Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
It had been a long day and night and now that the last of the guests were finally filtering from the ballroom, Penelope felt all the energy that had carried her across the evening flee from her body like water passing through a funnel.
“Good night,” she said to Lord and Lady Marlow, waving them from the ballroom as they stumbled together toward the main body of the manor.
“Sleep well, because tomorrow promises to be another to remember.” They were being led by a member of staff, as all the guests were, because by this point in the evening most had likely forgotten where their rooms were… or they were too drunk to find them.
“See you at breakfast,” she said to Lord Westport, who had his arm around his father, helping the drunken earl stumble from the ballroom as he was well and truly into his cups by that point.
“Are you coming?” Evelina and her husband, the Duke of Dunmore were two of the last to leave. “Penelope, you must be exhausted.”
“That doesn’t even begin to describe it,” she admitted.
“See you in the morning?” Evelina asked with concern.
“Not too early,” Penelope laughed.
What surprised Penelope the most was how much she enjoyed playing host. Not that I had much of a choice.
But she had taken to it like she couldn’t have predicted and was so darn convincing that most seemed to think that this right here was her permanent home and that she was the one who had done all the organizing.
Which was true enough. Another fact which niggled at her.
Was Dorian avoiding her because he wanted her to fail so that he did not have to go through with their agreement?
And what would he say when she told him that she had since come to a decision concerning said agreement… one that would change everything.
But that was for later. She was standing by the large doors which led from the ballroom, watching the final guests leave. Her sisters were all gone by then. Barbara had long since retired, an hour or so ago by now, but was sure to thank Penelope and even admit that she’d enjoyed herself.
And it was just as she watched the last lord and his wife turn down the hall and vanish from sight that she sighed with relief, ready to stumble to her room, collapse on her bed, and put this day behind her.
Or that was the plan, save for one mitigating circumstance.
“We need to talk.” From out of the darkness, Dorian emerged.
Penelope was too tired to feel surprised. And too worn through to lean toward anger. She saw him coming, she exhaled with apathy, and then she started to walk around him. “I told you, we have nothing to talk –”
“You’re wrong about that.” Dorian stepped in front of her, blocking her exit. “And you know that you are.”
“Is that so?” she scoffed.
“You’re upset with me,” Dorian said.
She rolled her eyes. “That is where you are wrong. I was upset with you… for so many things. But I have since changed my mind, coming to a new realization.”
“Which is?”
Penelope made sure to be looking at him, just as she made sure not to let her emotions show.
“I don’t care. I did for some time. I… I thought that I needed to.
I was confused and unsure and I wanted answers, Dorian.
But now…” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what you say, because there is nothing left to be said.
You might be my husband, but we are hardly married, and what you choose to do with yourself doesn’t concern me one little bit. ”
Her words clearly struck a chord with Dorian. He leaned back as if she had slapped him, confusion and pain flashing behind his eyes. “Penelope, what happened last night –”
“I told you, I don’t care.”
“You do care,” he pressed on. “Telling yourself otherwise makes no difference, just as it won’t make it go away. Please, if you will just let me explain myself. You owe me that.”
Dorian was half-right, and Penelope hated that he was.
Where she had since resigned herself to the inevitable truth, convincing her subconscious that she did not care, she knew just as well that there was a part of her that still did.
When she went to see Dorian last evening, it wasn’t done on a whim or because she was bored. She went to him because she had started to develop feelings, and she wanted to know if they were returned.
And for a few glorious seconds, she thought that they were.
In those seconds, when their lips had locked and their bodies had entwined, she had realized that her desire for a child wasn’t born from the need to be a mother, but the need to fill the hole inside of her.
And that hole, as gaping as it was, could just as easily be filled by Dorian.
That is what I have been missing. Companionship… even love. If he accepted me in that moment, I wouldn’t have cared if he could give me a child. Giving himself to me would have been enough.
She was well past that point by now.
“Owe you?” she scoffed. “I don’t owe you anything. You are the one who…” She sucked through her teeth, trying desperately not to let her anger get the better of her. “Is there not somewhere else you need to be? Perhaps there is a young redhead that you should be entertaining?”
“Ah, so that is it.” Dorian looked at her flatly. “You are not angry at me, but jealous.”
“I really am not.”
He laughed. “Do you know what I think? I think you are just as unsure as I am, and when you saw Henrietta with me today, you were secretly relieved.”
“Relieved!” she cried. “Why would I be –”
“Because it gave you an excuse,” he spoke over her. “I admit that I have not been the best of husbands. And I admit that I have confused you, baited you and let you go – made you question what I want. But you, Penelope, have been just as confusing. Do not pretend otherwise.”
“Me!” Penelope’s heart began to pound, frustration flooding her. “I was –”
“More than happy to pretend as if this marriage meant nothing for three years,” he cut her off. “More than happy to tell me how little you thought of me when you did return. Proud, it seemed, that you wanted nothing to do with me. So please, do not pretend as if this is all me.”
“And what of last night?” Penelope glared at her husband, refusing to back down. “Did I confuse you then? Was I not clear in what I wanted?”
“If you remember, I was the one who kissed you.”
