Читать книгу The Historical Collection - Stephanie Laurens - Страница 17

“Then what happened?” Emma held the measuring tape stretched from Penny’s neck to her wrist, waiting on her answer.

“And then I kissed him,” Penny answered quietly. “And he kissed me back.”

“No.” Emma took three paces backward and stared at her from the opposite side of the Ashbury House morning room. “Oh, Penny.”

“I was caught up in the moment. He’d just rescued Bixby, and I was grateful. And when his shoulder flexed beneath my hand, his muscles felt so—”

“You were feeling his shoulders?”

“Only one of them,” she protested, as if this fact made it any less improper.

Penny stepped down from the dressmaker’s box, sank onto the divan, and buried her face in her hands. Emma spooled her measuring tape and came to sit beside her.

Penny laid her head on her friend’s shoulder. “It’s such a relief to see you. I haven’t had anyone to confide in. Thank you for coming to Town.”

“Naturally, we came. You said you needed us. Besides, I ought to thank you. For years now I’ve been dying to give you a new wardrobe. I’ll draw up sketches, make patterns. Then we’ll see that you have the best of fabrics and the most talented dressmakers in London.”

As a seamstress-turned-duchess, Emma could have abandoned needlework in favor of a life of leisure. Most women in her place certainly would have done so.

However, Emma was not the usual sort of woman, and Penny was ever grateful for it. Their common status on the fringes of genteel society was the reason they’d become close friends.

“I don’t know what’s come over me,” Penny moaned. “Whenever he’s near, I feel like an animal in mating season. I think I’ve fallen in lust.”

“If you have, it isn’t the worst thing in the world. Many a woman has fallen victim to the same contagion. Including me. If you don’t wish to see Mr. Duke, simply avoid him.”

“I can’t avoid him. He’s offered to help me with my aunt’s demands, and even if he hadn’t, he lives next door.”

“Good God, Penny.” The Duke of Ashbury stormed into the room. “Do you know what kind of brigand you have living next door?”

“Gabriel Duke,” she answered.

“Gabriel Duke, that’s who.” Ash glowered at the window. He always looked fearsome, due to the battle scars twisting one half of his face. If not for the giggling child attached to his boot, he might have looked truly intimidating.

“Richmond, darling.” Penny extended her arms, and the boy toddled into her embrace. “Look how big you’ve grown.”

“Your new neighbor is an infamous blackguard,” Ash continued. “And now Emma tells me you’re consorting with the man?”

“I’m not consorting with him. My aunt has given me an ultimatum. If I don’t earn her approval before the month is out, my brother will take me back to Cumberland.”

Penny’s stomach churned. Ever since her aunt’s visit, the prospect of returning to Cumberland had loomed over her like a thundercloud, oppressive and dark. The mere idea of living in that house, sleeping in that room …

She couldn’t go back. She wouldn’t.

“Mr. Duke offered to assist me with a few tasks. It’s in his financial interests that I remain in Bloom Square.”

“Oh, I’m certain it’s in his interests. Haven’t you heard what he did to Lord Fairdale?”

Penny bounced Richmond on her knee. “I hadn’t heard, actually.”

“I’ll tell you. First, he bought up all the man’s paper. And I mean all of it. Tracked down every last creditor, from an unsettled wager at White’s to his outstanding balance at the glover’s, rolling them all into one insurmountable debt. Then he drove down the value of stock in a shipping company, leaving Fairdale with nothing of worth to sell. He was left with nothing but a bit of barren land and the crumbling ancestral house.”

“Goodness.”

“There was nothing of goodness in it. Sheer villainy. He not only mowed that family to field stubble, he salted the earth beneath them. And Fairdale hasn’t been his only victim. The man means to gather England’s best families into a bundle of sticks and break them over his knee. You cannot have anything to do with him. The danger is too great.”

“The danger of what?”

He spread his arms. “Isn’t it obvious? He wants to ruin you.”

“Ash, please.” Emma covered her son’s ears. “Not in front of Richmond.”

