cajole her into propriety as if she were a spoiled child? Had she really told him his hair was like cinnamon? That he made her dizzy?

Her mouth tasted like acid and her head ached. She planted her hands on either side of the washstand and stared in the mirror, her chest still heaving. In the brutal light of morning she saw her plain face and slight form swathed in blue and gold and felt sicker than she had ever felt in her life. She looked like a sparrow borrowing a peacock’s feathers, and she had let herself feel pretty. She had let herself feel
beautiful
, because Nev had said she was. Dear, sweet Nev who must have said that to a million girls. Who must have made a million girls believe it.

Nev cares about me
, she reminded herself.
He respects me. Well, he did before last night.
That was what she had wanted,
wasn’t it? A marriage based on reason and compromise and mutual esteem?

Reason and compromise and mutual esteem were shadowy intellectual conceits. Her love for Nev was blood and bone and sinew. It was all true, all the poetry and the damn Minerva Press novels. She really did feel as though she would die without him.

But the idea of living
with
him, like this, knowing that she loved him, was far worse. God, her head ached! She wanted someone else to fix it, to comfort her, to smooth back her hair and give her cool water to drink. She wanted Nev.

She shied away from that, searching for something safe, and thought of her mother. What would Mrs. Brown say? She wouldn’t understand, that was certain; she wouldn’t see that it was complicated. She’d say,
What a lot of fuss over nothing, Penny. Just tell him how you feel!

Penelope
could
tell him. Perhaps—perhaps he felt the same way. Perhaps she could be happy. He liked her, he cared about her, he’d told her again and again how much—

But she couldn’t even
think
it without a sense of impending horror so strong she could not get round it. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t let herself believe that he might return her feelings. What if she were wrong?

Knowing that she burned for him while he thought her a very nice girl was bad enough. But if
he
knew it and pitied her and tried to be kind—and if he knew, moreover, that she had
hoped
—

She had to compromise. She would stay and see him every day and never tell him how she felt.

But she knew that she couldn’t do that either. She couldn’t compromise on this. Always before she had been in control of herself, the one thing she
could
have mastery over, and now she was come to the end of that control.

Nausea washed over her again in dizzying waves. She
needed time. Time to think, time to come to terms with herself.
Time to hide
, she told herself scornfully. And,
What of it?
she snapped right back. Her head felt like it was inside out; she just needed a little
time
—

Nev opened the door between their rooms. She turned, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She had never felt more unglamorous. He looked fresh and rumpled and happy and handsome beyond bearing, and she could not speak.

“Have a head, do you? You didn’t drink much, it shouldn’t be too bad. After you’ve drunk some tea and had breakfast, you’ll feel right as rain.”

The thought of breakfast made her gorge rise; he must have seen it, because he came forward and brushed her hair back from her face. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch.

“I know it sounds all wrong,” he said, and she thought how very dear his voice was, how it was the first thing she had loved, without knowing it, “but bacon and eggs are just the thing when you feel rotten the morning after drinking.”

Breakfast with Nev. She remembered him licking honey off her fingers, and tears stung her eyes. She felt so sick, and she just wanted to lie down and have Nev read to her. Sing to her, maybe.

“What’s wrong, sweet?”

If she went down to breakfast with him she would stay. “I’m going home.” As soon as she blurted it out, she was choked with longing. Her mother might not understand, but she would hold her, she would stroke her hair, she would
love
her. And Penelope could lie in her familiar bed and eat familiar English food and feel
safe
.

There was a moment’s pause; then Nev said, as though he must have misheard her, “What?”

“I need some time to think. We both do—Nev, you know
things have been awful. And I’m the one who got all your people arrested, it’ll be easier without me. I’ll go stay with my parents for a while. I can’t think here, Nev, everyone
hates
me—” Oh, God, she sounded like a child. She sounded pathetic and she wanted to slap herself. But it was the
truth
.

“
I
don’t hate you!”

She turned her face away.

“Surely this isn’t necessary. Tell me what’s wrong. Surely we can compromise—”

She flinched. “
No
,” she said. “No. I’ve been compromising all my life.”

“I just—I don’t understand. Last night—” He didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence.

Last night I made it plain to the entire neighborhood that I worship you passionately? Is that what you were going to say
? she wanted to shout, humiliated. Instead she said, “I’m very sorry for my behavior last night. I know I must have embarrassed you sorely.”

“Penelope, what is going on? What happened? Are you really serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious!” she said angrily. “Why is it so hard to believe?” She knew the reason was her own foolish behavior. She couldn’t meet his eyes. She couldn’t even look at him, not when his disbelief and hurt were plain in his voice.
Take it back
, a voice whispered.
Apologize. You’re being selfish and foolish and all kinds of irrational.
But she
wanted
to be selfish, damn it. She wanted to do what was right for
her
, just this once. “I can’t stay, Nev. I need to think. I’ll just go home, for a while, and then we’ll see. We’ll talk. Whatever happens, I’ll make sure you keep the money, I promise—”

“Hang the money! This
is
your home!”

She stared. He stalked toward her, looking as if he would grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Backing hastily away, she trod on a wilted chrysanthemum. The smell made her gag.

“Just tell me one thing. Last night, if I had let you tell me how you felt, is this what you would have said?”

God, his eyes were blue.

“Are you telling me that—that was a goddamned goodbye present?”

She was against the wall now, trapped. She couldn’t let me believe that, but—

The door opened and a white-faced Lady Bedlow flew in. “Louisa’s eloped!” She took in the scene. “Penelope, dear, what on
earth
are you wearing?”

And so, for the second time in twelve hours, Nev found himself making the carriage ride to Greygloss. But this time, Louisa wasn’t with them. How had everything gone so terribly wrong? It was worse, even, than those two weeks after his father had died, before he had proposed to Penelope. Then there had been hours of books and faulty arithmetic and a faint, persistent grief; now there was a jagged hole inside him. He had thought he had fixed everything. He had thought that with Penelope by his side, everything might come out all right in the end. Just last night, it had seemed as if, maybe, everything
was
all right.

But he had fixed nothing at all. Instead, he had failed in every way imaginable. His sister was gone. His best friend was gone. His wife was leaving.

Penelope was leaving. God.

What was he fighting for?
Who
was he fighting for? What was to be his reward when he had pulled Loweston out of the hole it was in? He might as well give up. He might as well go bankrupt tomorrow.

He might as well get drunk and find someone to blow his brains out.

The thought snapped him out of his stupor of self-pity. What would Penelope say if she knew how morbidly he was thinking?

He clung to the last hope he had. He would bring Louisa back. Percy was a faster driver than either of them, but if Nev and Thirkell spelled each other they could overtake him. And when Louisa was safe home, he would talk to Penelope. She was a sensible girl; she would see reason. She had to, because Nev could not imagine how he would live if she did not.

She said she might come back. She said she just needed a little time to think.
But what was there for her to come back for?
Everyone hates me here
, she had said. And the only answer Nev could give her was that
he
didn’t. If she didn’t want him, then there was nothing for her at Loweston.