Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

"All I'm saying, dear boy, is that I had planned to take Penny with me when I went up to Town." The marchioness was whiling away her Sunday evening with a deck of cards, though while Lucien had been observing her, she hadn't found many matches. "Penny hasn't been to London for several years, and she could do with some new bonnets."

"Try the card in the upper right-hand corner if you're looking for knaves," he said, cracking a window to air the otherwise stuffy family parlor. "Penelope has no desire to go to London with you."

The marchioness turned over the card in the upper left corner and revealed a two of spades. "Penny told you she'd rather bide at Lynnfield?"

"Yes. Doesn't care for Town in the least. Has no patience with the social whirl, hasn't made friends among the polite set, for all she's an earl's daughter and an heiress." The lack of lady friends might not be so odd—Penelope did not suffer fools—but she hadn't made any conquests either. Why not? For settlements such as Pen had to offer, the swains should have piled up six deep at her feet.

"I won't take Penelope for the duration, Lucien. She can come up to Town for a fortnight or so. Long enough to schedule some fittings, establish order among the domestics, and see the house put to rights. She excels at such tasks."

While Aunt excelled at annoying Lucien. He did not recall her as particularly vexatious, but she'd either acquired the knack, or his memory had failed him for the first time in all his born years.

"You work Penelope as if she were a rented mule. You'd take her to Town for your convenience rather than her pleasure."

The marchioness put down her two of spades. "No need to be rude, sir. I actually have Penny's best interests in mind. When she sees all the interest young Tabitha stirs, she'll realize she's already flirting with spinsterhood. Sir Dashiel won't wait forever, no matter the size of Penny's fortune."

An unpleasant, logical suspicion formed in the back of Lucien's mind. "Penelope nearly gave Sir Dashiel his congé earlier today, but lacked sufficient privacy for a discussion of that nature."

Her ladyship gathered up her cards, though the game was far from concluded. "How on earth could you know such a thing?"

Penelope had told him as much before Sir Dashiel's gelding had disappeared down the lane. They'd sat on the mounting block and discussed timing and strategy, until Malcolm had emerged from the stable and offered Penelope his escort back to the house.

"I am in Penelope's confidence, and she is in mine," Lucien said. "That hasn't changed." What had changed was harder to describe. They'd grown up, and they'd grown apart, but the old closeness had taken on a new sparkle too.

The marchioness shuffled the deck. "I'd ask you to play with me, but you always win."

The elders would soon begin to assemble, and Lucien wanted the conversation with the marchioness over and done with. "I pay attention. I can't help having a good memory."

She began laying out the cards in a grid on the green baize tabletop. "Many people have good memories, my boy. They are also savvy enough to know that constant winning annoys others, so they curb their excellent memories for the sake of conviviality. "

She described a form of dishonesty that was somehow not cheating. "I understand manners, Auntie, and I understand that Penelope will not be accompanying you to Town. You are to launch Tabitha such as you can on short notice, and I'm sure you will find a way to enjoy that undertaking."

"In truth, Lucien, you seem to have become more dunderheaded than you were as a lad, and that development hardly seems possible. Tabitha is sweet, pretty, good at running her brother's household, and as accomplished in the ladylike arts as she should be."

"But?"

"But her settlements wouldn't catch the eye of a widowed knight with six children in his nursery. Your scheme to see her launched is cruel, creating expectations the girl will never see fulfilled."

The marchioness was very sure of her facts. "Sir Dashiel has confided the girl's situation to you?"

"Tabitha's oldest sister and I correspond. Besides, Tabby turned eighteen last autumn. She should have gone up to Town last year, this year at the latest, and there she sits, embroidering the family crest on pillowcases and making sheep's eyes at you."

The sheep's eyes had been cast in Tommie's direction. "You will please do your best by her in London, nonetheless."

Her ladyship turned over two cards, a three and a nine. "Or what?"

The question crossed a line, from diffidence to defiance. Lucien returned fire. "Or Sir Dashiel will be disappointed in you, which you seem to regard as a consummation devoutly to be avoided."

His arrow hit its mark. The marchioness stared at her mismatched cards. "Truly, you left your manners in Rome, or wherever we are supposed to believe you bided. Sir Dashiel is a neighbor, a gentleman, and the local magistrate. He cares for his sister, and he will expect me to perform a miracle. I have connections and rank, and I can dress the girl in fashion that flatters her, but I cannot change the rules of the game."

