Stomach knotted, eyes hot with humiliation, Penelope eased her gig through the gates and onto the lane that passed by Frithgerd, following a mounted stable boy holding a lantern. The head groom had insisted on sending this escort, saying milord wouldn’t like it if they let her go off on her own, and Penelope hadn’t been foolish enough to argue. She’d never driven alone at night. Fortunately the lane was familiar, and her horse steady. Reassured by the light ahead, he clopped placidly along. Unfortunately, that left her free to remember how Lord Whitfield had practically shoved her away. She’d offered herself to him, and he’d refused! Her cheeks burned. The look on his face… What had it been before he turned his back? Disapproval? Revulsion?
Penelope’s nails dug into her palms. Propriety! Men used the rules to manipulate others, and then ignored them when they became inconvenient. She’d thought Whitfield was different. She’d been feeling so close to him, after reading those letters together. She’d assumed he felt the same. Hadn’t she learned by now never to assume? Hadn’t a host of assumptions fallen about her ears over the last year? People she trusted had abandoned her. Rights she’d relied on had proven flimsy as wet paper. And now this man she’d come to care for—yes, she had to admit it—had turned away. Miss Pendleton he had called her, as if that girl still existed, and yet he’d wanted to sneak her out of the house like a disreputable secret. Where had she gotten the ridiculous idea that she could ever have what she wanted?
The stable boy raised the lantern higher, illuminating the turn at her own road. Penelope guided the gig onto it.
What could she have? He’d taunted her with her birth. Yes, a baronet’s daughter was an acceptable, if not brilliant, match for him. But her brother’s disgrace had altered everything. Perhaps that was it. He’d realized that a connection to her would taint him as well. Society wouldn’t reject a viscount, but they would titter and whisper. And if he had any political ambitions… Penelope made a throwaway gesture. Her pride, trampled and tattered though it was, reared up and rejected that picture. He was right. No sort of liaison was possible. She would erase the idea from her mind.
Penelope blinked. She was not going to cry. She was done with tears. Determination, independence, anger—these were there to sustain her.
Rose Cottage appeared ahead, its stone walls pale in the light of a half-moon. Penelope drove her gig around to the barn, thanked the stable boy, and endured Foyle’s scold as she climbed down. Kitty gave her more of the same when she went inside, piqued that her mistress had gone visiting without her. Penelope promised never to do so again and escaped to her bedchamber. There, tossing down her shawl, pulling off her bonnet, she looked at the familiar furnishings, a bit large and grand for her new dwelling. She was lucky to have this refuge. Things might have gone so much worse for her. She ought to be grateful. She was. Yet it was so hard not to yearn for an impossible more.
* * *
In a cozy parlor at Frithgerd, at that moment, the Earl of Macklin was curious and restless. To a man used to the bustle of London society, or of large country house parties, the place seemed very quiet. His book didn’t hold his attention. Instead, he was staring at the open page, wondering what mysteries preoccupied his host and their pretty neighbor. Beyond the obvious, of course. Was he wrong to leave them so often alone? Miss Pendleton wasn’t his responsibility. Whitfield was his main concern. And she’d made it clear she didn’t want advice from him. Yet she excited his ready sympathies as well. Her situation was unusual, perhaps more than she knew.
Arthur sighed, closing his book. Interference didn’t come naturally to him. Among his family, he generally waited to be asked for aid before stepping in. His impulse to help a set of young men visited by grief had surprised him. He smiled. It had surprised everyone who knew anything about it and mystified countless others who didn’t. A duchess whose renowned summer house party he’d skipped this year was convinced he was concealing a scandalous intrigue. One old friend had asked if he was ill; another had posed oblique questions about financial reverses. Arthur’s “disappearance” from his customary haunts kept tongues wagging even now. On top of that, helping had proven more complicated than he’d imagined. Still, the transformation of his nephew in the spring had been extremely satisfying.
Buoyed by that thought, Arthur set his book aside and made his way to the estate office. He discovered Whitfield there on his own, hunched over the perennial litter of papers on his desk but not reading any of them. Arthur spoke his name twice, with no effect. Finally, he tapped the younger man on the shoulder. Whitfield lurched upright as if he’d been struck. “You were a thousand miles away,” said Arthur.
