Chapter 11 #2
“I thought that we could go to the village today,” she said, her voice a fraction too bright as Nicholas appeared with his collar straight but his cap slightly crooked. “Past the mill. I believe they’ve finally repaired the bridge.”
Nicholas looked at the south lane. He looked at her. He adjusted his cap, his expression unreadable. “All right,” he said agreeably.
The lane to the village opened up to late-morning sunshine and an unhurried stretch of low stone walls and hedgerows going gold at the edges.
Nicholas rode beside her.
“Mr. Calloway has given me a terrible piece of Latin to translate,” Nicholas said, speaking in the wandering, branching way he did when he was content. “I counted the lines. There are forty-three.”
“Latin builds discipline,” Penelope said.
“I don’t need discipline.” He adjusted his reins without being told, which she noted. They rode in silence for a few moments. Then, “There’s a hare living under the hedgerow by the east meadow. She’s been there all summer. I’ve decided not to disturb her.”
“That’s very considerate of you.”
“She has babies, I think.” A pause. He looked at the passing hedgerow with the casual air of someone approaching a subject sideways. “Mr. Calloway mentioned a book once. About field craft and tracking. He said it was the best one written on it.”
Penelope kept her eyes on the lane ahead. “Did he?”
“It is in Lord Richards’ library. Lady Violet’s father has it.” Another pause. “I thought perhaps someone might ask after it. On my behalf.”
She looked at him. He was watching the road with great composure for a seven-year-old.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said.
Nicholas nodded, satisfied, and moved on to the hare again.
Penelope said nothing more, but she felt a sudden tightness in her chest. She glanced at Nicholas.
He had moved on. She had not. He was seven years old and already the Duke had worked his way into the boy’s thoughts so naturally, so completely, that he came up between a hare and a Latin exercise without Nicholas even noticing he’d done it.
That was what worried her.
The village was warm and quiet, a few carts rattling through the high street and the shops smelling of roasted coffee and new wool. They left the horses at the inn’s post and walked.
Nicholas found a cat sleeping on the draper’s step and crouched beside it in peaceful communion. Penelope stood in the sunlight, her face tipped up to the heat, trying to let the morning settle over her. It took great effort to think of nothing.
“Penelope!”
Violet’s voice cut through the quiet. She was standing outside the bookshop, a paper parcel tucked under her arm and Amelia beside her in a pale blue bonnet that was far too fashionable for a simple morning errand.
“We are doing the rounds,” Violet said as they crossed the street. Her eyes immediately went to Penelope’s face, narrowing as she noted the shadows under her friend’s eyes. She said nothing, but the look was a conversation in itself. “Come with us.”
“I’ve already found three volumes,” Amelia said with a small, satisfied smile.
Violet glanced down at Nicholas. “Have you been to the sweet shop this week, Lord Romwich?”
He kept his expression politely neutral, though his eyes sparked. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”
Violet looked at Penelope, eyebrows raised in a silent challenge.
Nicholas turned to his mother. He didn’t ask; he simply stood there, his barely contained hope so carefully managed it was almost heart-breaking.
“Go,” Penelope said, waving a hand.
He was gone before the word had finished, his boots echoing on the cobbles. Violet followed at a more dignified pace, casting one last, speaking glance over her shoulder.
Amelia appeared at Penelope’s elbow, her presence a calm anchor. “Bookshop?”
The shop was narrow and cool, its shelves built deep into the old timbered walls.
It smelled of vanilla, old leather, and dust. The volumes were stacked two and three deep with the accumulative logic of a place where books arrived faster than they could be shelved.
Penelope moved along the nearest aisle without any aim, her fingers skimming the spines.
“You’re restless,” Amelia said from the far end of the row.
“I am perfectly well,” Penelope answered curtly.
“You’ve been looking at the same shelf for two full minutes without reading a single title. Your thumb is pressing into that spine quite hard.”
Penelope looked down at her hand. She relaxed her grip. “I have things on my mind, Aunt Amelia.”
“I do not doubt it.” A pause, the soft crackle of a page being turned. “You know you can tell your old aunt anything. I’m not as quick with opinions as Violet, but I am a very good vault for secrets.”
Penelope’s mouth curved. “You are too young to be such a wise aunt.”
“I said, old aunt,” Amelia replied.
“I hardly believe that.”
The voice was new. Rich, resonant, and laced with an easy, unforced charm.
They both turned.
A man stood just inside the door, which had opened and closed with a silence that suggested a certain grace. He was perhaps thirty, well-made and relaxed, wearing a dark coat that fit him. His face was open and handsome, his eyes crinkling with a genuine, infectious amusement.
He held up a book.
“I apologize entirely for eavesdropping. I only caught the last of it, but I feel very strongly that the word ‘old’ should never be applied to either of you. I couldn’t simply walk past such a tragedy without intervening.”
He stepped forward, bowing with natural ease. He took Penelope’s hand and kissed it with practiced gallantry. When he took Amelia’s, he didn’t release it immediately. He looked at her directly, his gaze steady and bright.
“Benedict, Marquess of Hayward,” he said. “Completely at your service and not remotely ashamed of my curiosity.”
Amelia’s cheeks went pink. Not a polite, social blush, but a deep, involuntary crimson. She looked caught off guard in a way Penelope had never seen.
“Lord Hayward,” Amelia said, her voice a little breathless. “That is a very good book you’re holding. A rare edition.”
He turned the book over as if seeing it for the first time. “You know it?”
“I have my own copy. Most people find the first chapter tedious, but the second is far better than anyone gives it credit for. It’s the heart of the whole argument.”
Hayward’s face opened into a grin, unguarded and real. “The second chapter! Yes! Exactly right. Nobody ever notices that. They get stuck in the weeds of the introduction.”
He looked briefly at Penelope, warm and inclusive, then back at Amelia as if she were the most interesting discovery he had made in a decade. “How long are you in the area?”
“All season,” Amelia said, regaining some of her composure, though the color in her cheeks remained.
“Wonderful.” He turned to include Penelope fully. “I am actually hosting a ball in London within the month. At my townhouse. I would be very pleased if you would both attend. Bring whoever you like, so long as you are among them.”
He looked at Amelia once more, a look that said the invitation had a very specific intended recipient.
“We would be honored,” Penelope said.
He bowed again, held Amelia’s gaze for a second that lasted precisely a heartbeat longer than was strictly proper, and then he was gone. The bell above the door gave a small, clean note.
The bookshop went quiet, the air still vibrating from his presence.
Amelia looked at the shelf. Her hand rested on a book she hadn’t opened. A small, private expression crossed her face, a flicker of something new, before it was composed away.
Penelope watched her. “He seemed very agreeable.”
“He seemed very forward,” Amelia said, though she didn’t sound particularly offended.
“Both things,” Penelope agreed.
The corner of Amelia’s mouth moved in a tiny, secret smile. She opened her book.
They browsed in comfortable silence for several minutes, the cooling air of the shop settling around them.
Then Amelia said, without looking up from the page, “Brigrock will be there, you know. If Lord Hayward is hosting, he’ll have been invited.”
The shelf in front of Penelope went briefly out of focus. She reached up and straightened a book that was already perfectly aligned.
“I expect he might be,” she said.
Amelia turned a page and said nothing further. Penelope stared at the titles, her heart performing a slow, heavy thud. She realized she hadn’t read a single word on the shelf.