Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

" C hrist, this is a deuced depressing affair."

On any other day, the grumbling emerging from Garrick's side—Aidan, newly restored to the family flock and doing penance by pretending to be on his best behavior—would have given him cause to deliver a crushing quip. He would secure a lemonade and dance a lively quadrille and force his brother to charm some dowager or other. Indeed, on any other day, mingling with the cream of London society at Rivendale's would have been all he desired.

But this was not any other day. It was today , two full evenings after Garrick had last seen Pen Sutton. He could close his eyes till the day he died and still have the imprint of her swaying hips and lush bottom, scarcely hidden in her drab gentleman's garb, etched on the insides of his eyelids. Yes, he had dismissed her, the flash of hurt on her lovely face chipping away at a part of himself he had thought long withered and dead before she had summoned her pride and hidden it. Before she had gone .

He cleared his throat and forced himself to respond in the fashion he would have before Pen Sutton had invaded his life. "There is nothing depressing about this dance. Half London would give their eye teeth to be here and you know it."

While it was true that vouchers for Rivendale's were an exclusive commodity everyone wanted and few could command, the knowledge somehow seemed to have lost its luster.

Because Pen Sutton had taken her leave from that shabby room above The Beggar's Purse two nights before, and he had not seen her since.

He had wanted her to go, of course.

He needed her to do so, he reminded himself sternly. Just as he needed to return to his life as it had been ever since he had devoted himself to becoming the next Duke of Dryden. Ever since Veronica's betrayal, which should have proven to him beyond question that a calm, unaffected society marriage was what he wanted. What was best. Mother and Father never argued. They were always perfectly pleasant to each other.

"Half London is bloody mad if you ask me," Aidan muttered.

He slanted a quelling look in his brother's direction. "No one asked you."

Aidan shifted from his right foot to his left, looking as ill at ease as Garrick felt. "I'm not meant for this twaddle, and you know it."

"Only look at Mother beaming upon you now," he said, with a surreptitious nod in the duchess's direction, on the other end of the ballroom.

She did indeed look pleased, the plumage in her turban fairly quivering with her delight at seeing her youngest son playing the role of proper gentleman at a soiree over which she reigned supreme as one of the ton 's most respected ladies. Between them, young ladies and lords danced in perfect rhythm, nary a step out of time, as the most alluring debutantes sought to secure their future husbands.

"She looks at her cats in the same fashion," Aidan drawled, "and I'll be damned if she tries to feed me the gizzard of a fowl. Entrails of any sort make me bilious."

It was true that their mother had a tendency to care for her felines, whom she adored, more than she did her sons. At least, her outward expression of emotion seemed to suggest so. Lilac, Sweet Pea, and William were her crowning achievement, and most of her day—when she was not paying social calls or ruling Rivendale's—revolved around keeping company with her cats.

"I ought to feed you gizzard after the torment you unleashed upon us all, first with your supposed betrothal?—"

"There was nothing supposed about it," Aidan interrupted hotly.

"—and then your drunken idiocy that led to you being kidnapped by a pair of thieves and held for ransom in some officious-smelling East End hovel," Garrick finished, taking a thorough look around him to make certain no sharp-eared gossips were within listening range.

Thankfully, they were not.

It would never do for word of what had befallen Aidan to travel. Mother would be humiliated. Aidan would be a laughingstock. Father could well succumb to his weak heart. And their other brother Jonathan, currently campaigning in the country, would see his aspirations as an MP dashed. The scandal would cause irreparable damage if the world discovered the youngest son of the Duke and Duchess of Dryden had been in his cups and celebrating his pending nuptials to an East End hoyden by bedding a lightskirt when he had been kidnapped and tied naked to a bed.

Humiliating did not begin to describe it.

"The Beggar's Purse is not entirely a hovel," Aidan said then, frowning mightily. "I will own that I have made some mistakes. Many mistakes. But I have had ample time to think about my actions, and there is one thing I have realized above all others."

Garrick's gaze caught on Lady Hester and her mama, hovering near to Mother's elbow. He owed her a dance. He also owed her a proposal. But his desire to offer either had been terribly diminished ever since a stubborn, auburn-haired minx had entered his life.

Do not think of her now. She is where she belongs, just as you are where you belong.

Pity those words no longer rang with the same truth he had once believed they did.

He jerked his attention back to Aidan, thinking Lady Hester could wait for another dance or two. Or three. Or ten. "Dare I ask what realization you reached? If it is not what an utter jackanapes you are for having invented your betrothal merely to hurt Mother and Father, only to disappear and cause me all manner of headaches as I sought to find you, I have no wish to hear it."

"I know I was wrong," Aidan said gravely. "I do not deny it, and I am sorry for any upset I caused. I was selfish and reckless, only concerned with what I wanted instead of what Pen wished. I will never forgive myself for that."

Pen.

The reminder that his brother had been close with her first rankled.

