Chapter Fourteen

Penelope and Niles stood beside the pianoforte, facing the gathering. The other two ladies were seated. The Gents stood near them. Liam stood among them, but he didn't appear to be succeeding in getting a foothold in this group of socially significant people.

"Shall you introduce our performance?" Penelope asked Niles. "Or shall I?"

"When given the option," he said quietly, "I will always choose not to be the spokesman."

Why was that? He was articulate and entertaining and personable. That was a mystery she fully intended to sort later.

To the gathered group, she said, "Ladies and the Gents"—her adjustment of the usual form of address brought grins to the onlookers—"our impromptu performance will be a piece on the pianoforte that both Mr. Greenberry and I remember well from our long-ago years as very impressive students of music."

Liam looked perplexed, no doubt owing to his memory of her participating in her music lessons under extreme duress. Niles's friends watched in apparent anticipation of being very entertained.

She turned to Niles. "Shall we?"

Niles offered a very solemn nod, which she returned.

They stood next to each other at the instrument, Penelope positioned in front of the treble clef and Niles in front of the bass clef.

He whispered out of the side of his mouth, "We didn't choose which scale to play."

"C major?" she suggested just as quietly. "'Twas the simplest, after all."

"Once up, once down?"

Undertaking such an absurdly brief "performance" would be particularly funny. She nodded.

They both hovered their right hands over a C key, two octaves apart from each other. At his nod, which they didn't have to communicate ahead of time to each other, they began. From C to the next C, then back to the start.

With a flourish that matched each other despite, again, no prior discussion, they turned to the room and offered a bow and a curtsy respectively, both so overdone that one would think they were in the presence of every king and queen, emperor and empress in the world.

"Remarkable!"

"Bravo!"

"A triumph!"

Their audience offered their praise with an enthusiasm every bit as exaggerated and unwarranted as Penelope and Niles's show of pride. Even Liam smiled. He was not an inherently unhappy person, but his worries over their standing in this group and her future had rendered him heavy of mind.

"We should call off the remainder of the impromptu performances," Penelope said to the group as a whole. "This first one cannot possibly be outshone."

"As true as that may prove," Mr. Layton said, "we would not be very sporting if we refused to try." He looked to the others. "Can everyone else's performance be undertaken in this room, or do we need to relocate?"

Each of the duos indicated the music room would suit.

"Let's move, then, to Lord Aldric and Mr. Seymour."

All the Gents usually spoke of and to Lord Aldric without his title, but Penelope suspected Mr. Layton used it in this instance because the duke's son was being referenced alongside Liam, who was not on such informal terms with the extremely high-ranking gentleman.

Liam either didn't notice the change or wasn't bothered by it. He simply looked nervous as he followed Lord Aldric to the front of the group.

"The skill we will be displaying"—Lord Aldric spoke very directly and with very little indication of his feelings on the impending performance —"is the ability for Mr. Seymour to list the counties of Ireland and I to list the provinces of France in alphabetical order."

"France first," Mr. Fortier requested. "I am anxious to see if you manage it."

Did Lord Aldric know France well enough to impress the French-born couple?

" Comme vous le souhaitez ," Lord Aldric said to the Fortiers. Then he began his list. "Alsace. Angoumois. Anjou. Artois. Aunis. Auvergne. Béarn. Berry. Bourbonnais."

Penelope watched the Fortiers as Lord Aldric continued his list. They conferred now and then but always ended the whispered discussion with nods. No doubt they didn't know the provinces in alphabetical order by rote memory and were debating if one had been missed.

She turned her gaze to Niles, who stood beside her chair. He looked at her in the same moment.

With a quick smile that seemed a little embarrassed, he whispered, "I couldn't list all the French provinces, so I have no idea how he is doing."

"Neither do I, but I think we ought to accuse him of missing one, just to see his reaction."

