Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

“ T he physician is due at any moment, I believe…”

“Yes, the duke is sitting with Silverbrook now. Everyone says the man was drunk as a pickled herring…”

“I’m hardly surprised after how much brandy he was knocking back during billiards…”

“Oh, enough of these reckless young gentlemen and their drinking. What are you wearing for the ball, Lady Hurlston? I’ve brought my blue silk and my silver figured muslin…”

Penelope lingered in the breakfast room as other guests in the house party came and went over the next hour, all sharing gossip about Henry’s accident and then losing interest and looking forward to the events planned at Huntingdon Manor that week.

However hard she found the conversation at the table, she felt safest in company right now. Even if Henry talked and Frederick’s anger descended suddenly on her head, there was only so far he could go before an audience.

In the immediate future, there was nothing worse Frederick could do directly than send Penelope home to her mother at dear old Heartwick Hall. Frederick himself had made his own home in London since their father’s death, his absence making it clear how little interest he had in his stepmother and half-sister.

It was the longer term, and the reactions of wider society that Penelope knew were the real perils, especially if, as she suspected, Frederick would always choose Henry over her. Their father had been dead for over fifteen years now, and she had no one else who might stand up for her to put down untoward gossip.

It didn’t even matter whether it were true sometimes. Even a hint of impropriety on a young lady’s reputation could significantly damage her marital prospects. For a woman who had been out in society for almost five years, it might prove disastrous, even a woman like Penelope, possessed of physical beauty, high status, and a handsome dowry.

“Sometimes it is easiest to be alone in a crowd, is it not?” said a voice at her shoulder as Penelope trailed the final late risers to the breakfast room door, unable to eke out her time any further.

The Duke of Walden had lingered, too, and in the long minutes that had passed, she had frequently felt his eyes watching her. It was like a physical sensation, a light sweeping of imaginary blue silk across her skin.

She nodded, and they paused together before the door, allowing the other guests to leave and the door to drift closed. Apart from the two of them, there were only two maids now at the sideboard, clearing away the hot food trays and utensils.

“Your offer,” said Penelope very quietly, to keep their conversation private from the servants. “Does it come with conditions? I must be entirely sure what you will require from me before I answer you.”

“Require from you?” Maxwell Walden repeated with an amused expression. “I have already told you that I want a wife, a woman capable of being an impressive Duchess of Walden and a respected figure of the ton.”

“Yes, I understand that it would be a business arrangement in that regard, Your Grace. But how far would it go… on a personal level.”

Penelope felt the heat of her face rising as she spoke and bit her lip. She could not come straight out and ask whether he expected her to share his bed and eventually bear his children. Such words simply could not pass her lips. Still, from the knowing look in his eyes, she suspected that the duke understood her meaning well enough.

“I want a wife, Lady Penelope,” he said in a voice that was both gentle and intent as well as being far, far too close. “Can I assume you know something already of relations between husbands and wives?”

Penelope swallowed, unable to immediately answer. His words had prompted a wild surge of unfamiliar and peculiar desire in her blood. What was happening? It was as though the duke’s very presence had an uncontrollable effect on her body and mind.

If Annabelle or any other friend had posed the same question, she would have answered that, of course, she knew of such things. But looking now at the tall, handsome, and compelling Duke of Walden and imagining herself in his bedroom, she realized that her understanding might be sketchy and theoretical. She wondered if she really knew anything at all.

Before the duke had the chance to pursue this uncomfortable question further, the doors opened again, and Penelope sprang back almost guiltily as the slim, blonde figure of her brother appeared. Frederick stood in the doorway, looking at the two of them with incomprehension, the door half open behind him.

“Penelope! I was looking for Duchess Madeline. But what are you doing in here alone with the Duke of Walden? Why are you not with the other ladies?”

The Duke of Heartwick glanced suspiciously around the otherwise empty room as the two maids bustled out the side door with trays and dishes. His initial expression was one of distinct displeasure.

“There is nothing to be concerned about, Duke Frederick,” Maxwell Crawford stepped in quickly. “Duchess Madeline and others have only just left the breakfast rooms. I detained your sister very briefly for advice on introductions at the ball on Thursday. The servants were in here at all times, and Lady Penelope’s conduct has been faultless.”