“He’s isn’t even two years old. It’s not as if he can understand.” Nevertheless, Ash ceded to his wife’s request. “The man means to R-U-I-N you.”

Penny sat up straight. “Are you suggesting Mr. Duke intends to S-E-D-U-C-E me? How absurd.”

It was absurd, she told herself. Their kiss the other day was not an act of seduction. It was an accident. A moment of madness.

More to the point, it was all her doing.

If anything, she’d taken advantage of him.

Penny shook her head. “He R-U-I-N-S lords’ fortunes, not ladies’ reputations.”

“You never know if he’ll start branching out. If the villain has designs on your dowry, you are too inexperienced to handle him.”

“Oh, I think Penny can handle him,” Emma said innocently. “She’s handled the man quite capably thus far.”

Penny cast a look at her friend. Please don’t.

“I won’t stand for it,” Ash said with force. “Neither will Chase.”

“Chase?”

“As usual, it appears I need no introduction.” Chase Reynaud entered the room, linked arm-in-arm with his excessively pregnant wife, Alexandra, and followed by their two wards, Rosamund and Daisy.

“Alex.” Penny handed Richmond to Emma and rushed to embrace her friend tightly—or as tightly as possible, given the obstacle between them. While Rosamund and Daisy mobbed her with kisses, Penny helped her friend waddle to the divan. “I thought you’d entered your confinement.”

“I’m weary of being confined.” Alexandra dropped onto the divan with a thud. “Besides, Ash said we were needed at once. I’m not certain why.”

Ash said, “Tell her, Chase.”

Chase stood tall and leveled a finger at Penny with unconvincing severity. “You cannot live next to that man. Don’t you know what he did to Lord Fairdale? The villain—”

“Bought up his debts, destroyed his investments, and left him with scarcely anything to his name.”

“Yes. What if the bast—”

“Chase,” Alexandra said sharply.

He sighed. “What if the B-A-S-T-E-R-D sets his eyes on you?”

“A,” Rosamund corrected. “B-A-S-T-A-R-D.”

Penny made a suggestion. “Girls, would you kindly run across the square to my house and have a look at Angus? He sneezed yesterday. Perhaps he has a cold.”

“Maybe it’s the plague!” Daisy cheered.

“Probably not,” Penny said. “But you had better go see.”

“Is there any chance he’s dying? I don’t want him to die, of course. But it’s ever so exciting when there’s a chance.”

“Daisy, he’s not dying.” Rosamund tugged her younger sister by the hand. “They’re trying to be rid of us so they can discuss adult matters.”

The younger girl pouted. “Pooh.”

Once the children were out of earshot, Ash continued with his lecture. “Penny, you don’t have to listen to us. Just look at the papers. They’ve taken to calling him the Duke of Ruin.”

“Not so very long ago, the papers called you the Monster of Mayfair,” she pointed out. “I know better than to heed the scandal sheets.”

“It’s not merely rumor.” Chase pulled up a chair. “The man’s deliberately set about driving well-heeled families to the brink of insolvency.”

“Not just driving them to the brink,” Ash said. “He tips them over the edge. Who’s to say he doesn’t have the same in mind for you?”

“He would find it impossible. My brother Bradford keeps the estate finances on a foundation of bedrock.”

“Even if he can’t touch your family’s money,” Chase said, “you do have a dowry.”

“If you won’t protect yourself,” Ash warned, “we will have to take protective measures on your behalf.”

“What sort of protective measures?”

Nicola rushed into the room. Wisps of ginger hair floated about her head in an unkempt halo. In her hand, she carried a brown-paper packet. “I brought the poisoned biscuits,” she said, breathless. “I’m still perfecting the spring-loaded trap for her door.”

Wonderful. Yet another addition to the “Protect Penny” brigade.

“That’s very kind of you, Nicola.” Penny took the packet of biscuits from her friend, tucked them behind her back, and while completing her circuit of the room, discreetly tossed them into the fire.

“Perhaps the men do have a point,” Alexandra said. “Maybe there is some cause for concern.”

“Alex. Not you, too.”

“I’m sorry, dear. But we all know how tender your heart is. It’s a wonderful quality, and we adore you for it. But you can be too trusting at times.”

