Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

Penelope in pursuit of pleasure was a revelation.

Lucien had seen her spend a whole morning trying to outsmart a grandpapa trout, only to throw her catch back when she'd gained her victory. She'd memorized the first canto of The Lay of the Last Minstrel in a week flat. She had decided to take on the violin as a challenge and within one long summer had played well enough to perform at the marchioness's musicales.

Pen was capable of intense, unrelenting focus, but she had never turned that focus on him—not like this.

She stood in her shift and bare feet, her hair a thick braid over her left shoulder, one fist planted on her hip, pirate-captain-on-the-quarterdeck fashion. "Who is overly dressed for the occasion now, my lord?"

"We both are."

Her brows shot up, then she drew the curtains over the window and marched back to the braided rug beside the bed.

"Race you," she said, whipping her shift over her head and tossing the wad of fine linen behind her. The bravado would have been convincing, but for the slight upward tilt of her chin and the way she stared at the bedpost six inches to Lucien's left.

Such courage, such determination. Such fire.

Lucien set his pocket handkerchief on the bedside table, then undid his falls slowly, not because he sought to draw out the moment, but because manual dexterity nearly eluded him. Pen was... perfection. Rosy and rounded, sturdy, and spectacularly, robustly feminine.

She watched his hands, then bit her upper lip when he shoved his breeches off and stepped out of them. Before he could pick them up to add to the stack on the chair, Penelope laid a hand on his bare chest.

"The textures of you fascinate me," she said, brushing her palm lightly over his chest hair. "Bristly here, crinkly there, smooth and rough, warm and..." She stepped closer and swiped her tongue over the bump of his collarbone. "A bit salty and redolent of lavender."

"While you," Lucien said, gripping her hand, "provoke me nigh to madness." He kissed her rather than attempt more words, and heaven help him, she kissed him back . Passionately, insistently, perhaps even a little vengefully, and Lucien's self-restraint began to unravel.

In his head, he tried distracting himself with this chess gambit and that sequence of moves while Penelope's hands mapped his wildest longings and fondest dreams. Mentally reciting Caesar's Gallic letters proved useless when she decided that the contours of his derriere fascinated her.

When she pushed him back onto the mattress, Lucien fell in a dazed heap.

"Stop thinking," she said, moving around the bed and climbing in on the other side. "Stop trying to cogitate your way through lovemaking. I have given up domestic bustling for the nonce, I'll have you know. You must give up mentally bustling for the next hour too." Penelope straddled him as he lay against the pillows. " Aros gyda mi ."

Stay with me. A Walter Scott verse tripped through Lucien's head, one he'd shied away from for years. Too painful, too apt. This is my own, my native land... "I'm here, Pen. I'm here, and I'm with you."

She crouched over him, a lioness preparing to enjoy the fruits of a long and difficult hunt. "And I am with you."

She'd spoken Welsh, and that helped quiet the tumult in Lucien's mind. This was his Pen, and she'd asked only that they make a first attempt at mutual seduction. Typical of her to keep her expectations modest.

Typical and so very wrong.

Lucien set aside poetry and strategy and gave himself up to pleasuring Penelope. He learned her every curve and hollow with his hands. He gathered up her sighs with kisses. He teased and tested and tasted, until she was restless and panting beneath him, her braid gone frizzy and her eyes dreamy.

"You could do this all day, couldn't you?" She brushed his hair back from his forehead and tugged on his ear. "Play at being the lover while you drive me mad."

"I have never been more completely in earnest, Pen." Nor had he ever been happier or more thoroughly in the grip of desire.

She cupped the back of his head and drew him down to her. "Stop playing, Lucien, or I will go up in flames of frustration."

The up in flames part... "You're sure?"

"Are you?"

How like her, and the question was apt. A pause to unmuddle, to refocus. "Yes. Absolutely certain." Lucien was equally sure he'd dispatch St. Didier to buy a special license before noon tomorrow.

"Fortunate for you, sir," Penelope said, "because I have made up my mind as well." She took him in hand and seated him against her heat.

Lucien resisted the commands of his bellowing animal spirits and resisted even Penelope's demented wiggling. "Hold still."

She complied, and he was torn between closing his eyes, the better to be enveloped in pure sensation, and keeping his eyes open, the better to drink in the sight of Penelope becoming his lover in fact .

He decided to keep his eyes open for as long as he could.

"I like that," Penelope whispered, turning her head on the pillow. "I like..."

Lucien set up a slow, shallow rhythm. He liked using pleasure to steal her words. He liked seeing her gaze go all soft and sweet. He very much liked the hitch in her breathing that told him desire was coursing through her as it ignited every corner of his being.

Penelope muttered something in Welsh, her words too soft for Lucien to make out. He was hanging on by a slender thread of determination when Penelope bowed up and moved against him with the inexorable power of a woman in the throes of intense satisfaction.