Frederick glared at the Duke of Walden with narrowed eyes, and Maxwell Crawford looked back at him calmly without any sign of perturbation. Penelope’s heart beat faster as she observed this semi-confrontation. Some in the ton might judge Frederick a lightweight playboy like so many of his friends, but she knew him better. There was steel beneath the choir boy’s mask of blonde hair and sky-blue eyes.

The Duke of Walden, too, was a man of strength and iron will. Whether physical or mental, Penelope could not say which of the men might best the other in any serious clash. She hoped it would never come to that.

“Frederick, have you been formally introduced yet to Maxwell Crawford, Duke of Walden?” said Penelope lightly, deliberately interrupting their staring contest. “I met Duke Maxwell at breakfast this morning with Duchess Madeline and hope that I will meet his sister, Victoria, in London during the coming Season. Duke Maxwell, this is my brother Frederick Hayward, Duke of Heartwick.”

While Frederick seemed to pay her little attention as usual, Maxwell Crawford responded immediately to the plea in her eyes, extending his hand to the other man with a broad smile.

“Duke Charles and Duchess Madeline speak very highly of your family, Duke Frederick. I am pleased to make the acquaintance of its head.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Frederick took the offered hand and shook it, although his expression indicated that he still wasn’t entirely happy with the situation.

“Is Henry awake?” Penelope asked deliberately, drawing Frederick’s attention back to another topic of presumably greater concern to him.

“He’s still drifting in and out of consciousness, sometimes rambling,” answered her brother with a shrug. “None of us know whether it’s the drink or the blow to the head affecting him. Hopefully the physician can make more sense of the matter than we can.”

As he spoke these words, Penelope heard the sound of the large front door and the steady tones of Lonsley, the butler, welcoming a newcomer.

“The physician has just arrived,” she pointed out in case either Frederick or Maxwell Crawford had missed this. “Someone should take him straight upstairs. I heard Duke Charles telling the duchess that she shouldn’t be rushing around.”

Instantly, both men moved forward, almost colliding in their eagerness to reach the hallway and meet the medical man. Again, Penelope sensed a frisson of tension between the two men, almost competition, if not mild aggression.

“I will escort the physician upstairs to Lord Silverbrook,” Maxwell Crawford asserted firmly but pleasantly. “After all, I was the one who found him, and the man might have questions for me about his state last night. Then you and Lady Penelope can find Duchess Madeline as you planned and let her know what is happening.”

“Very well,” Frederick agreed after a moment’s consideration, his jaw still slightly tight with either suspicion or affront as he stepped back. “We will speak later, Duke Maxwell.”

“Duke Frederick, Lady Penelope.”

With a small bow to each of them, Maxwell Crawford departed without further ado, and Frederick closed the breakfast room door behind him.

“Are you well, Penelope? Was everything as that man said? If he disrespected or frightened you, I would thrash him, regardless of Duke Charles’s regard.”

“Frederick!” Penelope exclaimed in surprise, both at her brother’s threat and the concern on his face as he looked at her. “No! Nothing of the sort. We have had a perfectly civilized and respectable discussion over breakfast with Duchess Madeline and others. There is nothing to be so agitated over.”

“But are you sure nothing is wrong?” he asked, his light blue eyes searching her face worriedly as though her state of mind meant something to him. “Annabelle was right. You have been rather pensive today.”

“I am sure. The Duke of Walden is an honorable man, and you need have no concern over my association with him.”

Penelope smiled genuinely at her brother. This atypical outburst of concern for her welfare was actually rather pleasing, although she was baffled over what might have prompted Frederick to remember not only that he had a younger sister but also that he ought to show some interest in her.

“And are you well, Frederick?” she pursued. “You are the one who does not seem like yourself.”

“I do not quite know,” he admitted with a long sigh, leaning back against the door. “I know I should have seen Henry back to his rooms last night. I saw how much he’d had to drink. He wasn’t even on the right set of stairs and must have been going to my room. I wasn’t even in there… If he’d broken his neck, I’d never forgive myself.”

“It was not your fault, Frederick,” Penelope said, placing a hand on his arm and feeling gratified that he patted it instead of shrugging her off. “Whatever happened last night, wherever you were and whatever you were doing, I’m sure Henry’s accident had nothing to do with you. In fact, I should tell you something…”

“No matter,” Frederick stated abruptly, straightening himself up and taking a deep breath before Penelope could finish her sentence. “It doesn’t help anyone to be too introspective, does it? Come, let’s pull ourselves together, find Duchess Madeline, and let her know that Walden has taken the physician upstairs before she starts rushing about and brings on that baby early.”

