“I suppose you will lecture me?”
"I shall leave that for Miss Nilsson.’’ He found her shawl, gathered a reluctant Charis and his curious mother, before leaving the hallowed halls of the most fashionable assembly rooms in all of London.
Aunt Winthrop nudged Ernest into following them out the door. The groups silently awaited their carriages. Lady Winthrop tilted her head in a listening attitude.
At last Lady Harford murmured, “Really, it is too bad of them, to allow the streets to be so congested.”
“It is not a broad street,” Penelope observed, taking care to remain safely between Charis and Lady Harford, with Lord Harford behind her.
“There are times when one must wait for hours for a carriage,” Charis added quietly, for she had been affected by the grim presence of her distant relatives. Lady Winthrop had that depressing capacity to put others into the dismals without half-trying.
When at last the Harford carriage was maneuvered up before the awninged entrance, they hurried in, then drove off with a collective sigh of relief.
“Was there ever such a woman as that?” Charis wondered aloud.
Little more was said about that other pair, for Charis desired her brother be informed of her dearest David’s intention to call on the morrow. Upon learning that there was no reason to deny the marriage, indeed, who would not welcome such an alliance, Charis giggled happily and bounced with delight.
Penelope felt a deal of pleasure at her cousin’s happiness. The glow enveloping the girl seemed almost tangible.
After Lady Harford and Charis went into their house on Mount Street, Jonathan continued on alone with Penny. He was glad his mother had understood his need to discuss certain things with his cousin and had not questioned this change in procedure.
“Penny, I wish you would reconsider this matter of your wanting a marriage of convenience. I cannot live with myself if I don’t urge you to contemplate a union based on love rather than expediency.”
“I told you before that I do not trust love. My parents loved each other, or so they said. They also said they loved me. Since I rarely saw them, it seems they loved me better from a great distance.” She gave him a gentle, sad smile. “The rare instances they appeared, it did not seem to me that love, if that is what they knew, seemed so desirable. They quarreled frequently.”
“Even people in love are not in harmony all the time.”
“We quarrel frequently, but we are not in love,” she snapped. “Nor could we be.”
“What an exasperating young woman you are.” He clenched his hands in his lap, wanting badly to shake some sense into her, then continued. “You must be careful about Stephen.” He picked up her hand as the carriage came to a halt before Letty’s home. “Just be on guard. You do not really know Stephen. He may not be what he seems. How do you know but that he doesn’t seek your fortune? What is to say that Stephen might agree to your stipulation, and then, once wedded, change his mind?”
Tired of his constant caviling, Penelope turned on him, the light from the flambeau in front of the house revealing her annoyance. “Perhaps I shall change my mind, sir. Maybe I shall try to find a man who can love me for myself and not my fortune. Or would that be too difficult?”
“Not at all. You do have your . . . moments.”
“Oh! What a wicked man you are.” Her eyes flashed with an emotion he couldn’t identify. Anger? Pique? “Tell me, have you ever been in love?” she demanded.
Startled by her question, Jonathan lightly replied, “Dozens of times, I can’t recall them all.”
“Then I doubt you could have been serious,” she pointed out as conclusive proof to the vagaries of so-called love.
“I was serious at the moment,” he informed her in all earnestness, his amused face in the shadows.
She pulled her hand from his, turning her face away from him, so he had no idea what she might be thinking. “I think that is horrid,” she said in a muffled voice.
He reached out to take that charming face and bring it about so he might look at her. When she raised her lashes, he took note that her eyes seemed to sparkle with suspicious brightness.
“You’re laughing at me!” he declared with irritation.
“You are so absurd. You adjure me to find a lover, then admit you have never truly known what it is to love. How silly you are. Come back and talk to me of love again when you know what it is.”
She moved restlessly, wanting to leave the carriage. All this nonsense about love was definitely unsettling. Glancing at him again, her tongue darting out nervously to moisten dry lips, she said, “Well?”
“Well, indeed.” He drew her closer, then deposited a fierce, although brief, kiss upon a very startled but softly inviting mouth.
He escorted a silent young woman into the house, then promptly left. He feared very much that he already had met her demand. The devil of it all was that she’d probably not have him in a million years now.
Chapter 11
Penelope trailed up the stairs to her room, dragging her shawl behind her, ignoring the tangled fringe as it caught in the top post of the banister.
Her cat saw the captured fringe, and thinking it a game, began to stalk it, then pounced. The tug and thump brought Penelope’s gaze to the floor, where Muffin now rolled in a field of paisley. Instead of continuing the new game, she picked the cat up, then wandered up the next flight of stairs and around the corner to her room.
Muffin protested this treatment. Penelope dropped her shawl on the bed, then snuggled Muffin close to her as she went to the window to stare out at the night. Faint light from the partial moon somewhat lit the scene below, sending just enough light into the room so she might make her way about.
Almack's, Jonathan, and Lord Stephen whirled
