“I’m holding out for an ormer,” he said, “a beautiful, intact specimen for my lady. I’m hungry, and we have wandered quite a distance. Let’s start back, before the tide comes in and washes away my favorite boots.” Without thinking, he extended a hand to Penelope.
She took it, and sidled close enough to walk with him arm in arm down the strand. The late afternoon sunshine bathed the cottage upon its little overlook, and the larger edifice of the inn proper rose behind it on the far side of the elms.
“The trees surprised me,” Gill said. “They are enormous, considering how poor coastal soil can be.” The elms were native to the Low Countries, where thin soil and salty sea air were the norm.
“You surprised me,” Penelope replied. “The last thing I expected to find on the cottage sofa was a man, much less my husband. I should have told you where I was going, my lord. I apologize for that.”
Gill had always esteemed Penelope’s sense of integrity. If she was wrong, she admitted it. If she was right, she did not back down except to protect another person’s dignity. At some point in the last ten years, Lady Summerton had become formidable. She was an influential hostess, and she did not tolerate gossip or backbiting.
“I might have asked to come with you,” Gill said, “and if you sought solitude, my presence would have been a burden.”
“Town is a burden. As a girl, I longed to make my come out, then I longed to entertain. To plan the most spectacular menus, the most elegant centerpieces, but for what? To impress people who will forget what they ate before they have returned to their coaches?”
That sentiment was as shocking as the chill of the ocean surf. “I thought you enjoyed all the social whatnot, Penelope. You excel at it.”
“You vote your seat, my lord. A peer who is active in Parliament should be able to rely on his wife to support his political goals.”
Gill was stunned to think that all those elegant dinners, the musicales, the Venetian breakfasts had been… for him?
His pondering was cut short as a larger wave advanced toward the shore. He scooped up his wife and charged to higher ground with her in his arms while the surf soaked the knees of his breeches.
“My lord! This is very athletic of you.”
He set her on the dry sand before he could turn a small gallantry into an embrace. “I didn’t want your ruined hems on my conscience. Besides, I like being athletic for my wife’s benefit. Do you suppose the dining room still serves those excellent little rolls fresh from the oven? I have dreamed of those rolls.”
“I recall the champagne fondly and the chocolate cream parfait.”
They’d shared one serving of parfait each night of their honeymoon and had spoon-fed each other on the last night on a blanket on the terrace. Gill had been all for making love under the stars. Penelope had insisted on the comfort—and privacy—of the bedroom.
“Your luggage, I presume,” Penelope said when they reached the cottage and found a single trunk sitting in the middle of the front parlor.
“Just in time, though your dinner escort might be a bit rumpled, my lady. Where has Silforth got off to?”
Penelope took inordinate care fastening her parasol closed and still couldn’t seem to get the button and loop to cooperate. “She’s not with me on this trip.”
“Let me do that.” Gill plucked the parasol from Penelope’s grasp and buttoned the damned button. “You truly did seek solitude, and I have wrecked that plan.”
She shook her head, at exactly what, Gill could not fathom. The idea that Penelope had traveled without even a lady’s maid was alarming. Gill had assumed Silforth had already been in the coach when Penelope had departed or had traveled in a lowlier vehicle with some extra baggage.
What the hell was Penelope up to? “My lady, are you well?”
She took back her parasol. “I enjoy excellent health, thank you, my lord. If we’re to change for dinner, we’ll have to take turns in the bedroom.”
“Ladies first.” Though since when had a husband and wife been forbidden to dress in each other’s company?
She shot a fulminating glance at him and stalked off, leaving Gill standing just inside the front door, unwilling to track sand on milady’s carpets. He went outside to the pump in the little garden and washed his feet off as best he could, then took a seat and waited his turn to enjoy the privacy of the blighted, benighted bedroom.
The same bedroom where he’d made passionate love to his wife long, long ago.
An hour had gone by, the sun was nearly set, and the air was growing chilly, and still Penelope hadn’t summoned Gill back into the cottage. He rose, looking forward to a scolding for his presumption—Penelope had ceased scolding him years ago—and made his way to the bedroom door.
A light tap merited no response. He eased the door open and came upon Penelope, Viscountess Summerton, fast asleep on the bed, a quilt draped across her middle and her bare toes and damp hems peeking from beneath the blanket.
Gill was in a bedroom, alone save for his wife. He stared at those bare, feminine toes and had not the first clue how to go on.
Chapter Three
Penelope dreamed a cruel dream, with the sound of the surf drifting in through an open window and gulls crying overhead. Gill was with her in the dream—when they’d been happy, she’d called him Gill in private—and he was sunburned, barefoot, and ambling hand in hand with her down the shore.
The dream was so real, she could smell his luscious shaving soap, and as always when these dreams came, she did not want to waken.
“My lady?”
“Not now, Silforth.” Please just another moment.
“Penelope Ann?”
The dream evaporated as Penelope realized that Silforth had never before spoken with a man’s voice—with Gill’s voice—much less used familiar address. She tried to scramble to a sitting position, but her blanket was caught beneath her hips, and her chignon had come unraveled, leaving her half trapped by her braid as well.
“Penelope, it’s only me. You thought to catch a nap, and instead the nap caught you.” Summerton, looking amused and rumpled, lounged against the bedpost. “Should I have the inn send us down a supper to share here?”
The inn. The Siren’s Retreat. A horrendously inconvenient coincidence. Penelope’s sleep-muddled mind shoved aside the last cobwebs as reality crashed about her like a breaker hitting the shore.
His lordship… was real, and he was in the bedroom and barely dressed. Penelope watched while he unknotted his cravat and slipped his sleeve buttons into the pocket of his breeches.
“I fell asleep,” she said, pulling her braid out from between two pillows. “The sea air does that. I always slept well here.”
“We both slept well, as I recall, and not entirely as a result of the sea air. Shall we move our supper reservation back, or would you prefer to have them send us a basket?”
Thinking rationally while Summerton pulled his shirt over his head was nearly impossible. Penelope sat amid the covers, frankly gawping as he draped his clothing over the privacy screen.
He’d literally swept Penelope off her feet on the beach, hoisted her into his arms as if they were newlyweds frolicking in the surf. The sensation of being cradled against his chest had stolen Penelope’s breath. Once upon a time…