Niles's fleeting smile returned, this time lingering. She enjoyed knowing that she'd brought a smile to his face. He was not an unhappy person, nor were his smiles necessarily infrequent. But there was something about the way he smiled at her that she had come to treasure and long for. It was not necessarily a step forward in the courting she needed to do, but it felt like progress just the same.

"Poitou. Provence. Roussillon. Saintonge. Touraine." Lord Aldric offered no flourishing bow or words of acknowledgment as he finished his list. He simply stepped back and indicated that Liam should take his turn.

Penelope didn't think Lord Aldric was an unhappy or impersonable gentleman. And she also didn't think he was lacking in social graces. Yet his aloofness didn't appear to trouble the Gents any more than Niles's reticence. This was an interesting group, to be certain.

Liam took a step forward. Her heart went out to her brother. He was so overawed as he looked over the gathering. Liam wanted to lay claim to these circles, but the Seymours were comparatively unimportant.

Before Liam could begin, Lord Jonquil turned and looked at Penelope. "I'm afraid you're the only one present who'll be able to tell us if his list is correct."

She knew all the counties, to be sure, but she'd never tried listing them alphabetically. "I'll not be making a whipping post of my fellow Irishman in front of a bunch of English neddies."

"Penelope." Liam's eyes pulled wider than she'd seen in ages as he all but gasped her name.

The rest of the room, however, burst into uproarious laughter at being called English donkeys.

"She's put us in our place," Lord Jonquil declared.

"Not all of us," Mrs. Fortier retorted, a broad smile on her face. "How do you feel about French donkeys, Miss Seymour?"

"I've never met a French donkey..." She let the sentence dangle.

"That you didn't like?" Mr. Layton supplied.

"No. I've simply never met a French donkey."

And the laughter began again. Liam joined in but with more trepidation than mirth.

From directly beside her, Niles whispered, "Your brother doesn't seem to know what to make of us. "

"I hardly know myself," she answered, no louder than Niles had spoken.

"We can be a little daunting when taken as a whole."

"I think he does feel a little daunted." She turned to Niles. "I—"

He was so close. There were brown flecks in his blue eyes. And a slight crookedness to his nose. And one side of his mouth seemed to sit higher than the other. She had the oddest, strongest urge to trace her finger from one corner to the other, to test what she was seeing.

Good heavens, she needed to get her thoughts sorted out. She looked forward once more. "Best list those glorious counties, Liam," she said. "My heart longs to hear them."

With the eyes of the gathering on him once more, Liam seemed to find his footing, abandoning his obvious struggle between scolding his sister and impressing their companions. "Antrim," he began. "Armagh. Carlow. Cavan. Clare. Cork. Donegal."

Niles looked at her a couple of times as the list continued. He likely was checking to see if her brother had made any errors. But meeting his eye on the second glance, she saw a little surprise in the moment before he returned his gaze forward. Had something of her thoughts regarding his lips shown on her face? She'd not thought so.

Was he studying her, noticing the color of her eyes or the tilt of her mouth?

Could it be that her efforts at courting him had begun to bear fruit? That he'd started taking note of her, started feeling at least some interest? The possibility ought to have rested on her mind as relief. But where she felt it most acutely was in her heart. That organ pounded harder, beat faster.

Liam finished his list with Wexford and Wicklow. Applause and congratulations were offered as the two gentlemen ended their performance. Lord Aldric returned to his seat with unwavering nonchalance. Liam took a moment to soak in the approval he was receiving. He wasn't exactly subtle about it.

Penelope took a few deep breaths. She needed to keep her head, not lose her heart.

Violet and Nicolette sang a song in French—the only French song Violet knew, by her own admission.

Mr. Fortier and Lord Jonquil recited a poem they had composed during the extremely brief preparation period, one that was both ridiculous and, Penelope had to acknowledge, a little impressive.

Mr. Barrington and Mr. Layton ended this round of performances with the former untying his cravat and the latter retying it with his eyes closed. When pressed on what exact skill Mr. Barrington was demonstrating, Mr. Layton insisted his partner's offering was "the rare ability to admit when one's cravat knot is a travesty."

