Chapter Eleven

 

Cyril was reclining at his ease on a comfortable French corner chair in the drawing room after dinner, Aunt Lucinda hovering nearby as had become her custom, anticipating his every need, feeding him refreshments, and even offering to turn the pages of the sporting magazine he was leafing through to relieve his boredom.

Not since dear Jerome had gone to his heavenly reward had the woman felt so overwhelmingly happy, for once more she had someone to cosset and fuss over, someone who appreciated her attentions (not that Jerome had stayed home for more than a few days at a time between his gambling engagements, usually leaving in a rush, muttering some nonsense under his breath about being smothered).

Raising his gaze from the magazine for a moment, Cyril looked toward his brother, who was pacing up and down the carpet, his hands opening and closing spasmodically behind his back, and showing all the signs of an old hen fretting over her only chick.

"Oh, Cosmo, sit down, do," Cyril begged. "You're making Aunt Lucinda and me dizzy with all this to-ing and fro-ing. I'd have thought you'd be over the moon, with Penny and Lord Leighton billing and cooing at each other over the turbot this evening. Getting awfully like Papa, that's what you are, always looking for trouble. Bad sign, that—you might even be growing up. Really, Cosmo, it's most depressing."

Cosmo stopped his pacing to look across at his brother in disgust. "You're deader than a red brick, you know that, Cyril? Sometimes you actually make me ashamed to call you brother. Haven't you learned by now that the worst—the very worst—sign is Penny behaving herself? What's she up to? That's what I want to know."

"'Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble,' Shakes—"

"Thank you, ma'am," Cosmo cut in wearily, dropping onto a nearby chair, "but I think perhaps you should quote instead from a few lines farther along in Macbeth: 'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.' She's up to something, Cyril, mark my words. It isn't like Penny to be so amenable. Lord, she was almost sickening in her sweetness tonight. Anyone would think we've granted her fondest wish, forcing her to wed Leighton."

Aunt Lucinda just gave a dismissive toss of her curls, sure that Cosmo was grasping at straws. The Earl and her niece were betrothed, just as she had hoped for from the very start. All the struggles were behind them now, and she saw no reason not to rejoice. Soon the Marquess would arrive—thanks to her timely letter—and the engagement would become official. She could hardly wait for the day the notice appeared in the London papers, and she could send off a clipping to the Dowager. No, there was no reason for concern. Everything was moving along just swimmingly.

Cyril, who either shared his aunt's sentiments or had just tired of the conversation, buried his head once more in his magazine, trying to fathom the intricacies of tying the Fitzgerald Ultimate Precision Fishing Lure that was featured in one of its articles.

That left only the uneasy Cosmo to carry the burden of his suspicions. He sat on the edge of his chair, nervously worrying on the side of his right thumb with his teeth as he stared out into the dark, denuded garden, into which Lady Penelope and the Earl, walking arm in arm most companionably, had disappeared immediately after dessert.

"I still don't see why you had to hold my hand that way under the table," Lady Penelope was complaining as she sat down on a cold stone bench and drew her heavy, fur-lined cloak more closely around her. "After all, it wasn't as if anyone could see us."

Lucien stood in front of her on the narrow brick path, looking down at the halo of curls that glistened in the light of the full moon. "Farnley noticed when he served the soup. As he undoubtably reports everything he sees to your Aunt Lucinda, I saw it as necessary to our plan. Everyone must be made to believe the two of us truly want this engagement. It's the only way for our plan to succeed. Believe me, I don't like it any more than you do."

At his last words, Lady Penelope's head shot up and she glared at him angrily. "I think you've already made your dislike for me abundantly clear, my lord. There's no need to belabor the point, is there?"

Lucien sat down beside her and took one of her chilled hands in his, holding it firmly against his chest as she tried to pull away. "You misunderstood, Lady Penelope," he said slowly. "I don't dislike you at all. Witness my lapse of a few days past if you doubt me. You are a very beautiful, very appealing young woman, and I find myself greatly attracted to you. Did you, for instance, know that you have the most kissable lips I've ever seen? You do, you know. That's why I find my role so difficult to play."

Lady Penelope bent her head slightly toward her breast as she slipped her shoulder closer to his body and peeped at him out of the corners of her eyes. "Really?" she asked, pleased in spite of herself.

