But that time had come to an end. “If we hurry, we can keep our reservation. I’d rather not be at table when the dandies and gossips come down to dinner later in the evening.”
“The Siren’s Retreat attracts Brighton’s dandies and gossips now? My, how things change.” Summerton ambled behind the privacy screen. “Ye gods, I would turn the Medusa to stone in my present state. May I borrow your brush?”
“Of course.” Penelope tossed the quilt aside and bounced and pushed her way to the edge of the bed. “I’ll find you something to wear.” Any excuse to leave the bedroom, to put distance between herself and that, that… paragon of masculine pulchritude strutting around in only his riding breeches.
Did he think she was made of stone? Think she no longer had eyes in her head?
Penelope rummaged in his lordship’s trunk until she’d put together a proper evening kit. His cravat would not be starched to a knife edge, but Gill had never been one to fuss over his turnout. He managed to look scrumptious no matter what he wore—or didn’t wear.
Penelope marched back into the bedroom and heard the sound of a cloth being wrung out behind the privacy screen.
“If you take down your hair,” Summerton said, “I can help you pin it up again. I’m accounted competent at fashioning a coronet.”
Penelope had said that to him when he’d played lady’s maid for her ten years ago.
“As I recall, your skills are passable.” She laid his clothing out on the bed and ducked into the dressing closet to hunt for clean stockings and a simple dinner dress. By dint of wiggling and tugging, she got the gown on over her jumps and found some heeled slippers that matched the embroidery around the gown’s hem
Fastening the hooks was a lost cause.
Penelope sat on the dressing stool, feeling unaccountably worn out and teary. She did not want Summerton to be here, she did not want to ask him to help her dress, and she did not want to tell him that she was leaving him.
Worst of all, in some small, stupid corner of her heart, she did not want her marriage to be over.
“Shall I do up your hooks?” Summerton, looking delectable in his evening attire, stood in the doorway to the dressing closet.
“Please.” Penelope rose and gave him her back. “I had not intended to take meals in the dining room, and if need be, I can request the services of a maid. I did not foresee...”
She fell silent as Summerton deftly fastened her dress closed. His touch was light, but not as impersonal as Silforth’s, and when he finished, he smoothed both hands along Penelope’s shoulders.
“On you, the simpler styles look more sophisticated. I’ve admired that about you. Let me brush out your hair, and we’ll be very nearly on time for our meal.”
“I can manage.”
“Why should you have to?” Summerton preceded her into the bedroom and patted the back of the vanity stool. “I have seen you with your hair down before.”
Penelope acquiesced, because she was good at acquiescing and because arriving late to the meal would inconvenience the kitchen and cause talk.
“One braid,” she said, sitting up very tall. “Over the left shoulder.”
She endured as Summerton gently unraveled what remained of her plait. She endured when he used his fingers to spread the long skeins of hair down her back. She endured as he gently brushed out the tangles. By the time he’d fashioned a single braid over her left shoulder, Penelope could have cut the silence in the bedroom with her sewing scissors.
She pinned the braid into place in a double coronet, gave her appearance a final inspection, and rose.
“Will I do?” she asked.
“Splendidly, and just for tonight, Pen, might you pretend that we are an old married couple enjoying a respite from Town, happy to be away from London and all the busyness?”
Penelope had hoped to broach the topic of a marital separation with Summerton in the civilized surrounds of a private dining room. Hoped and feared, because once she confessed the true nature of her journey, the fabric of her marriage would be rent for all time, even more irreparably than it already was.
She and Summerton were not enemies, not yet, but by midnight, they might be.
“Just for tonight,” she said, “I can support that fiction.” She took his arm and said nothing more as he escorted her up the path.
Tomorrow she’d broach more difficult topics, when both she and Summerton were rested, and she’d had time to consider how to tell her husband he was about to suffer a betrayal worse than adultery.
The relatively early hour meant the dining room was half empty, and to Gill, that was a relief. If he was to share a meal with his wife, the other diners would provide fodder for small talk. Of course, the other diners would also remark the novelty of Lord and Lady Summerton sharing a seaside respite.
That talk would have pleased him, except Lady Summerton had planned a solitary holiday and had lied to ensure that result. In fact, they had both lied, which troubled Gill worse than a sore knee.
As the waiter led them to a table by the window, Gill was struck afresh by how little time alone together he and Penelope had had in their marriage. Mama tended to hover, Tommie and Bella were forever popping up to Town or down to the Hall. Gill’s parliamentary duties were taxing, and Penelope kept her hand in with any number of charitable organizations.
“Do you have a private dining room?” Gill asked the waiter.
“We do, my lord.”
“My lady,” Gill said, “the choice is yours.” Would Penelope decide to be seen publicly sharing a meal with her husband at a cozy seaside inn, or would she brave two hours alone in the same room with him, behind a closed door?
Her expression gave away nothing. “Does the private dining room have a view of the sea?”
“Yes, my lady. Up one floor, just off the south terrace.”
“That sounds lovely. Today was long and wearying, and some peace and quiet with our meal will be appreciated.”
They followed the waiter up the steps and along a corridor and were shown to a pretty little chamber that already had a fire burning on the grate. The wallpaper was lavender silk flocked with ivory fleur-de-lis, and the furnishings looked to have been chosen more for comfort than style.
“Would you prefer service à la russe or à la française?” the waiter asked, lighting a candelabrum in the middle of a small table draped with a lavender tablecloth.
“If you will set the dishes on the sideboard,” Penelope said, slipping off her gloves and laying them on the mantel, “à la française will do. His lordship and I can serve ourselves.”
More discussion followed, of wines and desserts, and then Gill was alone with his wife, by her choice, twice over.
That Penelope might want to avoid the gossips in the dining room made sense, but service à la française—with the food brought in all at once—meant they would dine without interruptions.
The waiter departed, closing the door silently.
“You don’t mind putting up with me for the next two hours?” Gill asked.
“As I recall,” Penelope said, “you can be charming.”
Penelope went to the window, which overlooked the elm grove and had a view of the ocean beyond. Sunset streaked the eastern reaches of the sky with mauve and violet, and the breakers formed undulating lines of white surging onto the pale shore. The view had a restless quality, caught between daylight and darkness, between pretty and melancholy.