Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

The conservatory in spring was a quiet place, and Penelope sought its refuge under the banner of transplanting morning glory seedlings into the pots they'd occupy on the back balcony. By high summer, the balustrade would be awash in cascading blooms, but for now the job involved dirt, a little delicate greenery, and patience.

"You are also the undergardener now?" Lucien put the question pleasantly, but one look at him, and Penelope knew he was ready to join battle. His eyes had acquired the same quiet sparkle when he'd devised a new defense to some venerable chess opening, or puzzled out a rebuttal to a theory of Stoic philosophy.

"I needed the peace and quiet. The morning glories needed larger pots." In truth, she'd craved the scent and sight of growing plants, but any sortie out of doors would have been observed and remarked upon.

Lucien surveyed the table, littered with dirt, trays of freshly sprouted plants, and empty clay pots. "I can help."

Oh right. By wrecking her peace. Again. "I can manage, my lord."

"Two can manage more quickly, and then you can get on with inspecting the broom closets or whatever else Auntie demands of you." He peeled off his morning coat, slipped off his sleeve buttons, and folded back his cuffs.

A gentleman would never appear in such dishabille before a lady, but Pen had seen Lucien wearing only a pair of sopping-wet drawers, and he'd seen her in a damp shift. Years ago. They had not been children, but they'd been as innocent as two former children could be.

"Lynnfield has good dirt," Lucien said, drawing a tray to his side of the table. "Uncle insisted that good dirt was the reason the Conqueror crossed the Channel. Kent is one great expanse of good dirt, and where we haven't put the soil in cultivation, we still have good woods."

He set to work as if he'd been transplanting seedlings every spring for years, though he hadn't. What he had done was develop the ability to fall in step with Penelope at whatever task she'd been involved in. If she was darning a stocking, he'd pick up her embroidery hoop and finish a violet while maundering on about languages that had no definite article. If she'd been memorizing a poem, he'd quiz her stanza by stanza.

"Mighty oaks from little acorns grow," Lucien muttered, prying a pale seedling from the tray.

He had good hands. Largish, in keeping with his height, also competent. He had the same ability with musical instruments that he had with languages, and the first time Penelope had realized that Lucien was no longer a boy, he'd been holding a silver flute. He'd held that flute with the hands of a man rather than a youth.

She searched her recollections for a bit of Chaucer to toss back at him in response to the quote about mighty oaks. Love is blind sallied forth from memory.

She mashed a seedling too firmly into the dirt and inadvertently tore off a leaf. "Weren't you supposed to meet with Mrs. Cormac this morning?"

"Mission accomplished. She has her niece in mind for the post of under-housekeeper, but I have forbidden her to retire for at least another twenty years. "

Had Lucien just made a joke? His sense of humor had always been subtle. "Mrs. Cormac would be well past her three score and ten years by then, my lord, assuming she lives so long."

He tucked his seedling into its dirt bed off center in the pot. Penelope appropriated his first completed effort and redid the business properly.

"It occurs to me," Lucien said, "that you have taken to thievery, my lady."

Penelope slid the tray of seedlings closer to her side of the table. "You have me confused with the Board of Excise, my lord." The Board of Stamps and Taxes was no less rapacious. Aunt Purdy was merely a zealous and stealthy borrower of other people's goods.

"You have stolen all the available jobs from people here at Lynnfield who need something useful to do with their time. What would you think of putting Tommie in charge of my art business?"

While Penelope dug her fingers through rich, dark soil and gently handled new plants, she was aware that Lucien's conversation was serving some purpose known only to him. He was setting up the board and putting pieces in play. That comment about stealing jobs was so like him—insightful, but apropos of nothing in particular.

Trying to chivvy him away was pointless. He would not leave until he was good and ready to, of all the ironies.

"Tommie is bored," Penelope replied. "He does the pretty in the churchyard, attends all the hunt meets, and stands up dutifully at every assembly, but he would benefit from gainful employment suitable to a gentleman's son. He might even know a little something about art, but I can't see him bestirring himself to any effort greater than turning pages at our next musicale."

