Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

“ M axwell?”

Penelope rolled over and then sat up in her bed. The sun had risen, the light was streaming around the curtains, and there was no sign of her husband. None of his clothes were on the floor, and the side of the bed where he had slept was cold. The sense of warm contentment she had carried through from sleep evaporated.

If it hadn’t been for the sensation of seed dampening her thighs and sheets, Penelope could have believed the whole encounter only a dream.

But no, he had done it again: made her feel wonderful, special, alive… and then abandoned her like a toy he was too busy to continue playing with.

Sadness, anger, and longing vied within Penelope for supremacy, but she pushed them all aside and got out of bed. They had guests in the house this morning, including her mother, with whom she had barely spoken the previous afternoon. With little enthusiasm, she pulled on a dressing gown and rang the bell for her maid.

Unsurprised to hear from Soames that Maxwell had left the house early and would not return for some hours, Penelope made her way to the breakfast room where Victoria was holding the fort with Vera Giordano, Adam Finch, a distant Crawford cousin called Victor Venning, and the Dowager Duchess of Heartwick who seemed only too pleased to see her daughter.

“Good morning, Penelope,” said Victoria cheerfully. “We have been discussing modern designs for ladies’ clothing. It seems to me that skirts are most impractical and that trousers for ladies ought to be a priority.”

“The Bible says…” began the grey-haired and serious man whom Penelope had only met briefly the previous afternoon.

“Oh pish, Cousin Victor,” said Victoria. “We’ve talked about this before haven’t we? The stories in the Bible take place in the climate of the middle east and at a time when men were wandering about in loose clothing fairly similar to a modern woman’s dress. There is no point in bringing the Bible into this. Let us think about practicality, comfort and health.”

“Si!” agreed Vera, the Italian mathematician, enthusiastically. “When I go climbing mountains, I must always wear my brother’s trousers. Otherwise, I may fall and die.”

“Godless!” groaned poor Mr. Venning. “You and Maxwell were raised Godless, Victoria. If only your poor mother had not died when she did.”

“Not that again,” Victoria sighed. “It’s very sad, I agree, but it happened a long time ago and I feel that if I have come to terms with it then everyone else should too.”

The dowager duchess turned a pleading look to her daughter, and Adam Finch gave Penelope a good-natured shrug as if to indicate that he’d already done his best and failed to control this unconventional breakfast conversation. Still, Penelope found herself smiling in spite of everything.

“Have you tried the kedgeree, Mr. Venning? Our cook here makes some of the finest kedgeree I have ever tasted.”

“Indeed she does,” Mr. Finch agreed. “It’s the main reason I accepted the invitation. Are you feeling better this morning?”

“I was very worried about you, Penelope,” admitted her mother. “So was Duke Maxwell last night. He couldn’t get the last guests out of here quickly enough at the end.”

“I was only a little indisposed,” Penelope said stiffly, not liking her health to be pulled apart in public, even in so small a group. “I shouldn’t imagine Maxwell was really that worried about something so trivial.”

“Oh, he was,” Adam Finch assured her quite seriously, and Penelope blushed.

Every time she made progress in building some sort of wall to defend herself from feeling too much for Maxwell Crawford, something happened to tear it down and leave her exposed. She did not want to fall in love with a man who appeared chronically incapable of loving her back. But how could she help it?

“Tell me, Vera, what are your plans for the remainder of your time in England?” Penelope asked.

“We go to the Late District to climb mountains…”

“…and take some astronomical observations,” Victoria chipped in cheerfully. “You promised Sir Nigel.”

“Si, we take observations too. We climb, we sail, we swim…”

“How wonderful young ladies are nowadays,” said the Dowager Duchess of Heartwick. “So much energy.”

As Penelope had hoped, the Italian woman’s reply carried breakfast smoothly through to its conclusion.

It was only as they were all leaving the room that Adam Finch looked at her and hesitated before speaking, letting the other guests go ahead.

“Maxwell really is worried about you, Your Grace. I know him very well and wouldn’t want you to misunderstand his behavior. Don’t let the tough exterior fool you.”

Penelope smiled as graciously as she could at the lawyer’s well-intentioned intervention. Perhaps Adam Finch, too, was under Maxwell’s spell in some way, alternately captivated and then distanced until he could no longer remember what was real and what was illusion.

“What is wrong, my girl?” asked Penelope’s mother as they strolled together in the gardens later that morning, trying to avoid getting in the way of servants clearing up after the previous day’s party. “Sometimes you seem so happy here at Walden Towers and then suddenly you look so sad. It worries me to see you like this. I’m not surprised that Maxwell was concerned yesterday.”

“I’m exhausted,” Penelope confessed after a moment’s thought. “So much has happened so quickly recently and I’m overwhelmed with it all. I suppose I would like some peace now, some predictability. I keep thinking that is coming and it never arrives.”

“No, it never does,” the dowager duchess agreed, patting her daughter’s back. “That is the nature of life, and marriage too, in some ways. You think you’re in calm waters and then a storm comes up and sinks the boat.”

