Chapter 6
Chapter Six
The morning sunlight spilled across the polished oak of the breakfast table in Romwich Hall, turning the steam rising from the tea service into shifting, translucent gold ribbons.
Penelope sat perfectly still, her spine a rigid line against the velvet upholstery of her chair.
Across from her, Nicholas sat with his shoulders hunched toward his ears, his small frame radiating a heavy, silent gloom.
He systematically shredded a piece of crust into a pile of pale, jagged crumbs, his gaze fixed downward on the intricate patterns of the table linens as if they held some secret map of escape.
“Nicholas,” Penelope began. Her voice was soft, barely a murmur, but it carried a fine tremor she couldn’t quite smooth away.
She reached for the teapot, her fingers brushing the silver handle.
“You cannot keep running off to His Grace’s estate.
I understand Hector is your friend, but you cannot keep doing this.
It is dangerous, and he is losing his temper with us both when it happens. It is unfair to him, and to me.”
Nicholas’ posture snapped into a rigid, defensive line. “I’m not doing anything wrong,” he muttered, the words coming out quiet and sad as he used his spoon to push the shredded toast into a messy heap. “I was only playing with Hector.”
Penelope took a slow, measured breath, pressing her knees together under the table to stop them from shaking.
“I know, darling.” She kept her voice steady, though her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. “But Hector belongs to the Duke. You cannot just run off there whenever you wish. It is inappropriate, and not to mention that you have been told you are not welcome there.”
She tried to soften her voice at Nicholas’ angry little pout, but it was true. The Duke had made himself clear.
Nicholas’s brow furrowed, a deep crease appearing between his eyes as his lower lip protruded in a sharp, trembling pout.
“It is not fair,” he said, his voice rising with a sudden, jagged edge of frustration.
“There is no one else to play with, and you know how lonely I get!” He gestured vaguely toward the window, where the vast, empty countryside stretched toward the horizon.
“All I do is study with Mr. Calloway. I don’t have any fun. ”
Penelope felt the guilt pierce her, a sharp physical ache in the center of her chest.
She reached for her tea, wanting the warmth, but her hand shook so noticeably that she pulled it back into her lap. She hid her trembling fingers in the heavy, silk folds of her skirts, her nails biting into the palms of her hands.
“Life is not always about having fun, Nicholas,” she said. “I am not trying to punish you. I am only trying to keep you safe and follow His Grace’s direct orders.”
She tried to inject a firmness into her tone, the kind of authority a Dowager Countess should wield, but the words felt hollow and thin in the quiet room.
Nicholas pushed back from the table, the chair legs screeching harshly against the polished floorboards with a sound that made Penelope wince. He threw his linen napkin down; it landed like a crumpled white flag of surrender in the center of the table.
“I do not care!” he cried, his voice cracking with the onset of tears he refused to let fall. “I cannot play with Hector, and I cannot play with anyone else. I don’t even have anyone to talk to except you and Mr. Calloway! And you will not go on adventures or run around with me.”
“No, but we can paint together,” she said hopefully. “Or ride. You love your horses.”
“I know, but I cannot do that forever,” Nicholas sighed. “I do not see why His Grace cannot let me just have some time with Hector. I am certain we can convince him, Mama.”
Penelope glanced down at her tea, wondering how to go about it, until an idea struck her.
“Then if it is a dog you wish to play with, how about I get you one of your own?”
Before she had even asked the question she had hoped would bring a smile to her son’s face, Nicholas was shaking his head.
“Hector is the only dog I want to play with.”
His face was flushed, a hot, angry red creeping up from his collar to his hairline.
“There’s no one my age here.” He paced a short line near the table, his small fists clenched at his sides.
“Painting and riding is nice, yes, but what about hunting? All the men do that! I want to hunt. I want to do manly things.”
Penelope’s chest tightened until it was difficult to draw air into her lungs.
Manly things.
Her mind flickered involuntarily to Malcolm.
