Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

T he house party’s final dinner was a civilized and uncontentious affair. With Maxwell Crawford’s departure and the continued absence of Lord Silverbrook, the conversation was dominated by the ladies, with a particular interest in preparations for the Duke and Duchess of Huntingdon’s imminent new arrival.

“Babies must be kept wrapped in woolen garments for at least six months to avoid chills and fevers,” Lady Kebleford averred with authority in the drawing room, as coffee was poured for the ladies after dinner. “The least deviation from this practice can be deadly, Duchess Madeline. I hope your nursemaid is not a devotee of modern ways that expose an infant’s delicate skin to the air. Furthermore…”

As on so many other themes, Lady Kebleford had strong and voluble views about infant care and clothing, making it hard for anyone else in the room to put in a word. Penelope had much on her mind and welcomed the chance to sit back in her chair and let the other ladies’ words flow over her.

Annabelle and Lady Gordney, however, found themselves repeatedly silenced and dismissed by the elderly widow, to increasingly visible annoyance.

“When a foal is born in the stables, we just rub it down with a wisp of straw, and it seems to get along well enough,” Madeline commented eventually with a smile that half-implied she might try this herself. “One could say that was a traditional way of handling newborns.”

Lady Kebleford’s eyes goggled and her mouth finally closed, giving Annabelle and Lady Gordney the chance to re-enter the conversation. After a short while, Madeline turned to Penelope.

“You look worn out,” she said quietly. “Do not feel you must sit up late with us tonight. The gentlemen will be here soon and Annabelle will be sufficiently entertained. No one will notice if you want to slip away to bed. Courtship can be very tiring. I know from my own experience. If Frederick asks, I shall tell him you wanted a good night’s sleep before your journey home.”

Penelope thanked her hostess gratefully. With a discreet smile to Duchess Madeline, she took the opportunity to slip away from the party once the gentlemen returned from sitting with their port.

Yawning and looking forward to her bed, Penelope ascended the main staircase, crossed the first landing, and then took the smaller stairs to the second floor, where her bedroom lay.

“You! What are you doing here?” Penelope demanded, shrinking back from the pale, angry-faced figure lurking on the corridor in a dressing gown and slippers.

“I’ve come to see you of course,” leered Henry Atwood. “I’ve waited here almost a full hour but don’t pretend you didn’t expect me to pay you a visit after what you did. You do like playing these girlish games, don’t you, you little cat?”

“Get away from me!” snapped Penelope, dodging out of his reach. “You’re mad or drunk or addled with drugs. I shall call for my brother if you don’t go away this instant.”

“Frederick? Good luck with that — haha! If he’s not still downstairs, he’ll be over in the east wing where I invited him to join me for a drink. Don’t think Lady Annabelle will come running either. I sent her a note from you, arranging a meeting in the blue sitting room. Your supposed fiancé has departed too. That leaves just me and you, doesn’t it? How nice and cozy.”

Penelope had to throw herself violently aside to avoid Henry’s grabbing hands. She backed up along the corridor, wondering if she could regain the stairs ahead of him. He was considerably bigger and stronger than her but might still be suffering the effect of his injuries.

“Do you know what you are, Penelope? You’re not just a tease, you’re a little whore.”

While spoken with a sickening smile, as though meant as an endearment, these words were easily the most offensive thing anyone had ever said to Penelope in her life. She felt as though she had been punched in the gut. Henry Atwood really was the most loathsome creature ever to walk the earth.

“How dare you?!” she raged back at him, trying to channel her fear into anger. “Are you completely out of your mind, Henry? If you come one step closer, I shall scream and bring the whole house running.”

“If you do that, I’ll tell them how you led me on and attacked me on the staircase. I might even talk of attempted murder. How would your fiancé like that?”

“The Duke of Walden knows exactly what you are, Henry. He saw everything that night and won’t believe any of your lies or allow others to believe them. Maxwell will destroy you if you get in his way.”