The game that played out each spring in Mayfair, or the one apparently unfolding at Lynnfield? "Intimate to your cronies that I am impressed with Tabitha," Lucien said, "and she'll get a second look from a few of the more ambitious matchmakers."

This suggestion earned him a curious glance. "That might work. Are you interested in her?"

"Not in any marital sense, and if I were, I'd give the whole notion a serious reconsideration because Dashiel is her brother. Your regard for him should be tempered with a little caution, Aunt."

A lot of caution.

"You were always jealous of him. He went to public school, he's charming, he joined the local militia, he's well liked and considered handsome."

Why would the marchioness resort to outright nastiness that could profit her nothing? "What does Sir Dashiel have on you, madam? You sing his praises to Penelope at every turn, probably gave him leave to court her ladyship without even telling her, and now you fear to disappoint him with Tabitha's lack of marital prospects."

Lucien anticipated protests, scolds, even a tantrum, but Aunt merely continued turning over cards in random pairs.

"Hopeless boy. We were managing well enough without you, you know."

Penelope had been managing the household well enough, that much was true. "I wasn't managing."

The marchioness considered the field of facedown cards. "Your delicate nerves troubled you?"

Ask Wellington about my delicate nerves. "I was homesick." Though for what? Not for this difficult old woman, not for a neighbor trying to sneak off with Penelope's future, not for a household full of idle elders.

Homesick for Penelope, of a certainty.

"Right, homesick," the marchioness said, turning over two cards at the same time. "So now you must play lord of the manor. Have you considered how Penelope will feel when you take a bride, my boy? She's in your confidence, and once upon a time she likely would not have objected to being in your bed, but Sir Dashiel offers her a respectful—"

Lucien plucked the cards from her hand. "Rudeness toward Lady Penelope will not be tolerated, even from you, madam. My intentions toward Penelope are entirely respectable."

A bit unclear as to timing and a few details, but deeply, deeply respectful.

By the flickering light of the sconces, the marchioness appeared worn and tired. "You always had a knack for creating problems, especially when you professed to be solving them. Sir Dashiel offers Penelope a storybook future, ruralizing among those who love her. You appear out of nowhere, your past a mystery, your future equally vague. Will you drag Penny up to Town so you can vote your seat? Expect her to hare all over the Continent with you in search of curios and musty royal portraits? What exactly do you offer her that gives you the right to disdain Sir Dashiel's suit?"

Lucien studied his aunt, whom he would have said was a decent enough soul, if a bit spoiled.

"I have no place disdaining or approving Sir Dashiel's wooing. The only opinion that matters on that topic is Penelope's, and she isn't favorably impressed. She will convey her position to Sir Dashiel at the time and place of her choosing, and if you attempt to meddle—to meddle further—I will remove you to the dower house and deny you the use of the traveling coach, the town house, the family property at Bath, and the funds I supply to keep the lot of it in good trim."

Aunt gave up any pretense of attending her card game. "You were a sweet boy, beneath the quirks and queer starts. Now you're overly full of your own consequence. Mind your step, Lucien. I detest bullies. Excuse me." She rose with vast dignity and made a stately march toward the door.

"You are being bullied," Lucien said quietly, "but not by me. Whatever Sir Dashiel has threatened or promised, I will do all I can to help if you will put me in possession of the particulars."

She stopped before him. "Be careful, Lucien. Despite what you might think, I do care for Penelope and for you. I've done what I believe is best, and I will exert myself to the utmost for Tabitha, but you underestimate Dashiel Ingraham at your peril."

Lucien allowed Aunt to make a dignified retreat—the least he could do—and gathered up the deck she'd abandoned. Blunt interrogation tactics hadn't worked, logic had failed utterly, threats had been pointless, though really, Aunt lived in a style anybody else would consider lavish, thanks solely to Lucien's generosity.

She'd defended Sir Dashiel's interests to the last, which suggested she found her paragon of a neighbor not merely intimidating, but rather, terrifying. Lucien sat at the table and laid out the cards one by one as he mentally composed a missive to Leopold St. Didier.