"You have the right of it," he forced himself to say, crushing any feelings of jealousy that attempted to rise to the surface. "You were indeed selfish and reckless, and you ought to be ashamed."

"So you have been telling me for the past two days."

He scowled at his brother. "Because you need to understand the ramifications of your actions."

"I do understand them," Aidan announced, his countenance brightening. "And that is why I know what I must do next."

Anything short of groveling would not be sufficient.

"And what is that?" he asked, curious in spite of himself.

"Beg Pen's forgiveness and ask her to marry me in truth."

Garrick nearly swallowed his own damned tongue. "Have you not learned your lesson?" he demanded, cursing himself for the loudness of his outburst, the sheer, raw reaction. He took a slow, deep breath, attempting to calm himself. "Look at me, Aidan. You have caused enough problems for Miss Sutton and for our family. The least you can do is to find a suitable young lady from a noble family, cease gadding about gambling and wenching and drinking yourself to perdition, and forget all about Miss Penelope Sutton."

And Garrick was going to do the same. The last bit, anyway. He was going to banish Pen from his thoughts, from his yearning, from his mind.

All he had to do was see her one last time, and then, he would bid her farewell forever. He did not know where the thought emerged from, but once it had appeared, it remained tenacious, refusing to be tamped down or otherwise chased away.

One more time. Yes. One more time, and he could say his goodbyes. That evening at The Beggar's Purse had been far too rushed and jumbled. His emotions had been overwhelming, and he had pushed her away in a reactionary way.

But after all the time they had spent together, surely a true goodbye was warranted. If he could meet with her again, speak with her, he was sure it would be the cure to what ailed him. A final severing of the ties that had bound them would render him free. Free to pursue Lady Hester with an unburdened conscience.

"I'll not do it," Aidan denied, stubborn and foolish as ever. "I can never forget about Pen. You have met her. You ought to know the impossibility of striking her from your mind. She is unique. An original."

Yes, she was. And yes, he did.

"You will have to," he countered. "Else, I will have no choice but to tell Mother and Father about where you have been and why. I do imagine Father would cut off your purse strings quite readily were he to learn the truth, do you not?"

Aidan paled, and Garrick knew a moment of guilt for his threat, necessary though it was. "You can do as you wish, Garrick. I need to do right by Pen, and I'll not stop until I do."

Garrick bit his inner lip. "Damn it, Aidan, you've done enough. Leave the lady be."

He ought to have been saying the same words to himself.

And yet, as he turned his gaze back toward Lady Hester on the opposite side of the assembly room, he knew he could not. He had to see Pen one more time.

Tonight.

The hour was late, and after an exhausting evening spent working on the ledgers she had been neglecting over the last few days, Pen was drained. Her head ached, her eyes were strained, her fingers were cramped and ink-stained from so much tallying, and yet, the greatest pain afflicting her of all was not even physical in nature.

Rather, it was her heart. Her silly, fickle, ridiculous, foolish, utterly useless heart.

As she walked the familiar corridor in The Sinner's Palace to her chamber door, the realization she had been avoiding since she had last seen Garrick hit her. She had fallen in love . Again. The heart she had believed broken, dashed to bits, and incapable of feeling after Daniel, had proven her wrong. For it now belonged to Garrick Weir, Viscount Lindsey, heir to a duke, proper, elegant, perfect aristocrat.

A man as out of reach to her as the stars and the moon and the sun.

She nearly staggered under the weight of the unwanted knowledge. Instead, she summoned her strength with a deep breath, and forced herself to continue the handful of steps to her door. A night's rest awaited. She would close her eyes and not see his face, but fall into the pleasant abyss of slumber instead. Go to a place where he could not haunt her every waking hour.

You are stronger than this, Penelope Sutton. You have already learned your lessons the hard way.

She would forget all about Garrick, just as he had forgotten her. Nary a word from him. Not even a curtly phrased missive thanking her and her brothers for the role they had played in helping to bring Aidan home and seeing his captors jailed. Not so much as a syllable since he had told her to go.

Why should she be surprised that the lofty lord—who loved to look down his nose at her whenever he was not kissing her senseless—had not returned to plague her? She ought not. He had been clear from the moment they had first met that he did not want her in his brother's life. Naturally, he would not want her in his either. She was the sort of woman a nob like him bedded but never wedded.

Which was perfectly fine with Pen. She never wanted to marry. Her life here at The Sinner's Palace was complete. She would dote on her oldest brother Jasper's daughters and any nieces and nephews which followed, keep the ledgers, and never again let an arrogant viscount's lips touch hers.

She opened the door to her chamber, and all her stern bravado fled.

For there, in the center of the small space that was purely her own, stood none other than Lord Lordly himself, just as handsome and forbidden as ever. How out of place he looked in his formal evening wear, dressed as if he were about to attend a fancy societal ball.

