Yes, Gill minded. He minded anything that suggested Penelope had taken yet another step away from their marriage and away from him. He minded that she hadn’t told him sooner of her plans. He minded that today was different and not in a good way at all.
“Do I mind? Of course not. I might follow your example and have a look in on Thomas and Cymbeline at Lychmont.” To see an empty seat at the other end of the breakfast table, to rattle around this house alone as the date approached, and Mama descended…
Not to be borne.
Penelope took another sip of her tea. “Please do give Bella and Tommie my regards. Lychmont is so pretty in spring.”
You are pretty. Now, nine years after that compliment might have done some good, Gill could not push the words out. Penelope would smile, nod, and return to her newspaper.
Gill consumed his breakfast when he wanted to rail at his wife: Why leave Town now? Why desert him without warning? Why consign him to managing dear Mama without reinforcements at this most dreaded time of year?
“When do you leave?” he asked, as Penelope set aside her newspaper.
“This morning. I can tarry for a day or two in Town if you’d rather, but I’ve cleared our calendar and given some of the staff holidays.”
“Don’t let me keep you from your plans.” Gill rose, needing to leave the breakfast parlor with her. He would not be that pathetic joke, the husband all alone with his newspaper, crumbs on his cravat, a smear of jam on his chin.
Not yet.
Penelope remained seated when he would have held her chair. “You will be at Lychmont, my lord?”
“Tommie and I can enjoy the country without Bella’s supervision. She will doubtless be up to Town like a shot once Mama arrives.” Though the last place Gill wanted to spend the next two weeks was at Lychmont, with not less than three nieces and four nephews, to say nothing of Tommie’s dear but prattling company. For an idle younger brother, he could be positively pontifical on an astonishing variety of topics.
“Then I will wish you a pleasant visit with family,” Penelope said, “and see you upon my return.” She rose, and because Gill held her chair, he was afforded one blessed, wretched moment of closeness to his wife. He stepped away before Penelope could catch him closing his eyes and inhaling her honeysuckle scent.
She glided toward the door, and Gill had to put his hands behind his back to stop himself from reaching for her.
“I’ll miss you, Pen.”
He hadn’t used her nickname in years, and it was enough to have her pausing and bracing a hand on the doorjamb, though she did not face him.
“I’ll miss you too, my lord. My love to our nieces and nephews.”
“Of course.” Gill had no doubt Penelope did love those children. “Safe journey.”
“And to you.” She left him in the parlor, and he sank into her chair.
What the deuce was this about? Except he knew what the deuce. The awful anniversary approached, and this year, Penelope would fortify herself with a few days at Summerton before braving a return to Town, and to him.
Gill took an absent sip of Penelope’s lukewarm tea.
“I am not subjecting myself to Lychmont.” His ears, if not his heart, could not take that abuse at this time of year.
And yet, he needed to go somewhere. Somewhere that would aid him to plan the repair of his marriage, that would rekindle the useful parts of the old Gill, a fellow of overweening confidence and no little daring.
If next year was to be different, or next month was to be different, his strategy had to be different.
“Siren’s Retreat.” The first place—nearly the only place—he and Penelope had been deliriously happy as husband and wife. The seaside inn should be deserted this early in the year, despite how fashionable Brighton had become. He could be there by nightfall if he didn’t dither around doubting himself.
The Siren’s retreat was the subject of a quaint legend, which Gill had learned of from the proprietress herself. According to Mrs. Cartwright, all travelers who spent the night at her seaside hostelry would find true love before their stay was complete, provided they brought an open and willing heart to the search.
Gill’s heart was open and willing—also determined—when it came to rekindling Penelope’s regard.
The Summers family motto was audax et fortis. Bold and brave. For too long, Gill had been patient and bewildered. A week or so of contemplation and rest by the ocean, and he could return to Town with renewed purpose.
And maybe with a few husbandly bright ideas, because nine years was too long to pine for his own wife.
Penelope managed to leave the breakfast parlor at a dignified pace, but the consternation in Summerton’s eyes when she’d told him she was leaving Town had nearly inspired her to sprint for the door.
She had thought herself well past the point when telling her husband a falsehood would bother her—their whole marriage was a falsehood—but no. Every day, she hid behind her newspaper, both dreading and longing for the moment when Vergilius strode into the room, his boots drumming confidently on the carpets, his sheer presence compelling notice.
He’d been a beautiful youth, and he was a magnificent man—to appearances. The dark Adonis, they’d called him. The Swoon-Worthy Swain. He was tall, devilish, and handsome, with exquisite manners, a substantial fortune, and excellent antecedents.
All quite true, though as a husband, Summerton had proved himself to be a spectacular mistake. Why, if a man had to be such a disappointing spouse, couldn’t he extinguish the last of his wife’s tender regard with some obvious failing? Something even his viscountess could see from across a crowded ballroom?
No such luck. Vergilius’s shortcomings were private, gentlemanly, and of long standing. Penelope cared for him, was the problem. Mostly out of habit and not with the passionate devotion she’d fallen into as a new wife, but she did care for him.
Maybe that was why, as she made her way to her apartment, she felt not like a woman on the verge of attaining her freedom, but rather, like a schoolgirl sneaking off to read in the hermit’s grotto when dear old Godmama was tooling up the drive.
“Almost done packing, ma’am.” Silforth, Penelope’s lady’s maid, folded a plain nightgown into an open trunk. “I am looking forward to seeing my mum. You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you to the Hall?”
Penelope was very sure, and she wasn’t traveling to the Hall. “You are kind to offer, but the staff will look after me adequately in your absence. You are due for a holiday.”
Silforth, a plump, cheerful soul only a few years Penelope’s senior, closed the trunk. “I saw the family at Yuletide, my lady. Mum asked if I’d been turned off when I told her I could visit again so soon.”
“Mothers can be a tribulation, can’t they?” Mothers-in-law could be, too, to say nothing of sisters-by-marriage.
Penelope resented her husband, but she understood why he behaved as he did. Summerton was that paragon of spouses, the wealthy, titled, handsome, robust man. Of course he would be unfaithful. Of course he’d lack patience with a woman’s untidy emotions. Of course he would fall short of Penelope’s idealized dreams of a husband. Considering his limitations—wealth, good looks, standing, pride—Summerton wasn’t half as bothersome as he might have been.