Chapter 18
“The silver must be polished before Thursday. All of it. Not merely the pieces we use regularly—the full service, including the epergne and the candelabra from the east dining room.”
Alastair leaned against the doorframe of the morning room, arms crossed, watching his wife conduct what could only be described as a military operation.
Penelope stood behind the writing desk with a posture that would have impressed a brigadier general, a ledger open before her and a quill in hand.
Three servants stood in a row before her like soldiers awaiting inspection.
Mrs. Keating hovered at the periphery, her expression caught between respect and the faintest flicker of amusement.
“And the linens, Your Grace?” the youngest housemaid ventured, her voice pitched barely above a whisper.
“The linens from the guest chambers are to be aired, pressed, and inventoried. Any that show signs of wear should be set aside for mending. I will inspect them myself tomorrow morning.” Penelope made a precise notation in her ledger.
“The window casements in the library have not been cleaned to standard. I noticed dust along the upper frames yesterday. I should not need to notice such things twice.”
The housemaid bobbed a curtsey so deep she nearly disappeared.
“The menu for the week requires amendment as well,” Penelope continued, consulting a separate sheet of paper.
“Cook has been quite heavy-handed with the cream sauces. We shall have plainer fare at luncheon—broth, cold meats, something sensible. And the roses in the front hall are wilting. They should have been replaced this morning.”
She looked up, scanning the assembled faces with the exacting eye of a woman for whom good enough had never been an acceptable standard. No warmth left her expression, but no cruelty entered it either. She was not unkind. She was simply—mercilessly, exhaustingly—precise.
“That will be all. Thank you.”
The servants filed out with visible relief. Mrs. Keating lingered long enough to exchange a glance with Alastair that communicated volumes, then followed.
Penelope bent over the ledger again, her quill scratching with industrious purpose.
She had not acknowledged his presence, though he was entirely certain she knew he was there.
Penelope Hartwell—Penelope Reed, he corrected, though the name still sounded odd even inside his own head—always knew where he was.
Just as he always knew where she was. An inconvenient awareness that neither of them had the good sense to discuss.
He watched her a moment longer. The morning light caught the furrow between her brows, the rigid set of her jaw, the way her left hand pressed flat against the desk as though anchoring herself to the task.
She wore a high-collared dress that seemed designed to repel any suggestion of pleasure, and her hair was pinned so tightly it looked painful.
She was, he thought, the most beautiful commanding officer he had ever seen.
“You know,” he said, “Wellington himself would weep with envy.”
Her quill paused. “I beg your pardon?”
“The Duke of Wellington. Hero of Waterloo. I suspect that if he’d witnessed the precision with which you just marshalled those housemaids, he’d have surrendered his commission on the spot and begged you to take his place.”
“How very droll.” The quill resumed its march across the page. “I am merely ensuring the household runs as it should.”
“You are ensuring the household runs as though the King himself were arriving for supper.” He pushed off the doorframe and moved into the room. “The silver, Penelope? All of it? We have enough silverware to furnish a small palace. Who, precisely, are you polishing it for?”
“For propriety’s sake. A well-maintained household reflects—”
“Upon its mistress, yes, I’m aware. You’ve mentioned this.
Several times. Quite possibly in your sleep.
” He stopped at the edge of the desk, close enough to read her ledger upside down.
The entries were meticulous—each item noted in her small, precise hand, every task assigned and scheduled with the rigour of a campaign strategy.
“Good God. Is that a timetable for the laundering rotation?”
A flush crept up her neck. She covered the page with her hand. “Someone must take these matters seriously, since you clearly do not.”
“I take many things seriously.”
“Name one.”
He opened his mouth, paused, then grinned. “I take my breakfast very seriously. And my brandy. And I am told I take an uncommonly serious approach to the art of doing absolutely nothing.”
“My point precisely.” She dipped the quill with a sharp, decisive motion. “If I left the running of this household to you, the servants would be playing cards in the drawing room and the silver would be green with tarnish.”
“But they’d be having a marvellous time.”
“I am not interested in marvellous times. I am interested in order.”
He studied her—the tight shoulders, the white-knuckled grip on the quill, the way she hadn’t looked directly at him once since he’d entered the room.
This was what she did when the ground shifted beneath her.
When something unsettled her—the nursery, the near-kiss, Hyacinth’s knowing stare—she retreated into control.
Into lists and timetables and the polishing of silver nobody would use.
As though enough discipline could build a wall around whatever it was she refused to feel.
He recognised the strategy because he’d spent a decade perfecting its opposite. Where she sought control, he sought chaos. Where she tightened her grip, he released his entirely. Two sides of the same cowardice, dressed in different clothes.
“When did you last do something for no reason at all?” he asked.
The quill stopped. “I don’t understand the question.”
“Something purposeless. Something that served no practical function, impressed no one, ticked no boxes on any ledger. Something purely, entirely, stupidly enjoyable.”
She looked up at him then—finally—and the bewilderment on her face was so genuine it made his chest ache.
“I enjoy many things,” she said, though the words sounded rehearsed even to his ears.
“Such as?”