Penelope opened the sewing room door to find Lucien, resplendent in his riding attire, standing in the corridor.

"You've been for a gallop." No sedate hack put a man's hair into such disarray or turned his cheeks ruddy.

He sidled past her, and Penelope closed the door.

"I tapped on your bedroom door at first light, and when you did not admit me, I assumed you needed your rest. I needed the fresh morning air rather desperately. Have you been in here all night?"

The sewing room was not exactly topsy-turvy, but fabrics were stacked on one of the worktables, matching thread and bindings arranged atop each choice. Workbaskets had been rifled and stood open around the room, a swatch of silk or satin draped over most of them.

"I told Dashiel that Tabby would have a new wardrobe, and I fear my generosity ran away with my common sense. Making good on my promise will take a deal of hard work."

Lucien kissed her, a disarmingly soft press of lips to her cheek, near but not quite touching the corner of her lips. "Good morning, my darling. I see no we working hard. I see only you. What can I do to help?"

The part of Penelope's mind not consumed with velvet, muslin, and embroidered borders was grateful. Lucien had always had a practical streak that nobody gave him credit for. On the Continent, that pragmatism might well have kept him alive.

She used her fingers to winnow his hair into a semblance of order, then passed him a mound of white fabric along with a small tool sporting a curved blade. "Let out the hem, please."

He gave the blade a curious look, sent the same sort of glance to Penelope, then gathered up the froth, lace, and pearls that had been her presentation gown and dumped it on the worktable. He then pushed the worktable next to the nearest window and pulled off his boots. While Penelope watched, he climbed upon the table, sat tailor-fashion, and gathered the gown into his lap.

"I should have thought of that," she said, taking up her embroidery hoop and settling into a rocking chair by the cold hearth. Only then did it occur to her that Lucien had sought her out twice since dawn. "What troubles you, my lord?"

"I wish I had seen you in this dress," he replied. "You doubtless glowed like some celestial being come to earth."

"The pearls glowed, but I was so worried about catching them on a door latch or tripping over my own feet that I would have been a very anxious sort of celestial being. Then too, white does not flatter redheads. That was my presentation gown."

Lucien held up the bodice, the white work and seed pearls catching the morning light magnificently. "You are sacrificing your presentation gown for the sake of Tabitha's prospects?"

He clearly disapproved, but would follow orders nonetheless. Perhaps he'd learned to do that while spying as well, though Penelope had no idea why she was so preoccupied with his Continental exploits.

His dangerous , solitary Continental exploits. "I will never wear that gown again. To make it over is no sacrifice. Waste not, want not. Besides, when I look at that garment, I am reminded that I spent an eternity in the fitting rooms for clothing that was hot and uncomfortable. I could hardly breathe in that thing."

Lucien regarded her long enough that Penelope grasped he was choosing to avoid some sort of argument with her. After an eternity of unspoken reproaches, regrets, or something, he began cutting the stitches that bound the dress's hem.

"Did the Regent speak to you?"

"He certainly did. He always notices the heiresses. He said the circumstances of Henry's death were to be lamented above all things, and I must console myself with fond memories. I'd been out of mourning for only a few months at that point, but Prinny had already filed the appropriate petitions to have the earldom's properties revert to the crown. His condolences nonetheless had a ring of sincerity."

"One underestimates the Regent at one's peril," Lucien said, making steady progress with his little blade. "George is neither stupid nor ill informed, but he likes to pretend he's both. He knows what it is to lose siblings. He would have noted Henry's death the instant the news reached England and been well aware of your situation."

"Relieved he need not have made me a ward of the crown, you mean. What's bothering you, Lucien?" Penelope knew exactly what she was bothered by—the need to spin a heap of fabric into a fashionable wardrobe in a fortnight. If Tabitha was to have only one Season in Town, then turning her out in the first stare had become imperative.

Lucien glowered at yards of pretty fabric and then at Penelope. "When you give Sir Dashiel his marching orders, make your speech somewhere that other people can see you in conversation with him, but not hear you."

Botheration, Lucien had been brooding again. "Why? Such a discussion merits privacy for the sake of Dashiel's dignity, if nothing else. Besides, he and I are not engaged. I can't exactly hand him the you-do-me-great-honor bit." Penelope had almost managed to start the requisite conversation yesterday in the stable yard, but the moment had passed.