Because probably he either was or already had.

Her heart ached at the sight of him, so beloved and unwanted at the same time.

"My lord," she said, shocked.

He executed a perfect bow, flawless as ever. "Pen."

His familiarity was not lost on her. However, she would not pin her hopes upon a name. Likely, he had only found his way to her chamber that he might accuse her of more sins. Perhaps he was here to suggest yet again that she was somehow involved in the plot the Knightlys had devised to swindle Aidan's family out of one thousand pounds.

Grudgingly, she dipped into an abbreviated curtsy in return before rising, determined to learn why he had come.

"What are you doing here in my chamber?" she asked, casting a careful glance around her to make sure no one else was moving about in the corridor.

It would not do for any of her siblings to see him in her room, but she was also hesitant to cross the threshold and join him within. Being alone with him, and in proximity, seemed terribly reckless at the moment.

"Thank Christ it is yours." His solemnity broke as he flashed her a charming grin, the kind that reached his eyes. "I was not certain if I dared trust the scamp whose palm I greased to show me the way."

It was not the first time he had bought his way into the private quarters of The Sinner's Palace. Heavens knew she should not be surprised he had done so again, though she and her siblings had given those in their employ a stern reprimand about allowing patrons to encroach on their sacred territory.

"I suppose a future duke's money can buy you all manner of things," she said bitterly, reminded of their disparate circumstances.

With Aidan, the differences between their worlds had never mattered. Yet with Garrick, it did, because she had allowed herself to fall for him, and he would never return those feelings.

"Not everything," he said, his gaze seeming to devour her face. "Not the things that matter most."

She wanted to ask him what he meant, but he had not answered her initial question, and if any of her brothers were to find him here, she shuddered to think what would happen. Although Wolf and Hart had been reluctantly understanding about that night at The Beggar's Purse and the evening before it, they remained disapproving of the quality in general and the Weir brothers in particular. They had been repeatedly warning her against future interaction with either of them. But in truth, there was only one Weir brother who made her heart pound faster and her knees go weak.

There was no help for it. She was going to have to join him in the room and close the door for the sake of their privacy. But that was fine. She could resist him. She was strong. She was a Sutton.

She stepped over the threshold and closed the door at her back. The action seemed to make the room one hundred times smaller and her skin a thousand times hotter.

Pen crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive gesture and reverted to humor in an attempt to distract herself from how badly she wanted to throw herself into his arms. "Well, Lord Lordly? What have you to say for yourself? What brings you to my lowly corner of the East End now? Perhaps you have decided I am torturing orphans or am plotting to kidnap your cat."

The thought of Rosie made a bittersweet pang in her heart, joining the ache. His adorable feline had been a surprise. She could not shake the impression there was far more to Garrick than she had initially supposed. But he was not hers to discover, and nor would he ever be.

"Nothing as insidious as that," he said calmly, his sinful lips still compressed in a stern slant, as if he wanted to smile but refused to allow it.

He took a few steps in her direction, bringing him nearer. Almost close enough to touch.

She remained at the door, watchful, not trusting herself in his presence. The time since she had seen him last had felt like a terrible eternity. "What, then?"

"You," he said. "You have brought me here, Pen. I had to see you."

The rawness of his voice, coupled with the admission itself, took her by surprise.

She was too ragged around the edges, too foolishly happy at his concession. Too pleased he was here, with her, even if the visit was to be fleeting. Mine , cried her heart. If only for tonight.

But still, she lingered where she was, two steps and a dreadful decision separating them. "Why did you have to see me?"

He moved again. One step. Two steps. Close enough to touch.

Oh Lord , he was tempting. His scent reached her, and those bright-blue eyes were fixed upon hers. She could not look away. How she had missed him.

"Because I did not properly convey my gratitude when last I saw you." He shook his head, tucking an errant tendril of hair that had escaped her coiffure behind her ear. "You and your brothers were gracious to aid me in my efforts at finding my brother. It is a credit to you all that he was found unharmed and that not a single tongue has wagged with scandal broth. Your discretion is most appreciated."

She tipped her chin up. "You might have sent a note instead."

There hardly seemed a reason for him to come to her, to tempt her with what could never be hers.

"I might have done," he agreed, his hand still lingering at her face as he cupped her cheek.

He was not wearing gloves, and the caress of his bare skin over Pen's was enough to make a shower of sparks flit through her. Longing accompanied the fire. The need to touch him, to be touched by him.

"I am glad you did not," she confessed, heart pounding swiftly.

His thumb glided across her cheekbone. "Oh? And why is that?"

She wetted her suddenly dry lips. "Because a missive cannot kiss me."

He moved first, a low groan tearing from his throat, taking her into his arms. She loved the way his hard planes melded with her softness. Loved the way they felt together, fit together. She linked her wrists around his neck, holding him to her.

His head dipped, accepting her invitation, and he took her mouth with his.