Better to be alone than suffer such torment.
She pressed her face into her pillow, deciding to take the coward’s path.
* * *
Christian felt the tip of a boot nudge his hip. At the third nudge, he snarled, “Leave me be, will you? I’ll head back to the house with the sun. Go away.”
“You’re a disaster. I can’t take you anywhere.” Penny dropped to his haunches beside Christian and seized the empty wine bottle with a groan of dismay. “I was afraid of this. Women aren’t clocks. Nothing reliable about them.”
“I tried, can’t you see? Romance. It didn’t work.”
“Perhaps the traditional approach would be better. In London better. Rides through Hyde Park, strolls along Bond Street, two scandalous waltzes in one night, done. Marriage to someone who means something but not everything. Everything is not required, Kit.”
“It is for me.” Christian elbowed to a wobbly sit. A gust of wind whipped in from the east, sending his hair into his eyes. A storm was brewing. He rubbed his aching chest; his argument with Raine had taken a piece of him and shattered it like china against marble. He didn’t feel whole at the moment.
Penny sat next to Christian, stretching his legs out across the wrinkled blanket. “I feared this.”
“Wonderful, add prophecy to your list of talents. Have your flask handy?”
Penny grimaced and yanked the dented tin from his coat pocket, thrust it toward Christian. The etched metal caught a streak of moonlight and sent it shooting across their Hessians.
Christian took a long pull, the Scotch adding weight to the wine he’d consumed in a way he knew would distress him come morning. “She’s not going for it,” he said with a sinking heart. Even with that scorching kiss standing between them, she hadn’t considered it. Or him.
Penny’s blistering gaze swept him, the judgmental cur. “Did you mention marriage?”
“I did,” Christian said with another drink, “and she’s out.”
“Maybe we rehearse, and you can try again. You’re not the best with these things. Remember what you said to Lady Leadbetter about her gown? She stills get pink in the face when we see her.”
“I thought she’d accidentally dressed for a costume ball, I honestly did!” He coughed and shoved the flask in Penny’s direction. “Did you see that silk catastrophe? I was trying to save her from embarrassment. ‘Go home and change before anyone sees you’ type of thing. You dressed for the wrong event.”
“What I’m hearing is that you applied your standard finesse to the proposal tonight.”
“It wasn’t poetic if that’s what you’re asking.”
Penny took a drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ah, I’ve read this play before. You bumble, then Miss Mowbray says something you don’t want to hear, and boom, a sulking, insolent man appears, stage left.”
Christian stacked one boot atop the other and hung his head back, his gaze going to a sky that looked like it was going to unleash havoc at any moment. “A congenial groom got to her first. Someone by the name of Dash or something. Certainly the more appropriate choice. Another maid told her about that knighthood offer from cracked George, so she believes we’re leagues apart. If she only knew what it was like growing up with a wastrel for a father, a revered vicar the entire household was terrified of. My upbringing was less than noble. Likely less noble than hers in many respects.”
“So she declined because of societal disparity and this illustrious groom…”
“Then I got angry, and that sulking, insolent bloke you mentioned joined the party. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Your temper is truly your downfall.” Penny polished the flask on his sleeve and slipped it in his pocket. “We’re lost if we can’t upstage a humble groom, however.”
“It’s more complicated than that.” He groaned, digging his heel in the soil. His cheeks had gotten hot, always a bad sign. “Remember that girl I fancied? The one at Tavistock House?”
Penny whistled beneath his breath, tilted his head in meditation. “The paragon on the veranda. Yes, I remember, because you bring her up every time we’re deep in our cups. She’s mysteriously ruined every relationship you’ve tried to sustain, if I may be so bold as to judge. Let me guess, she’s in your head along with your lovely bluestocking and you don’t know—”
“She is my lovely bluestocking.”
Christian held back a grin as shock whipped across Penny’s impossible-to-alter countenance. At least he was getting some joy from this dreadful experience.
“Well…” Penny rummaged in his pocket for the flask, apparently deciding another chug was in order. “Consider me stunned.” He issued a humorless grunt, his gaze locking with Christian’s then dancing away. Penny was his best friend in the world, but discussing emotions was hard for men. God knows what tender sentiment was shining in Christian’s eyes. “Almost gives me a chill along my spine. I don’t believe in fate or fanciful events, or love, but damn, that’s incredible. Are you sure?”
Christian nodded. He was sure.
“Then you must make her understand. All these years. She’s your…she’s the…”
“You’re going to have to finish the translations.”
Penny crawled to his feet with a curse. “I’m the best soldier-cum-manservant in England, and I’m dutiful, but I’m not crazy. And I’m not sitting in that stifling, regally-oppressive room with a vexed woman you inelegantly asked to marry you.” He collected the edge of the blanket in his fist as raindrops began to strike the ground, yanking it from underneath Christian. “I’m scared of angry women. And tired of dealing with yours. This is your dilemma to solve, my friend.” Grabbing the candles, he stuffed them under his armpits, and kicked the wine bottle in the bushes. “If you can look her in the eye and tell her you don’t want her,