“Not quite so far.” Whitfield looked like a man who’d sustained a stunning blow and was struggling to recover.
“Miss Pendleton is not here?”
“She went home some time ago.” He checked the mantel clock as if calculating the interval.
Arthur surveyed the scattered letters and notebooks before him. “Are you making progress?”
“Ha, we’ve wandered into the realm of fantasy. Further in, I should say.”
“What do you mean?”
Whitfield sat straighter, visibly gathered his faculties, and tapped the notebooks. “It seems that my mother was a spy.”
“What?”
Arthur’s host launched into a tangled story of codes and correspondence. “So we’ve solved the mystery of the Rose Cottage legacy,” he finished. “But we’ve uncovered another.” He frowned down at the desk. “Or a fairy-tale adventure. There seems little mystery about it.”
“May I see this key?” Arthur asked. Whitfield handed it over. Arthur ran his eye down the page, compared phrases in one of the notebooks, then another. He was puzzled, then astounded, then concerned. “I think you should put these in your strong room until we can make some inquiries.” He examined the younger man’s blunt features. “If you will allow me? I have a trusted friend who would know if there’s anything in these speculations.”
“Castlereagh?”
“An associate. Better able to keep things quiet.”
Whitfield hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, I would like the truth. As soon as possible.”
“I’ll draft a discreet inquiry. We can send a messenger tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
Arthur waited for more. When none came, he added, “Miss Pendleton is very clever.”
“Not as clever as she thinks, perhaps.”
“What do you mean?”
“A pair of fools,” Whitfield muttered.
“You and I?” Arthur knew he hadn’t meant this, but he wanted to hear more. Whitfield was obviously laboring under a weight of emotion.
“What? No.”
“You and Miss Pendleton then?”
“What are you suggesting?” The younger man’s tone had gone belligerent.
“Suggesting? Nothing. Wondering? A good deal.”
Whitfield glared at him for a fiery instant. Then he looked down, his jaw tight, fists closed. “Damn it all,” he said. He pushed his chair back so hard it nearly toppled over, then sprang up and strode from the room.
He’d forgotten his mother’s notebooks and their revelatory code. Arthur gathered up the pile and carried it to his bedchamber, where he made use of the key in the writing desk there to lock all away until they could be transferred to the estate strong room. Sitting down to write the promised letter of inquiry, he wondered uneasily about the prospects for a truculent viscount and the ruined daughter of a baronet.
* * *
Penelope didn’t return to Frithgerd the following day, nor for several days after that. She received Henry Carson at Rose Cottage and conferred with him on the progress of work on the bath. She attended to her own affairs, baked an apple tart with Kitty and Mrs. Hart, joined the dogs on their patrols of her property. And through it all, she tried not to think of her beguiling neighbor. Without the least vestige of success.
Her mind was full of him—bent over estate records, chasing goats, cutting pastry with boyish concentration. And kissing her, of course. Caressing her until her senses swam. And lastly, refusing her advances.
That word burdened her when she thought of their most recent encounter. It made her cheeks burn. What did he think of her now? That last was terribly important, because—left alone to reflect—she’d realized that she cared very much about his good opinion. About him. The stark truth was, she’d fallen in love with her unexpected viscount. And she wanted much more than stolen passion.
Walking with the dogs, she would fall into a daydream of a future with him, smiling at the notion that she was better at running his estate than he was. He would admit it. Indeed, that was part of his charm. He had no difficulty doing so. On the other hand, he was more at ease in the world. He could show her the way to go on among notables like Lord Macklin, who still intimidated her a little. And so they would pass their days. Then there were the nights, of course. She couldn’t leave out the nights. Dreams of his touch haunted her sleep. She would happily spend her life with Lord Whitfield. Daniel.
At this point, her fantasy always came tumbling back to earth. No one was talking about marriage. The idea, which would have been implicit had they met at a round of ton parties, had never arisen. He wasn’t thinking of it. She shouldn’t be. And even if he did, it was impossible. Yoked to her social ruin, Whitfield would be pitied at best, rejected at worst. Penelope knew how it felt to have acquaintances edge away, turn their backs. She’d had a bitter taste of that when she moved out of her father’s house. She wouldn’t bring such a fate down on him. And was she to give him his cottage back as a dowry? Every feeling revolted. She needed to become accustomed to the life she had, rather than some castle in the air. If she worked at it, she would find contentment in her lot. And she would not yearn. She refused to yearn!
