eagerly listening to Jacqueline’s inquisition and Penny’s replies.
Smiling, his mother looked up at him. “Business?”
Dragging his eyes from the scene, his mind from wondering how Penny was coping, he nodded. “We’ve just come from Amberly House.”
His mother’s eyes widened-the marquess was the titular head of Penny’s family. He rapidly clarified, “It’s the same business that took me away.” Pulling up a chair, he sat beside her. “Arbry was at Wallingham.”
He hesitated, then lowered his voice. “I haven’t yet told Elaine-we need to keep the whole quiet, at least for the moment, but…” Briefly he explained how the Selbornes had been involved in a long-running scheme providing incorrect information to the French, and how some French agent was now intent on exacting revenge.
“Good God!” His mother’s gaze went to Penny. “Penny will remain here, of course.”
His frustrated sigh had her glancing back at him. He felt her eyes searching his face, but kept his gaze on Penny. “I would, quite obviously, prefer she remain here, with you or with Elaine, but I doubt she’ll agree.”
A moment passed, then his mother merely said, “Hmm…I see.”
When he looked at her, she was studying Penny.
“Still,” she mused, “at your relative ages, it’s to be hoped you both know what you’re doing.”
He did. It didn’t make the doing-the adjusting-any easier.
“So.” His mother turned to him. “How long will you be in town?”
“Just tonight-and no, we won’t be attending any events. We’ll be leaving for Amberly Grange in the morning.”
He stood, intending to go back down the room and greet his sisters and sisters-in-law. The twinkle in his mother’s eye made him pause. “What?”
At his suspicious tone, she smiled-gloriously smug. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to hide away here, not tonight.”
A hideous thought bloomed. “Why?”
“Because I’m hosting a dinner, followed by a ball.”
When he only just succeeded in biting back an oath, she raised her brows at him, not the least bit sympathetic. “Without the distraction of organizing your life, your sisters fell back on theirs. As it happens”-she gave him her hand and let him help her to her feet-“there’s a captain in some regiment who’s been casting himself at Lydia’s feet, and a rakehell if ever I saw one sniffing at Jacqueline’s skirts-not that either Lydia or Jacqueline is likely to succumb, but it’s just as well that you’re here.”
She patted his arm, ignored his groan. “Now come, I must warn Penny.”
It was two o’clock in the morning before, with the captain and the rakehell routed and most of the guests long gone, Charles finally succeeded in seizing Penny’s hand and dragging her upstairs. To his room.
She protested; her hand locked in his, he kept walking down the corridor to the earl’s apartments, now his private domain. He didn’t release her until they were in his bedroom and he’d locked the door.
Exasperated, she sighed and met his eyes. “This is hardly the right example to set for your sisters.”
He shrugged out of his evening coat, then looked down as he unlaced his cuffs. “I’m not sure this isn’t exactly the right example to set them.”
Placing her earrings on a side table, she looked at him, puzzled, but he made no move to explain. Insisting she spend the night in his room, in his bed, with absolutely no concern over who in his household knew of it, was, to his mind, a clear declaration of his commitment to their goal-to her being his wife. Nothing else could explain such a blatant act; he was certain his mother, sisters, and even more his sisters-in-law, would see it for the admission it was.
They’d probably coo. Thank God he wouldn’t be about to hear them.
Penny pulled pins from her hair, then unraveled the intricate braid Jacqueline’s maid had set her long tresses in. She assumed she was in his room rather than him being in hers because her room was near his sisters’, and thus far since returning from Amberly House they hadn’t had a chance to talk-he hadn’t had a chance to persuade her to remain in London. She knew the argument was coming, had known it from the moment she’d jockeyed him into bringing her to town. In London with his mother, or Elaine, was where he would deem her safest, where he would prefer her to be.
That was not, however, where she needed to be.
But she couldn’t explain until he broached the subject. Combing out her long hair with her fingers, she shook it free, then started undoing the buttons on her gown.
Still in his trousers, he stopped behind her and undid her laces. She murmured her thanks, then drew the long silk sheath off over her head; she felt his hands slide around her as she shook the gown out. Tossing it aside, clad only in her fine chemise, she let him draw her back against him. Let him wrap his arms around her and surround her with his strength.
Bending his head, he pressed his lips to her throat, lingered there. She could almost hear him thinking how best to open the debate, then he raised his head, steadied her, and stepped back. “Before I forget…”
Crossing to his tallboy, he lifted a letter from the top. “This was waiting for me.” He handed it to her. “It’s really for you.”
Puzzled anew, she took it, unfolded the sheets, smoothed them, and read. It was an account of an engagement at Waterloo, written by a corporal who’d been in the same troop as Granville.
She read the opening paragraph, slowly moved to the bed and sank down as the action unfolded, told in the young corporal’s unpolished phrases. She read on, aware that Charles sat beside her; blindly, she reached for him. He took her hand, wrapped his around it, held it while through the corporal’s eyes she saw and learned of the circumstances of Granville’s death.
When she reached the end, she let the letter refold, sat for a moment, then glanced at Charles. “Where…how did you get this?”
“I knew Devil Cynster led a troop of cavalry in the relief of Hougoumont. It was likely he or some of his men would know various survivors, so I asked. One of his cousins had assisted Granville’s troop afterward; he remembered the corporal and searched him out.” He nodded at the letter. “The corporal remembered Granville.”
Mistily, she smiled at him. “Thank you.” She glanced at the sheets in her hand. “It means a lot
After a moment, she looked at him. “Can I give this to Elaine?”
“Of course.”
She rose, crossed to the side table, and left the letter with her jewelry. Turning back, she paused, studied him waiting for her, broad chest bare, his dark mane framing his dramatically beautiful face, his midnight eyes steady on her. He held out one hand. She walked to him, gave him her fingers, and let him clasp them as she sat again on the bed, angling to face him as he shifted to face her.
He searched her eyes, then simply said, “Please stay here and let me and Dalziel handle whatever happens at Amberly Grange.”
She studied his eyes, equally simply replied, “No.”
The planes of his face hardened. He opened his lips-she stayed him with a raised hand. “No-wait. I need to think.”
His eyes widened incredulously, then he flopped back on the bed, gave vent to a pungent curse, followed by a muttered diatribe on the quality of her thought processes and her familial failing regarding same.
She fought to straighten her lips, aware of the tension riding him-aware of its source. “I know why you want me to stay here.”
His dark gaze flicked down to fix on her face. “If you know what violence it does to my feelings to have you exposed to any danger, let alone a madman who’d be quite happy to slit your throat”-he came up on one elbow, patently unable to keep still-“then you shouldn’t have to think too hard.”
She met his blatantly intimidating gaze. “Except that there’s more at stake here, something more important than just catering to your protective instincts.”
For a moment, he stared into her eyes, then he sighed tensely and looked away. And
She tightened her fingers, squeezing his hand. “I understood that.”
He glanced at her, and humphed.
