Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“Well?” Penelope asked. Her husband was staring at her in a state of stunned silence that continued to stretch without any sense it would end. “What do you think? Say something.”
“I…” Dorian gave his head a shake. “I don’t know what to… you are being serious?”
“I am.”
“No.” Another shake of the head. “You… you can’t be. This is a joke. Surely, this is…” His brow furrowed as he looked at her, eyes narrowed together in search of the truth to her words. “Tell me the real reason. Enough games.”
“I am not playing games,” Penelope assured him. “I want a child, and you are the only person in this world able to give me one. Now, do we have a deal or don’t we?”
The duke looked at her with the same sense of bewilderment he had worn since she first asked the question. And then, likely because his body was flooded with nervous energy, he stepped around her and started across the foyer.
“Where are you going!” she cried after him.
“I don’t know!” he reached the front door but did not throw it open. Rather, he turned around, his frown deepening, and he started in the other direction. “This doesn’t make any sense. Where did this come from?”
“From where I am standing, it makes perfect sense.”
“From where I am standing you look to have lost your mind!”
“Why?” Penelope had no choice but to hurry across the foyer and step in front of him, forcing the duke to heal. “Why is it so strange? Why is it such an odd thing that I want a child?”
“Because… because…” He looked about them as if for an answer. “Our marriage… it is not exactly conducive for raising children.”
She laughed. “Is that your concern? I am a duchess; I can afford nannies and governesses and the rest. I do not expect you to help me raise the child.” She scoffed.
“Obviously not. But you left me alone, husband, for three whole years. My father is dead. My sisters have families of their own. My friends are marrying – I have nothing to live for, nobody in my life save the staff. If I want a child, I feel that you owe me that much.”
What a sad truth that was to admit. A sad truth, but a truth nonetheless.
Penelope had been doing much thinking these past few months, brought about when she had started to feel what amounted to an emptiness inside of her. Oh sure, the first few years of her married life were fun enough, and she was resigned to the life she’d been given. But it grew old quickly.
She was not such a fool to think that she would find happiness in this marriage. Dammit, she did not want such a thing. But with her father’s gnawing absence, the emptiness in her grew steadily. Perhaps she could fill it with a child of her own.
Someone to care for. Someone to love and look after. A reason for living that only a child could give her. And when the duke sent her that letter—or she’d thought he sent the letter—the realization struck her like a bolt of lightning.
It might not have been the most elegant solution to her problems, but it was the only one she had.
“You are being serious…” The duke slowly found calm, his green eyes searching her for the lie and finding none.
“Deadly serious,” she responded.
“But you hate me.”
“I told you, I don’t.”
“Well… you should,” he said as if that thought annoyed him. “I abandoned you. I left you alone. I… I… I deserve for you to hate me.”
“Is that what you want?”
Where Penelope knew that she had changed much these past three years, she was not surprised to find that the man she married and had known for such a short time had not.
He was still the same hulking specimen who she had seen that first day standing at the end of the aisle waiting for her.
Tall in stature, thick in limbs, dark hair, severe features that were sharp and a little too perfect, a brooding quality that he carried like a weight around his neck.
But it was his eyes that she focused on, finding the same sadness hidden in them.
In three years she had soothed her own anger and calmed her own fears, yet he was still struggling with whatever it was that had brought him here in the first place. What that was? She couldn’t even guess.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I suppose I just assumed as much.”
“Would you blame me?” she chuckled.
“Not even a little bit,” he said, exhaling sharply. “As I said, I expected it.”
She exhaled too, doing her best to keep the situation relaxed.
“I don’t wish to talk about what you did or why you did it.
The truth is, I don’t care.” That was a half-truth at best, but it was needed for now.
“I am not here to judge you, to make you pay, or any of that. What I want is what I believe you owe me. That is all.”
“In exchange for helping me to organize this party?”
“If that is what it takes.”
He chuckled bitterly. “She said this party wouldn’t be worth the trouble.”
“Who said?”
He waved her down. “It doesn’t matter who. You are right, however. I am hosting a house party in the coming weeks. And it is turning into a nightmare of epic proportions.”
“Sounds as if you need my help.”
He did not respond immediately.
For the first time, Dorian appeared to understand her offer, just as he became willing to consider it. His heavy brow furrowed once more and he studied her closely, his mind at work as he put pieces together beyond her understanding.
He is going to say yes. I can feel it. Although why do I suddenly feel as if this is a bad idea…
“I will make you a deal,” he said finally. “You will help me organize this party – help being the operative word. It is my event, and it will be done my way. Assuming that you do as I ask, and to my satisfaction, then I will give you what you have come for.”
“A child,” she said.
“Yes…” He held her stare, his expression serious and daring. “A child.”
Penelope allowed herself to exhale with relief. This had always been a huge gamble, and there had been no telling what the duke would do or say. That he agreed, that she was getting what she wanted… she felt excitement rise inside of her, the emptiness of her life abating slightly.
Would I call that feeling happiness? The sense of purpose I need so badly? Possibly, although it is too early to say.
“Thank you,” she said, meaning it. “Am I to assume we start right away? I have brought my things, because clearly I will need to stay here throughout the course of the following week. If you might show me to my room, and have the staff unpack my carriage. That would be lovely.”
“You have come prepared.” Dorian frowned again, as if this news troubled him. “And thought quite a bit about this, it seems.”
“I have.”
“I wonder…” Dorian’s eyes flicked over her, curious and assessing. “Just how much you have actually considered what you ask?”
Penelope frowned. “I… quite a bit, I will have you know. I wish for a child and –”
“And I am the only one capable of providing it, yes.” He seemed to stand a little taller, more confident than he had been. “Clearly, you do not hate me as I thought. If you did, surely you would not be willing to go through with such a thing.”
“Having a child?”
“What is needed to have one…”
It took Penelope a moment to understand what he meant. She was frowning… only for her eyes to widen. At the same time her skin flushed with warmth, her stomach dropped, her breathing turned heavy. Even the room seemed to spin a little.
“I… I… I…” she stammered as the implication became clear.
“Something for you to consider,” he said simply, no emotion, no sense that he was trying to bully her or call her bluff. No sense that he cared one way or the other, truth be told. “I wonder if it will change anything.”
He held her stare. Penelope, eyes still wide, found she could not look away.
She was reminded suddenly of the first time she saw him, the way his eyes pulled her, trapped her, made the world around her vanish because all she could do was look into those deep eyes as if the world existed in them only.
For three years, Penelope had done well to not think about her husband. Now, it was all she could do to think of anything else.
She wanted a child, and that would not change. But what she would need to do to have one… that was a new consideration that had not struck at her until now. And now that it had, it was hard to fathom how she felt and if this idea was nearly as sound as she had assumed.
What was worse, the duke seemed to realize this. Just as he seemed to enjoy it.
“I’ll have the staff come find you.” He broke their stare and Penelope gasped.
“If you need anything…” He turned and started across the foyer.
“I believe I said it best the last time we spoke. Anything you need, the staff can help. And if I need you…” Reaching the staircase, he turned back to look at her a final time.
“I will send for you. Other than that, assume I wish to be left alone.” With that he started up the steps, leaving Penelope where she was, still gawking stupidly.
It was done. A plan made, acted on, and achieved. And for that, Penelope was glad.
However, the way her body was shaking, how flushed her skin felt, and how she struggled to control herself whenever she pictured the duke’s eyes trapping her, suggested that this little plan of hers was not nearly so clever as she once thought.
And this was only the beginning.