The group agreed to a second round of impromptu performances. Even Lord Aldric seemed not displeased to continue. He was an intriguing mystery, in neither a romantic nor dangerous way. He was, more than anything, confusing.

Penelope's name was drawn with his.

"I also know all the counties of Ireland," she told him as they settled into a corner of the music room to discuss what they would offer when their turn arrived. "In case you fancy an encore."

"I suspect we can think of something else." Lord Aldric still didn't sound displeased, but the indifference he had displayed with Liam had been exchanged for subtle misgiving. She didn't openly acknowledge it, but she was entirely aware that it was there.

"How is it you know so much about France?" Penelope asked.

"My mother was French. We often visited France while she was still living. During those years, France felt almost as much my homeland as England."

"I am sorry you lost your mother," she said.

A look of unmistakable sorrow passed very quickly through his eyes. In a quieter voice than she'd heard him yet use, he said, "It has been a very long time since anyone has said that to me. I think people forget that such a loss doesn't stop aching."

More than three years had passed since Penelope had lost her father. She missed him, and that often ached.

"May I ask you a question now?" Lord Aldric requested.

She nodded, attempting to predict in her mind what he might ask.

"Why do you want to marry Niles?"

She could not have predicted that.

"Before you answer," Lord Aldric said, "I should warn you I will not be satisfied by variations on ‘because it is all arranged.' You would have been less inconvenienced had you abandoned the arrangements upon realizing he had defected, and you could have found someone else. Traveling this far, making efforts to convince him to change his mind back, doesn't make sense if you were simply looking for any husband. So, my question, in reality, is why do you want to marry Niles ?"

"You are very direct, Lord Aldric."

"You will find, Miss Seymour"—his tone was solemn but without anger—"that in the matter of my friends' happiness, I do not shrink when I feel something needs to be understood or addressed."

"You've said that you consider ‘because everything has been arranged' to be an insufficient reason, but 'tis a significant part of it. My circumstances are odd, and I'd very little hope of finding a gentleman who would agree to a marriage contract that took those circumstances into consideration. That he did, that he agreed to terms that would help my otherwise very difficult situation, was something of a miracle. I'll not find that again, I'm all but certain."

He was listening, but he offered no indication of what he thought of her admittedly vague explanation.

"Ladies have little power over our own futures, Lord Aldric. And marriage agreements more often than not take away even that. I found myself one of those rare lucky few who had a chance of a marriage on footing closer to equal than is ever seen or heard of." She was keeping her voice low, knowing she didn't dare allow this to be overheard. Lord Aldric gave her no reason to believe he would be satisfied with an incomplete or less-than-honest answer. "I wanted to meet the gentleman who'd agree to allow his arranged-for bride to have a say in her own future and afford her a bit of hope to cling to. And I wanted to see if there was a way to get that back."

Lord Aldric nodded. "Allow me to quickly, seeing as we are running out of time to choose a performance, tell you something about Niles Greenberry. He is stronger than he often seems, more capable than he is often given credit for, and more deserving of sincere connections than he is generally afforded. Making him think he is cared about when he is merely convenient would be even more cruel than you likely realize."

Was she being warned not to hurt Niles? Had no one warned him not to mistreat her? Had anyone thought how his refusal to even face her in Cornwall, leaving her to pick up those pieces, would hurt and humiliate her?

But those defiant thoughts quickly ebbed. He hadn't acted as he ought, but she didn't begrudge him that. Perhaps someday, she would understand his reasons. For now, she would be content with simply understanding him .

"No matter that he lied to and abandoned me and has not yet offered an explanation or an apology," she said, perhaps not as entirely magnanimous about that as she had insisted to herself that she was, "I do think he is deserving of sincerity, as you have said. And I cannot imagine anyone who truly knows him thinks he lacks capability or strength. No doubt, people make such a grave error in judgment because he is quiet, which is utter ridiculousness. Being quiet does not make a person weak. I saw him rush to the rescue of the poor young man who fell in the lake. He can ride as well as I can, which is, I assure you, impressive. And he verbally spars with the lot of you with ease, which I suspect is a rare enough thing. Strong, capable, and deserving—I challenge anyone to say otherwise."

