“You were. I saw you through the window. Before you noticed me sitting here and rearranged your face into that expression of grim determination you apparently believe is convincing.”
Penelope pulled the last surviving pin from her hair, which tumbled fully across her shoulders in an act of final surrender. “I need to bathe and change before supper. If you’ll excuse me.”
“I shall excuse nothing until you explain why you look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Happy.” Hyacinth said the word as though identifying a rare and possibly dangerous species. “You lookhappy, Penelope. It’s terribly disconcerting.”
Penelope climbed the stairs without answering, because any answer she gave would be a lie, and she was not yet certain she could make the lie convincing.
Her chambers were blessedly quiet. She closed the door and leaned against it, pressing her palms flat against the cool wood.The late afternoon light fell in long amber bars across the floor, catching the dust motes that drifted through the still air.
She should ring for her maid. Should change out of the riding habit that smelled of horse and grass and the clean warmth of open countryside. Should wash her face, re-pin her hair, return herself to the version of Penelope Hartwell who managed households and maintained standards and did not, under any circumstances, gallop across hilltops with men who had no business making her feel?—
She pressed her forehead against the door.
It meant nothing.
A ride. That was all. An hour of exercise on a pleasant afternoon, undertaken at the suggestion of a man who delighted in unsettling her. There was nothing remarkable about it. Nothing that warranted the persistent buzzing beneath her skin, the racing of her pulse, the way she could not stop replaying the moment on the hilltop when she’d turned and found him watching her.
Not watching.Seeing.As though her smile had taken something from him. As though the sight of her with her hair coming loose and her composure abandoned was not amusing to him but necessary.
She crossed to her dressing table and sat down heavily. The mirror presented evidence she’d rather not examine: flushed cheeks, bright eyes, lips still parted as though mid-laugh. Shelooked, she realised with a dull shock, nothing like herself. Or at least nothing like the girl she had pretended to be in an effort to keep herself safe.
She looked like the girl who’d wanted to keep bees. The girl who used to run barefoot through her father’s garden before her mother caught her and reminded her that ladies did not run. That girl had been buried so long ago, so deep beneath layers of propriety and self-discipline, that Penelope had almost forgotten she existed.
Almost.
Penelope picked up her hairbrush and began the systematic work of restoration. Stroke by stroke, the tangles yielded. The wildness smoothed. The woman in the mirror began, gradually, to resemble someone she recognised.
It meant nothing.
She said it again, silently, as she worked a stubborn knot free. The afternoon had been a diversion. A challenge accepted and met. She had proven she could enjoy herself—proven it to Alastair and to herself—and now the experiment was concluded. Tomorrow she would return to the household accounts, the linen inventory, the silver that needed polishing. The structure that held her world in place.
Except.
She set the brush down. Her hands were trembling.
Except she could still feel the horse beneath her, the stretch and pull of muscles she hadn’t used in years. The wind against her face, sharp enough to make her eyes water. The way the landscape had opened around her as they crested the hill—the valley spread below in green and gold, the sky enormous above, and for one breathless, reckless moment, the absolute freedom ofspeed.
She had not felt that in?—
She could not remember. That was the truth of it. She could not remember the last time her body had felt like something other than a vessel for duty. Could not recall the last time she’d drawn a breath that wasn’t measured and rationed and allocated to some practical purpose. Her lungs had filled on that hilltop and the air had tasted different—of grass and distance and the terrifying possibility that life contained more than what she’d allotted herself.
And then she’d turned, and he was looking at her.
Her fingers closed around the edge of the dressing table.
Stop. Stop this right now.
He was a rake. A libertine. A man whose reputation had been built on precisely this—making women feel as though they were the centre of the universe, the only point of light in a darkenedroom. He had done this with dozens of women. Hundreds, perhaps. The charm, the teasing, the way he leaned toward her as though her words were gravity—all of it was technique. Performance. The same performance he’d been giving since he first learned that a smile and a sharp tongue could unlock any door.
She was not special. She was merelypresent.
Penelope stood and moved to the window. Below, the gardens were softening into evening, the roses closing for the night. A pair of blackbirds chased each other through the lavender hedge, their argument filling the quiet with noise that felt, absurdly, like mockery.
You are allowed to set down the weight.His voice in her head, low and serious beneath the usual carelessness.I promise the world will still be standing when you pick it back up.