Wedded in Sin (27 page)

They had arrived at the dress shop, their steps slowing as she finished speaking. By the time they’d reached the door, she was turning to him, her eyes wide and her chin thrust out in stubbornness.

“You understand, don’t you?” she asked.

“Of course I do, Penny. And I swear you will never have to support me with so much as a groat.”

“I don’t mind,” she said honestly, her hand still on his arm. “All of us help out our friends, and everybody hits a rough patch. But it can’t be all the time. I won’t have it.”

“No laze-about lovers for you. I think that’s very wise.”

She flinched at the word “lover” but didn’t speak. Instead, she just looked at him, and he saw an unexpected anxiety settle into her features.

“I’ve never done something like this before. I don’t know how to go about it.”

He touched her chin, stroking his thumb across her jawline. Such a strong face she had, such a clear sense of purpose even now when she was beset on all sides.

“You amaze me,” he whispered. Then he kissed her. Long and sweet, reveling in the taste and feel of her. He pulled her tight into his arms and felt her yield to his embrace. Strength softening for him. Nothing had ever pleased him more. Or left him randier.

He drew back for fear of taking more than he should, and right here in the street no less. “You should go inside,” he rasped as he handed over her satchel. “Quickly before I drag you back to Missy’s.”

She flashed him a smile that was both coy and delighted, but she didn’t leave. She didn’t even unlock the door. “What happens tomorrow? Now that we can’t prove the signature false?”

She was back to her case, to the return of her inheritance. He should have expected no less, and yet it stung a bit. Right after a kiss that left him thinking of nothing but her sweet body, she was already on to the next day’s business.

“I shall have to make some inquiries, but I think our best bet is to enlist the aid of young Ned.”

She frowned, obviously trying to place the name.

“Addicock’s young clerk. If anyone can prove the solicitor a fraud, it will be the boy. Or the boy before him.”

Penny brightened, her mind quickly grasping the ramifications. “Another clerk! Of course! He might know all sorts of havy cavy dealing.”

“Yes, but I must find him first.
You
must make any number of ladies slippers. Please, Penny, leave it to me for the moment.”

She nodded. “But perhaps I could go with you to see Ned? He did seem like he was sweet on me.”

Samuel’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “Yes, he did. And yes, you will. But not tomorrow. Let me make some inquiries first.”

“Very well. But you’ll let me know what happens?”

“Of course. Just as you will be ready Thursday night for my friend’s…er…gathering.”

“You mean the ball.”

He shrugged. “Whatever it is, you did promise.”

“I did,” she admitted. “And I will.” This time she was the one who kissed him. Sweet, tender, and with every bit as much longing as he had. “Good night, Samuel.”

“Good night, Penny.”

Then she was gone. Inside the shop while he stood in the doorway like a lovelorn fool. In the end, he turned away. He headed toward his empty rooms on his silent street. He’d always appreciated the quiet before now. No servants, no impertinent neighbors. Not even a dog to yip at his heels. Was this what happened to men in love? Did they suddenly become morose? Did everything they value abruptly pale in comparison to the woman?

This would never do. Not because it wasn’t acceptable behavior. It wasn’t, but that didn’t truly worry him. What bothered him most was what he saw when he looked in his mirror.

He saw a lanky, slouching man with hair too long by half, clothing that was creased and frayed. He saw his cluttered room behind him, and the haphazard piles of correspondence completely ignored on the floor by the door. Worse than that, he saw his own future stretched out before him like a boring game. Nothing there interested him. Nothing he saw excited him. It was all just endless days of games—investing games, flirting games, and secret games played by gentlemen for money, sex, or power. Tedious, which made him tedious by extension.

Or perhaps the better word was “unworthy.” Because when he set up his own reflection against his image of Penny, he paled to nothingness. Whereas he wandered between wealth and poverty, a gentleman’s pursuits, and a variety of brothels, she daily fought for her art, her livelihood, and now Tommy’s inheritance and education. Those were substantial things. What he did was merely play games.

Never before had he felt so worthless. Never in his days had he breathed his emptiness so keenly.

But what was he to do about it? It had to change. It
had
to. Because how else could he win Penny? Only a man as substantial as she deserved to win her hand.

But how? How did a man who played at life find something
real
to do? It was a question that had haunted him long before he’d met Penny. But now he needed the answer with an urgency that burned in his gut.

He would find a way to be
real
. And then he would turn around and give it all to her.

Chapter 16

Penny slept well. That hadn’t happened in such a long
time. Not since before losing her parents. Not since the man who’d once said he’d marry her got someone else pregnant. That was perhaps the last time she’d gone to bed happy and slept peacefully until morning. So when she woke refreshed to the sound of Tommy babbling to himself in his crib, she was pleased indeed.

She had a lover, of sorts. A man who didn’t see her as unnatural. When he looked at her, she felt like she was the most special woman in the world. She was still homeless, her life still in chaos, but somehow it all seemed better today. She wasn’t unnatural, at least not to Samuel, and that made her want to sing. Or hum, at least, as she and Tommy began their day.

Nothing soured her mood. Cordwain couldn’t do it when he came blustering and bellowing at their door. Wendy handled it easily. Anthony was spending some early hours at the shop doing the bookkeeping, so he held Cordwain off while Wendy went for the constable. Two finicky customers couldn’t do it, even though they thought they knew more about what kept a shoe looking pretty than she did. And certainly Francine didn’t sour anything as she settled on a stool next to the cobbler’s bench and started to chat, much like Penny had done so many times with her father.

Except this time, the discussion wasn’t about shoes or customers. It was a good deal more fun because it was about Francine’s wedding.