He offered his arm formally to Penelope, and she took it with a slight sigh. Their moment of intimacy had been too brief, and now Frederick was back to his normal self before she’d been able to act on her impulse to come clean to him about what had really happened on those stairs last night.

“While we’re speaking, Penelope,” said Frederick in a more familiar hectoring tone, “regardless of Walden’s respectability and honor, you should not be alone with him. You must be careful about how such things can look to others, regardless of good intentions. Think of my reputation if you can’t remember your own. I’d also hate to have to explain any sort of scandal to your mother, merited or not.”

Truly, the notion of ever confessing the truth to Frederick had been hopeless and absurd, Penelope reflected. He could never understand. He never had — not once since their father had died, and he had somehow shut himself off from her and his stepmother. No, she must look elsewhere for security and defense.

Maxwell Crawford was still the only harbor that seemed open.

“I promise that I will give due attention to my personal safety, my reputation, and our family name,” she assured her brother. “I always have.”

The rest of the day was a blur. Penelope chose activities that kept her busy but away as much as possible from Annabelle and Frederick, who seemed the two most likely to notice the edginess of her mood. Every time a door opened, she expected some awful development from Lord Silverbrook’s sick room or a thunderous row with Frederick. Thankfully, neither came.

“Any news from the invalid?” she finally asked Duchess Madeline as nonchalantly as possible after luncheon.

While dreading what she might hear, Penelope felt it was better to be forewarned before any blow fell — a blow that might only be averted by giving Duke Maxwell an affirmative answer to his proposal.

“The physician gave Henry a sleeping draught during one of his conscious episodes and he will likely sleep until the morning,” her hostess told her. “There were no broken bones or other obvious injuries beyond a bruised and bleeding head. Mr. Jones advised that sleep would likely be the best healer. He will spend the night here to monitor his patient.”

“I’m glad that everything seems under control,” Penelope remarked in acknowledgment while breathing a silent sigh of relief that she was not yet drawn into the matter.

This gave her a little more time to consider the decision she must make—a choice that felt simultaneously impossible and inevitable. She kept as physically busy as she could as a distraction from the too-fast-running of her deepest thoughts.

Cards with Lord and Lady Martin that afternoon was followed by hours of reading to the elderly Dowager Countess of Kebleford, who had accompanied her grandson, Viscount Parkinson, to the party. Penelope even talked horses with Duchess Madeline, herself far too heavy with child to ride at the moment but always keen to discuss the Huntingdon stables and its inhabitants.

Maxwell Crawford seemed always to be near at hand but in the background, making no further attempt yet to seek a private audience. Still, his blue eyes following Penelope evidenced active interest and made her shiver with her constant awareness of his person. It sometimes felt as though the Duke of Walden was the only real person there, and the rest were merely actors on a stage or in dreams.

It wasn’t until late that night that Penelope finally looked herself in the eye in the mirror of her candlelit dressing table and said aloud.

“I am going to marry Maxwell Crawford.”

Her voice rang strangely in her own ears.

“I shall be the Duchess of Walden,” she added soberly.

Those words made it sound even stranger, and she fell silent once more. Even her face in the glass looked distant and unfamiliar tonight. Perhaps it was the face of the future Duchess of Walden. Could that truly be her destiny?

It was not the kind of marriage she had ever envisaged as a young girl. Instead of a lover overcome with romantic passion and kneeling before her, the rather pragmatic proposal had come from a stranger of means and influence who seemed unlikely to kneel before anyone.

“The Duke and Duchess of Walden,” Penelope whispered now to her image in the glass and then sighed and closed her eyes.

It was time. She could not put this off any longer and rose purposefully from her seat. Having dismissed her maid early to be alone with her thoughts, Penelope had not undressed after dinner and still wore her gray muslin evening gown and simple diamond pendant. Her hair was formally pinned, although a few stray blonde curls were now loose about her face.

Picking up her blue wrap, Penelope opened the bedroom door as quietly as possible and made her way down the corridor. Having listened earlier, she was sure that she had heard Frederick making his way surreptitiously out of his room half an hour ago. Given their sly glances over dinner, she suspected he would be fully occupied by now with the flame-haired Lady Gordney in the west wing.