The corded, powerful muscle of his neck, the predatory grace of his long stride, and the silvered, jagged map of the scars that marked his skin.
The thought of the Duke’s dark influence leaching into her son’s innocent spirit sent a sudden, cold chill through her blood.
“I am doing the best I can, darling,” Penelope said softly, standing.
Her voice trembled, the sound of it fracturing in the sudden, oppressive quiet of the morning room.
“I do not know how to help beyond what I have already said, but you must promise me that you will not go back to His Grace’s estate. ”
Nicholas didn’t answer. He glared at her, his eyes shining with unshed tears of rage, his jaw set in a line of iron stubbornness.
With a final, sharp intake of breath, he turned on his heel.
He stormed out of the room, the heavy oak door slamming behind him with a force that rattled the teacups in their saucers.
Penelope sank back into her chair, the sudden silence of the house pressing down on her like a leaden weight.
She stared at the pathetic pile of toast crumbs on Nicholas’s plate, her stomach turning.
She had tried to build a fortress of propriety and distance to keep him safe, but the walls were only making him claw to get out.
Not only that, but she could not do all the things a boy should have been able to enjoy with a father.
He was right: she could not hunt, nor could she teach him how to shoot. There were too many things she could not do, and Charles’ comments rang in her ears.
Do you not think it is about time he looked up to me? He needs someone to show him how things are done. Surely you see that?
She pushed her plate away, the smell of the coddled eggs suddenly nauseating. She could not let Charles win, but the thought of her son spending his days so lonely was unbearable.
The gentle sound of the tea kettle whistling in the background felt like a distant, ghostly memory to Penelope.
She sat at the small round table in Amelia’s drawing room, her mind a thousand miles away, anchored in the dark woods of Brigrock Hall. The conversation swirled around her like a mountain mist, but it all felt as though it was happening to someone else, not her.
Amelia was speaking animatedly about the latest novel she’d finished, her voice rising and falling in excitement as her hands moved in small, fluttery gestures.
Across the table, Violet stirred her tea with a slow, rhythmic clink-clink against the porcelain, her hazel eyes fixed on Penelope with a bemused, searching look.
“I must say,” Amelia was saying, leaning forward until her lace collar nearly dipped into her cup, “the plot twist was utterly brilliant! Who would have thought the seemingly innocent heroine would become the villain?”
Penelope nodded absently, her fingers tracing the delicate, gilded rim of her teacup over and over. Her gaze was locked on the pale amber liquid, but she saw only Nicholas’s defiant face from breakfast.
Penelope saw the loneliness in his eyes. A hollow, dark thing she couldn’t fix with paints or stories like she’d once been able to.
“Penelope?” Violet’s voice cut through her thoughts, sharp and pointed as a needle. “You’ve been quiet. What do you think of the novel?”
Penelope blinked, her gaze flickering over to Violet. She forced a smile, the muscles in her cheeks feeling stiff and foreign. She tried to shake off the mental image of the Duke’s broad shoulders and menacing scar.
He would know how to do those manly things with Nicholas, she thought, but that didn’t entirely sit comfortably with her.
“Oh, yes,” she murmured, her voice sounding thin. “The… the heroine’s big reveal near the end at the… at the ball. Quite a turn of events there, was it not?”
Violet’s raised eyebrow told Penelope everything. Violet didn’t miss a single stumble, and she certainly hadn’t missed Penelope’s distracted manner.
“Really, Penelope,” Violet sighed, her voice teasing but laced with a sharp edge of concern. She set her spoon down. “You cannot even keep track of a novel’s plot? I dare say you are hardly yourself today.”
Penelope’s hand froze over her teacup. She hadn’t even realized she’d been so obvious. She cleared her throat, her gaze dropping to her lap where her fingers had unconsciously twisted the fabric of her silk skirts into a wrinkled mess.
“I apologize, ladies. I have been terribly preoccupied.” Penelope’s words felt hollow, even to her own ears.