Penelope knew the truth of these words even as she spoke them. Maxwell Crawford had the power and the will to easily destroy a man like Lord Silverbrook, whether literally or metaphorically.

The Duke of Walden had admitted his driving need to win at their very first meeting. Penelope had seen and heard enough of him since then to instinctively know that his words were true, and this trait extended to every area of his life. If marrying Penelope was his aim, then no man alive could thwart him in achieving it.

At this moment, she was content to be a prize worth defending rather than a woman worth loving. The Duke of Walden’s protection was guaranteed, and she certainly wished he was there with her at this moment.

Slowly but steadily, Henry was following as Penelope backed away in the direction of the stairs. She kept her eyes on him, remembering all too well the way he had suddenly seized her and attempted to drag her towards her bedroom on that fateful night, his vile hands and lips taking liberties that made her nauseous to recall.

“Oh Penelope, Penelope, Penelope… You’re so very beautiful, but you’re still just a woman, there to be enjoyed by men. Why do you have to make everything so difficult by playing hard to get? You let Walden kiss you. I saw it. He’s had you already, likely enough. I bet you liked it too. Why should I not enjoy your charms also?”

“You’re disgusting!” Penelope threw back at him. “You’re no kind of gentleman. How can you treat your friend’s sister like this, or any woman?”

“Don’t play the innocent virgin card with me,” he sneered. “You’re a practiced whore, and you know you want me. You should have given yourself to me when I first made my intentions clear.”

“When you assaulted me on these stairs, you mean? What’s the matter with you?”

“Assault?! What a laugh! You weren’t screaming of assault when Maxwell Crawford kissed you outside my bedroom door, were you? Were you aware I was watching? I see little difference between what you permitted him and what you denied me.”

“That’s because you don’t see the difference between right and wrong, between honorable and dishonorable, or between accepted and rejected. Maxwell Crawford is an honorable man whom I have accepted as my husband-to-be. You are a drug-crazed danger to women who could have died on the stairs that night for all I care.”

With a snarl of rage at this declaration, Henry threw himself forward towards Penelope before stumbling and tripping over his own slippers, falling to the ground with a crash.

“You bloody bitch! Now look what you’ve done to me…”

Taking her opportunity, Penelope picked up her skirts and raced down the stairs towards the blue sitting room where Annabelle was presumably waiting for her. On the way, she almost collided with Duke Charles coming out of his study.

“Lady Penelope! Are you quite well? You seem agitated.”

“Lord Silverbrook,” she managed to tell her host, calming her breathing and hammering heart as much as she could. “He is up and wandering the house in his nightshirt and dressing gown. I saw him and took fright. Could a footman guide him back to his room?”

“Right,” said Duke Charles grimly. “I shall deal with this. Have no concerns, Lady Penelope; there will be no more irresponsible men wandering the corridors to give fright to young ladies this evening. Henry Atwood will be spending his final night here under lock and key.”

He strode away just as Annabelle appeared around a corner at the end of the corridor.

“There you are!” she said brightly. “I’ve been waiting and waiting, but you didn’t come. Why did you want to see me at this hour?”

“Oh Annabelle,” Penelope said in relief, rushing forward and hugging her friend close. “That message wasn’t from me. It was some kind of horrible joke.”

“From Frederick?” Annabelle asked disapprovingly. “That is exactly the kind of stupid thing he would do to make a fool of me…”

“No,” interrupted Penelope quickly, not wanting to malign Frederick. “Lord Silverbrook sent it.”

“Lord Silverbrook?! But why? Has he taken leave of his senses?”

“I do believe he might have done,” Penelope answered with a laugh that was half a sob as she hugged Annabelle close again. “May I sleep in your room tonight, Annabelle? I don’t want to be alone.”