I'm saving my waltz for his lordship, Dash. Wish me luck.

Too flippant.

Lucien's return has made me rethink my situation at Lynnfield.

Too meek, and blaming Lucien would never serve.

Dashiel, you bore me.

Too honest, though he did bore her, when he wasn't annoying her. Why must some men have such frail sensibilities? If one offended them, they threatened tantrums and worse, but if one left them to their fancies, their expectations soon departed from any semblance of reality.

Lucien plucked at snippets of white thread. "Plain sight is safer for difficult exchanges, and Dashiel will moderate his responses if he has an audience. When did Dashiel become a justice of the peace?"

What had that to do with anything? "As soon as he mustered out and came home. Former officers often join the commission of the peace, and Dashiel was no exception. He's probably holding his parlor sessions as we speak."

"And he's accorded respect for meting out justice?"

Lucien hadn't been merely brooding, he'd been pondering, as only Lucien could ponder. "No, actually. Within a month of joining the bench, Dashiel sent Mr. Trotter's oldest boy off to the assizes for helping himself to a jar of Mrs. Plimset's plum jam on market day. The lad was nearly transported, but Uncle Theo, Uncle Malcolm, and Cousin Tommie spoke on his behalf. The aunties attended the trial as well. Theo let it be known that you and the marchioness would take a dim view of such harsh measures, so a fine sufficed."

"Who paid the fine?"

Nobody else had asked. Penelope bestirred herself to start on a row of French knots on a golden silk dancing slipper.

"I paid the fine and the lawyer, but you must never tell Dashiel. His theory was that one or two examples of swift justice, and the whole shire would be crime-free in perpetuity. "

Lucien's blade paused. "But?"

"But now, we simply don't peach on each other over petty offenses, and if anything, those petty offenses have multiplied because nobody wants to see a neighbor end up before Sir Dashiel. Every mischievous boy and habitual inebriate knows it." Somewhere, beneath inventorying the larders, settling spats among the elders, and keeping the marchioness in fashion magazines, Dashiel's theory had also annoyed Penelope.

"With nobody involving the king's man," Lucien said, "Sir Dashiel has less work to do. His reports make it look as if the shire has turned up Puritan under his watch, when, in fact, discipline in the ranks has deteriorated. Many a regiment operated on a similar scheme. Lawlessness abounded among the enlisted men and even among some of the officers, but the appearances were quite in order for parade inspections."

The fundamental dishonesty of such an arrangement would have offended Lucien. "Did your clandestine activities acquaint you with army discipline? Is that where you learned to have your most dangerous discussions while strolling the village green?"

Lucien collected all the little loose threads into a pile on the table. "You must not bring up that aspect of my past, Pen. What I did was dishonorable and delicate. Henry died a hero's death, while I compromised my integrity for the sake of my pride. Nobody respects a spy."

But he'd been a good spy, because he'd wanted to feel needed. Penelope knew all about the unfortunate results of seeking to feel needed. She brushed aside the guilty possibility that promising a whole wardrobe on short notice had been an exercise in making herself needed.

Another exercise in making herself feel needed.

"Did Henry die a hero's death, Lucien? Nobody seems to know the particulars. Felled by a French bullet is about all I've been told. His commanding officer wrote me a sweet, comforting letter about Henry being a paragon—he wasn't—and a fine officer—he was an inexperienced officer—and Henry being remembered for his valor. Henry ought to also be remembered for his vanity. He did so love parading about in his regimentals."

Lucien had finished ripping out the hem. From his higher perch on the table, he regarded Penelope over the billows of her presentation gown, a sagacious, sartorial owl in stockinged feet.

The sight of him, limned by morning light, disheveled, occupied with women's work and yet entirely himself, made her heart turn over. All the ways she had missed him—as a friend, a confidant, an intellectual sparring partner, a source of affection, and so much more—settled over her in a silent cascade.

Never leave me again.

"Henry was too young to die," Lucien said, batting down the folds of white around him. "We can agree on that, and when you can bear to recall a person's faults as well as their endearing attributes, your grief is abating. Give me another task."