On the following day, however, the object of these reveries came to see her.
“I beg your pardon,” Whitfield said when she opened the front door.
He clearly hadn’t expected her to answer his knock. But Kitty had walked to the nearby farm for milk and eggs. Foyle had taken the gig into the village to look for some bit of ironmongery he needed. Penelope no longer had the scope, or the staff, to turn away visitors with the fiction that she was not at home. The pretense would be ridiculous without the insulating layers of a great house. No, he was here, and they were alone together.
Whitfield strode into her parlor and stood before the fireplace, slapping his riding gloves against his leg. As usual, the room seemed smaller with him in it. His energetic presence filled the space, even as it eased an ache in Penelope’s heart. A joy that she shouldn’t have allowed to take root expanded in her chest. She was so very glad to see him. Dangerously glad.
Daniel shifted from one foot to the other. It had been only a few days since they met, but he’d missed her dreadfully. The estate office seemed dusty and vacant without her stimulating presence. The construction project had lost its savor. He’d had to see her. And now he didn’t know what to say. The memory of their last encounter vibrated between them. He’d made a mistake. And yet he’d done the right thing. He was having difficulty reconciling those two facts. Of course he’d had to refuse when she’d offered to stay. No tinge of dishonor could be allowed to touch her. But oh, how he wanted her! He’d thought of nothing else ever since. One part of him called the rest an idiot for missing the chance to make her his own.
She stood there looking at him. The lovely lines of her face and form were so familiar now. She’d become an integral part of his world. She hadn’t asked him to sit. This was all her fault for speaking their longing out loud. They should just go back to the way they’d been. And was pretending that he didn’t desire her with every fiber of his being really what he wanted? Damn this confusion. If he’d lost her, he didn’t know what he was going to do. “Some of the things I said the last time we met were…inappropriate.”
“Which things would those be?”
Of course she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. She never did. Daniel realized that, oddly, this was one of the things he liked most about her. Which didn’t help him come up with an answer. “Those that implied that I have any right to dictate—”
“We completed our task,” she interrupted.
“Task?”
“We found the information we were looking for,” she said.
“Information?” Yes, just keep repeating a word from her sentences like a dashed parrot, Daniel thought. That made a fine impression.
“About Rose Cottage, why it was left to me. That was the reason we began. And we have succeeded.”
“So now that you know, you’re abandoning me?”
“Abandoning?”
He’d gotten her doing it. She looked incredulous. But all that Daniel could think was that she was going to leave him. He had to stop her. “You said you’d help me set the estate records in order. You promised.”
“‘Promise’ is rather an overstatement.”
“And the bathing chamber. You said you’d supervise.”
“I can consult with Carson from here.”
“You like to see each step of the process for yourself. You said so.” He had to find the right argument to keep her. There had to be one.
“I think it’s not wise for me to be at Frithgerd. You as much as said so yourself.”
“But I’m an idiot.” His thoughts were muddled by the attraction she exerted—like the swift current of a river about to hurtle over a precipice. They were alone in the house. She could run to his arms, demand more of those intoxicating kisses. He would never be able to refuse her again.
To his everlasting relief, she laughed. “You do know that you should hire an estate agent,” she said. “A really competent one since organization is not your forte.”
“Forte,” he repeated before he could stop himself. He loved the way she spoke.
“Not one of your natural skills.”
“I know what the word means.” It wasn’t the vocabulary. It was the style.
She nodded. “There’s no shame in admitting that one’s particular talents do not lie in…certain directions.”
For some reason, this innocuous phrase filled the room with heat. Daniel’s thoughts went in the direction of lusciously fulfilled desire, and he was certain that hers did as well. But they mustn’t talk about that, or she would withdraw again. “Fortunately your talents do.”
She blinked. He’d made it worse. “I need you,” Daniel blurted out. And clamped his teeth on the last of the phrase. He hadn’t meant to say that. All at once, he felt exposed. People hurt you the most when you admitted this.
