Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

“ T he Duke and Duchess of Walden,” one woman whispered to another as Maxwell and Penelope passed from Lord and Lady Finch’s receiving line to the ballroom. “The most grasping man in England. Cares only for money, they say. Trade in the blood…”

“How wonderful it is to be well-known already,” Maxwell remarked acerbically to his wife. “It does save having some very dull conversations with unpleasant people.”

“Ignore them, Maxwell,” Penelope murmured beside him, smiling politely to the woman, letting her know that she had been overheard but that they were gracious enough not to react.

“As you will, my dear,” he agreed. “The music is starting already. Can I have the honor of the first dance?”

Penelope felt her stomach fill with butterflies as her tall, handsome husband bowed formally to her and then offered his hand for the dance. They had now been married for almost a week, and the magnetic physical effect he had on her had only increased with each night he visited her bed and caressed her body with knowing hands and mouth, never yet seeking further fulfillment for himself.

It might be a marriage of convenience, but it was in no way as predictable and devoid of sensation as that description might imply. Penelope did not know quite what she had expected from married life, but it had not been this.

Penelope had told herself that she could be content with a mere business deal when her ideas of such a deal had involved only perfunctory interactions with her husband, including in the bedroom. She had imagined lying back and tolerating her husband as he claimed his conjugal rights, as she knew several married women advised.

What Penelope had not known was that Maxwell would first make her body sing until she longed unbearably for him to claim her fully. Was this really part of the deal? If so, she must accept it along with everything else.

“All my dances are yours now, Maxwell,” she answered with a smile. “You know that.”

“I am generous enough not to take all of them,” the duke told her as he led her onto the dance floor. “You must give at least one to Frederick, for example, if he makes an appearance tonight. He will doubtless want to know that you are being well-treated at Walden Towers.”

Penelope blushed as Maxwell touched her face lightly and stepped back into the line of gentlemen. She knew they were both thinking of how he had awoken her at dawn and spent long minutes stroking and kissing her body until she no longer had any qualms at all about lying naked in his arms and parting her legs for the ministrations that drove her to ecstasy.

Initially dazed by the speed of their betrothal and wedding, their marriage still seemed something of a dream but now a more joyful one. Or maybe the rest of the world was a dream while Penelope’s days at Walden Towers and nights in Maxwell’s arms were real. The week at Huntingdon Manor and awful confrontations with Henry Atwood felt like a bad nightmare fading with the sunrise.

As they danced the quadrille together, Penelope felt as though their eyes never broke contact and would not have been able to name a single other couple on the dance floor. There was only Maxwell and her longing for him. She somehow doubted that Frederick would be at tonight’s ball. Lady Finch’s entertainments were a little too staid and traditional for his set.

“Dance with me again,” said Maxwell as soon as the music wound down.

Penelope smiled once more and stepped into his embrace for a waltz whose introduction was played by the orchestra. She loved to waltz and took double pleasure in waltzing with her new husband.

“A second dance together,” remarked a woman passing the dance floor with her husband, the words audible despite an attempt to hide them behind her fan. “It seems the Walden marriage was a love match after all, doesn’t it? You said there must be something more in it for him, but see how they look at one another.”

Penelope took no offense. Whatever the nature of their marriage, there was nowhere she wanted to be more than in the arms of her husband. Looking at him in his dark evening suit, dark blue silk waistcoat, and diamond studs and pins, she believed him to be easily the handsomest man in the room. Let people talk if they must. She had nothing to be ashamed of.

When the second dance was over, all too soon, Penelope remained on Maxwell’s arm, guiding him about the ballroom to receive congratulations and make introductions that she had determined would be of value.

“What a very fine wife you are, Duchess,” he whispered to her after she had diplomatically inveigled Viscount Ormand to include Maxwell in a shooting party given by his uncle, a well-connected courtier, at the end of the season.

“I must keep up my side of our bargain, must I not? Especially when you give me such incentives to like you,” Penelope replied, squeezing his arm.

“I have no idea what you can possibly be referring to, Duchess Penelope,” he jested back, his blue eyes twinkling. “Perhaps you can show me in the carriage on the way back?”