Still, whether Frederick was in his own room or not, what Penelope was doing was highly improper and irregular. Her heart beat fast in her chest as she proceeded to Maxwell Crawford’s bedroom door. As she had hoped, candles still burned inside, their faint light spilling under the door into the dim corridor.

Raising her hand, Penelope paused. Knocking on the door might be heard by others at this time of night in the silent house. Instead, she took hold of the handle and turned it slowly, assuming that this gesture would attract the attention of the room’s occupant and bring him to the door.

To her surprise, the door was not locked and swung open. Her startled eyes were confronted with the sight of Maxwell Crawford beside his bed and stripped to the waist.

“Dear God!” she choked under her breath, the sight of him seeming to draw all the air from her body and the power of flight from her limbs.

After a flash of initial astonishment, the Duke of Walden’s features darkened somewhat, and he held a finger to his lips before crossing the room in quick strides and pulling her roughly inside.

“Dear God, indeed,” he muttered as he closed the door silently behind her. “What are you thinking of, coming here at this time of night?”

Still breathless, Penelope could not immediately answer, her eyes fixed on his strong arms, broad chest, and the well-muscled waist emerging from his trousers. She had only ever before seen adult male nudity in statues, and this experience was incomparable, the duke’s body filling her with unfamiliar awe and longing.

“Do you like what you see, Lady Penelope?” he said under his breath after a short pause, realizing exactly where her attention was focused.

These questions and the fact that his effect on her was so obvious only made her blush harder and struggle more for words.

“I did not know you would be…that you would be…”

“Undressing in my room at night?” he jested. “People often do at bedtime although it seems you have neglected to do so this evening. I wonder why?”

Penelope shook her head in confusion. She could not think straight if she looked at him or listened to his voice, but still, she must say what she had come here to say.

Closing her eyes, she cleared her throat.

“I came here to tell you that I will take your offer as long as you promise never to reveal to Frederick what happened. He would never forgive me. Do I have your word?”

“Say that first part to me again with your eyes open, Lady Penelope,” Maxwell Crawford demanded. “Look at me when you accept my proposal.”

She swallowed, struggling to do as he asked. If she opened her eyes, Penelope knew they would be drawn back to the long, firm lines of his body, and that strange pull would begin again deep inside her.

She buried her face in her hands for a moment and then felt his fingers gently stroking and drawing them down.

“Look at me,” he urged again.

“Why?” said Penelope. “Why must I look at you? Is this so that you can savor my defeat? So that you know I have no choice but to marry you and am completely in your power?”

“No,” said the duke, his fingers gently caressing her unseeing face with its determinedly closed eyes. “Look at me because I do not wish to marry a woman who doesn’t really want to marry me. Your eyes tell me what you want, even if you don’t yet know yourself.”

Almost in tears now, Penelope opened her eyes to find Maxwell Crawford directly before her, so close that she could even see the pulse in his neck and smell the faint but heady scent of woody cologne on masculine skin.

“I will marry you, Your Grace,” she managed to say, feeling increasingly overwhelmed by the present situation and the hungry, searching look in the duke’s blue eyes. “If you still wish it.”

“If I still wish it?” he laughed with a note of good-humored incredulity and a knowing look that made Penelope feel naked and want to cover her face with her hands again.

But she found this was impossible. Somehow, the duke had pressed her back against a wall, and her fingers were entwined in his, held gently but firmly as he studied her face. “Yes, you will be the perfect duchess. I wish it, Lady Penelope. I wish it very much. As do you.”

“What are you doing?” she said stumblingly, her words unequal to the situation. “I thought this was a business deal, but now, you are acting like a desperate lover…”

This made him laugh, a lowdown, rumbling sound that Penelope felt as much as heard.

“It is very much a business deal, but it is also a marriage and could not work well if you truly found this closeness distasteful. Do not fret over love and romantic notions — I have none. A man simply wishes to be welcomed by his wife, not rejected or endured. A duke will also one day require an heir. So, can you learn to welcome me, Penelope?”

The incoherent sound that escaped Penelope’s throat in response to these honest but outrageous statements and questions was not one of protest. Maxwell Crawford was indeed so close now that she could feel his breath on her face and sense the powerful beating of his heart through their joined hands.

She knew she should scream for Frederick or anyone, but she also knew she would not. For better or worse, she had put herself deliberately into this man’s power, and his blue eyes held her even more irresistibly than his hands.

Good God, was he going to kiss her?

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Duke of Greed

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