“Reading. Embroidery. Managing household accounts—”
“You just listed three forms of productive labour and called them enjoyment.” He sat on the edge of the desk, ignoring her scandalised glance at his proximity to her precious ledger.
“Penelope. When did you last laugh for no reason? Run somewhere? Do something foolish simply because the afternoon was warm and you were alive and the world did not require you to be useful for five bloody minutes?”
Her mouth opened. Closed. The flush had spread from her neck to her cheeks.
“I do not need lessons in frivolity from a rake.”
“Clearly you do, because you’ve just used the word frivolity as though it were a criminal offence.
” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Life is not meant to be endured, duchess. It’s not a ledger to be balanced or a household to be managed into submission.
At some point, one must actually live it. ”
“And someone must think about consequences whilst others are busy living.” The quill hit the desk with a snap.
“Someone must ensure the house is maintained and the staff are directed and the baby is fed and the accounts are settled, because if everyone simply did as they pleased whenever they pleased, nothing would function. Nothing would hold together. Nothing—”
She caught herself. Her breath was coming faster now, colour high in her cheeks. Gone was the composure she so often prided herself on.
“Nothing would be safe,” he finished quietly.
The word landed between them. Her jaw tightened.
“One afternoon,” he said. “That is all I ask. No lists. No duties. No silver-polishing or linen-inspecting or menu-amending. Just one afternoon where you allow yourself to exist without a purpose.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s pointless.”
“That’s rather the idea.”
“Because I have responsibilities—”
“Which will survive three hours of neglect, I assure you. The linens will not spontaneously combust. Mrs. Keating has managed this estate long before either of us arrived. Rose is napping. Hyacinth is no doubt writing letters to men she pretends not to care about.” He held her gaze, and dropped his voice.
“You are allowed to set down the weight, Penelope. Just for an afternoon. I promise the world will still be standing when you pick it back up.”
She stared at him. He watched the war play out across her features—duty against desire, control against the terrifying prospect of release. He’d seen that same war in his own mirror often enough.
“If I agree,” she said slowly, “and I am not agreeing—merely considering the hypothetical—what would this purposeless afternoon even involve?”
The grin that split his face was entirely involuntary. “Do you ride?”
“You know perfectly well that I ride. I rode to the assembly.”
“Sidesaddle, in a habit, at a pace that would bore a carthorse.” He stood and extended his hand. “I meant properly.”
She looked at his outstretched hand as though it were a lit fuse.
“This proves nothing,” she said, even as her fingers closed around his. “I am merely demonstrating that I am perfectly capable of wasting an afternoon. I shall be thoroughly bored, and you shall owe me an apology.”
“If you’re bored, I’ll polish the silver myself.”
“Every piece?”
“Every cursed piece.”
Her hand was warm in his. She hadn’t let go. Neither had he.
“Fine,” she said. “One afternoon. But if a single piece of silver shows tarnish upon my return, this experiment is over.”
He led her from the morning room before she could change her mind, through the corridors and out toward the stables, where the afternoon waited.
The groom saddled two horses without question, though his eyebrows performed a journey of their own when Alastair requested the mare rather than the sidesaddle.
Penelope stood rigid beside him, arms folded, looking exactly like a woman who’d agreed to her own execution and was determined to face it with dignity.
Then they were riding.
Not the careful, measured trot she’d maintained on the way to the assembly—but an actual ride, fast enough that the wind pulled strands from her ruthless updo, fast enough that her careful composure couldn’t hold against the sheer physical exhilaration of speed.
He kept pace beside her across the open parkland, watching from the corner of his eye.
She held the reins with more skill than he’d expected. Her seat was natural, confident—someone had taught her well, long before propriety had convinced her to slow down. They crested the hill above the south meadow and he pulled up, letting his horse blow, and she drew alongside him, breathless.
Her cheeks were flushed. Her hair was a disaster. And she was trying—visibly, valiantly, and completely unsuccessfully—not to smile.
“Well?” he said.
“Well what?”
“Are you bored?”
Her mouth pressed into a line. The smile leaked through the edges of it anyway—a helpless, involuntary thing that transformed her entire face. She looked, for the first time since he’d known her, like a woman who’d forgotten to be careful.
The sight hit him somewhere beneath the breastbone with the force of a closed fist.
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that you’ll never let it go,” she said.
“I will never let it go regardless. You might as well confess.”
She looked out across the valley—green and gold in the afternoon light, the estate spread below them like something from a painting—and he watched the tension drain from her shoulders, watched her spine soften, watched her breathe.
“It’s beautiful here,” she said quietly. Not to him, exactly. More as though the admission had escaped before she could lock it down.
“It is,” he agreed.
He was not looking at the valley.
That evening, long after she’d retreated to her chambers and the house had gone quiet, Alastair sat alone in his study with a brandy he didn’t want and the memory of her smile lodged beneath his ribs like a splinter he couldn’t reach.
It meant nothing, he told himself. A ride. An afternoon. Nothing has changed.
But when he closed his eyes, all he saw was Penelope on the hilltop—hair undone, cheeks flushed, smiling without permission—and the careful lie crumbled before it had even finished forming.