Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

“ I ’m glad you feel up to this,” Maxwell said, as he walked Penelope along the front garden path at Heartwick Hall, their coach already rolling away towards the carriage house behind them.

Pale but pretty in a white muslin summer dress with a small corsage of fresh flowers at her bosom, Penelope smiled back at him.

While other guests weren’t expected for at least another hour, the house and gardens were already fully prepared with decorations, footmen bearing trays of drinks, and wreaths of summer greenery around the front door.

“I couldn’t miss Heartwick Hall’s first major event for so long,” she said. “And Annabelle has been even more excited than me. Let’s walk around to the back before we go in and see how everything looks before the masses arrive. Oh, it will be wonderful to have Mother and Frederick hosting this together. I haven’t seen Heartwick like this since we were children.”

Maxwell nodded in agreement to her suggestion as she talked. He took the path to the left of the house, following the direction of Penelope’s hand rather than going straight to the front door.

“Victoria is sorry that she couldn’t be here but she and Miss Giardino could not cut short their Lake District trip. I must remember to give their regards to your mother. They both liked her very much,” he mused.

“She was always a good mother to me, even though her own life has not been easy,” Penelope commented with a warm smile as she thought of her parent. “Look, there’s my old swing!”

She ran forward with a burst of happy laughter and sat down on the weathered wooden seat hanging from a high branch of a chestnut tree a little distance from the house.

“The rope is fastened to that branch up there so that it grew with me every year from when Father had it set up,” Penelope reminisced happily as she swung herself slowly to and fro. “So, I never became too big for it.”

“I must have a swing installed at Walden Towers too, it seems. Victoria would like that too, I believe,” replied Maxwell, enjoying the sight of Penelope so happy and enthusiastic about the day. “I’m glad to see you with so much energy today. You’ve been so tired of late.”

“I have been tired,” she conceded, looking down and jumping off the swing. “Both in body and mind. Lady Silverbrook and that awful letter got to me far more than they should have done. But today, I intend to put them behind me. I will not let those people make me ill or spoil our plans.”

“Very good, but do not overdo things yet,” Maxwell cautioned at this bold declaration.

“I’m sure Mrs. Kenton’s tonic has the power to keep me going until dawn,” said Penelope with determination as they strolled through the neatly trimmed bushes dividing front and back gardens. “She claims that tonic of hers is a secret recipe, but I suspect it’s mainly ginger, pepper and syrup. It certainly settles the stomach and reanimates the spirit.”

“Still, with or without the power of Mrs. Kenton’s tonic, if you do feel unwell again, you must say, and your mother can arrange for you to rest a while.”

While Penelope did not demur, she only responded to Maxwell’s injunction with a slight nod. As she had conceded, she had not been entirely herself for some weeks since the shock of that revolting letter.

“Don’t tell Mother that I’ve been unwell over the last few weeks, will you?” she asked him suddenly. “I haven’t been seriously ill and don’t want her to worry.”

“I won’t unless I have to,” Maxwell answered slowly, not willing to make unwise promises that he might not be able to keep.

His duchess had kept to her room most mornings since their garden party, appearing tired and listless at other times even though she still insisted on accompanying him to afternoon concerts, evening salons, balls, and theatre performances, in line with their existing plans.

It should have heartened him that his wife was so determined to keep their social progress on track, but Maxwell had to admit that Penelope’s health and attitude had both worried him, just as they might worry the Dowager Duchess of Heartwick.

“But you must say if you are tired today,” he repeated himself for emphasis. “You do not even have to tell your mother or Frederick why you need rest, or talk of Silverbrook at all.”

“But then they would all just assume I am with child,” Penelope sighed, pointing out the obvious. “I would not want the fussing that comes with that either, or their later disappointment when it turns out I am not.”

Maxwell studied his wife carefully now. This was a possibility he had not considered earlier. While their encounters had been few, they had also been passionate and unrestrained. That his seed might have taken within her was not an impossibility in itself.

But surely mothers-to-be were meant to be rosy and blooming, not pale, wan and tired? He thought Penelope might even have lost a little weight in recent weeks. No, she was not with child, he decided, and found that conclusion strangely disappointing even though it would have disrupted his plans to have a baby arrive so soon and take Penelope out of action for months.

“If necessary, I will think of some excuse for you to rest,” he said at last. “But we can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

He spoke with more confidence than he felt. The Duke of Walden knew that he was not entirely himself either. There was much on his mind.

With Adam Finch, Maxwell was still deciding what should be done with that damned letter from Silverbrook and whether the consequences of publicly going to the law would be worse than seeking a private solution to such harassment. Whatever happened, Penelope must be defended, both from Silverbrook himself and from poisonous rumors that might besmirch her reputation.

At the same time, he was troubled by how he might himself have contributed to Penelope’s low mood. This made him wary of making matters worse.

