“I’m sorry there was any talk at all, my lady. I should have confided in you sooner.”
They traversed the remaining distance to the cottage in silence, while Penelope wondered what other rumors had reached her in error, and had the same malicious gossips spread falsehoods about her?
“Did you ever hear talk about me?” Penelope asked, glad for the darkness.
“I did,” his lordship replied mildly, “malign-thy-neighbor being one of Mayfair’s most popular pastimes. You were Wellington’s favorite a few years back. Before that, Lord Neville also held your interest for a time. While you tried to be discreet, Society also had its suspicions about you and Timothy Whitstable, as well as Monmouth Merrismith, and… Lord Cranford, I believe. There were others. You are a beautiful, poised, intelligent woman and very highly regarded among the gentlemen.”
Penelope stood on the threshold of the cottage’s front door and frankly stared at her husband. “Wellington, Whitstable, and Merrismith? I merely danced with them. I love to dance, and they are competent partners. Cranford is hopeless, though. He was a pity waltz. Those men could no more turn my head than… than…”
Vergilius drew her gently into the cottage, where only moonbeams slanting through the curtains provided any illumination.
“I know that, Pen. I know you would never stray, and thus I could not play you false. We have honored our vows, despite all. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for safeguarding that aspect of our dealings. I was much too young to be married, but in that at least, your example inspired some maturity in me.”
Penelope stood in the darkness while her husband knelt to uncover the embers of the fire in the front parlor’s hearth. He used a spill to light the candles on the mantel, then disappeared into the bedroom with a taper. Penelope was still standing in the shadows by the door, his coat about her shoulders, when he emerged.
“I built up your fire,” he said. “You will find purloined apple tarts in my coat pocket. I thought they’d make a nice addition to breakfast.” He resumed his efforts before the parlor hearth and had soon coaxed a merry blaze from the coals.
He is not who I thought he was. The thought kept Penelope fingering the fabric of the coat’s lapels and inhaling the lovely scent only Vergilius wore.
How could she tell a husband who’d remained faithful despite all that she’d acceded to a private meal not so he could inspire her to laugh with him again, but so she could explain her reasons for leaving him?
“I’ll undo your hooks,” Vergilius said, rising. “If you are half as tired as I am, you are nearly asleep on your feet.” He took his coat from Penelope’s shoulders and hung it on a peg.
A terrible show of disrespect for Bond Street tailoring. How much more disrespectful had Penelope been, to believe rumors and whispers about her husband?
“I did not want to think you’d cavort with your friend’s wife,” Penelope said, “nor did I want to dignify the matter by admitting I’d noticed.”
Vergilius gestured toward the bedroom. “But you were hurt nonetheless, and I’m sorry for that.”
Penelope preceded him into the bedroom. Despite a few lit candles and the fire on the hearth, the chamber was shadowy and cool. Vergilius’s fingers whispering over Penelope’s nape provoked a shiver, and more memories.
“You could take the bed,” she said when most of her hooks were undone. “I fit on the sofa, or I can take the smaller bedroom, whereas you…”
“I will manage.”
“Don’t give me that ‘the subject is closed by decree of Lord Summerton’ tone of voice, sir. I am nearly a foot shorter than you, and I will be perfectly—”
He laid a finger to her lips. “Take this bedroom, Pen. I am not being chivalrous when I make that request. I am honestly too tired to notice where I sleep tonight, and tomorrow we will find me a room of my own. For sufficient coin, one of those dandies or gossips at the inn can be inspired to remove to some other Brighton hostelry or take himself off to Bath.”
Penelope did not typically argue with her spouse. They’d passed through that phase, and she had the sense neither she nor his lordship wanted to revisit it.
But he was being ridiculous, and arguing was better than being politely ignored. “Take the bed, Vergilius. Don’t be a ninnyhammer.”
“Penelope… Not that bed. Not now. Not without you.”
He strode out of the bedroom and closed the door quietly. Penelope finished undressing, took down and rebraided her hair.
Not that bed. Not now. Not without you.
Penelope expected to fall asleep the instant her eyes closed, but instead, she lay awake, Vergilius’s parting words echoing in her head—and in her heart.
Chapter Four
“No green ormer,” Gill said, bringing the bag of apple tarts to the table on the terrace. The morning was sunny, as only an oceanside morning could be, and in the bright light of day, Penelope still looked a bit tired. “I have asked Father Triton to surrender that boon to me, and I will continue searching until I find a shell worthy of my lady’s notice. How did you sleep?”
Penelope was swaddled in a dressing gown that looked four sizes too large for her. She wore only old slippers, and her hair was still in its bedtime braid. An entire ocean of frigid water could not douse the interest she held for Gill in such dishabille.
“I slept,” she said, “but I still feel the effects of yesterday’s journey. You’ve been swimming.”
“A refreshing dip to start the day.” And to dash some frigid common sense on Gill’s wayward imagination. “Shall I dress, Pen, or can you tolerate the sight of me in only breeches and shirt?”
She poured two cups of steaming tea. “I am less presentable than you are, and the morning is too pretty to quibble over fashion.”
Gill hadn’t remained in the water long, but the exertion had helped settle his mood. “I did not sleep as well as I’d anticipated,” he said, watching as Penelope fixed his tea—a dash of sugar, a drop of milk. “I became preoccupied with the thought of the tabbies subjecting you to nasty rumors about your own husband. I am sorry for that, Penelope. I am equally sorry that I gave you reason to believe them.”
She adjusted her dressing gown, though it enveloped her from chin to ankles. “For a man of your standing and means, to support a second household is expected.”
Could she sound any more uninterested? “What would be the point?” Gill sipped his tea and wondered where Penelope was going with her observation.
“Pleasure?” she said, her cheeks coloring. “You are vigorous, my lord.”
“There is no pleasure in broken vows, Penelope. Not for me.” Have you missed me? When Gill would have posed the question, Penelope passed him an apple tart.
“Do you ever wish we’d never married?” she asked, gaze on the sea in the distance.
Good God, she was in a fearless mood. “No. I have other regrets—I wish the baby had lived. I wish we hadn’t been so young when we married. I wish… many things, but I have never regretted being your husband.”
And that, to his surprise, was true. He and Penelope had grown apart, but he esteemed her, desired her, and in some stubborn way, he loved her. She had been through the fires of sorrow and loss with him as nobody else had been, and that… that mattered.