“I don’t need much,” she said. “My pin money will be sufficient… You won’t begrudge me my pin money, will you?”
Gill’s list of hates was growing faster than his list of goals, for he hated the uncertainty in Penelope’s voice.
“You haven’t thought this through,” Gill said, while the little family settled on a spot above the tide line and fairly near the rocks where tide pools collected. “You will need a property of your own, Penelope. A place to live, and for the sake of your security, I want that property to be owned by a trust answerable only to you. Tommie might have to serve as one of the trustees for appearances’ sake, but I do not—”
“Not Tommie. Anybody but Tommie. Some of your father’s friends will do.”
Gill had always thought Penelope and Tommie were reasonably friendly, but perhaps her objection was based simply on Tommie’s status as Gill’s brother. Gill had his own reasons for wanting Tommie’s involvement to be merely for show.
“Papa’s friends are elderly, Pen. You need trustees likely to be around for the next forty years at least. I will come up with a list of names, and you will choose among them.”
She nodded, brushing a strand of hair back. “Why do happy families always intrude on one’s peace at the worst times?”
Happy families, like Tommie and Bella’s? “That young father detests this outing because the children will soon descend into more bickering, the sun will grow too hot, and the picnic will feature sand in every bite. The mother is worried for her complexion, and the children will try her nerves all morning with attempts to swim in a surf that could drown them. Those people only look happy.”
Penelope surprised him by leaning against his side. “Thank you, Vergilius.”
She was not thanking him merely for disparaging the foursome on the beach. Gill conjured up some of the daring he’d claimed as a younger man and slipped an arm around Penelope’s shoulders.
“I need time, Pen. Time to get our affairs in order—between us—before I broach this topic with the solicitors. I want as little opportunity for them to meddle as possible. You should have the dower house, but I’m sure—”
“Not the dower house. Your mother considers that hers, and it’s half a mile from the Hall.”
“But I’m sure,” Gill went on, “we can find a better arrangement for you. We should draft a budget so you know precisely what you have to spend and what your expenses are likely to be. You will need your own carriages and teams, though that’s a significant expense, and we should probably keep the whole matter quiet until summer at least. By next spring, you might well be free of me, but not if we let the lawyers start brangling.”
Penelope turned into his side so he was half embracing her. “I had not considered… I thought I’d simply receive a packet from the lawyers each quarter.”
“Like a pensioner? And if I should die, and you are left to Tommie’s sense of organization to ensure that packet reaches you regularly?”
A small shudder passed through her, and she looped her arms around his waist. “Very well, stay on here at the inn for a bit. We will make the budget and find me some trustees. You are being very decent about this, Vergilius. I do appreciate it.”
Gill rested his chin against the silky warmth of Penelope’s hair. The family on the beach had removed their shoes and stockings, and they were wading in the shallows, hand in hand. The wind must have picked up, because Gill’s vision blurred as he stood wrapped around his wife—and she, finally, wrapped about him—as he offered to finance her abandonment of him.
“I will stay the week,” he said, “and we will come up with a plan. We will be so civil and friendly for the next six days that all of Society will admit that we parted on the most cordial of terms.”
Penelope tucked closer. “I am sorry, Gill. I am abjectly sorry.”
“So am I.”
She was apparently content—now—to be held, while Gill admitted that his apology was not entirely in good faith. He was being decent—he would be decent, if it came to that—but he was also being devious.
For the next week, he would be the most charming, endearing, pleasant, soon-to-be-rejected husband in the history of husbands, and if luck was with him, Penelope would rethink this infernal annulment.
He’d tried being patient.
He’d tried allowing her to come to terms with her disappointment in private.
He’d tried soldiering on.
To blazes with all of that. The time had come to woo his wife, and the stakes could not be higher.
Chapter Five
Penelope gained a new appreciation for why Summerton was so effective in the Lords.
Vergilius was able to use his mind like a clothes press. He opened one drawer—planning a picnic on the beach—and that task commanded his complete attention. When the picnic had been organized to the last detail—the menu, some towels for drying feet, and a good vintage to go with beef sandwiches—he closed that drawer and opened another.
At his request, the drawer labeled marital dissolution was not to be opened until after luncheon, and it was to be closed before supper each day. Several hours of negotiations, he claimed, were enough to curdle anybody’s mood, though a week of afternoons spent in that endeavor should see the task completed.
Had Vergilius subjected his grief to the same degree of organization, locked it away until he had privacy and a glass of brandy at the end of the day? Until Parliament was no longer sitting? Until another round of house parties had concluded?
Would he understand that for Penelope, sorrow had taken eternities to recede, and without warning, it could still cast a shadow over every moment of her day?
Perhaps, later in the week, Penelope would ask her husband those questions. She did not need six more days to say, I will manage on what you give me, but his lordship had genuinely been ambushed by her request for an annulment.
She owed him a week to find his bearings.
Besides, what harm could a picnic on the beach be, when she and Summerton were also intent on projecting an air of calm good cheer to any and all gossips?
“They’re packing up,” Penelope said, peering down at the shore. “The invaders.”
“The happy family?” Summerton replied. “Then let’s storm the beach, as it were, before anybody else can claim the best territory.” He hefted the hamper, tossed the blanket over his shoulder, and still managed to offer Penelope his arm.
“How can you be so polite?” she muttered, wrapping her fingers about his elbow. “I have asked to end our marriage.”
“First, I esteem you. That hasn’t changed just because you are no longer interested in being married to me. That will never change.” He set a leisurely pace down the trail, and his tone suggested they were discussing the progress of the renovations at the Hall. “Second, my honor as a gentleman requires civility of me. Your decision is not made out of spite. I know that. You’re just… done in. Knackered. At your wits’ end. I can hardly blame you for that. Somebody forgot a ball.”
On the sand below, a bright red ball remained, like a treasure washed in on the tide. “There will be recriminations in the nursery,” Penelope said. “Lectures and promises to do better.”