Chapter Two
Somewhere in Mayfair
Lady Penelope Needham heaved a sigh as she collapsed backward into the squabbed bench of her brother’s well-sprung closed carriage.
“Please tell me that we are finished shopping,” she said, and if there was a dramatic tone in her voice, she didn’t care.
They’d visited at least six shops in Mayfair already, to buy things that just weren’t needed.
Because her mother had the insane idea of encouraging her—shoving her—back into society to catch a man.
“Yes, of course, but there are a few things I still would like to procure.”
“Today?” If she had to “pop” into one more shop, she might act out on the pavement like an over-tired child in leading strings.
“No. It can wait, or I can send my maid to do it.” Her mother eyed her from across the narrow aisle as the carriage slowly rolled through Mayfair.
A light snow fell outside, which would have made a charming scene except for the conversation.
“You know, dear, you shouldn’t frown and slouch so much.
It plays havoc with your posture and will give you premature wrinkles.
” Her mother tsked her tongue. “And you’re not getting any younger, so you should try to preserve your looks for as long as you can in order to attract a second husband. ”
“As if two and thirty is ancient.” That didn’t make her sit up any straighter on the bench. “Besides, I’m a widow, Mama. I don’t necessarily need another husband.”
“Of course you do, dear. Since your brother hasn’t started courting a lady—and doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to do so—you are the easier one to marry off, and perhaps then you can start filling a nursery, which wasn’t an apparent goal of yours while married to Weymouth.”
A stab of pain went through Penny’s chest. “I had no control over that.”
Her mother huffed as she turned her head to glance out the window. “If you would have let the marquess bed you more often than you did, you would have had at least three children during the course of your marriage.”
The heat of embarrassment and anger mixed within her body. “None of that is true.”
Her parents had arranged the union between the marquess and her, so at the age of nineteen, she had wed a man who was one of her father’s contemporaries.
It had been her first marriage, of course, but Weymouth’s second.
The age difference wasn’t the only insurmountable issue in that union.
He might have still had his looks, and he had wielded a bit of power throughout the beau monde, but when it came to carnal matters in the bedroom, she was destined for disappointment.
They only came together physically once a month, and even that hadn’t guaranteed she’d walk away satisfied.
It wasn’t that he was terrible at bedding a woman, it was just that sometimes, he had difficulties maintaining an erection, which had made things horribly awkward and quite embarrassing for the both of them.
The times that he was able to go through with the act, it was nothing special or even exciting.
It just… was. Over the course of her eleven-year marriage, Penny could count on one hand the number of times she’d been sent flying.
And two of those had been by her own hand.
Beyond that? The other disappointment was that none of those couplings had resulted in a pregnancy.
Though she suspected the marquess had been sterile—or else his equipage had just been too old—she’d not experienced the joy of having children or being a mother.
That theory had been strengthened by the fact he’d not reproduced with his first wife either.
Honestly, when he’d perished in a hunting accident two years prior, it had been a relief to her.
Had she loved him? That could go either way on any given day.
She had held affection for him borne of familiarity after being in the same household for so many years, but it wasn’t the wild, romantic love she’d always read about or heard of from her friends.
There were never feelings of drowning in a man or being consumed by him.
Over the years, the marquess had become a companion of sorts, a lovely man with lovely manners, raised in a different era so to speak and with ideals that were different from her own.
The sound of her mother’s huff brought Penny out of her thoughts.
“It’s scandalous that you never had children with the marquess. His title and worth were one of the reasons your father convinced him to marry you in the first place.”
“Yes, well, perhaps instead, you should have asked him if his seed was actually viable,” she shot off, without thinking.
When her mother gasped, Penny waved off the comment as if it didn’t matter.
“I apologize for the outburst, but you must know that being married to a man who proved sterile was a bit of a disappointment to me.”
“For shame, Penelope. Don’t speak ill of the dead.”
Penny frowned once more and peered out the window at the passing townhouses, brushed lightly with the falling snow.
“Well, you certainly didn’t wish to hear it when he was alive.