"The finer points of art can be learned. The part about making commerce appear genteel might fit his capabilities. How rusty is his French?"

"Very."

"I can send him to Paris to brush up, then. Only Parisian French will do for the cits and spares. Why isn't Aunt Phoebe assisting to repot these"—he peered at the tray of seedlings—"plants?"

"These are the morning glories that will festoon the back terrace balcony by midsummer. If we don't start them indoors, they won't begin blooming until summer's half over."

"Lark, Phoebe, and Wren could be given responsibility for the gardens. Lark has a flare for organization."

She had a flare for ordering footmen to move the furniture around just before company was expected and extra duties were already pressing upon them. But then, the gardeners did not have extra duties when company was expected, and Aunt Phoebe did arrange lovely bouquets.

"I can speak to the flock about taking an interest in the gardens. The marchioness isn't much of a horticulturalist, though Aunt Phoebe knows her blooms and herbs."

"You speak to the flock, and I will have a word with Mr. Osian about some new ideas for his gardens. Lynnfield will be the better for it. You ignored my note, Pen. Am I in your bad books?"

The note he'd had delivered to her before breakfast, asking for a quick word in the library. "I unearthed Don Quixote and had him returned to you. You need not thank me."

"I do thank you for safeguarding my translation, because you did, didn't you?"

"He was in a safe place, true enough. I left him there lest anything untoward happen to him."

Lucien retrieved the pot Penelope had fixed and tucked a second seedling into the soil near the rim. "Seems a bit too much dirt for one poor little fellow all on his lonesome. I wasn't referring to the note you ignored this morning. I was referring to the note you ignored the day I left Lynnfield."

Penelope's hands went still. Lucien had begun his attack, and he wasn't being subtle about the opening salvo.

" What note ?"

He studied her across the table, his gaze unreadable. "Precisely. What note? The note begging you to come away with me, explaining that we could travel without fear of scandal. The note conveying that my future was yours to command, but Lynnfield was doing too good a job of commanding both of us, and I needed to leave."

Lucien was a bad liar, and he found dishonesty morally distasteful. Lies were complications in his lexicon, though he was capable of a euphemism in the name of tact. Sometimes.

"I received no note, Lucien. Where did you leave it?"

"In plain sight in the fishing cottage, half tucked into your tackle box. I addressed it to you and sealed it. I used the old code and spouted off at some length. I knew you would put that box back in your dressing closet without fail—you are a tidy soul—and thus my note was certain to find you."

Penelope finished the pot she was working on and crossed to the basin and towel sitting on an unused birdbath.

"What difference could this note possibly make now? If you even wrote it. Why tell me this?" She scrubbed at her hands, knowing the dirt under her fingernails would require a penknife to dislodge.

"I tell you this because you were left with the impression that I, like your parents, your brother, your governess, and probably everybody else who mattered to you, simply disappeared. This is not so. I sought to disappear with you , not from you ."

Lucien remained at work as he spoke, patting soil into place and turning the pot this way and that. He was putting two seedlings into every pot, too, which Mr. Osian, martinet in charge of the gardens, would disapprove of.

"One seedling per pot, Lucien." Penelope rubbed her hands dry until they were pink.

"Two, for company, and because the one might not survive, so we're saved having to replant if we start with two. Mr. Osian can complain to me if he takes issue with my gardening. You took issue with my departure. I also informed you in that note you never read of a means of corresponding with me. I refuse to believe that you withheld even the occasional friendly word out of spite. "

"You expected me to leave Lynnfield with you?"

"You did not want to be herded up the church aisle by a lot of solicitors and guardians who had no care for your happiness. You said so."

She had said so. Loudly, but only to Lucien. "I didn't mean…"

He paused between pots, his hands dirty, his physique impressive, his expression patient. "Yes?"

"I was seventeen when you left. Opinionated, unhappy, worried for Henry, furious with him… I said a lot of things."