"Oh-ho!" Lucien said, laughing as he gave her captured hand a quick squeeze. "The lady has all the fine moves of a dedicated flirt. Shame on you, Lady Penelope; and I thought you said you had no interest in men."

The shoulder and hand were immediately withdrawn as Lady Penelope quickly put a full two feet of space between their bodies. "You're despicable!" she accused, turning to face the overgrown evergreen that stood beside the end of the bench. "And I don't care a bent farthing what you think of my lips—I mean, what you think of me. Just tell me how you expect us to break this engagement. So far, your plan only seems to be making our trouble all the worse. Why can't we just go on showing everyone how much we hate each other? It's so much easier to be natural."

Lucien ignored her jibe and slipped a hand inside his coat, withdrawing a thin silver flask from an inside pocket. Unscrewing the top, he then held the bottle out to her. "Have you ever tasted brandy, my dear?" he asked, waving the open flask under her nose.

Just the aroma of the strong spirit caused a shiver to run through her upper body, and she pushed the flask away, saying, "Once when I had the bellyache Papa made me drink some of the horrid stuff. I thought my throat had caught on fire. Besides, what has brandy to do with anything?"

Pouring a portion of brandy into the deep cap that had been specially fashioned for that purpose, Lucien downed the measure of fiery liquor, then smiled at her mischievously. "All right then, have you any idea of my reputation, Lady Penelope?" he asked, refilling the cap with another generous amount of liquid. "I am considered to be quite incorrigible, truth to tell, always up to some sort of mischief. For instance, it wouldn't be at all past a hey- go-mad scamp like myself to introduce my willing fiancèe to the evils of brandy."

Lady Penelope looked at the silver cap for a moment before a slow, comprehending smile lit her features. "Papa would have a fit if I were ever to appear the worse for drink," she said, biting her bottom lip as she gingerly took the cap from his hand. "But as I love my betrothed so dearly, I would do anything he desired, wouldn't I? Oh, dear, what a lamentably bad influence you are on an impressionable young girl, my lord. You should be ashamed of yourself."

The Earl watched as Lady Penelope lifted the cap to her lips, squeezed her eyes shut as if she were about to be dosed with a particularly vile medicine, and finally drained its contents in one long gulp. Pulling the cap out of her hand, he clapped her soundly on the back as she began at once to sputter and choke on two generous fingers of what he considered to be the smoothest brandy in England.

"Here, here," he protested, laughing, "I never said you should drink the stuff. I only wanted you to wet your mouth with it, so that your brothers would smell it on your breath when we go back inside to say good night. You don't need to be drunk to act the part, do you?"

Blinking back the sharp, stinging tears that had invaded her eyes, Lady Penelope swallowed down hard and swiveled on the bench to look at the Earl. "I once saw Cosmo and Cyril after they had gotten into Papa's best port one Sunday morning when they'd stayed home, saying they were too ill to attend church. Papa and I arrived home to find them hanging headfirst over the first floor balcony doing something very nasty into the flower beds. Their faces were the most dreadful shade of green, too," she added thoughtfully. "The poor dears were sick for two days. I shan't have to do that, shall I?"

Lucien chuckled softly. "You won't be required to take things to such lengths, my dear," he assured her. "A slight slurring of your speech, an occasional stumble in your walk—these should be sufficient to show your protective brothers that I am pointing your dainty toes straight down the path to perdition."

The brandy she had gulped down suddenly hit Lady Penelope's bloodstream, and she could feel a cozy warmth growing in her chest. It was silly, but suddenly she was feeling very much in charity toward the Earl. Tilting her head to one side, she smiled at him and said, "May I giggle, too, my lord? I don't usually, you understand, for I think it to be odiously missish, but I really do think I should like to giggle."

And then she did.

"Oh, my God!" Lucien exclaimed in sudden understanding, putting out a hand to hold her upright as her body slowly began to sag against his. "I forgot all about those two glasses of wine you had at dinner. You shan't have to fake it, my dear little souse, you are drunk!"

"Am not!" Lady Penelope answered proudly, opening her emerald eyes very wide before poking Lucien in the center of his chest with one carefully aimed fingertip. "Now you say 'are too,' like Cosmo and Cyril used to do. Go ahead. It's a very funny game." As if to prove her point, she tipped back her head, crowed, "are too," and then artlessly rested her head against his shoulder. "Goodness, I'm dizzy."