“Why, of course. You’re my best friend. I suppose you must be missing Maxwell Crawford, which is odd because you only just met him really, even if you are set to marry him…”

Smiling at Annabelle’s good-natured garrulity, and glad that her tear-filled eyes were blurred by the flickering candlelight, Penelope slipped an arm through her friend’s and walked upstairs with her to bed.

“Time for our final Huntingdon Manor breakfast,” announced Annabelle once both young women were washed and dressed in simple traveling outfits. “I love the home-made marmalade and the fried mushrooms and Duchess Madeline’s special coffee and… everything really. It’s so much better than home.”

“I suppose it is,” agreed Penelope without any great enthusiasm.

After the events of the previous evening, she had little appetite, partly wondering if Henry Atwood might make another appearance in the breakfast room regardless of Duke Charles’s stated intention to lock him up last night.

On their way downstairs, Penelope and Annabelle paused on the main landing, hearing the sound of horse’s hooves and wheels on gravel outside.

“Someone is leaving early,” Penelope commented as they both went to a side window and looked down at the unfamiliar livery on the coach, which was now making its way down the drive toward the gate.

“Aha — I suppose Lord Radley and his nephew decided to start early for London,” Annabelle commented. “Lord Silverbrook won’t have appreciated that, but he does seem to have made far too much of being an invalid. Duke Charles was quite at the end of his tether when I heard him giving a message to Lonsley yesterday.”

“I don’t understand,” said Penelope with a frown, her eyes watching the departing coach with growing relief that the awful Henry Atwood was likely inside it for whatever reason. “Why would they take Henry?”

“Well, you know that Lord Silverbrook kept putting off his departure? Duchess Madeline discovered that he’d even countermanded his own mother’s instructions for the Silverbrook coach to be sent for him. ‘A time-wasting attention seeker’ the duchess called him when she found out. I overheard her telling Duke Charles in the library. I thought they were leaving this afternoon, but it looks like they’ve already gone.”

“You do overhear rather a lot, Annabelle,” Penelope remarked with a ghost of a smile.

“I can’t help it,” Annabelle retorted defensively. “I think my ears are just better than everyone else’s. Anyway, knowing that Lord Radley was going to London with his nephew this week, Duke Charles asked them to take Lord Silverbrook with them today and return him to his family.”

“Well, thank God for that,” added Penelope fervently, drawing back from the window and heading for the stairs.

“You don’t like him, do you? Henry Atwood, I mean, not Lord Radley or Duke Charles, of course.”

Penelope didn’t immediately answer, unable to politely and adequately sum up for Annabelle her violent feelings of contempt for Lord Silverbrook.

“What does your brother say about him?” she asked her friend evasively.

“Stephen says he’s one of the fast set in London, and I’m not to be alone with him without you and Frederick or to listen to anything he says.”

“Then, I agree with Stephen,” Penelope said with a shiver. “Let’s get breakfast. I can feel my appetite coming back.”

“Frederick’s awfully quiet. Do you think he’s really asleep or just dreaming of Lady Gordney?” said Annabelle in too loud a whisper within the confines of the Heartwick-crested coach.

Penelope quickly hushed her indiscreet friend. Frederick’s liaisons were his own business, and he would not thank either of them for their interference.

“We’re all tired after a long week, Annabelle. Let my brother sleep. Tell me instead how your mother fares. I saw you had a letter from her at breakfast. The Duchess of Colborne has had a difficult year as have all your family.”

Annabelle nodded, her sweet and slightly childish face becoming uncharacteristically sober.

“Yes, she wrote to tell me that Father had had another turn but that he seemed stable again. There was no need for my urgent return, but she wished to be sure that I would come straight home and not decide to visit Heartwick Hall with you instead. It is awful, but I can no longer remember how many bad turns Father has had…”

“At least Stephen has been there to pick up the Duke of Colborne’s responsibilities,” Penelope offered, patting Annabelle’s arm.

“Yes, he is my father’s deputy and proxy in all matters now, legal, financial, or family. He has managed things wonderfully so that my mother needs only to concern herself with Father’s health.”