“I’m not in such dire straits as that,” Penelope assured her mother quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. I only need some sleep and a little more time to get used to my new home here, I think.”

“And Maxwell?”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to Maxwell. I can’t deny that he is a good man but I don’t understand him at all.”

“Men and women are very different, Penelope. They see the world differently and they love differently. It takes some effort on both sides to be able to understand one another.”

“Both sides, yes,” said Penelope with a tinge of bitterness at her mother’s talk of love and Maxwell’s unawareness of Penelope’s feelings. “I cannot understand for both of us by myself.”

Now, the dowager duchess sighed more deeply.

“Do you remember when your father died?”

“Of course, I do,” Penelope answered unhappily. “I was eight.”

“It was very sudden and after he was gone, I realized that there were so many things I never had the chance to say to him, so many things that I wish I’d told him, or told him more often. But we can never go back.”

Now, it was Penelope who placed a comforting hand on her mother’s back. The Dowager Duchess of Heartwick had never really gotten over her sudden widowhood, and Penelope knew there was little she could say or do beyond listening.

“I think poor Frederick felt it too,” her mother continued. “They had argued the day that your father died. Only something trivial, a broken window from cricket balls, I think. But they never had a chance to take back the harsh words they used and your brother could never forgive himself. That’s why he was so angry at me afterwards, I think.”

“And me,” Penelope added sadly. “I remember the day after the funeral, Frederick accused me of stealing all his time with Father. I had no idea what he was talking about, and I still don’t. But it hurt.”

“He didn’t know what he was talking about either. You were both just children. Hurt, grieving children. Later, I think he was ashamed of himself and his actions but to apologize would mean having to revisit that time and I don’t think he could.”

“Frederick has still always been kind in his own way,” Penelope reflected, thinking of her brother’s financial generosity to them both.

“He has. Your brother is a good man, just as your father was, and it seems your husband is. But I believe we might all have been happier for a little more simple talking.”

Penelope looked at her mother with resignation.

“You’re telling me that I must talk to Maxwell, aren’t you, Mother?”

The dowager duchess nodded, her expression kind but serious.

“Start your marriage as you mean to go on, my dear, and remember how quickly all things can end. Sometimes there are no second chances.”

“But what if Maxwell doesn’t want to talk to me? Every time I think we might be reaching some level of understanding, I turn around and he has run away.”

“Run away?” her mother queried.

“Well, not exactly run away. Gone to see his agents, his friend, his bank or some political contact. Maxwell is rarely still long enough to have a conversation, and when he does stop, it’s because he wants to plan for some engagement or wants my advice on the ton.”

“You will find a way, I am sure,” said her mother, squeezing Penelope’s arm. “If Frederick and I managed to agree that he will host this year’s open house at Heartwick Hall with me, I’m sure you and Maxwell can have a conversation about what each of you needs from your marriage.”

Penelope did not share this confidence but saw the opportunity to slightly change the subject.

“Yes, I am so glad that you and Frederick have come to terms on that at least. It will have to be a bigger event this year, won’t it? I heard some of Frederick’s plans for the day.”

“It will be the biggest event at Heartwick Hall since your father died,” the dowager duchess admitted with a slight air of trepidation, despite her smile. “There’s been no evening guests or dancing in the house since then, as you know. I could not organize such an day alone, but Frederick is so keen suddenly and is sending out more invitations. He also says there must be a dance.”

“My brother does love to dance,” acknowledged Penelope with a smile. “So do I, come to that. I shall look forward to it. This year’s Heartwick Hall open house can’t come fast enough for me!”

That much was true. Large numbers of both ladies and gentlemen, music and entertainment in the gardens, and dancing at night would be something Penelope had not experienced in her old home as an adult. She did look forward to it.

“Well, I’m looking forward to seeing you and your duke dancing together at Heartwick Hall,” her mother said with a faraway smile. “I shall be as happy to see that as I was at your wedding to such an eligible husband. I only wish your father could have been there too.”

Penelope kissed her mother on the cheek and guided her towards the eastern fields, where statues and fountains made a picturesque tableau among the greenery.

Despite her mother’s presence and the welcome prospect of some reconciliation between the Dowager Duchess of Heartwick and her stepson, Penelope found herself shivering despite the warmth, a faint nausea also making itself felt in her stomach.

“You are cold,” her mother observed with a frown. “I knew we should have brought our wraps. Maxwell was right. You might be sickening for something. We must return to the house at once.”

Penelope could not object to being swept back inside Walden Towers and wrapped in a warm blanket with more of Mrs. Kenton’s tonic and hot sweet tea. She could tell no one that it was the sight of the statues that made her shiver so strongly, not some chill or fever in her blood.

The staring eyes of the weatherworn stone figures had reminded Penelope of Lady Silverbrook and that disgusting letter, arousing both her anger and a strong sense of impending doom.