Penelope felt a pang. Her guest sounded wounded. There was no mistaking the set of his lips, the flicker in his brown eyes. The desire to comfort him was nearly overpowering. “You must see that I cannot—”
“Cannot?”
She very nearly said, “Spend more time with you when I can’t have you.” The words jostled in her brain, tangled on her tongue.
Whitfield stepped closer.
She would have so enjoyed setting that mass of paper in order. Sorting it had been a deeply satisfying process. But Frithgerd was none of her business. Lord Whitfield’s engrained, rather endearing inefficiency was not her affair. The longer she held on, the harder it would be when all was ended by, for example, the arrival of a lovely new viscountess in those chambers she’d frequented. But the concern in his eyes—and something that looked very like tenderness—was too much. “All right,” she heard herself say.
He leaned closer. “All right?”
“I did say I would help you. With the records.”
The relief flooding his expression was nearly palpable. “You did.”
“So I…I will.”
He smiled. “Splendid. Wonderful.”
He looked so very glad, as if her agreement had filled him with joy. Elation flooded Penelope. She couldn’t help it. Perhaps a fleeting pleasure was better than none at all?
“But I mustn’t—”
Whitfield was interrupted by a chorus of barking behind the cottage, followed by shouts and then a metallic clatter. Penelope turned automatically toward the window, but she couldn’t see the barn from where she stood.
“What the deuce?” her guest said.
She needed to ask him what it was he mustn’t do. But the barking intensified. So did the shouting. He started toward the door, and she followed.
They found Jip and Jum poised before the entrance to the barn, hackles raised, voicing defiance. A few feet away, Kitty was toe-to-toe with a boy, trying to wrest a large stick from his hands. An overturned basket spilled eggs at their feet.
After a moment, Penelope recognized the boy as the goatherd Sam Jensen. Which was a puzzle. She’d thought the goat problem was solved. The flock had returned several times after the dogs’ arrival and been chased away. It was some time since they’d appeared. So what was Sam doing here?
Whitfield went over and took hold of the stick, pulling it away from them. “What is all this?” he said.
“He was going to hit Jip and Jum,” replied Kitty indignantly.
“I come to get the goat they stole away.”
“Stole?” said Penelope and her visitor at the same moment.
Penelope turned to the hounds and said, “Quiet!” Heeding the voice of authority, the dogs stopped barking. They continued to eye Sam Jensen balefully, however. “Sit,” said Penelope. They did so.
“We don’t come in your garden no more,” the goatherd said. “Nor on your property at all. But we have to pass by sometimes.” He sounded aggrieved.
“Don’t see why,” said Kitty.
“There ain’t no other way to go,” replied Sam. “And your dogs got no call to give me the evil eye. When I got back to the farm yesterday and found I was a goat short, I knew they’d took it.”
“More likely you lost it,” said Kitty.
“I looked everywhere!”
“Couldn’t have.”
“I did! All the places we went. And why are they so keen to keep me out of the barn?”
“Because they’re good watchdogs,” said Kitty. “They don’t let anybody skulk about.”
“I wasn’t skulking!”
Penelope looked at Jip and Jum. Had they eaten a goat? That would not do. It would, in fact, be a serious problem. “Wait here,” she said.
Whitfield set the stick down and followed. The light was dim inside the barn, but when she peered into the stall where Jip and Jum slept, Penelope glimpsed a patch of white. Heart sinking, she went closer. A small spotted goat, perhaps four months old, gazed placidly up at her. When she stepped nearer, it stood and came to meet her, sniffing at her outstretched fingers. Whitfield’s horse looked on from the next stall, benignly curious.
Penelope ran her hands over the little animal and found no hurt.
“What is it doing in here?” asked Whitfield.
“I have no idea.” She picked up the goat and carried it out into the yard.
“I told you,” cried Sam as soon as she appeared.
Jip and Jum jumped up and came to push at her legs, as if to herd her back into the barn. As an experiment, Penelope set the goat down. Immediately, the hounds’ attention turned to the little creature, pushing at it to go inside. The goat butted playfully at them in return as it complied.
With Whitfield once again at her heels, Penelope followed the three into the barn and watched Jip and Jum chivy the goat into the stall and resettle it. They then lay down on either side, tongues lolling, looking quite pleased with themselves. She turned to find that Kitty and Sam had joined them. “What’re they about?” asked Sam.