Lucien took up another seedling, easing it gently from the tray. "If it's any consolation, I agreed with you. A lady should choose a spouse for herself, and for that matter, so should a gentleman. We have few enough choices in life, and that one ought not to be left in the hands of lawyers and meddling relations. My solution was to turn our backs on the lot of them."

Logical, also daft. "To elope?"

"Not in the marital sense. I had a companion lined up for you, and we would travel as cousins, which a generation or three back, we are. I was interested in Italy at the time, but Greece also appealed."

They had pored over Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by the hour. "Then you sought to avoid marrying me, but you would not leave me here to contend without you?"

"Something like that." He tucked the seedling into the dirt, then found it a companion. "In any case, I had a plan, one that might have worked for a time, but you never learned of it, and you never received your invitation to join me in adventure. I thought you should know the facts."

Penelope could hear Sir Dashiel scoffing in her head. Not facts, my dear, fanciful claims from a man who at best can be described as fanciful himself. Though Lucien wasn't fanciful in the unbalanced sense Sir Dashiel implied. Cerebral, logical, and an intellectual magpie, by turns focused and flighty…

"What did you think when I failed to join you in your travels?" Penelope asked slowly .

"I thought you'd chosen the safety of a known environment over the perils of journeying with me. In hindsight, I applauded your common sense. Your logic was splendid. You could not be forced to the altar if I wasn't on hand to be forced along with you. When I took note of that salient fact, I found other places to be."

Penelope dried her hands and refolded the towel. She wanted to march out of the conservatory in high dudgeon, she wanted to swat Lucien with the towel, and she wanted—most of all—to believe him.

"You blame me for your absence all these years?"

"Of course not." Another pair of seedlings were gently patted into place. "I am explaining the reasoning I applied to a bewildering time in my life. I became useful on the Continent, then I found a settled post in Italy. St. Didier explained to me, however, that just as betrothal to me entrapped you once before, it might well be entrapping you again, and I had to see for myself how you're faring."

He set the clay pot aside, dusted his hands, and strolled to the washbasin. "I missed you terribly, Penelope, but lectured myself about a gentleman abiding by a lady's choices. I see now that, once again, you had no real choice, and I apologize for that. I never meant to abandon you."

Pretty words and possibly even true. "What difference does any of this make now?" Even while Penelope tried for a dispassionate tone, she reeled with what-ifs and why-in-the-worlds.

When Lucien had made use of soap and water, he wiped his hands slowly and thoroughly, and repositioned the towel exactly as Penelope had folded it.

"I want the truth between us, Pendragon. You believed I abandoned you. I believed you rejected me. We were both in error. You did not wrong, disappoint, or betray me, and I am vastly relieved to know it."

He took up her hand, cold now, kissed her palm, and closed her fingers into a fist, then collected his coat and walked out into the morning sunshine.

"Saddle the bay," Sir Dashiel said, striding into the stable yard. The morning was well enough advanced that the grass would be dry, and the situation at Lynnfield wanted reconnoitering. He had considered inviting Penelope to hack out with him, but was honestly out of charity with her.

To get word of the marquess's arrival from Tommie the Twit and then to spend an interminable meal attempting to pry details from the fellow had been beyond vexing. The past—Sir Dashiel's, the marquess's, the marquess's and Penelope's—mattered little, provided sleeping dogs were allowed to lie. The war was over, so to speak, and reasonable people let bygones be bygones. The future, however, was another matter.

Ten minutes later, a groom led out a dark, leggy gelding, no white on the creature save for a star on his forehead.

"He's still carrying extra weight," Sir Dashiel said, eyeing the horse's barrel. "Limit his grass if you have to use a grazing muzzle to do it."

"If you say so, Sir Dashiel." The groom, a wizened, scruffy gnome, looped the reins over the gelding's head and led him to the mounting block. "Thor's dam were born to the plow, though, and blood will tell."

Pay wages one day late, and the staff turned up disrespectful from boot-boy to butler. "You question a former officer's assessment of a horse's condition?"

The gnome—Dashiel forgot his name, if he ever knew it—patted the horse's shoulder. "No, sir. Just sayin' Thor's an easy keeper, like most plow stock tend to be. A good quality in a beast, usually, but he'll have to miss more than a few days' grass before you see some ribs."

