Chapter Twenty-One
Selina had stood in the entry to the house for far longer than Mortimer had expected, barring his way, until he finally convinced her to let him in.
He should have been angry, but he couldn’t manage it, not when he remembered what he had said to Penelope.
Selina was just protecting her, as any good friend should.
She was a better friend to his sister than he had ever been.
It was time to humble himself, to apologize, and he did.
“I have come to beg my sister’s forgiveness,” he said, meeting Selina’s eyes directly. “I am very sorry for what I said and did. Please let me speak to her.”
She looked startled, and then not sure if she believed him or not.
“Please,” he repeated.
Maybe it was his expression or the tears in his eyes, but Selina nodded and stepped aside. “She is upset right now. Not about you,” she added quickly. “But she needs her brother. Don’t disappoint me,” she added in a harsh whisper.
As he climbed the stairs to the sitting room, Mortimer told himself he could be the brother he should have been for all these years. He could show Penelope that he was a changed man. He opened the door.
She was seated, and her head was bent into her hands.
She was crying! At first Mortimer was shocked—he could not remember the last time he had seen her cry.
His first instinct was to turn and run—he had never been very good at dealing with painful emotions—but then he was ashamed of himself.
This was not the time to fall at the first hurdle.
If Pen was going to forgive him, then he needed to start acting like her devoted brother.
“Pen?”
She startled and dropped her hands, turning to him. He could see her face was blotched and her eyes red, before she hastily looked away, pretending to straighten some cushions.
“M-Mortimer! My goodness. What are you doing here?”
He didn’t bother answering. Instead, he hurried over to her and dropped to his knees at her feet.
Just for a moment he was reminded of doing something like this when he was a child, gazing up at her like she was everything to him and as if there was nothing bad she could not mend.
The memory made him feel a little sick when he thought he might have lost his sister forever.
Her face was still turned away, and he took her hands in his, feeling how chilled they were.
In fact, the whole room was chilly. Was she economizing on coal again?
He glanced over to the hearth and saw the scuttle was empty.
She used to do this years ago, whenever she was worried their pennies would not stretch far enough.
“Pen, I am here to apologize. I am so sorry. I was an oaf. A selfish, horrible oaf. Like the goblin in that story you used to read to me. Do you remember? Please forgive me.”
She looked at him and managed a wobbly smile. “I do remember, and of course I forgive you.”
“I am so glad,” he said with obvious relief. “The things I said to you . . . I don’t think I could live with myself if you didn’t forgive me, Pen.”
She squeezed his hands. “Well, I do. What has happened?” she added, searching his face for clues. “What has Uncle Bertie done?”
He longed to tell her about Bertie and his heartless behavior, but he hesitated.
Penelope probably already knew what their uncle was like.
She had been trying to warn him about it for years.
So instead of moaning about his own bad fortune, he said, “What has happened to make you cry? That Scots brute was outside just now. What has he done to you?” he added, ready to set off back down the stairs and challenge the fellow to a duel. No matter how big he was.
But Pen shook her head. “It’s not his fault,” she said gloomily.
“I forgot my most important rule when it comes to clients and allowed myself to—to fall in love. Don’t worry, I will get over it.
” She nodded jerkily and added in a determined voice, “I have to, despite feeling so wretched. I am so glad you’re here, Mortimer. ”
Mortimer remembered the look on the brute’s face and thought he hadn’t appeared to be very happy either. Was this a case of star-crossed lovers? Or a serious misunderstanding?
He got up from his uncomfortable position on the hard floor and sat down beside his sister. “Do you want me to punch him for you?” he asked seriously. “I’ve been practicing since the last time. I go to a boxing club one day a week.”
She stared, and then she gave a choked chuckle. “No, no violence today,” she said. “Let’s eat cake instead. Selina!”
Selina must have been waiting outside the door because she answered at once. She gave Penelope a thorough examination, and whatever she saw must have satisfied her doubts. She smiled, and then smiled at Mortimer, too.