“In the carriage?” Penelope gasped, thinking immediately of what the coachmen might overhear if Maxwell really were to do as he had just implied.

“Or later, in the comfort of a warm bed,” he added. “You play the role of a loving wife so well that you should certainly be rewarded for it, don’t you think?”

The words confused her, but Maxwell’s expression and tone of voice soothed her bemusement and encouraged her longing. She wanted him to kiss and touch her. Perhaps she wanted even more than that tonight, the thought of his body sliding into hers no longer sparking any surge of fear.

“Look,” Maxwell said, stopping and nodding towards the anteroom door, “there’s Frederick loitering by the entrance. Should we tell him that Lady Gordney is already here?”

“Frederick?! Yes… I… We should, but tactfully. He does not like such things to be made too obvious,” Penelope answered, the first words halting and the last words terse. “Tell him of several acquaintances and not only Lady Gordney.”

Already making his way through the throngs with his wife on his arm, Maxwell did not notice the tension that had abruptly risen in Penelope’s bosom. If Frederick was here, might that mean Lord Silverbrook was here too? The whole nightmare at Huntington Manor was coming back to her in vivid and striking colors.

“Duke Maxwell,” Frederick greeted his sister and brother-in-law with a smile. “Duchess Penelope. You both look very well indeed. I saw you dancing earlier but did not wish to interrupt such a well-matched waltz.”

“We have been making the rounds of the room since then,” Maxwell said conversationally. “Making some new friends and renewing our existing acquaintances. Speaking of which, we saw Lady Gordney by the conservatories earlier and Lady Annabelle with her brother on the dance floor.”

Frederick smiled broadly at this news.

“How wonderful. I must greet them too,” he commented.

Maxwell nodded and then turned slightly aside from his wife and her brother to speak with an elderly gentleman claiming some acquaintance.

“Are you here alone, Frederick?” Penelope enquired, a little too sharply, her eyes scanning the room again.

What would she do if she did see Henry? Could she really ask Maxwell to just take her home to Walden Towers? There were still people here whom he should meet and get to know. They had a business deal, and Penelope was determined to uphold her side of it.

“Why, yes,” answered Frederick with a smile. “It’s not the kind of party most of the fellows at my club go in for, but I did want to see you and Duke Maxwell. So, I left the boys drinking and put on a good suit.”

Penelope exhaled, her tenseness easing as she realized that Lord Silverbrook seemed unlikely to be jumping out from behind curtains or potted palms at her tonight.

“I’m glad you came, Frederick. I wanted to thank you for all your help in the last few weeks, first at Huntingdon Manor and then with the wedding. I know that it’s not easy for you and Mother to come together as you did yesterday.”

“Think nothing of it, dear sister,” he cut her off quickly with a charming smile, unwilling as ever to have that particular conversation. “It is not a night for serious matters tonight. Only tell me, are you happy? You looked very happy when I saw you on the dance floor.”

“Yes, I am,” Penelope confirmed. “Walden Towers is a fine house and Maxwell is… well, exactly as he promised me he would be. I trust him.”

“Good. I would never forgive myself if I thought I had put you into the hands of a rake or blackguard. Whatever faults he might have, Crawford is as far from such things as a man could be.”

“I am happy with my choice,” stated Penelope clearly, even while Frederick’s words prompted a pang of conscience.

She wondered anew whether it was her duty to tell her brother the truth of Henry Atwood’s character. What if Lord Silverbrook were to assault some other defenseless young woman? Worse still, what if Frederick were to become mixed up in such affairs by association? That would be a dreadful taint that could unfairly mar his own future marriage prospects.

Penelope’s eyes followed Frederick’s back as he took his leave and walked towards the conservatory in search of his flame-haired paramour. He had been more open lately, and perhaps he might understand after all, even if he still shut Penelope out sometimes. Should she follow him now and confess everything? Or would she have to carry the burden of this secret forever?

As she pondered this impossible conundrum, she felt a hand on her shoulder and started before perceiving it was Maxwell and relaxing again.

“Are you well, Penelope?” he asked with a concerned frown. “Has something happened?”

