Chapter 9
Penny woke slowly, feeling far too comfortable to want to stir. She was safe, warm, and protected, and she never wanted to leave this bed. She had a slight headache from the previous night’s excess of cider, but nothing she was unable to ignore.
Her head was pillowed on Hugo’s bicep as he curled his body around hers, and she could feel that peculiar lump against her bottom again. Experimentally, she rubbed herself against it.
Hugo leapt from the bed as though he had been burned and she sat up, thrown out of her reverie. He stood with his back to her, facing the window, through which a small amount of weak sunlight was creeping. A deep breath expanded his back and shoulders, and he let it out again with a sigh.
She looked at him curiously, unsure what had just happened. “Are you… all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said shortly, and disappeared behind the dressing screen with a fresh shirt from the clothespress and his breeches. She could hear the splashing as he washed and then returned from around the edge to don his waistcoat and coat, buttoning them with strong movements.
At last, he turned to look at her, and his bleak expression made her draw back.
“You must dress. We need to talk.”
“All right,” she said. He looked away as she slid to the floor and pulled her traveling bag behind the screen with her.
She only had one clean chemise left, and would need to ask Mrs. Robson if there was a way to have the others laundered.
From what she could see as she glanced out the window, the snow seemed to have stopped falling, but the drifts remained as high as ever.
The stage would not come through for at least a few more days until enough snow melted to make the roads passable again.
She did her ablutions, pulled on her clothing, and unbraided her hair to brush and re-arrange it. She twisted her arms around her back to hook her dress by herself, and nearly upended the screen with her efforts. At last, with a gusty sigh, she stepped around the edge of the screen again.
“I require your assistance.”
Seemingly lost in thought, Hugo started at her words, but stood up and crossed to her.
She presented her back to him, but there were no lingering touches this time, only efficient movements that had her fastened in the blink of an eye.
He moved away as soon as he could, and she tamped down her flash of hurt.
Of course Hugo wanted nothing to do with her.
She had been a fool to allow herself to become so comfortable with him.
“Please. Sit down.”
Gingerly, she sat on the edge of the mattress, feet dangling, while Hugo paced back and forth in the narrow space at the foot of the bed, clearly trying to decide what to say.
“Stop making such a show of it, Hugo,” she said sharply. “Tell me what is the matter.”
He drew in a deep breath, let it out, and faced her, his expression set in grim lines.
“Your grandfather is the reason I can be a post-captain.”
What did that have to do with anything? “I don’t understand.”
“My father, he loved gaming. He would gamble on anything at all. Horses. Dice. A race between two snails on a wall. Anything. And he lost. Constantly.”
He met her gaze with his own, and the pain in his eyes made her want to weep for him.
“Your grandfather decided he wanted his descendants to be aristocrats. He was able to marry your father into the gentry, but when he saw the extent of my father’s debts, he knew he could go higher. So he bought them up, and he went to my father with an arrangement.”
He turned again to the window, staring unseeingly at the blank, white landscape.
“I was already mad to be a sailor. The sea called to me. But my father could not afford to pay for the education I would need to be a midshipman, and was too proud to tell anyone else how dire our situation was. It was only a fantastical dream of mine until your grandfather offered him the bargain.”
“And the bargain was that my grandfather gave your father the money he needed to stay afloat, and I was to marry Kendal.”
“Yes. It is… it is the only truly honorable course. You must marry my brother. It is a debt of honor, and the debt must be repaid.”
Penny sat in silence for a long time while he continued to look out the window, seeming to brace himself for her agreement that the only choice she had was to marry his brother.
She considered it for a long time. She honestly did. She wanted to give due weight to his opinion as one of the people most closely affected.
Ultimately, however, it was her own decision. By running away, she had created a choice she had never had before, and had no intention of changing her mind.
She aimed her words at his stiff back like an arrow. “I do not care.”
He whirled and stared at her. “What?”
She stood up from her seat, her chin set in determined lines. “I. Do. Not. Care. I will not marry Kendal. No one can force me to do it.”
“But…” He seemed flummoxed by her words, and she nearly wanted to laugh. “But… your duty. To your family. To my family. What about family honor?”