“Well now,” she said, “I have orange cake or seed cake, which is it to be?”
“Both!” they shouted and then fell about laughing as if they were children again.
*
Selina was smiling as she went to fetch the cake. She was so glad that Mortimer had apologized, and Penelope had her brother back again. It would make it much easier for her to take up Angus’s offer and leave with him.
She stopped. Was she really considering abandoning her friend? How could she walk away after all this time? They had so many memories between them, good and bad. Could she really be so selfish as to put her own pleasure first?
And yet Selina reminded herself that this might be her last chance to find the sort of happiness that was denied her when her fiancé was killed.
And it wasn’t like she was clutching at Angus because she saw him as her last chance.
She loved him. He was big and strong and forceful, but he was also gentle when it mattered.
She had no fear of lying down with him in their marriage bed, and if there were to be children .
. . probably not. She didn’t expect there to be, but she rather thought that having Angus at her side would be enough.
She could see no regrets in throwing in her lot with him.
Apart from leaving Penelope.
She would have to tell her, and soon. Not right now perhaps, but once the ball was over tomorrow night and Callum MacKenzie had begun the process of choosing his wife.
Why hadn’t Penelope been brave enough to marry Callum? Selina knew he wanted her to, and had probably been about to propose when Penelope made up her story about a new client and everything being rosy. Which was why she had been sobbing.
Surely it was worth Penelope taking a chance. But all she could see were the thunderclouds ahead, and none of the sunshine.
Selina arranged the slices of cake to her satisfaction and was about to carry the plate through to the sitting room when the door knocker sounded.
She clicked her tongue, and leaving the food, hurried back down the stairs. Perhaps it was Angus, she thought, her spirits brightening. But it was not Angus. It was a servant holding a message.
“Is this the residence of Miss Armstrong?” he asked in the sort of voice Selina always thought put on.
“It is. What do you want?”
He looked taken aback at her plain speaking and held out a thick, cream envelope. “My mistress wishes her to have this.”
By the time Selina looked up from the sender’s address—Lady Agatha Hamlyn—the servant was gone. She carried the envelope and the cake into the sitting room.
“This came for you,” she said, handing the impressive looking object over to Penelope.
It didn’t take her long to read, and when she was finished, she looked up at Mortimer and Serina, her eyes blank. She swallowed. “I don’t know whether to be relieved or angry,” she said. “Shall I read it to you both?”
She didn’t wait for an answer.
Dear Miss Armstrong,
My son is in need of the services of someone who can teach him proper behavior for a young man entering Society.
He was brought up in the depths of the country and has no idea how to comport himself.
I have asked my acquaintances for the name of an appropriate person, and they speak of you as the only one they believe up to the task.
I am fully aware of your unfortunate reputation, and the idea of contact between you and my son is repugnant to me.
And yet I feel I have no option if my son is to flourish in the world he was born to.
Please visit me at your nearest convenience so that we can discuss the matter.
Lady Agatha Hamlyn
“Well!” Selina said, wanting to snatch the nasty letter back and throw it in the fire—although Penelope’s economizing meant that was nothing more than a faint flicker.
She was glad to see that hearing Lady Hamlyn’s letter had turned Mortimer’s cheeks pink with righteous anger on his sister’s behalf.
“How dare she!” he declared. “Tell her no. On second thoughts, throw it away and don’t answer. She doesn’t deserve your civility.”
Penelope gave a little laugh that was more like a hiccup. “And what then?” she asked wearily. “I need her. I need the money she will pay me when I have remodeled her son into the perfect gentleman and ladies are flocking to him. That is what she wants and I can do it.”
“But Pen . . .” he gasped.
“What is the alternative?” she interrupted.
He opened his mouth, closed it again. “I am so sorry, Pen,” he whispered.
The next moment they were hugging, and Selina wiped a tear from her eye. There was an alternative, and she longed to voice it, but Penelope would refuse to listen. She set down the cake and left them to their emotional reunion.