“Mama is horrified, but who wants a party in the morning? It’s a stupid law. Married in the morning. Why? I want a party with dancing. She says it isn’t proper, and do you know what I said to her?”

Penny shook her head, barely able to keep her attention on her stitches. She was trying a new type of decorative stitching that would make the shoe stronger and prettier at the same time. “I hope it was that you were going to have a party first thing after you were married and she could come or not!”

Francine giggled. “I should have. Instead, I told her that I wasn’t a very proper girl and that Anthony likes me just fine the way I am.”

Penny gasped. She could just see the horror on Mrs. Richards’s face at that statement. But it was no less than the truth. After all, Anthony and Francine had been caught in very improper circumstances. An engagement had been announced the very afternoon they’d been discovered, much to the couple’s delight.

“Then I just walked away,” Francine continued. “Right like that, I left her and went into the kitchen. She hasn’t spoken a word to me since.”

“Not a word?”

Francine shook her head, and for the first moment that afternoon, Penny detected a whisper of fear across her friend’s face. “I just want a party, you know. A party with my friends and Anthony’s friends. I want to have fun on my wedding day.”

Penny giggled. “You’re supposed to have your fun on the wedding night.”

Francine sighed happily. “We’ve been having
that
for weeks now. Oh, Penny, I can’t wait to be married so we can stop being interrupted! I want to sleep in a bed with him all night long!”

Penny looked down at the slipper she was stitching, but her hands were still. What would it be like to go to sleep lying against Samuel? To wake in his arms? She couldn’t even imagine it. She remembered him naked and chained to the wall, and her blood heated as her heart began pounding. Could she actually
sleep
with him? As in close her eyes, settle next to his heart, and drop into a blissful night’s rest? She wanted to think she could, but nothing about the man made her think of sleep.

Meanwhile, Francine must have noticed the change. While Penny was lost in her musing, her friend set her hand on Penny’s wrist.

“Listen to me going on and on when you’ve been having such trouble. Tell me what I can do to help. How can I make you feel better?”

Penny jolted back to the present with a blush staining her cheeks. But one look at her friend’s earnest expression and something broke inside her. For the first time in a very long time, she didn’t want to keep her thoughts a secret. She wanted to share.

“Then tell me,” she said softly. “How did you know that Anthony was the man for you?”

Francine shrugged. “I didn’t. Not for the longest time. Father was pushing for a title, you know, and I felt so awful about myself. About everything.”

“And did Anthony make you feel happy?”

“No. He did something much, much better. He made me
think
. He made me stand up for myself. And then, he made me feel other things, too!” She giggled, her face bright red. “I don’t think I discovered ‘happy’ until later.” Then, proving that she was no fool, Francine looked harder at Penny. “You’ve got a man, haven’t you? It’s that odd gentleman Mr. Morrison, isn’t it?”

Penny shrugged, finally abandoning any pretense at working. Normally she could pick up an awl or a scrap of leather and she was in her place. She loved nothing better than bringing one of her conceptions for a shoe to life. When things were at their worst—and there had been plenty of very bad times recently—she’d always found relief in one of her designs, sketching it on paper when she couldn’t afford the leather.

But not today. Today everything in her heart and mind was centered on Samuel. So she set the slipper carefully down, trying to choose her words with equal caution. But she couldn’t. So she opted for just talking. “Samuel and I—we’ve done things. Last night we…He…” She couldn’t even put it into words.

Francine squealed in delight. “Was it fun? Did you feel…” She waved her hands vaguely in front of her belly. “Was it wonderful?”

“Yes. But we’re not going to get married. He’s a gentleman, I’m a…well, I make shoes.”

“Beautiful shoes!”

She nodded, taking the statement as truth. “But what we did, it’s a sin. It has to be.”

Francine sighed. “You sure he won’t marry you?”

Penny tried to picture it. She tried to imagine Samuel down on one knee before her, a ring in his hand, offering it to her. The picture was so beautiful it nearly broke her heart. But she just couldn’t believe it would ever happen. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh.” Her friend fell silent, sympathy in her eyes. “Do you really think God will damn you for it?”

“I don’t know. I never really thought about God. Just what the priests say. And my mother. I keep thinking about my mother. She tried so hard to keep me sweet. That was her word for it. Sweet. She shooed all the gentlemen away and didn’t like Ronald. He’s the boy who got—”

“The other girl pregnant. It sounds like your mum knew what she was about with him.”

Penny couldn’t argue with that. But what would her mother say now? About her going to a brothel dungeon with a mad toff? She didn’t even want to think of it.

Meanwhile, Francine pushed out of her chair, pacing about the room. Since becoming engaged, the girl had suddenly gotten four times the energy she’d ever shown before. She never sat like a sullen lump anymore. She was up and moving often. And right now, she wandered to where Tommy was asleep in a little nest of blankets and toys.

“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” Francine said in a low voice. “To not get pregnant.”

Penny blanched. “We haven’t even…We didn’t…”

Francine turned back, her eyes serious. “But if he comes by again, will you step out together?”

“He’s taking me to a ball tomorrow night.”

Francine’s eyes widened and she released a low whistle. “A ball! Really?”

“I shouldn’t go. I’m not meant for that kind of party.”

“But of course you are!” Francine crossed back to give Penny a firm shake. “If you have a gent who’s willing to take you, of course you should go!”

Penny blushed and ducked her head. “Well, I already talked to Mrs. Appleton. She’s airing out one of Helen’s dresses for me. It’s beautiful and Wendy said she’ll make a few changes and it will fit me like a dream.”

“So you are going!”

“I can’t make myself say no.”

“Of course not! You’ll have so much fun!” She straightened and twirled in a happy circle. “You’ll love dancing!”