You always assumed it was my fault. Still do, in fact.
” She tightened her fingers on the strings of her reticule and gave into a shiver, for it was quite cold in the carriage.
The warming brick for their feet had lost its warmth hours ago, for February was always such a bleak month.
“And I also won’t speak about how he didn’t bed me more than once a month in the whole of our marriage, because that might cause you to faint away in shock. ”
“Why must you be so indecent?” her mother muttered.
“Why must you think everything wrong about my marriage was my fault?” She kept her gaze out the window.
“Weymouth and I had nothing in common except for Papa. The only thing he loved more than his title and everything that came with it was hunting. All kinds of hunting. I couldn’t abide it, thought it barbaric and horrific. ”
“It is what men with country estates and hunting boxes do, Penny. It’s a matter of national pride and luxury.”
“It’s disgusting.” She shook her head. “Be that as it may, I spent many years being lonely in a union I never wanted to begin with. I didn’t have the joy of having a Season, of being introduced to society, of dancing or laughing among my friends.”
“Yes, because your father and I spared you from all of that. The point of a Season is to find a match. We gave you that, which meant you didn’t need society’s help.” Her mother frowned. “And how ungrateful are you to criticize being handed a marquess who came bearing multiple engagement gifts?”
“I didn’t want any of that, Mama.” Well, didn’t want as much of it as Weymouth lavished on her.
So much so that a few times a year, she went to pawn shops all over Town and sold a handful of pieces.
Then she donated the money gained to good causes—orphanages, hospitals for returning veterans, homes for the elderly, or groups that taught women from the lower classes to read.
“I only ever wanted love and a family.” Both of which the marquess didn’t give her.
Whether he was incapable or it or he simply didn’t care, no one would know, and it didn’t matter now. He was gone, and she was free.
She gained more love and praise from the causes she supported than she’d ever had from Weymouth.
“You’ll marry again. I am going to work with your brother to find you a second husband.” Her mother nodded and clasped her hands together in her lap as if that settled it.
“If I marry a second time, I’ll do so for love; I already married out of familial obligation and duty.
Quite frankly, I am done with that. If you want more of the same, badger Johnathan.
” It was time for her brother to have a taste of responsibility, finally, especially since he was the earl now.
She was done being bullied by her parents.
“Don’t be disrespectful, Penny.”
“Yet it’s just fine for you to be the same toward me?
Making me do things that I never consented to?
” She shook her head. “I’m a woman grown who knows her own mind.
Since I’m out of mourning, I’m going to do things for me, for my own enjoyment, to chase my own dreams, and if you can’t support me in that, so be it. ”
Even better if some of those things came with scandal attached. She’d been cheated out of that too in her younger years.
“Don’t be silly, dear. You are just out of sorts. Once you have a nice cup of tea and some biscuits, you’ll be in a better frame of mind to talk about this.”
Penny sighed but said nothing, for her mother believed if anyone was having “fits” it was due to lack of tea. Of course, her mother also thought men were the superior sex of the species, and that it was a woman’s lot in life to enhance their ambitions—personal, societal, and political.
She’d yet to find a man she’d want to sit with her in the quiet times, to support her, listen to her ideas, or to bed her with any sort of authority.
“I don’t know about that, but I wouldn’t mind the tea.” After that, she planned to mope, because it was her right. For too long, she’d had to remain strong and pretend nothing had been wrong. All for the sake of reputations and her image in society.
Her mother shifted on her bench. “It’s my hope that both you and your brother will marry before the year’s end.”
“That’s a tall order and one heavily based in fate and luck.”
“Be that as it may, I wish for grandchildren as well. Life is far too short to act selfishly and put off these things.”
“It’s not selfish, Mama, it is merely how life is at times.” Except with her brother. He’d had ample opportunities to marry, but since he preferred freedom and his mistress more than responsibility, he was acting with selfishness.
It must be lovely to have been born a male.
“Hmph,” was all her parent said in return.
The remainder of the drive to the townhouse was accomplished in silence.
*