The moment passed, and like a game horse finding her footing on a sloppy course, Penelope made a leap borne of impatience with herself and with her life.

"Would you undertake some inquiries for me, Lucien? Get me a few particulars regarding Henry's death? He wasn't on any battlefield, and the French were supposedly nowhere in the vicinity, and yet, he was ambushed."

Lucien shook out the gown and began folding it. "I would not know where to begin such an investigation, Pen. I do know that Sir Dashiel will take umbrage when you show him the figurative door. That worries me."

When Penelope allowed it to, the looming discussion with Sir Dashiel troubled her too. "We're launching his sister at no effort or expense to him. Let him be consoled by that dazzling display of neighborliness." Would Sir Dashiel have exerted himself even to the extent of ripping out one seam for Tabitha's sake?

In the privacy of her thoughts, Penelope admitted that where Sir Dashiel was concerned, she'd had a narrow escape. She could have made marriage to him bearable, but why had she even entertained that fate in a theoretical sort of way?

"Aunt claims Tabby's settlements are paltry," Lucien said, tossing the orts and leavings of silk threads into the dustbin. "She had it from one of the older sisters, though as to that, why aren't the older sisters launching Tabby?"

"They did not marry well enough. Good matches, not spectacular matches." Lucien's question touched on a curious point. Sir Dashiel's three married sisters did not visit the Roost, though they all dwelled within a few hours of their brother.

Too busy with their nurseries, perhaps. "I will ask Dash to walk me home after Sunday services and explain to him that I've enjoyed our occasional hacks and picnics and calls, but I will be quite busy for the foreseeable future..."

Lucien's gaze was unreadable. "Once you get Cinderella off to the ball, you will be no busier than usual, Pen. Be honest with the man. Tell him he's too good a friend to be allowed to harbor any mistaken aspirations. You apologize for speaking so plainly to him, and you hope you are mistaken, but the marchioness has been murmuring wrongheaded intimations. You fear she has got above herself and murmured the same innuendos in Dashiel's hearing too. In an abundance of caution, you thus seek reassurances that Dashiel also views the marchioness's clumsy matchmaking as quite off the mark, meaning no insult and so forth. Blushing would make the whole recitation more credible."

"How long did it take you to puzzle that out?" The strategy was brilliant and simple, also close to the truth.

"Half the night. Blaming a somewhat guilty third party saves everybody's pride. If you frame the issue as the marchioness creating mischief, then Dashiel solves the whole problem by admitting that he had the same concern, and nobody should take her ladyship's little schemes seriously. You have relieved his mind, in fact, by confiding your worries to him, or so he can claim."

"Does spying involve diplomacy? I would not have thought to cast Dashiel in the role of forbearing gentleman, but he'll like that." Not like precisely, but he'd be flattered by it.

"Spying is a form of diplomacy, to hear some people tell it, but that topic holds no interest. Give me another task, Pen. I can do those French knots."

She passed him the slipper, thread, needle, and all. "Can you start those inquiries about Henry, Lucien? If you were so accomplished at your nosing about on the Continent, you must have some idea where to ask a few questions."

Lucien wound thread around his needle and poked it through the top of the slipper. "You won't leave this alone, will you?"

"My only brother, my last surviving family member, is dead, his title obliterated, and I'm supposed to sit in the corner and choose recipes for syllabub. I stay busy in part because I sometimes fear the alternative is to go mad."

Now where had that admission come from?

Lucien put the slipper aside, climbed off the table, and knelt before her. "Don't go mad, but never read another recipe for syllabub if you don't care to. Exhaustion can serve for a time to dull the emotions and keep the memories at bay, but it can also become a habit, like marching or drinking. When I arrived in Rome, I lay about for weeks. I had to learn again how to sleep for more than an hour at a time, to waste a morning with the newspapers, to dress slowly, to eat when I was hungry and not simply because rations were available and I had miles to cover before sunset..."

He rested his head in Penelope's lap, and she stroked his hair. "None of us thought our marquess had gone to war, but you had."

"I went completely to hell for a time. Crossing paths with Huntleigh was the single greatest stroke of luck I've had other than ending up on the same estate with you. In his way, Huntleigh was as lost as I was becoming. Organizing his household gave me a place to start making peace with myself."