There was no denying that he had entirely lost control of himself in Penelope’s arms on the night of the Walden Towers garden party. Intending to comfort his wife, not ravish her, he had ended up doing both and had no idea how she felt about it afterward, although Penelope had certainly enjoyed him at the time.

The next morning, Maxwell had pressed silent kisses to her long golden tresses as he left, unwilling to yield to further distraction but longing to do the same with those soft, pink lips that had welcomed his so hungrily only hours before.

Penelope had said nothing to him since of that night or their physical passion. Rationally, he ascribed her silence to low spirits and imperfect health after the latest Silverbrook shock. But he also sensed that Penelope had given up in some way, and that thought dispirited him more than he could have imagined.

Now, he longed to know what Penelope felt and to hear certain words again from her lips – principally to hear that she wanted him. The expression of her desire had made him feel…what?

It was impossible to put a name on something so unfamiliar. The duke only knew he wanted to hear his wife demand his attention again, offer up her gorgeous naked body to him again, and melt in his arms so completely in ecstasy once more. But today, she only smiled pleasantly, her sweet green eyes distant and distracted as she showed him around Heartwick Hall’s gardens.

“I remember playing hide and seek here with Annabelle. It was such a good spot for that game.”

They were near a large shrubbery in an isolated area with no servants nearby, and Maxwell took Penelope’s hand in his as she spoke, inspired both by his genuine care for her well-being and by her undeniable beauty in her current simple toilette.

Her golden hair and fine features required only the plainest canvas of white muslin and fresh flowers to set them off. While her present look was almost maidenly in its simplicity, he, of all people, knew that this was a state Penelope had long moved beyond.

His duchess smiled calmly but vaguely at his touch and then withdrew her hand a few moments later without any obvious displeasure. The polite indifference of her gesture bothered him. He would almost have preferred it if she had snatched her hand away or told him to remove it. At least then, he could ask her why and try to understand.

Her present reactions froze him out and left him as helpless as an unarmed man wishing to storm a castle.

“I assume I should remain at your side for the first hour this afternoon and then again for the first hour of the dance this evening,” Penelope said thoughtfully then. “That will be sufficient time for key introductions and should give the general impression we want.”

“The impression that we want?” Maxwell repeated, her businesslike tone grating on him today rather than pleasing him.

“The impression of a Duke and Duchess of Walden thoroughly in love and ready to conquer society,” said Penelope evenly with an expression of cynicism that cut him more than the words themselves. “That’s what we must pretend, isn’t it, in order to make it all real?”

“I’m tired of pretending,” blurted Maxwell with uncharacteristic impulsiveness. “Aren’t you?”

Penelope looked at him, startled, jogged out of her previous complacency. It was a relief to get some reaction from her today.

“I’m not…tired of pretending anything,” his wife said, her brows frowning. “I am only talking of what we have already planned and agreed, Maxwell. You are confusing me.”

“It will all be simpler when you have Walden Towers for your own and I have the London House,” the duke muttered, still pondering whether this idea was somehow at the root of the chasm presently yawning between them.

Well, if it were not what Penelope wanted, then she must say so. From the changed expression on her face, she had certainly heard his words, but the hurt visible in her eyes sobered him and made him wish he had not spoken at all.

“On that matter, it must be as you wish, Your Grace,” she retorted, and he understood that this formal address was intended to hurt him in some way, too, even as her eyes filled with baffling tears.

Did Penelope want to live apart from him or not? Her agreeing to it so easily dealt a real blow to his ego and unacknowledged hopes. Still, her half-hearted tone only made Maxwell more puzzled and rather chagrined. Again, a strong impulse struck him, this time the urge to take Penelope in his arms and hold her close to him until all misunderstandings evaporated in the heat between them.

Before he could act on this compulsion, a rustling in the shrubbery made them both turn their heads sharply.

“Is someone there?” Maxwell called out, irritated at the idea of having a boot boy or junior maid eavesdropping on their private conversation, accidentally or not. “Come out now.”

Then, with a loud yowl, a black cat emerged from the thick greenery and raced for the bottom of the garden as though its life depended on escape. The duke relaxed, and Penelope sighed, shaking her head.

“It’s only Buster, one of the kitchen cats. You must have given him a fright. Come, I’ve seen what I wanted out here. We should go inside and greet Mother and Frederick.”

The Duke of Walden looked down, back to the shrubbery and then again to Penelope, her face composed once more and her hand lightly relaid on his forearm without particular feeling.

He sensed that something was badly wrong, but perhaps it was only that the moment had passed, and he had lost an opportunity of some sort with Penelope. Would he have another?

Disconcerted but hiding his feelings, Maxwell felt the sense of something valuable slipping through his fingers like gold dust wrongly mixed in with sand.