When she subsided onto the pillows some moments later, she was flushed and beaming. " Saint ac angylion bendigedig ."

Desire beat at Lucien, as did joy. Blessed saints and angels, indeed. "Catch your breath," he said. "That was the appetizer." For her, he'd somehow find the will, the superhuman capability, the... love.

"What of you?" she asked, lacing her fingers with his against the pillow. "You refrained, didn't you?"

"Betrothed is not the same as married."

She moved her hips experimentally, the fiend. "Not a great difference, some would say."

"You tempt me, Pen. Allow me this one scintilla of caution."

Her undulations ceased one instant before Lucien would have had to withdraw. "You were too long wandering in strange lands, Lucien, too far from home. If Wellington should ever cross my path, His Grace and I will have words." She was not in the least teasing or joking.

"Try to have them privately. The duke isn't accustomed to being taken to task."

"And therein lies a problem. Is it safe to move?"

Lucien kissed her nose. "Go gently."

A fine plan, and because Penelope apparently grasped that a slow build of passion could yield an entire blazing sunset of pleasure instead of a mere bonfire, she went gently until she went not gently at all. When she'd ceased thrashing, Lucien held her and waited and waited some more—holding a replete Penelope was a grand delight in itself—then withdrew and spent on her belly.

She watched him—add that to the list of aphrodisiacs quite near the top—and handed him the handkerchief when the last tremor had passed through him.

"I would rather you not leave me," she said when he'd tossed the handkerchief away and cuddled down atop her. "I'm lonely without you."

Lucien buried his nose against her hair. "I am lost without you." Had been lost, for years. Lovemaking with Penelope gave him the courage to admit that to her.

"I'm falling asleep. Will you be here when I waken, Lucien?"

"I will be no farther away than the next pillow, if I make it even that heroic distance."

When Penelope succumbed to slumber, he eased himself off of her and curled up at her side. Something more profound than anticipating vows had happened in this venerable four-poster, not that anticipated vows were a paltry occasion.

Lucien arranged himself around his intended and let his mind drift as it hadn't in ages. Impressions, thoughts, and emotions swirled together in a slow eddy of awareness.

He loved Penelope. That wasn't news. He ought to tell her, though. The verse from The Lay of the Last Minstrel meandered back to him, the words clear in his mind:

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,

As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,

From wandering on a foreign strand !

If such there breathe, go, mark him well…

The wretch, concentred all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

"You are my own," Lucien said softly. "And I am home."

He dozed off, arms around his betrothed, his spirit as close to peaceful as it ever had been.

"Sir Dashiel, come to call," the butler said, and because Rhian, Marchioness of Lynnfield, knew her butler quite well, she heard the note of disapproval he conveyed in five simple words.

"Show the baronet in." Her ladyship was always home to Sir Dashiel, as the butler well knew. "I will receive him here in my personal parlor." Where nobody eavesdropped, though the chief eavesdroppers were fortunately busy in the sewing room. Theo was off with the steward, assessing the hay crop, and Tommie was absorbed of late with his correspondence.

"Shall I inform Miss Tabitha that her brother is gracing us with a visit?" the butler asked.

Penelope managed the staff, and she did so with a light hand. Sometimes too light. "You shall not. Sir Dashiel might well be making a flying pass on his way into the village, and Tabitha is lately prone to gushing at length." Bless the girl.

"Very good, your ladyship." Kerry bowed low enough that the shining top of his pink head was visible— when had he grown so old? —and withdrew .

The marchioness's formal parlor was becoming outdated, but she preferred the exuberant elegance of bygone eras to current fashion's austerity. Everything in the well-appointed London town house was now symmetric, refined, and restrained.

Boring, in other words. Sir Dashiel had grown boring too. Witness, his visit had been all but predictable.

He presented himself with his usual pretense of hurry, taking her hand and bowing smartly over it. "My lady, a pleasure on this lovely afternoon."

"If you say my beauty rivals the sun, I shall smite you." And not with her fan. "Have a seat. The tray will be along in a moment."

In his staid riding attire—sable jacket, buff breeches, plain linen, shiny tall boots—Sir Dashiel was a jarring note amid the cream, azure, and pink hues of the parlor. He'd been a jarring note in her ladyship's life, too, though she'd been lamentably slow to notice his rough edges. Perhaps Penelope could smooth them out before Sir Dashiel charged headlong into real trouble.

"You are gracious, as always. How fares my dear Tabby?"

He played the part of the doting brother convincingly, and perhaps he was a doting brother—the sort who stole his sisters' settlements to feed the hunters he doted upon.

"Tabitha is in alt, of course. A London Season is every girl's dream, and I intend to see that she leaves Town with all the right memories and as many of the right connections as possible."