Annabelle’s eyes shone as she talked of her brother, whom she had always hero-worshipped a little. Penelope herself had never found the stiff and prideful young Lord Emberly particularly sympathetic or amiable. Still, there was no doubt that he was a dutiful and affectionate son and brother. Annabelle’s relationship with Stephen always touched her, perhaps because it was so different from her own with Frederick.

Penelope managed to keep her friend on the topic of her own family for most of that first leg of the journey. Frederick, meanwhile, barely spoke at all until they were pulling up at Colborne House, and he jumped out of the coach to hand Annabelle down to her brother.

“I hope my sister behaved herself at Huntingdon House,” said Stephen Elkins to Frederick after greeting his sister and offering Penelope a very formal congratulation on her recent betrothal.

“As always, Lady Annabelle was both ornament and entertainment to all,” Frederick declared with a slight wink at Annabelle, which Penelope knew would infuriate her, carrying as it did the implication that she had made herself an object of fun.

“Duchess Madeline sought Annabelle’s company often and complimented her spirit and manners,” Penelope put in loyally. “I too was very grateful that you could spare your sister this week for the party, Lord Emberly. Annabelle brings happiness wherever she goes…”

“… and laughter,” added Frederick, seeming unable to help himself when it came to ragging his sister’s friend.

“I am very pleased to hear that,” Stephen declared approvingly, any nuance or humor apparently lost on him, along with Annabelle’s restrained annoyance. “There is no use in Annabelle being closeted in a sick room here. Mother and the physicians have both said so, and she must go out in society. I am therefore grateful for the sponsorship of our good family friends. Might I offer you some refreshment?”

“Thank you, but the hour is advancing, and we should return to the road,” Frederick declined. “There is a long journey still ahead. I must drive Penelope back to her mother at Heartwick Hall before I return to London.”

“My brother speaks wisely but another time we would welcome your hospitality, Lord Emberly. Do give my regards to your mother,” Penelope added, having caught Frederick’s eye and shared a slight nod of agreement with him.

The Hayward siblings were both conscious and respectful of the Duke of Colborne lying gravely ill inside the house and unlikely to leave it ever again. With news of the duke’s latest bad turn, it was not the time to be taking afternoon tea at Colborne House and drawing the duchess from her husband’s side.

“Poor Annabelle,” Penelope remarked as their coach pulled away from Colborne. “I remember how awful it was when Father died, but at least it was quick.”

“Poor Stephen too,” Frederick added in a tone that was hard to decipher, especially as he had already closed his eyes once more, as though already preparing to ignore Penelope. “He has a great deal on his shoulders.”

“Yes, poor Stephen too,” agreed Penelope quickly. “I did not mean to imply that he must feel any less distress than his sister. It is only that I know Annabelle better and that I understand better how a daughter feels about her father than a son.”

Frederick nodded in acknowledgment, his eyes still closed and his face blank.

“I cried every day for months when Father died,” murmured Penelope, looking out of the window and assuming she was speaking only to herself. “I thought it would never stop hurting. I remember you and everyone else telling me that I should stop crying because it upset Mother so.”

“You were only eight,” Frederick commented unexpectedly. “I was so sad for you, but I did not know what to do. I suppose I wished I could cry like that myself, but fourteen was far too old, and I was the Duke of Heartwick.”

Penelope looked at Frederick in surprise at this confession, something she had never once guessed. She remembered him then largely as a sulky and resentful youth wrapped up in his own misery. Even when mourning was over, Frederick had been distant. Being away at school and then university, she supposed there was never a chance for them to become close, even if he had ever wanted to.

“Perhaps Annabelle and Stephen are lucky to have had their father for so long,” she reflected, and Frederick nodded.

“Yes, I believe they are. We were far too young to lose our father, both of us.”

They shared a sad smile at this thought, and Penelope expected Frederick to return to his closed-eye reveries, but instead, he took one of her hands in his.