“We happened to notice,” Violet giggled. “Could it be ever since you ran into a certain Duke?”
Penelope’s face flushed with warmth. She couldn’t bring herself to explain. How could she confess that the Duke of Brigrock had invaded her thoughts like a recurring fever?
“Oh, Violet, do not tease her.” Amelia narrowed her eyes at their friend before glancing curiously toward Penelope. “Unless… that is true?”
The two of them were entirely too perceptive. Penelope cursed her own inability to manage her expressions, and how her silence seemed to only make her more guilty of their suggestion.
And, yes, the Duke was residing in her thoughts, but she was also troubled by what had happened with Nicholas. She had never had issues with her son before, and he had always been a good boy.
Now she had been forced to take away his freedom—freedom he’d been seeking for weeks.
Penelope exhaled slowly, the breath shuddering out of her.
She set her teacup down with a trembling hand and leaned back into the velvet cushions of her chair.
She wanted to avoid this, she needed to.
She wasn’t ready to speak of the Duke, or the guilt that felt like a weight in her lungs.
But looking into their expectant faces, she couldn’t bring herself to lie anymore.
“I have been thinking about Nicholas,” she began slowly, her voice tinged with a thick layer of guilt.
“He… he is lonely, and it has taken me so long to see it, and I feel terrible. He has no children to play with, and no father to look up to or be guided by. That is why he was running off to the Duke of Brigrock’s estate just so he could play with His Grace’s dog.
” She paused, her throat tightening. “I just don’t know how to make him understand why that’s not right. I…”
Penelope faltered, her thoughts swirling into a dark vortex. Amelia’s hand squeezed her arm.
“Penelope, I know you worry about him,” Amelia said softly. “But you cannot shield him forever. Nicholas needs a male influence in his life, or he could grow up…”
“Apart from the world,” Violet finished, her voice gentle.
Penelope nodded, her lips pressed together until they turned white. She didn’t want to admit it, but they were right. Nicholas was outgrowing her bubble of safety.
“I just don’t know what to do,” Penelope confessed, her voice barely above a whisper.
Her hands clenched in her lap. “He keeps asking why he cannot go hunting. Why he cannot do the things the other boys do. It is as though he’s already growing up faster than I feel ready for.
And I… I cannot let him be around the Duke.
I just can’t. I don’t trust him. Not to mention, Nicholas is not welcome there, and His Grace made that clear, but Nicholas cannot see that. ”
A long silence stretched through the drawing room, broken only by the steady ticking of the mantle clock.
“Perhaps…” Amelia’s voice was hesitant but firm. “Perhaps you could take him to Lord Hillsborough’s estate for the pheasant hunt, then? Notoriously, it is attended by many gentlemen, and he will have good, male influence, and see what he can do. It would give him a chance to have what he lacks.”
Penelope’s heart clenched, a physical spasm behind her ribs. “The pheasant hunt?” she asked, her voice shaking with disbelief. “With all those men? What if His Grace also attends? What if he loses his temper around Nicholas?”
Violet leaned forward, her expression more serious than Penelope had seen it in a long while.
“Even if His Grace is there,” she said carefully, “so will a great many other men. Nicholas would be well looked after, Penelope. I am certain sure they will make sure he stays safe. No harm will come to him, and I do recall you once saying he is growing up to be an excellent rider. He could learn a few extra skills.”
Penelope’s mind raced, her thoughts colliding with her fears. The thought of sending Nicholas into a field with guns and men was terrifying. But she knew Nicholas needed adventure. He needed to grow beyond her.
“I suppose it is worth considering,” Penelope said slowly, her voice heavy with hesitation. She smoothed her skirts with a restless hand as she sighed. “I just do not know what to do anymore. I feel as though I am failing him.”
Violet reached across the table and gave Penelope’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “You are not failing him, Penelope. You are doing the hardest thing of all: letting him grow up.”
Penelope didn’t know if that was a comfort or a threat.