Conversation paused while the tea tray was wheeled in. Penelope had left standing orders with the kitchen to feed Sir Dashiel, the vicar, and the vicar's wife at every opportunity, and thus the tea cart held sandwiches, tarts, and glazed petits fours.

"A feast!" Sir Dashiel said, just as he said every time the cart appeared. "A veritable feast. No need to hover, my good man. I'm sure her ladyship and I will manage."

The footman, one of several Joneses on staff, stepped back, folded his gloved hands before him, and looked straight ahead.

"That will be all, Jones," the marchioness said. "Thank you. "

He bowed to her, nodded to Sir Dashiel, and withdrew, though he wouldn't go far. The marchioness had given a few standing orders of her own where Sir Dashiel was concerned. The baronet closed the door in the footman's wake. Alas for her guest, on such a fine afternoon, her ladyship had opened her parlor windows.

The whole business—Dashiel's mischief and his attempts to be discreet about it, the countermeasures she took to foil him, and the other measures she took to appease him—had grown wearying beyond belief. She was half tempted to dump the problem in Lucien's lap, but then, duels were scandalous, Lucien had no heir, and Penelope would be appalled.

The marchioness was too tired of the entire farce to be appalled. The last indignity would be having to confess her foolishness to Lucien. That humiliation would be worse than appalling.

"So when is the great day?" Sir Dashiel asked, pouring out for himself while leaving his hostess's cup empty. "Monday after next, I believe? I will have the Season's inventory ready to go, though this being the last shipment, I will raise my prices. Those who grumble will find themselves out of luck."

"I cannot dicker like a fishmonger, sir. If you want to raise the price of your brandy, you will inform your usual cohort, and I will see that the proper quantities find their way into the proper hands."

The job of hauling Sir Dashiel's brandy up to Town had started off as a favor. Four years ago, Sir Dashiel had asked her to deliver a few cases of spirits to several trusted friends from his army days. The potation must have been very high quality, because they'd been received with barely contained enthusiasm on every hand.

And yet, that enthusiasm had been contained, had been nearly discreet, if not furtive.

Weeks later, her ladyship had caught a snippet of gossip about a Spanish monastery having been raided during the war and nobody knowing what had become of the treasured vintage in its cellars—not that Wellington tolerated pillaging, of course. Soldiers had been hanged for violating that dictate .

The occasional case or bottle showed up at a gentlemen's club or in a peer's personal stores, but nobody knew where or how the brandy had made its way from France.

Her ladyship knew, though she'd never admitted to Dashiel that the rest of the story had fallen into her hands.

"I cannot trust the mails," Sir Dashiel said, biting into a sandwich of beef and brie. "If I need you to convey a change of terms, you will do so in person."

He was growing obnoxiously sure of himself, and that was the marchioness's own fault. "I cannot possibly bargain on your behalf. London is like the world's largest village. Somebody is always watching. I can hardly go around to the back door at White's and have a word with the sommelier, can I? My coach wouldn't fit down the alley, and the sommelier wouldn't be caught dead parleying with a woman on club business."

Sir Dashiel was good-looking, convivial, and possessed of a certain cunning, but he was also hopelessly rustic . Penelope might like that about him, but the marchioness found his narrowness of experience tedious.

He paused between sandwiches. "Can you arrange for a few express communications to go up to Town?"

"Why not have Lord Lynnfield frank your letters?" her ladyship asked. "Nobody will tamper with correspondence bearing his hand or seal." She was being naughty, rubbing Sir Dashiel's face in his relatively lowly station, but truly, he was overdue for a set-down.

"As if I want his lordship poking his nose into my affairs. I will send a half-dozen express letters, let's say Friday. With everybody at market, a few riders heading west won't be noticed. I will send my missives here, to your attention, and you can forward them to London for me."

In the normal course, mail was paid for by the recipient. Sir Dashiel would expect the marchioness to pay for these epistles, just as he likely expected Tabitha to come home engaged to a prince.

I have been such a fool. When Penelope married Sir Dashiel, the foolishness would stop. Dashiel's hoard of contraband was apparently exhausted, and Penelope's settlements would keep him in hunters for a good many years.

Unless one of those hunters—please, heaven—took a wrong step and sent Dashiel headlong into a convenient ditch. The marchioness bit into a petit four rather than castigate herself for that unworthy thought.

"Is my darling Penelope spending endless hours sewing in her tower?" Sir Dashiel asked around an apple tart. "The woman really does work too hard, considering the lord of the manor has returned. Let him see to his own pantries and peasants."

"Those peasants are all that stand between you and starvation, sir."

Dashiel smiled over his half-eaten tart. "You sound curiously like Tabby, going on about peas and cucumbers, or was it beans? One forgets. I should pay my addresses to Penelope before I take my leave. She has all but begged me to announce an engagement at the next assembly. I suppose I ought to oblige her."