“At all times,” Chase added.

Penny couldn’t believe this. “So you not only believe he’ll attempt to seduce me, but that I’ll fall for this supposed ruse.”

“None of us wants to see you hurt,” Nicola said. “That’s all.”

Penny turned and stared out the window. She was beginning to take offense at her friends’ complete lack of faith in her judgment. She was a grown woman, not a child. Any moment now, they’d begin spelling out words in front of her.

She heard yet another knock at the door.

Lord, who else had they recruited to this effort? This time, Penny didn’t bother to turn around and find out.

“Yes,” she said, exasperated. “My new neighbor is Gabriel Duke. Yes, I have heard what he did to Lord Fairdale. Yes, I know the papers are calling him the Duke of Ruin. No, I do not need protection. All he wants is to sell his house. All I want is to remain in mine. We have a mutually beneficial, temporary agreement. He is not attempting to seduce me, and I will absolutely not fall in love with him.”

The ensuing silence spoke volumes. And those volumes were titled Worst Moments of Penny’s Life, vols. I–XIII.

His virile heat filled the room, blanketing her with gooseflesh. She didn’t even need to look to know he was there. She didn’t need to look, perhaps, but eventually, tragically, she would have to face him. It wasn’t as though she could dive behind the draperies and hide until he went away.

Or could she? She gave it more than a moment’s thought before dismissing the idea.

At length, she forced herself to turn around.

There he stood in the morning room entryway, dark and devastating. When he spoke, he announced himself in a low, commanding voice.

“I’m here about the goat.”

No one had the faintest notion how to respond.

“And the steer, and the chickens,” he continued, speaking to Penny. “Your housekeeper told me I’d find you here. I’ve found a solution.”

“Goodness. That was fast.”

Penny’s heart pinched. She hadn’t prepared to say good-bye to Marigold and Angus so soon.

“I told you, I don’t waste time. I’ll come around tomorrow afternoon. We can discuss the particulars then.”

“Hold a moment.” Ash shook himself to life. “She’s not discussing anything with you.”

“That’s right.” Chase stood. “Neither is her goat.”

Gabriel alternated a glare between one man and the other. “Who are you?”

Ash puffed his chest. “I’m the Duke of Ashbury.”

Penny intervened. “Come now, Ash. We don’t use titles. Our guest is your neighbor, too. Everyone, this is Gabriel. Gabriel, meet Alexandra, Chase, Nicola, Emma, and Ash. They’re my good friends.”

“Friends, you say? They seem to have mistaken themselves for your guardians.”

“Listen to me, you B-A-S-T—” Ash bit off the words, growled in annoyance, and began again. “Listen to me, you bastard.”

“No,” Gabriel said.

This simple response left Ash nonplussed. But fuming.

“I’m listening to exactly one person in this room,” Gabriel said evenly. “It isn’t you. The lady can speak for herself.”

Oh. Penny’s heart fluttered in her chest.

If by chance he did mean to seduce her, repeating that sentence fifty times over might do the trick.

He spoke directly to her. Only to her. “Tomorrow afternoon. We’re agreed?”

She nodded. “We’re agreed.”

He quit the room without the usual courtesy of taking his leave. The bang of the front door announced his departure.

At length, Chase broke the disbelieving silence. “Good God. That man is intolerable.”

“Yes,” Penny said. “He is.”

Alexandra sat up—no small feat, in her condition—and regarded her with concern. “Oh, Penny.”

“What?”

“The way you said that. You sounded … dreamy.”

“I am not dreamy,” she fibbed. “Chase remarked that he was intolerable, and I agreed. If you like, I’ll add that he’s ill-mannered and beastly.”

“Precisely,” Nicola said. “That’s what worries us. He’s just the sort of man you’d be drawn to. We all know how you love a challenge.”

“Believe me, I have sufficient challenges in my life at the moment. I’m not looking to take on one more.”

“At least promise us one thing,” Alexandra pleaded. “Promise you won’t be caught with him alone.”

Penny relented. “Very well. I promise.”