That was as close to a speech as Lucien, Marquess of Lynnfield, was likely to make short of doing his bit in the House of Lords.

And yet, Lucien did not feel at peace to Penelope. More settled than he'd been as a youth, wiser, and calmer, but not at peace.

"If nobody else has said this, Lucien, I'm saying it: Thank you for what you did when you went traveling. You risked your life every bit as much as Henry did, and if the French had caught you, your fate would have been the torments of the damned. I respect you for the courage you showed and the risks you took for king and country."

He lifted his head, scowled at her, then sat back. "This is why the whole estate colludes in running you off your feet. Given time to think, you are far too insightful. Thank you for your kind words."

He made a production out of returning the worktable to its assigned position and tugging on his boots, then he passed Penelope the slipper. "One aspect of Henry's death has troubled me."

"Oh?" The French knots Lucien had done perfectly matched Penelope's efforts.

"You are right that the French had no business patrolling that far behind Wellington's lines. They supported themselves by hunting and foraging, which we English call pillaging. The season was high spring, and we were in relatively lush terrain. Game and grazing were abundant."

Penelope parsed what Lucien wasn't saying. "That patrol was not in search of rabbits or boar or an undefended root cellar."

Lucien stood. "I'm sure there's an explanation—a shipment of cattle promised to Boney's men, some general taking a notion to circle behind the English, a scout getting lost, or a Bonapartist sympathizer with news to pass along. I don't have the explanation, though."

"Can you find it?"

"I don't want to. Wellington made very certain we did not fraternize openly with the enemy, but both armies observed a certain unspoken protocol. If the French and English camps were in proximity, the night pickets took care of exchanges of letters and news, or bread for brandy, that sort of thing. Deserters knew to walk into the opposing camp at the breakfast hour, hands in the air. Amid intermittent barbarism, we found patches of sanity. "

"And for Henry to be shot in broad daylight offended those patches?"

"Yes, and for the French to wander so far from their own territory with no apparent objective... I did ask a few questions when I eventually learned of the situation, but by then, nobody admitted to knowing anything."

Penelope rose as well. Lucien had just explained to her a small part of how the passing years—and the war—had changed him. "You didn't want to tell me this."

"No. What purpose could such a disclosure serve?"

"What harm could it do?"

Lucien took her into his arms. "You will be more haunted now. You will beg heaven more fervently for answers that heaven cannot give because they might lie solely within hell's keeping. Your disquiet will increase for knowing I have questions too."

Penelope considered that reasoning and found it sound, also vintage Lucien. "But you contemplated lying to me. As a boy, you would not have lied to me or to much of anybody."

"Not lying outright, but yes, I entertained the possibility of keeping my thoughts to myself."

That skill, he possessed in abundance. "Don't," she said, hugging him tightly. "Don't keep any part of yourself from me, Lucien, save to preserve your own dignity. Don't spare me, don't protect me like that, don't hide behind some misguided notion of manly honor. We will have the truth between us or nothing at all."

Penelope's own daring impressed her, but she would not tolerate being managed by a man who professed to care for her.

"The truth," he said, easing his hold, "is that you need reinforcements, and I intend to see that you get them. Who are the best seamstresses among the aunties and cousins?"

Subject changed, which was honestly a relief. Penelope resumed her seat. "They are all skilled, and even Tommie can sew a straight seam. The same fellow valets for him, Theo, and Malcolm, and needs must occasionally. "

"You can't have Tommie. I am meeting with him this morning, but you can have the entire complement of ladies, so decide now how you want to deploy your troops."

"And the marchioness?" The question was automatic. Get her ladyship settled, or not much else could be accomplished.

"She can unearth any relevant patterns from the attics, but you are in charge of actual needles plied and fabric cut. Take the ladies in hand, Pen, and I will try to do likewise with the gents."

The sense of having conferred with a fellow general was novel and a bit heady. "What about Henry's demise? Will you make inquiries?"

"I've already started."

He kissed her again—on the mouth this time—then slipped out the door. Penelope threw the slipper at the solid oak and heard Lucien laugh before his steps retreated.

He had tried to keep his concerns to himself and failed. Penelope decided to be encouraged by that, but that he'd contemplate keeping her in ignorance... not good. Not good for Lucien and not good for her either.