"His sire was one of the finest hunters ever to leap a stile. Thor can do a better job of living up to his patrimony."

The groom stepped back, and the horse stood still to be mounted. Dashiel took up the reins, nudged the gelding with a spur, and departed for the Lynnfield property line. Thor was not a flashy equine, but he'd do for a social call, if the day held that, and he'd stand patiently. Dashiel's hunters could not stand still for two minutes without having galloped off five miles of the fidgets first.

"Give me an eager hunter, and I'm a happy man," Dashiel muttered, topping the rise that bordered Lynnfield land. Penelope was an accomplished rider, but she did not follow the hounds. Just as well, because Dashiel would forbid that activity once they were married.

"Speak of the devil," he said, bringing Thor down to the walk. "Or the angel, as the case may be."

Her ladyship's horse was a flat streak galloping across the pasture below, heading straight for the stone wall bordering the grassy acres. Horse and rider cleared the obstacle in perfect rhythm. Penelope turned her mare to sweep up the hill, the horse slowing when no fences were in sight.

Dashiel aimed his mount down the slope and intercepted his intended and her winded horse.

"What a lovely picture you make, my dear," he said, tipping his hat. "Roses in your cheeks, a sparkle in your eye. Good morning." Penelope looked a bit untidy, truth be told. The wind had snatched a few tendrils from her chignon, and the toe of her boot was dusty.

"Sir Dashiel, good day, and that's Thor, isn't it? Greetings, Thor."

The horse's ears flicked at the mention of his name.

"Thor is in want of exercise," Dashiel said, bringing his gelding alongside the mare, "and your mount needs to cool out. Shall we share the path for a bit?" And where was her groom, for pity's sake? No hint of scandal had attached to their courtship, and Dashiel was determined that none would.

Though to be fair, Penelope was on Lynnfield land, and Dashiel had known her for years.

"I planned to admire the view from the crest and then wander home," Penelope said. "The view can wait for another day. "

"Why not join me for luncheon? Tommie honored us with his presence yesterday. Saved us from the ladies outnumbering the gents. Vicar and his beauties were on hand, and the meal was quite congenial."

"Then you heard our news," Penelope said. "The marquess is back, and we've been all at sixes and sevens. You'd think Cook had never prepared a roast before."

Roasts had become increasingly rare at Raven's Roost, alas, and yesterday's offering had been no credit to the kitchen.

"How is our marquess?" Lord Lynnfield had been a daft boy, educated at home rather than benefitting from public school's civilizing influence. He'd gone to university, where he'd doubtless taught Latin to the dons and philosophy to the trees.

"Until yesterday," Penelope said, "I hadn't seen Lucien for years, Dash. I have no idea how he is or who he is. He looks well, still serious, still keeps himself to himself."

A detached, less-than-specific report. Too detached?

"He hasn't explained his sudden compulsion to travel on a Continent at war all those years ago?" The horses ambled down the track side by side, and Dashiel knew the gratification of an objective achieved. Who better to report on Lord Lynnfield's situation than the woman who ran that man's household?

"His lordship has explained himself to some extent, and I grasp his reasoning. But for university, his world was Lynnfield from birth onward. For a young man with a voracious intellect, such limitations chafed."

Penelope defended the idiot. To buy a commission and serve honorably in the military was how young men saw the world . Lynnfield could plead the imperiled succession of his title—fair enough—but the conventional price for eschewing military service was confinement to English shores.

Not that Lord Lynnfield had ever grasped, much less abided by, convention.

"I can't help but worry that his lordship was up to no good on the Continent," Sir Dashiel said. "What need has a marquess to plunder what little art Napoleon didn't steal? Seems a bit dodgy to me."

"Mind your tongue, Dash. Lucien had no need to plunder anything. His lordship is quite well fixed, and I'm sure he took every precaution to ensure his safety. Lucien can defy expectations, but he's not a fool."