Anger rose in her, and she snapped her fingers at him. “I care that for your ‘duty.’ And your ‘family honor.’ If those things require me to make my sister and your brother and myself miserable for the rest of our lives, I shall not do it.”
As he continued to gape at her, she stalked to the door and flung it open it. “I am hungry and require breakfast. Are you coming?”
Hugo’s mind reeled. He had never imagined for a moment that Penny would ignore his appeal to her sense of duty when she had clearly been following it all these years in keeping to her commitment to Oliver. He started towards her, reaching for her as she opened the door.
“But, Penny, be reasonable—"
She marched out, nodding briskly to the innkeeper in the corridor, who bowed in return, unimpeded by the armload of laundry he carried. As Hugo brushed past him, Robson grinned and elbowed him in the ribs.
“Newlyweds, eh? Better resign yourself now. She won’t never be reasonable when she sounds like that.”
Hugo grunted and continued on to follow Penny down the stairs, the innkeeper still laughing behind him.
She certainly was feeling better today, because he could scarcely keep up with her as she descended the stairs in her pique.
He finally caught up to her outside the door to the taproom, grabbing her arm to stop her.
She whirled on him. The fury snapping from her eyes made him drop his hand and take a step back.
“I have been told what I must do and who I must marry and what kind of duchess I must be since I was ten years old, Lord Hugo, and I am sick to my teeth of it. From now, I make my own decisions, and you stay out of my way.”
She shoved the door open and stalked into the taproom, singing out, “No need to stand, gentlemen, though I thank you for your courtesy.”
Three men sitting at a small table near a window wordlessly moved to another, and Penny smiled at them as she plunked herself into an empty chair.
Hugo glanced around the room to see the other men glaring at him.
At him! Not at the woman invading their masculine space.
The realization that they were on her side unfroze him and he moved to sit in the chair across from Penny.
She stared out the window as the wind blew drifts of snow in eddies across their view.
“When is this snow going to melt? I don’t recall it snowing this much at the other Christmases we spent with your family." Her tone made it clear she felt the snow was not only a personal affront, but one Hugo had caused to annoy her.
"There is usually some snow, but not nearly this much." Hugo wondered again what Oliver had been thinking by planning the wedding not only at Gaitskill Castle, but in the middle of winter. "I despise the snow."
"Oh? I find it fascinating. We did not get much of it in Birmingham, even in winter."
"It's cold, it's wet, and it traps you wherever you happen to be if you're out in it when too much falls."
By her stillness, he knew his barb had landed, but he had not expected to feel her hurt as acutely as he did.
She sighed before saying, "Well. I'm sure it will soon be cleared and we can both be on our way. Ah, thank you, Mrs. Robson."
The innkeeper's wife placed two steaming plates in front of them, piled high with eggs, fried potatoes, and even a small scoop of preserved raspberries. Penny picked up her fork and dove in, putting away quantities of food that would shame a midshipman.
"It seems as though we shall be stuck here until St. Stephen’s Day." Hugo looked out the window at the heaped snow. "Perhaps even longer."
"It will almost certainly be longer," Penny said with terrible cheer. She took a sip of the hot tea Mrs. Robson had placed in front of her. “The snow can't last forever, though. And then you can be on your way back to the Admiralty to claim your command."
"Yes, of course." It was difficult not to stare at her. The bright spirit he had feared lost after her long illness was in full force this morning, dazzling him. Her anger added a sparkle to her hazel eyes and brought a slight flush to her cheek.
Judging by the looks the other men were shooting at her, he was not the only one dazzled. He glared around the room and they ducked their heads to admire Penny more discreetly.
She would have the crew of his ship in the palm of her hand within an hour of boarding it.
Ridiculous. He shook the thought from his head.
Some Royal Navy captains brought their wives and even their families on board, but Hugo had always disapproved of the practice.
How could a man concentrate on the job of keeping his crew safe when he had the constant distraction of a wife, and possibly children, on board?
How could that man not want to put his family's safety above that of his crew?
No. It would be unfair to everyone. Especially Penny.
"...and we can start at any time," Penny said.