Shifting his body slightly so that he could better balance her relaxed weight against his side, Lucien raised his gaze to the full moon, thinking the old man who lived there was looking down on them, smiling at his delicate predicament. "Now what do I do?" he asked the distant voyeur, trying very hard not to think about the provocative way Lady Penelope's soft breast curved against his chest.

All the physical urgings he had experienced while lying in his sickbed—the amorous, vaguely nefarious thoughts he'd entertained while watching his beautiful nurse tend to his needs—resurfaced with a vengeance, making it difficult for him to breathe and even harder for him to remember he wanted nothing more to do with this glorious, intriguing woman-child than to be shed of her as quickly as possible, and thus relieved of the complications her accidental advent into his life had caused.

She was an Innocent, an unawakened, unknowing, totally unaware Innocent, and she was more dangerous than any enemy he had ever faced across a battlefield.

His mind fought a swift, savage battle with his body; his common sense declaring war on his sudden, overwhelming need to feel her warm, willing lips once more beneath his questing mouth; her soft, warm body once more pressed close against his hard, straining muscles.

In this way of thinking lay madness, his mind told him reasonably, and for a short while his better self, his saner self, held the field.

He had not, however, sufficient reserves of willpower to repel a sneak attack.

His first inkling that he was engaged in fighting a losing battle came when Lady Penelope's cold little hand, instinctively searching out the warmth that lay beneath his open coat, tucked itself against his upper belly, kneading his silk-covered skin like a kitten preparing to settle itself for a nap. He could feel the involuntary rippling of his muscles as his breath caught painfully in his throat.

Even then he might have saved the day, had Lady Penelope not chosen that moment to look up at him with her brandy-bleared eyes and ask, "You really think my lips are kissable?" After running the tip of her tongue across her upper lip from one side to the other, licking at the remnants of brandy that clung there, she added, "Nobody ever said that to me before, you know. I believe I should thank you. Thank you," she said politely, her smile soft and dreamy.

"Oh, damn!" Lucien breathed hoarsely, mentally waving the white flag of surrender as he used his free hand to tip up her chin before he closed his mind and his eyes, and gave himself over to the unbelievable ecstasy of her mouth.

"Stop that at once!"

Lucien lifted his head, startled, and turned himself toward the sound of snapping, cracking shrubbery in time to see Cosmo Rayburn groping his way through the underbrush as he recklessly pelted toward the small clearing, disregarding the winding path and uncaring of the damage being done to his new evening coat.

"I knew there'd be trouble," Cosmo was saying as a thin branch whipped across his cheek, leaving an angry welt. "Ouch! Damn it all, anyway! 'Leave them alone,' Cyril said. 'Love's young dream,' Aunt Lucinda quoted. Hah! Penny, sit up, for the Lord's sake, and straighten your cloak! What if Papa were to see you? Penny!"

Lady Penelope heard her voice being called as if from a great distance. Blinking furiously, she struggled to focus her eyes on the large dark shape that hovered over her menacingly, but it was too much of an effort, and she allowed her head to rest once more on Lucien's shoulder. "Go 'way," she ordered, waving her hand carelessly in the direction of the voice before tucking it back under Lucien's coat.

"You're slurring quite nicely, pet," Lucien whispered into her ear, somehow seeing some humor in the thing, although he could have cheerfully strangled Cosmo for interrupting him. "Shall we see how you walk?"

Cosmo's eyes appeared to have popped halfway out of his handsome young face. "She's drunk!" he exclaimed, slapping the palms of his hands against his forehead in exasperation. "You've gotten my sister drunk, you—you cad!"

"Oh, grow up, Cosmo," Lucien ordered nastily, remembering the point of the exercise. "She's going to be my wife soon. I can't have a baby for a bride. Penny's going to have to learn to hold her spirits if she's going to live with me."

"Oh, hello, Cosmo," Lady Penelope interrupted happily, finally understanding that her brother had arrived on the scene. She raised her head, and it waved about like a heavy, red-gold blossom on a slender stem as she smiled up at him. "I feel delicious. Ab-so-lute-ly de-e-e-licious."