More praise for a man who'd been a poor neighbor, at best. "One heard you and he were betrothed at one time. Do you still bear him some lingering fondness?" Tommie was apparently ignorant of the legal details. Fortunately, the marchioness had been more forthcoming. "I would not begrudge you some tender feelings toward a friend of your childhood, my dear."

Penelope pulled her mare up at the foot of the hill. " Begrudge me, Dash?"

She did this. Periodically tested him with minor displays of independence. Little ladylike fits of pique. He'd find her skittishness adorable were matters not growing so dire.

"A turn of phrase, Penelope, nothing more. Lord Lynnfield has always been an enigma to me. When most gentlemen were eager to lay down their lives to keep king and country safe from the Corsican menace, Lynnfield went sightseeing. When I spend every waking hour ensuring Raven's Roost prospers, my lofty neighbor can't be bothered to drop around home even every other year. He abandons all responsibility— he abandoned you —and you defend him. I am in thrall to duty, and you don't bother to tell me when the great man returns. Forgive me a little puzzlement."

She urged the mare forward. "Lucien gave us very little warning of his plans, Dash. I have been busy, and I will be busy for the next little while. The elders get up to mischief at the least provocation, and Lucien's return is a very great provocation indeed."

"Then I had best invite you and the conquering hero, along with his dear auntie, to Sunday supper, hadn't I?" Perhaps a ham would do. The hams were still in decent supply and good quality .

"We should invite you first, Dash. If anybody knows the protocol, you do."

Penelope was in error. The marquess was to call first on the vicar, then on the neighbors in descending order of social standing. The neighbors were then free to reciprocate, and then invitations to social gatherings at Lynnfield could be issued.

But if the marquess must ignore the niceties, Dashiel would accommodate him. "Very well. I consider myself invited to Lynnfield. Sunday will do nicely, and I will bring Tabby. She grows restless when some of her friends are being presented in Town, and she's expected to bide another year in the shires. She will make a complete cake of herself before his lordship, but tell him not to get ideas regarding my darling sister."

"Dash, you are being quite forward."

Faint heart never won fair maid—or her fortune—and Lord Lynnfield was a complication Dashiel could not afford to ignore. No telling what his lordship knew of the campaign across Spain, thought he knew, or might recollect at the wrong moment.

"The Pritchards and the Ingrahams are old friends," Dashiel said. "Nobody need stand on excessive ceremony. I'm frankly curious about the marquess, and Tabby needs a bit of a social coup to lift her spirits. Shall we say two of the clock?"

Penelope fussed with her reins and smoothed her habit over her boot. "Very well. Two of the clock Sunday. Be prepared to talk about something other than planting and who is going up to Town. Warn Tabby that if she assays her French, the marquess will reply in that language for the duration of the meal."

"That leaves discussing the spring assembly in the King's English. I shall do my best."

"Go give Tabby the news. She'll fret over what to wear, but Sunday finery will more than suffice."

Dashiel was being dismissed three-quarters of a mile from the Lynnfield stable yard, but perhaps that was for the best. He'd gathered what intelligence he needed, the news was mostly positive, and better not to be seen alone with her ladyship.

"I will bid you a lovely day, my dear, and count the hours until Sunday afternoon." He saluted with his crop, wheeled Thor in a sloppy about-face, and cantered off up the hill. At the crest, he slowed the horse to glance back the way he'd come.

Penelope was nowhere to be seen, suggesting she'd spoken the truth. She was busy, and Penelope toiled like Lynnfield's self-appointed head drudge on a typical day. If a woman was determined to exhaust herself, she should do so in service to her husband and children, not for a pack of half-witted dotards.

Dashiel put Thor through his paces and found the horse in good condition, for all that he'd come off of winter unfashionably well fed. An hour later, Dashiel turned his mount over to the same groom and was halfway to the house before he realized what had bothered him about Penelope's report on affairs at Lynnfield.

She'd never denied harboring feelings for the marquess, and she'd repeatedly referred to his lordship as Lucien .

Blast and damnation, the Marquess of Lynnfield might well become a problem after all.

How typical.