Penny smiled. “There you are.” She came forward.
Lady T leaned across and peered around the stairs. “Penelope?”
For one fraught instant, the two ladies stared at each other, speculation clearly rife in both their minds. Then Penny’s smile, which hadn’t faltered in the least, widened; she continued smoothly toward them.
“Lady Trescowthick! How lovely to see you. I hope you haven’t looked for me at Wallingham-I’ve been here all morning consulting with Mrs. Slattery over a recipe for quince jelly
Charles inwardly grinned; she was really very good at necessary lies.
Lady T offered her cheek to be kissed; Penny had known her since childhood. “I know just how difficult that recipe is-my chef Anton swore it was impossible, and he’s French, after all! But indeed, it’s fortuitous I caught you here, my dear-I’d intended to call at Wallingham on my way home. I’m giving a party tomorrow evening, and I’ve just inveigled Charles here into attending, and you must come, too, of course.”
Penny kept her smile in place. “I’ll be delighted. It’s been rather quiet since Elaine and the girls went up to town.”
“Indeed! I’m sure I don’t know why-” Lady Trescowthick broke off, raising a hand in surrender. “But we won’t retread that argument. For whatever reasons you dislike the ballrooms, you’re here, and must come tomorrow night.” She turned to the door. “Now I must be on my way. Oh-and George bumped into your relative, Arbry, yesterday, and invited him, but of course George forgot to mention you, assuming goodness knows what.”
With Charles on her ladyship’s other side, Penny saw her out of the house and into her carriage.
Lady Trescowthick leaned out of the window. “Eight sharp-none of your London ways here, Charles- Lostwithiel!” She sighed. “Will I ever get used to calling you that?”
The question was clearly rhetorical; the carriage lurched into motion. Her ladyship waved and sat back. Charles stood beside Penny on the steps, hands raised in farewell.
“Quince jelly?” he murmured.
“Your mama’s recipe is justifiably famous. Why the devil did you send for me?”
“I sent the message before Lady T arrived.” Just before.
The carriage was gone; turning, he waved Penny into the house. “I wanted to discuss how best to achieve an adequate watch on Nicholas.”
She was mollified. “Have you thought of something?”
“Several somethings.” He walked beside her to his study door and held it open. “Indeed, Lady T confirmed some of my thoughts.”
“Oh?”
He followed her into the room, leaving her to settle in the chair before his desk while he rounded it and sank into the chair behind. Leaning back, he met her gaze. “You need to return to Wallingham.”
She narrowed her eyes. Her lips started to form the word
“Because you can’t stay here for at least two powerful reasons. And also because you should be there, for a few more excellent reasons.”
Her eyes were like flints. “What are the two reasons I can’t stay here?”
“One, because visitors like Lady T are going to start turning up on the doorstep with distressing regularity. Far from dissuading them, the fact Mama is not in residence will only make them more determined to ensure I’m…doing whatever it is they think I should be doing. Like Lady T, they have difficulty viewing wild and reckless me as the earl.”
She made a dismissive sound. “That’s their problem.”
“But it’s also likely to be
Her eyes remained narrowed; her lips thinned. “I’m twenty-nine, and your mother’s goddaughter. There’s an entire regiment of staff in this house, all who know me nearly as well as they know you.”
Unperturbed, he responded, “Your age is immaterial-in the same way they still think of me as a wild and reckless youth, they see you as no more than twenty-three if that. And while you might be Mama’s goddaughter, Mama is not here-that being the pertinent point. Lastly, everyone knows this house is huge and come nighttime, all the servants are in the attics, and it’s over nighttime that imaginations run amok.”
He held her gaze. “Regardless of any excuses, should the ladies of the district learn of you sharing my roof with no chaperone in sight, there’ll be hell and the devil to pay. Despite-or perhaps because of-my legendary wildness, that is not a scenario I wish to court.”
The look she threw him was disdainful. “I don’t regard that as a reason of any great weight. But you said there were two powerful reasons-what’s the second?”
He held her gaze for three heartbeats, then evenly stated, “Because, should you remain under this roof, I seriously doubt I’ll be able to keep my hands off you.”
She stared at him, and stared, her features expressionless while she decided how to respond. Eventually, she said, “You’re joking.”
More an uncertain question than a statement. He shook his head.
Her lips thinned again; exasperation filled her eyes, still searching his. “You’re just trying to…bully me into doing as you wish.”
He didn’t shift his eyes from hers. “If you think I’m bluffing, by all means call me on it.” He paused, then added, “If you remain here, I can assure you that you’ll end beneath me in my bed or yours, whichever is closer at the time, within three nights.”
Penny managed not to gape. What she could read in his eyes, what she could feel reaching for her across the polished expanse of his desk…she could barely breathe. “You’re serious.” The faint words were more for her than him, a point he seemed to realize; he didn’t respond. She drew a tight breath. “I don’t think that’s at all fair.”
He smiled. Intently. “At least I’ve given you fair warning.”
Warning enough to prod her into running home to Wallingham-indeed. She’d have given a great deal to laugh lightly and assure him he was indulging in fantasies, yet after last night…
She refused to look away, to simply give in. “What are the reasons I should be at Wallingham?”
His menacing sensuality receded; she breathed a little easier.
“So we can mount a watch on Nicholas. In case it’s escaped your notice, he and I are the definition of antipathetic-I can’t turn up there looking for a drinking companion, or invite him out for a night of carousing, or even to put up our feet with a glass of brandy and swap stories of London and the ladies. Nicholas and I are never going to be that close. If you, however, are at Wallingham, then I’ll have a perfect excuse to haunt the house. Simple.”
She would have loved to blow a hole in his plan-for instance, by refusing in light of his declaration of moments before to have him paying her visits-but they were in this together. “Hmm. And I’ll be there even at night…I don’t suppose, now we’re certain he’s involved, that it matters if he suspects we’re watching him-it can only make him more nervous.”
“True. With you at home, we can effectively watch him most of the time, which will certainly make him feel crowded and cramped. If we can make him desperate enough, he’ll make some slip, somewhere.”
The more she thought, the more she favored the idea; if she was at Wallingham with Nicholas under her nose, Charles would find it impossible to edge her out of the investigation-she was well aware he would if he could.
And there was the not insignificant consideration that if she was at Wallingham, there would be far less scope for Charles to fan the still-smoldering embers-they should have been long dead but demonstrably weren’t-of their long-ago association into a flaming affair, an entanglement she definitely didn’t want or need.
Retreating to Wallingham could well be her best move all around.
She’d been staring into space. “Very well.” She refocused on his face, and caught a subtle shift in the dark blue of his eyes that had her rapidly reviewing all they’d done, learned, still needed to do…“You’re going to visit the Fowey Gallants tonight, aren’t you?”
Exasperation flashed through his eyes. “Yes.”
She nodded. “I’ll come with you and return to Wallingham tomorrow morning.”