“No, nothing. Frederick is his usual self, and all is well. But…”

Penelope paused and took a deep breath, shaking her head slightly. It was hard to explain what she felt, even to herself.

“You can tell me anything you want,” Maxwell said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I was so afraid that Henry Atwood might be here with Frederick,” she confessed then, glad of the strong arm Maxwell placed around her waist in response.

“Silverbrook will not get near you again. I discreetly enquired with the door staff as soon as we arrived. I should have told you.”

Penelope smiled at the care he had taken for her and then shrugged slightly.

“I know I am safe with you, Maxwell. But I keep thinking that maybe I should tell Frederick everything. Perhaps it is very wrong of me to allow my brother to unknowingly associate with such a vicious man. People might come to tar them with the same brush, and Frederick does not deserve that.”

“Do you want to tell him?”

Penelope swallowed and then shook her head in answer, tears coming into her eyes.

“Maybe. But then Frederick just told me he would never forgive himself if he had ever put me at risk from such a man. How can I tell him something that is bound to hurt him so?”

Suddenly, the burden of her secret, almost forgotten at the outset of the ball, grew unbearably heavy. She no longer wished to be there in that ballroom among the colorful, chattering crowds of the ton. Although Penelope tried, it was impossible to entirely bite back the sob that rose unbidden in her throat.

“We will go home now,” Maxwell announced instantly. “We have done enough tonight and made ourselves sufficiently known.”

“But Maxwell,” Penelope began to object as she found herself swept back down the corridor by her husband’s strong arm, “there are still people here I wanted you to meet.”

Already at the cloakrooms, Maxwell tossed his coat over one arm while a maid wrapped a cloak around Penelope.

“There is no point in continuing tonight if you are going to break down in tears is there? That would give the wrong impression of our marriage entirely. ”

Speechless, Penelope halted at the top of the steps down to their carriage, anger suddenly replacing her attack of conscience. Rushing down the steps after Maxwell, she ignored his extended arm and jumped into the coach ahead of him.

“Is that all you’re really thinking about, Maxwell?” she snapped at him after the coachman had closed the door. “It really is only your business interests you care about, isn’t it? Including the business deal our marriage is founded on, rather than the marriage itself.”

She could not say why this thought so suddenly enraged her. They had both accepted this from the start, after all, and she had no right to object to it now. But her husband said nothing of this.

“How can you say that?!” Maxwell instead threw back in consternation. “I’ve only been thinking of you, Penelope. Night and day, damn it all, whatever else I should have been concentrating on, I’ve only been thinking of you!”

“It would take a lot to convince me of that when…” shouted Penelope, wiping an angry tear from her face.

Then, before she could complete her sentence, Maxwell had put his arms about her and pressed his lips to hers.

“Do you honestly think I would have left that ball for anything other than your welfare?” he asked a few moments later when her initial surprise had melted into warm acquiescence.

The duke’s actions and sincerity of voice swept away Penelope’s anxieties and febrile mood like the strong waves of the tide clearing debris from a beach. As the coach's wheels rolled towards Walden Towers, Penelope allowed herself to be drawn fully onto Maxwell’s lap, twining her arms about his neck and breathing in the heady scent of his light cologne.

“Look at me, Penelope,” he said to her in a low voice, caressing her face to bring her gaze back to his as he claimed another kiss from her breathless lips. “Do you really not yet understand what it means to be my wife?”

His clear and unwavering blue eyes seemed to pierce her deep inside, and Penelope murmured his name in response to this sensation rather than his words.

“I think I must show you, tonight,” he stated then, a new intent settling on his brow. “I believe it is time, if you are ready for me.”

“Maxwell…” Penelope said again, her stomach contracting sharply in both desire and nervousness but without real fear.

Yes, Penelope was more than ready for whatever Maxwell was planning. It would surely be good even if she could not entirely imagine its nature.

For the rest of the journey, they traded kisses and light caresses in lieu of further words, Maxwell’s hands stroking her face, her hair, and her shoulders with obvious self-restraint despite the audible effort in his breathing.

Still, Penelope sensed the potential energy in his body against hers and wondered how long that restraint would last once they were back at Walden Towers.