The porters ambled off to the mews, and a footman opened the coach door.
Time to go. Time to take the first step toward freedom and away from failure.
“I really will miss you,” Penelope said, the words bringing a lump to her throat. Vergilius was a fine man, he truly was, and in his way, he had tried.
“Then hurry home, my lady.” He handed her up and closed the door after her.
The coach was soon tooling out of the porte cochere, and Penelope’s last glimpse of her husband was of a tall, strikingly handsome man alone in the morning sun.
The coach hadn’t reached the first tollbooth before she was in tears, damned stupid useless tears that she’d promised herself years ago she was done with for all time.
Chapter Two
“Rose Cottage, if it’s available.”
Silly, to ask for the very same cottage, but Gill didn’t judge himself for wanting to return to a place where he’d made his happiest memories.
The inn’s proprietress, Mrs. Cartwright, gave him a curious glance from behind her desk. “Of course, my lord. I hope your journey was uneventful?”
“The English countryside shows to good advantage this time of year.” And the miles had given Gill time to think. His objective this spring was to reason and charm his way back into Penelope’s good graces and, if possible, back into her bed.
She was no longer a shy schoolgirl who could be flattered with chocolates and poetry, but who was she? He would have to come up with a fairly good guess, or his attempts to woo his wife would make a bad situation worse. Penelope would be unimpressed by either begging or husbandly ultimatums, but what did that leave in the way of courting strategies?
“Shall I have a porter escort you to the cottage, my lord?” Mrs. Cartwright asked as a loud family party crowded through the inn’s main entrance.
“I can find my way. I’ll need a key, though.”
She again looked slightly puzzled, but passed over an ornate key attached to a pink satin ribbon. “We start serving dinner at six, if you’d like to reserve a table?”
That would leave Gill two hours to grab a nap and go for a walk along the beach. “A table at six, then. I don’t recall the Siren’s Retreat being such a busy place.”
“We are always busy, my lord. The sea air is said to work wonders on the humors, and if that doesn’t suffice, good food and pleasant surrounds will.”
The lady in charge of the noisy party all but shoved Gill aside as she demanded the best rooms in the house. Mrs. Cartwright politely asked if madam had a letter reserving those rooms for her use.
Rather than eavesdrop on what was bound to become an altercation, Gill slung his saddlebags over his shoulder and left the inn proper. Somebody had kept the Siren’s Retreat in good trim, and as Gill made his way to the path that led to the elm grove, he wished Penelope could see how busy their sleepy little honeymoon destination had become.
The trees had been barely more than saplings ten years ago, and the tallest among them now reached nearly forty feet. As Gill wound along the shady path, he had the sense he was leaving the last of the bustle and hum of Town behind him—far behind—and arriving at a destination where contemplation and peace were possible.
On the far side of the elm grove, the sea stretched out in a vast sparkling vista, gulls wheeled on shore breezes, and along the beach below, a lone lady strolled at her leisure. Rose Cottage sat on its slight promontory, as snug and tidy as ever, and Gill felt a ridiculous sense of homecoming.
“We were happy here,” he said to no one in particular, “and we can be happy again.” He closed the distance to the cottage and used his key in the door, though somebody had apparently left the place unlocked in anticipation of his arrival. He’d sent an express, which should have reached the inn several hours before he had.
The interior of the cottage was still cozy and welcoming, with whitewashed walls, exposed beams, and a flagstone floor covered in slightly worn Axminster carpets. The color scheme was still blue and green with touches of white, and somebody had left a jar of daffodils on the sill of a window cracked open a mere inch. The fragrance of the flowers sweetened the scent of the sea.
Penelope loved daffodils. She said only the bravest of flowers bloomed when winter had yet to depart.
Gill took off his coat and hung it on a peg behind the door. His boots came next, a profound relief, and then he stretched out on the sofa. The sole bed in the main bedroom held memories, even if it wasn’t the same bed after all these years.
The view from the bedroom window would be the same. The old wardrobe would still stand in the corner. Tonight was soon enough to face those memories, after a good meal and perhaps a game of cribbage with some other guest at the inn.
Gill jammed a pillow behind his head, tipped his hat down over his eyes, and within ten minutes was lulled to sleep by the soothing rhythm of the distant surf.
He awoke what felt like mere moments later.
“I don’t know who you are, sir, or what you think you’re doing here, but you will leave this instant, or I shall scream.”
His first thought was that somebody was very angry with somebody else, then his sleep-drunk brain informed him that the person causing the lady such vexation was him. He lifted his hat from over his eyes and beheld his wife, a wrought-iron poker clutched in her upraised fist.
They spoke at the same time. “What are you doing here?”
“Ladies first,” his lordship said, sitting up and scrubbing a hand over his face. He was in stockinged feet, no jacket, and his cravat was creased with dust. Penelope had not seen her husband in such dishabille since the last time they’d stayed at this cottage, and the sight was inexplicably unsettling.
“Have you taken to reading my mail, my lord?” How else could he have known she’d reserved this cottage for these dates?
He rose and eyed the poker in her hand. “I have not. You were on the beach.”
“I was on the beach, and I saw some fellow spying on me from the path. I thought it best to retreat to the cottage before he intruded on my solitude, and now I find him intruding on my very sofa.”
Penelope was being shrewish, but of all the inns on all the shores in all the realm… What was Summerton doing here?
He hung his hat on a peg near the door, then crossed the room to the window that overlooked the terrace. “You were supposed to be at the Hall. Are you expecting company, perhaps?”
“I came here for solitude.”
“I’ll leave you to your solitude, then, but first might you join me for supper at the inn?”
His lordship had always been one to mind appearances, and husband and wife eating separately would look uncongenial indeed.
“You rode down from London?”
He remained by the window, gazing out at a sparkling ocean. “My wife told me she was nipping off to the family seat, leaving me all alone as Town filled up. I bethought myself, ‘I have no wish to idle about here on my own for the next fortnight.’ I made up some taradiddle about visiting my brother and his yodeling horde of prodigies, whom I saw and heard plenty of at Yuletide. I took myself here instead.”
Summerton looked tired, not merely road weary. “Why make up a taradiddle, my lord?”