Lord Aldric responded to her vehement declaration with nothing more than a dip of his head. "And what would be your reaction if you learned that someone was lying to him?"

"Who is lying to him?" She looked around the room. Certainly no one here would do so.

"Lying holds, perhaps, too harsh a connotation. Misleading or manipulating hits a little closer to the mark."

Penelope shook her head firmly. "That would be a horrible thing."

"I agree." The edge that had crept into his voice a mere moment ago was gone. "Now, what is it we are going to do when our turn to perform arrives?" She didn't think he was now pretending to be on friendly terms with her. He had warned her against hurting his friend, but he didn't seem to truly think ill of her.

She was so very confused.

"We could list the English counties in alphabetical order," he suggested.

"I wouldn't be much help. I don't know all the English counties." With a little effort, she kept her tone light. The confusion she felt was beginning to inch toward something uncomfortably close to guilt.

"We could attempt to place everyone here in order of age, from youngest to oldest." Lord Aldric apparently liked lists.

She did as well, truth be told. Perhaps not quite as much as he did but enough to agree to this easily performed "talent."

They had mere moments to confer before the group was assembled once more and the second round of performances began.

Lord Jonquil and Violet performed a rather silly rendition of a nursery rhyme. Mr. Layton and Nicolette performed a portion of the allemande. Mr. Barrington and Liam recited the declension of several words in Latin, which caused Lord Jonquil to insist he was reliving the horrors of his early education, which, in turn, led the Gents in the room to laugh in shared misery at having been required to learn the language. Liam laughed along with them and beamed at having found something they inarguably had in common.

Niles and Mr. Fortier were next. They announced their performance as a feat of agility.

Mr. Fortier invited Lord Jonquil and Lord Aldric to join them at the front of the group, which they did. In turn, he challenged them to attempt to catch a wood-cased pencil he held above their hand, perpendicular to the ground, by closing their hand around it before it dropped below their grasp.

Both gentlemen tried.

Both failed quite spectacularly.

"Now, assembled friends," Mr. Fortier said, "I will do the same with Puppy, but he will catch it."

The Gents were quick to toss out words of teasing doubt. Liam didn't seem to know if joining in their taunting would be considered uncouth or presumptuous.

The trick was undertaken, and Niles did catch the pencil. It was repeated three more times, and he was successful twice more.

As the applause for this display sounded, Lord Aldric and Penelope were invited to the front. Lord Aldric explained their performance. Everyone looked both intrigued and interested in hearing what their guesses of everyone's ages were.

Lord Aldric, of course, knew the ages of the Gents. The ladies, he'd been a little less sure of. Penelope was able to provide her and Liam's ages. In the end, the only true demonstration they were providing was whether or not they could guess Violet's and Nicolette's ages.

"Lucas. Henri. Niles. Myself. Digby. Kes." Lord Aldric saw them through the Gents portion. Next came the tricky bit.

They'd thought it best if Penelope guessed the ladies' ages, as it would be seen as less of a slight if an incorrect guess came from her, so she took on the remainder of the list. "Myself. Nicolette. Liam. Violet."

A quick conference among the audience indicated they had guessed all positions correctly. The congratulations would have led Penelope to make as grand and deep a bow as she had after the scales on the pianoforte, if not for the briefest of moments when she met Niles's eye. Wariness flickered there in the moment before he settled into a smile. Wariness and hesitation.

Making him think he is cared about when he is merely convenient would be even more cruel than you likely realize.

Misleading.

Manipulating.

Lord Aldric's words had stung, and she was beginning to realize why. Because there was some truth underlying his accusation. And Niles Greenberry knew it.