“Would you like me to come inside with you at Heartwick Hall and help explain to your mother how you came to be betrothed to a man she has never met?”

“Yes,” Penelope accepted eagerly. “You don’t have to, of course, Frederick. I am three-and-twenty, after all, and can speak for myself. But I would like it very much if you did.”

Frederick’s visits to Heartwick Hall were usually short and perfunctory, as though it had never been his home at all, and he could not wait to get back to his real life in London.

Rarely going out in society since her husband’s death, the Dowager Duchess of Heartwick seemed barely to notice her stepson’s neglect, but it made Penelope’s heart ache every time he left her at the door with only a tip of his hat in farewell.

She could never say that her brother had not done his duty by their stepmother. The young Duke of Heartwick had always been more than generous in their allowances, their continued occupation of Heartwick Hall, and his escort of Penelope to formal events ever since she came out in society. But what she had really always wanted was his presence, and that he rarely bestowed.

“Then I shall come in,” he said decidedly. “She will be concerned, you know. Frankly, I was myself, although Duke Charles and Duchess Madeline have since put my mind at ease about the Duke of Walden’s character and lifestyle.”

“I had no idea you were concerned at all,” Penelope admitted. “This week has been such a surprise to me that I suppose I have neglected how you and others might feel.”

“Of course, I was concerned,” laughed Frederick with slight incredulity. “You are my younger sister. How could I not be concerned when a rich and powerful man about whom I know so little sweeps you off your feet? If he had been another kind of man, it would have been my duty to warn him off and bring you to your senses.”

This was yet another astonishing confession for Penelope. She could scarcely believe that her older brother had spent any of his time at Huntingdon Manor thinking of her, assuming that his entire brain had been occupied with Lady Gordney.

“Duchess Madeline assured me that Maxwell Crawford would be a good husband,” Penelope said. “She is known to be a principled woman and an excellent judge of character.”

“Yes, if she and Duke Charles have no qualms, then I have no grounds to object to your choice at all. But tell me, Penelope, is this really what you want? I would hate you to marry someone simply because you were afraid of becoming an old maid or some other such nonsense. There must be a hundred other men of the ton who would marry you in a heartbeat.”

Penelope smiled and shook her head but dropped her eyes, knowing that she would be unable to tell Frederick anything like the whole truth behind her betrothal.

“No, I have no fear of becoming an old maid. I suppose that I have simply never met anyone like the Duke of Walden before, and I am old enough to know that not all men possess his virtues. I will be safe with Maxwell Crawford, Frederick.”

“Yes, I imagine you will. If marrying Maxwell Crawford is your own wish, that is what matters, Penelope. You have my blessing, and you shall have your mother’s too. It is wise of you to choose a man for character over infatuation. There are men of the ton who cannot be trusted by women. I have always tried to keep you from knowing them, but they exist.”

Penelope bit her lip at this statement and the apparently genuine affection on Frederick’s face. Perhaps she should tell him of Henry Atwood’s real character, after all? She was sure that her brother would not wish to associate with such a man if he knew the truth about him.

“Frederick,” Penelope began.

“Oh, do hush now, Penelope. I am to have to hold serious conversations this evening, I must have some real sleep. I was only pretending earlier because I know it annoys Annabelle so much. Also, because she sometimes lets such funny things slip when she thinks I’m not listening.”

Chuckling to himself, Frederick settled down in the corner, using one of the coach’s small cushions as a pillow for his head. The opportunity for any further confidences was gone, and Penelope exhaled defeatedly as she gazed out at the changing landscape on the roads toward Heartwick Hall.

Maxwell Crawford might not have been a choice made entirely freely, and he might always make her pulse race and her body throb so unnervingly, but he also knew the truth of Henry Atwood. Unlike Frederick, he was ready and willing to protect her from that evil man.

In a few weeks, Penelope would belong to Maxwell by law. Even though the thought disturbed her, she could not regret it.