“They seem to have adopted a goat,” replied Whitfield.
The boy gaped up at him. “Adopted?”
“Like a stray pup you find in the street?” asked Kitty.
Sam shook his head. “I never heerd of such a thing in all my born days.”
“Neither have I,” answered Whitfield. “But I believe the evidence is before us.”
They all gazed at the three animals.
“They can’t keep it,” said Sam. “I got to get it away from them.” He stepped closer, eliciting a deep growl from Jip.
Penelope put out a hand to stop the boy. “Wait.”
“They stole it,” he protested.
“I wonder if there’s some strain of collie or sheepdog in their bloodlines,” said the viscount.
Penelope met his gaze. His eyes were dancing. She was also suppressing a laugh.
“Them are foxhounds,” said Sam. “They ain’t supposed to do no herding. And I’ll be in trouble over that goat. I got to have it back.” He moved toward the stall. Both dogs rose and growled.
“Perhaps your master would sell it to me instead,” said Penelope. She ignored a choking sound from Whitfield. “He does sell goats sometimes, doesn’t he?”
“Now and then.” Sam couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from the stall. “But you’re saying you’ll buy a goat for your dogs? That’s daft.” He ducked his head. “Begging your pardon, miss.”
“When you put it that way, it does sound odd,” Whitfield said.
“So let’s not put it that way,” replied Penelope. “Just ask your master what price he wants, will you, Sam?”
After a bit more staring, Sam went off to inquire. “You wouldn’t think Jip and Jum would like those devil eyes,” said Kitty. “What are they going to do with a goat?”
“My question exactly,” said Whitfield, his voice brimming with humor.
“I wonder, rather, why they added the creature to the things that they guard,” replied Penelope, contemplating the new member of her household. The goat’s eyes were indeed very different from the steady brown regard of the dogs.
“They recognized it as their own,” said her guest.
Shaken by the intensity of his tone, Penelope made the mistake of meeting his gaze. And then she couldn’t look away. Breathing suddenly seemed far more difficult.
“Because they all have black and brown spots on their backs?” asked Kitty. She squinted. “Huh, the shapes are alike.”
“Perhaps that’s it,” said Penelope when she could find her voice.
“There’s a brindled cat over at the farm,” Kitty added. “I wonder if they’d take to her, too?”
Whitfield laughed. The sound—deep and warm and easy—seemed to shiver across Penelope’s skin. It drew a grin from Kitty, who showed no sign of going about her duties.
The sound of hooves heralded a vehicle approaching the barn—Foyle returning, no doubt. Half an hour ago, she’d been noting her lack of staff, Penelope thought. Now there seemed to be all too many of them. She led the way outside and found her conclusion correct. Foyle had returned. Moreover, Mrs. Hart sat beside him in the gig.
Kitty went to crouch over her fallen basket, exclaiming over one broken egg. “But I couldn’t let Sam hit Jip, could I?”
Foyle drew up in front of them. He scowled at Lord Whitfield. “What are you all doing out here?”
“Jip and Jum have a-dopted a goat,” Kitty told the newcomers.
Foyle turned his glare on her. “What sort of nonsense are you spouting now, girl?”
As Kitty related events, Foyle climbed down and turned to help Mrs. Hart. “And so we’re buying the goat,” the girl finished.
Foyle frowned at Penelope. She shrugged and nodded. The man shook his head as if he thought himself surrounded by lunatics.
Mrs. Hart reached into the gig for a bundle set behind the seat. “I’ve brought the chicken,” she said. “Mr. Foyle passed me walking and kindly offered me a lift.” When Penelope said nothing, she added, “You wanted to learn how to pluck fowls, miss.”
“The deuce you did!” exclaimed Lord Whitfield.
Mrs. Hart’s interested gaze shifted to him. “I’ve said over and over that I’m happy to do it myself, my lord.”
“I’m sure you have.”
Foyle turned his scowl back on the visitor. Kitty, too, seemed to be waiting for some intriguing new twist in their ridiculous saga.
“I should be on my way,” Whitfield said.
Under the current circumstances, Penelope had to agree. As she watched him ride away, she was acutely aware that she hadn’t found out what he mustn’t do. But she vowed that she would.