"Isn't she just darling, Cosmo?" Lucien said, visibly preening as he planted a loud kiss on Lady Penelope's cheek. "My friends in Paris are all going to love her."

"Paris?" Cosmo choked, aghast. "Penny's not going to Paris. Papa says the place is completely decadent.''

Lucien helped Lady Penelope to her feet, noticing as he did that she was becoming increasingly stiff in his arms, alerting him to the fact that her brandy-induced friendliness was soon to become a thing of the past. "Your Papa is not going to have anything to say about it, is he, my dear soon-to-be brother-in-law?"

"I want Doreen," Lady Penelope whined now in a small voice, holding a hand to her mouth. "I don't think I feel very well."

"Of course you don't, you idiot girl!" Cosmo agreed shrilly, taking hold of her arm with some force and leading her, stumbling and weaving, up the path toward the glass doors to the drawing room. "You smell to high heaven of brandy. I can't believe you let him do this to you."

Neither can I, Lady Penelope thought inwardly, not so cupshot that she couldn't remember the searing kiss that had passed between her and Lucien not two minutes earlier. Why is it that every time I get within ten feet of that man, I turn into a mindless idiot? I hate him!

She almost said as much to Cosmo as he and Cyril helped her to her rooms, but remembered Lucien's instructions in time to mumble quietly, "Dearest Lucien, I do love him so," before her brothers gratefully handed her over to Doreen's clucking ministrations.

Later, tucked up in her bed with a warm brick at her chilled toes, Lady Penelope wondered why of all things she could have said, she had said what she had.

Lucien stayed on in the dark garden for a long time after Cosmo and Lady Penelope had gone, thoughtfully smoking a long, thin cheroot and taking an occasional warmth-restoring sip from his flask of brandy as he sat pondering the events of the previous half hour.

He wasn't feeling particularly proud of himself, as well he might not be, for he had just done a very despicable thing. He had plied a beautiful young woman with strong spirits and then shamelessly taken advantage of her when she didn't have all her wits about her. It hadn't exactly been the action of an upstanding gentleman.

Even worse, he rued painfully as he punished himself with his reminiscences, he had thoroughly enjoyed the entire sordid episode. Lady Penelope was the most kissable young woman he had ever encountered, just as he had admitted to her earlier—although he had told himself at the time that the only reason he had said such a thing was to keep her amenable to his plans to sabotage their engagement. Oh yes, he had been a real, first-class bounder, using the situation for his own gain.

Yet he smiled in spite of himself as he recalled how appealing Lady Penelope had appeared in her altitudes, believing that even while slightly in her cups, she was still the most beautiful child he'd ever before chanced to encounter. If he had been on the hunt for a wife, he couldn't imagine another female who so well suited him—not that he was interested in marriage, for he was not.

Lucien's lips thinned as he conjured up a mental picture of Ann Louise, the bride he had taken at the ridiculously young age of eighteen. How gullible he had been, how completely and stupidly infatuated.

Well, he thought now as he had so many years ago, I won't be caught in that trap twice! If I've learned anything, I've learned not to trust in happily ever afters.

Yes, you learned, his conscience agreed, but do you really think you can compare Ann Louise with Lady Penelope?

"A woman's a woman," Lucien dully declared aloud into the quiet night. "My mother, Ann Louise, Philip's Dorinda Redfern, Penelope—they're all the same."

Are they? a little nagging voice inside his weary brain asked quietly as he dropped his head into his hands. Are they truly all the same? Even Penny?

 

* * * * *

The next morning arrived with a watery sun, fresh eggs from the coops, and one very large, very angry man.

"Where is she? Take me to her at once, I command you! Damn it all man, why are you standing there like you was stuffed? Where's my daughter?"

Farnley battled free of the heavy cloak that, moments earlier, had enveloped him like a shroud, the garment having been tossed over his head by the rather large man who had crashed into the foyer (after nearly breaking down the door with his imperious knocking), breathing fire. "Lady—Lady Penelope, sir?" the butler squeaked, blowing at a longish, errant lock of thinning hair which had fallen into his eyes. "Is that who you want?"

