MacMillan seated her ladyship, who had—predictably—taken her old place at the foot of the table.
“From home? MacMillan, whatever do you mean?”
MacMillan resumed his place by the sideboard. “Both his lordship and her ladyship gave instructions that they would be traveling. Plover and Silforth are among those on holiday.”
Mama-in-Law waved a slender, beringed hand. “The oranges, MacMillan. Did either Summerton or his lady indicate where they’d traveled to?”
“They left no direction, my lady.”
Bella had the oddest sense MacMillan was telling the truth. “Perhaps they’ve gone down to the Hall,” she said. “The outside renovations are starting up again now that we have better weather.”
“They aren’t at the Hall,” her ladyship said, choosing two orange slices. “I have reliable sources there, and nobody has indicated that preparations were made for Summerton to be in residence.”
“Perhaps the trip was spontaneous?”
Her ladyship tucked into her eggs. “Not as hot as they should be,” she murmured. “When the cat’s away… Summerton would not abandon his committees and speeches simply to discuss gutters and downspouts with his architect. I cannot fathom that he’d leave Town just as the social calendars are filling up either. They must have had a blazing row.”
Bella hoped so, which was bad of her, but for a married couple to be polite to each other for ten years was unnatural. Mama-in-Law did not look particularly distressed to think the head of the family and his wife were at odds.
“A mystery, as you say,” Bella murmured, slicing into perfectly cooked ham. “But meanwhile, there is shopping to be done.” She deliberately patronized the same shops Penelope used, and from time to time, she even got away with charging an order to Penelope’s account.
If Penelope noticed, she never mentioned it—another addition to the long list of reasons to resent her.
“Is the traveling coach in the mews, MacMillan?” the viscountess asked.
“I would not know, my lady.”
He knew, and he wasn’t saying, and that confirmed Mama-in-Law’s conjecture that Summerton and his lady were spatting.
What a pity, but in a long and unhappy marriage, these things happened.
Here at the Siren’s Retreat, where Gill had passed some of the happiest hours of his entire life, he was apparently to know profound sorrow as well.
“We cannot change the past,” he said, “and we might have considerable difficulty changing the immediate future too, Penelope.”
She sipped her tea, which had to be cooling. “In what sense?”
“Some young sprig played too deeply at the inn last night and decamped by moonlight without paying his bill. I have booked his room for the next week. If I turn around and leave hours after making that reservation, Amaryllis Piper and her ilk will want to know why.”
And yet, simply bowing to his wife and departing—from the Siren’s Retreat, from Penelope’s presence, from the marriage—seemed the only sensible course. Gill could not order Penelope to keep trying, could not order her to love him.
“Amaryllis and all of London will know soon enough that I’ve left you,” Penelope said. “I’m sorry. I don’t see how biding together here for a fortnight, or a week, or another day will change that. We’ve had ten years, Vergilius, and I could not find a way back to you.”
“Did you want to?” he asked, because a suffering man must double the agonies inflicted upon him.
“Yes,” Penelope said. “I was told men grieve differently and that the responsibilities of the peerage must have your first loyalty. I was to be patient, bide my time, and allow you privacy with your sorrow.”
The same advice Gill had been given. Why had he listened—to Mama, to Tommie, to his late father’s lonely old friends at the clubs—when year after year, that strategy had yielded nothing but stilted breakfasts and stilted smiles down the length of a lavish supper table?
A young family emerged onto the beach from a path to the west—two loud children, a lady in a wide-brimmed hat carrying a blanket, and a young father hauling two hampers and bellowing uselessly at his children.
That should have been us. Gill wanted to take Penelope in his arms again, and Penelope wanted to be free of him for all time.
“How long have you been contemplating this decision?”
“Years, my lord. Not the done thing, and I will be ruined in polite society, but neither of us can make a fresh start as long as we’re wed to each other. I dread your mother’s attempts to reconcile us, Vergilius. Promise me you won’t let her meddle again.”
Mama, oddly enough, had been skeptical of Penelope’s fitness as a bride for the Summerton heir from the beginning. Too pale, too quiet, too unlike dear, robust Bella, who had made Tommie so happy. Mama had even, once or twice, hinted that Penelope had fulfilled the worst of Mama’s predictions, for which Gill had wanted to disown his only surviving parent.
“I can no more control my mother’s mischief than I can control the tides, Penelope. As you say, half of London will soon know our business.” All of London would know their business. A peer did not dissolve his marriage unless the succession was imperiled, and then the matter was still an enormous scandal.
“All it takes to thwart the tides is a stout seawall, Vergilius. I plan to spend spring traveling in the north.”
Gill would probably spend spring in a drunken stupor. “The Lakes?”
“Too crowded. I’ve always wanted to see the Highlands.”
That was news to him, as this whole damnable disaster was news to him, and yet, for once, years of parliamentary wrangling came to his aid. When caught in an ambush, parlay. Bargain. Ask questions. Offer terms, and the ambush could become a negotiation.
“This will be complicated, Penelope. Legally complicated.” Was she relieved that he wasn’t refusing her demand? Gill didn’t think so, but then, he hardly knew his wife.
“You could divorce me, though I know that’s beastly expensive. I’m sure some obliging fellow would be willing to play the role of my paramour for a sum certain.”
“The courts won’t stand for perjury, and neither will I. Unless you are willing to commit adultery in truth, divorce is not an option.”
For a fraught, hideous moment, while the children on the beach appeared to argue over where to lay the blankets, Gill feared Penelope was about to shatter his already broken heart.
“Adultery is beyond me,” she said tiredly. “The bishops will have to sort this out.”
What the hell good had the bishops been when Gill’s beautiful, perfect firstborn had breathed his last after only a few days in the world? When his wife had retreated into a silence that had lasted months? When he’d wanted to tell Parliament and Tommie and the whole blasted peerage to leap into the Thames on an outgoing tide?
We must soldier on as best we can, my lord. Except there had been no we about it. Gill had soldiered on in one direction, and now Penelope planned to do her soldiering on in the bedamned Highlands.
Men ran around in skirts in the Highlands. Reivers and outlaws and such.
“The lawyers will sort it out, or pretend to,” Gill said. “Mostly, they will send me enormous bills for a lot of talk that won’t result in an agreement for years.” Penelope must want her freedom very badly to inflict that penance on a man who had never wished her ill.