Penelope was constitutionally incapable of begging, a fine quality in any woman. "She has to marry somebody, you are the only remotely eligible parti, and I sing your praises at every turn, but have a care, Dashiel. Penelope has a contrary streak and independent means. Don't rush your fences."

Then too, Lucien had returned. Sir Dashiel didn't seem to realize that a marquess, one of whom Penelope had always been fond, could be a rival for her affections.

"Rush my fences? I have been dancing attendance on that woman since she set aside her schoolbooks. Rush my fences? Dear Penelope has one foot in spinsterhood as it is, and well she knows it. Besides, she is the only remotely eligible parti in terms of my own marital prospects, and I am too handsome a bachelor to be allowed to maintain my freedom indefinitely."

He was teasing, for the most part. "I still advise caution. Lord Lynnfield is apparently home to stay. That alone means you will have to bargain fairly over Penelope's settlements. His presence also means I'm done delivering your contraband."

The word wiped the smile from Dashiel's blue eyes. "Those who haul contraband are more guilty in the eyes of the law than those who purchase it. Your ladyship would do well to recall such details."

And what about those who stole from monasteries? Who brought the contraband into England? How Dashiel had accomplished such feats, she did not know, but he had.

"I do a generous favor for an impecunious ruralizing neighbor. I have no idea of the provenance of the items I'm taking up to Town for him."

"A fine tale, but alas I cannot recall entrusting anything to you, my lady. All those friends of yours on the Continent, the ones you still correspond with, the nephew who roamed France at will during an entire war, might have some idea where you came by such valuable goods."

Hence, Sir Dashiel's great good cheer. He'd convinced himself that if his smuggling came to light, he'd simply blame Lucien. The letters confirming sales would be dispatched from Lynnfield, the wagons bearing the goods would depart from the general vicinity of Lynnfield, and the marchioness would oversee the actual London delivery of the stolen brandy.

"Lucien kept his solicitors apprised of his movements. You will have a hard time proving wrongdoing on the marquess's part, unless a weakness for fine art is now a felony offense."

Sir Dashiel popped the last of the tart into his mouth. "I needn't prove anything. Innuendo, gossip, rumor, a few hints in the right ears. Lynnfield himself is mad, you know. Tainted blood on the dam side. Penelope doubtless feels sorry for him. She's tenderhearted, for all her practicality. I am very fond of her."

Do you always steal from the women you're fond of? "And she is fond of you, I'm sure."

"I certainly hope so. Easier for her that way." He started on a second sandwich, or possibly a third .

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Dashiel looked up, his expression ominously pleased. "Should my intended prove reluctant to speak her vows, I will give her cause to rethink her decision. This house is full of misfits and maiden aunties, all of whom Penelope dotes on. She might come reluctantly to the altar, but for the sake of the Lynnfield lunatics, come she will."

This was a new and different sort of boast from Dashiel. "What are you talking about?"

He tore off a bite of sandwich and considered it. "Justice, my lady. I am discussing justice. If Penelope conducts herself like a biddable and grateful wife, all will be well. If she proves contrary—your word—then I will take appropriate measures to deal with her stubbornness. Fear not, all will be as it should be, and you will be free to find Tabitha a suitably well-heeled, enthralled swain. A longish engagement would suit—I must sort out Penelope's finances before I embark on settlements for Tabby—but a younger son might do nicely if he's truly infatuated."

"Have you even proposed to Penelope?"

"I won't have to. She has all but proposed to me. Where is she, by the by? Wouldn't want my darling to think I'm neglecting her."

"She's off at Finbury for the day. The marquess escorted her." Her ladyship added that last bit out of futile spite. Penelope and Lucien had always been thick as thieves, and they were cousins at some remove. For them to make a joint inspection of Penelope's property was nothing out of the ordinary, more's the pity.

"Finbury will fetch a lovely sum, I'm sure," Dashiel said, finishing his sandwich and dusting his hands over the tray. "Or maybe I'll dower Tabby with it. That could work nicely. Expect letters from me Friday morning, and I'd like them delivered to London by the end of the day. I'll see myself out."

He tossed her a jaunty bow, snatched three sweets from the tray, and took himself off.

The marchioness set the plate of petits fours on the opposite side of the tray and rose. Dashiel was growing worse, and that comment about Lucien's mother… bad form. Very bad form, and cause for regret. The marchioness had let that bit of family history slip late one night over too many hands of cards and far too many glasses of brandy.

She debated again putting the whole matter into Lucien's hands—he did seem more settled—but Dashiel would soon be done with his smuggled goods, apparently, and Penelope was fond of him. Better to let matters run their course, get Tabitha married off, and hope Dashiel was, as usual, far more talk than action.