"I sure as blazes don't want that quoting widgeon Lucinda—'A word to the wise is enough,' she says. What words, I ask you? She gave me a hundred words, and I didn't understand a one of them. Now where's my daughter? What has that brainless looby done with her? Penny!" he shouted up at the wide stairway. "Papa's here, and everything will be just fine!"

"Papa!" Cosmo shouted, racing down the stairs sans slippers after the sound of his father's voice had rudely blasted him from his bed, where he had been lying, trying to think of some way out of this dilemma. Still tying the sash around his midnight blue silk banyan, he exclaimed, "Thank heaven you've come—although I didn't think you'd be here so soon. I only just sent my letter. Or did you figure out where we had gone off to and follow us?"

"Follow you?" the Marquess repeated belligerently, grabbing onto Cosmo's left ear and pulling him toward the drawing room. "I'll give you 'follow you.' What do you think I am—a bloody puppy dog? I follow nobody. I knew where you and that useless brother of yours were heading the moment I discovered you missing. I wasn't chasing after you—it's Lucinda's ridiculous letter I'm here to find out about. Now, where's your sister? Lucinda said something about some knave sending sheep's eyes at Penny, and some drivel about playing with cats. Is your sister all right? I never should have tricked her into that wager."

"'I've heard old cunning stagers say fools for arguments use wagers,' Butler."

"Lucinda!" the Marquess ejaculated, whirling around to confront his cousin, who had somehow come up behind him without his hearing her. "Still dressing like a looby, ain't you? And wearing paint on your lips—at your age! Shame on you. What have you done with my daughter? Is she all right? She's in some sort of trouble, isn't she?"

"'O most lame and impotent conclusion,' Shakespeare," Aunt Lucinda said admonishingly, wagging her head in the negative while secretly wishing she could bop her insulting relative on his overripe nose. Looby, indeed! She had never thought Philo Rayburn to be any great prize himself, him and his Greeks. Then, turning to Cyril, who had come to stand beside her, his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders, she lamented sadly, "'These are the effects of doting age—vain doubts, and idle cares, and over caution,' Dryden."

"Aunt Lucinda believes Penny to be just fine, Papa," Cyril said quickly, stepping between his aunt and father before the latter could launch a rebuttal. "Cosmo and I aren't quite as sure, but we think she'll be all right."

The Marquess looked from one son to the other, trying to decide whether or not he should take the time to murder them, then allowed himself to be led to a chair as Farnley showed signs of latent brilliance by slipping a full glass of burgundy into the man's hand.

"What's happened?" the concerned father asked yet again, hoping he sounded in control of his emotions. "Your aunt sent me a letter hinting of trouble. It arrived the same day I woke to find you two hellions missing, and I came as soon as I could. Did Penny have an accident?"

"Yes," said Cosmo.

"No," said Cyril.

"Well, sort of," amended Cosmo, looking at his brother.

"Which is it?" Philo asked, his expression furious.

"It's a little of both, actually," Cyril explained, jumping into the breech.

"Truth to tell, Papa," Cosmo went on, balancing from one bare foot to the other as the drawing room floor was rather cold, and he dared not move to the carpet or else put himself within ear-pinching reach of his father. "Penny did have a bit of a mishap on that brute Nemesis. Nothing too serious, you understand, but—"

"Boys! Will you get to the point!" the Marquess exploded, half rising to his feet. How he hated these twin conversations, with both of them saying so much while telling him so little. Besides, he was getting a crick in his neck from looking back and forth between them.

"She took a jump without looking first," Cyril concluded rapidly, believing it was best to start at the very beginning and work his way to their most unsettling news. "She wasn't hurt, but the man racing her got quite a bump on his head."

"Lost his memory for a space," Cosmo cut in, looking meaningfully at his brother as he silently warned him to stick to the story they had decided on earlier—the one that should keep their sister from becoming a widow before she ever became a wife. "He's Lucien Kenrick—Philippos's friend—the Earl of Leighton. He and Penny are betrothed."

The burgundy that had just entered the Marquess's parched mouth exited in a fine spray, dusting his waistcoat with a rash of small, reddish spots. "Married! My Penelope? To that bounder, Leighton? It's one thing for Philippos to run with him, but not my Penelope! Of all the men she could have chosen . . . Lucinda, you twit, how did you let such a terrible thing happen?"