“As you were the one who pulled away.”
“For which you have not given me a chance to explain myself.”
“I am here, aren’t I!” she cried, throwing her hands in the air. “Explain away, please. Tell me why. I am all ears.”
Penelope did not want to hear his explanation. Not anymore. She had done, earlier today, last night, most of this evening if she was being honest. But as the day had worn on, as she’d thought more about it, a decision was reached and from that she would not budge.
It hurt to admit, but Penelope decided that what she was feeling for Dorian wasn’t love or companionship or anything that might suggest they could work as husband and wife.
It was loneliness, manifesting itself as emotional compatibility.
She was feeling empty, Dorian was a chance to fill that hole, and she’d allowed herself to believe that with him she might finally be happy.
But her problems ran far deeper than that. And her purpose… Dorian won’t fix it, and nor will having a child. They are bandages where stitches are required, because the wound that torments me is deeper than I am willing to admit.
“I… I was surprised,” Dorian attempted. “Not expecting you to… my sister –”
“Is your excuse for everything!”
“She is not an excuse!” Dorian snarled. “She is my everything. She is why I have done all of this!” He gestured with his hands to the ballroom. “She is why I have spent the last three years… all I do… it is for her. And I thought you of all people would know that.”
“That isn’t an answer,” Penelope said. “It is, as I said, an excuse.”
“Penelope…” Dorian’s expression softened.
The anger fled him. He fixed her in a gaze that spoke of sadness, laced with further confusion because despite his efforts to explain himself, he still did not know what he wanted.
“I didn’t pull away because I don’t… because I don’t feel anything for you. You must know that.”
“How can I possibly?” her voice softened also, the anger gone, resignation taking over.
Slowly, Dorian reached out and took her hand. He held it and squeezed it and she felt that familiar warmth spreading through her. Only this time, rather than accepting it, she forced herself to fight it back.
“I am sorry,” he said.
She shook her head. “You are allowed to be sorry. But what you are not allowed to be is surprised that I… that I don’t want anything else to do with you.”
Dorian winced. “What does that…”
“Let me ask you this,” Penelope began. “Say your sister does find a suitor this weekend. Say she does fall in love and gets married and establishes a home of her own. What happens then? What will you do once she leaves?”
The question brought fear to Dorian’s face. She saw it flash behind his eyes, and she felt it in his grip on her hand as he started to shake. “I… that doesn’t… once that happens, ask me then.”
She sighed and then, ever so gently, pulled her hand free. “And that is the point, isn’t it. You don’t know what you want and I’m not going to wait around to find out.”
“What…” Dorian hesitated, leaning back as her words settled on him. “What does that mean?”
“It means, Dorian, that once this party ends, I’m leaving. Going home. And once I do, I don’t expect to ever hear from you again.”
“Penelope…” He could not have looked more confused. “What about… you and… our agreement? The child. Do you not want…”
“No,” she said, her voice hardly a whisper. She felt her chest crack, a knife plunge through the opening and right into her heart. “Or rather, I have come to realize that a child won’t fix anything. That…” She laughed bitterly. “That wound runs far too deep.”
And that was the decision she had come to, one she had hoped she wouldn’t have to tell Dorian until after the weekend ended. Where a part of her still wished for a child, she felt that the act of conceiving the child would make things worse than they already were.
Better to go home, forget about this weekend and all that had happened, and work on herself. Whatever that means.
“No.” Dorian took her hand again. “You can’t… I won’t let you leave.”
She frowned. “What does that mean.”
That was when Dorian came for her. He pulled her into him, his spare hand moving to her waist and holding her tight, face bowing down and lips puckered as he moved for her lips.
There was a moment… a brief second… Penelope thought to close her eyes and accept the kiss.
All the reservations she had about Dorian, the decision she had come to, the belief that they might work was he to give them a chance, and she very nearly forgot them because she wanted that kiss more than she wanted anything.
But she fought against that urge. Not because she wanted to but because she thought it was the right thing to do. As hard as that was to admit.
“No!” Penelope pulled away and pushed Dorian back. “Don’t…”
“Penelope…” He half-moved to take her again, unsure now, fighting with himself it looked like to her. “I… is this not what you want?”
She sighed and looked away. “Even if it is, Dorian. It’s not what you want.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Then why don’t I believe you?” She forced herself to look at him one last time and she saw the doubt filter behind his eyes.
Maybe he did want it. Deep down, maybe he was trying to be honest with himself for a change.
But he was still unable to admit it to himself fully, and she wasn’t about to let herself in so he could hurt her a second time.
He said nothing. And she wasn’t in the least bit surprised.
Bowing her head, Penelope walked around Dorian and left the ballroom behind. She thought for a moment that she saw movement, possibly him coming after her. A slight turn of the head and it was nothing, her eyes playing tricks.
A deep sigh and she continued through the house and toward her room. She told herself that she had done the right thing and this was for the best, but it was a bitter truth to swallow.
And as she climbed into bed and pulled up the covers, she could not decide if what she had just done was indeed the right thing, or if it was a terrible mistake. A chance presented, turned down, and for that she would be alone forever.