Alastair offered a smile that promised absolutely nothing. “I shall be the very model of proper behaviour.”
“That,” William said with feeling, “is precisely what concerns me.”
He departed with a final clap on Alastair’s shoulder, leaving him standing near the ballroom entrance, contemplating the evening’s unexpected complications.
Tomorrow night, then. Another dinner with the perpetually disapproving Miss Hartwell, who thought him dissolute and irresponsible and entirely unsuitable company. Who saw through his performance with uncomfortable accuracy. Who appeared to want nothing whatsoever to do with him.
It should have been tedious. Should have been another obligation to endure with practiced charm and minimal engagement.
Instead, Alastair found himself rather looking forward to it.
Perhaps, he thought, that this could be rather entertaining indeed.
CHAPTER 3
“Icannot fathom why you insist upon attending when you so clearly wish to be anywhere else.”
Penelope glanced up from her needlework to find her mother observing her from across the drawing room, one elegant brow arched in mild exasperation. The afternoon light streaming through the windows caught the silver threading through Mrs. Hartwell’s dark hair, and Penelope felt a familiar pang of affection mixed with frustration.
“Caroline invited me,” she replied, her needle piercing the linen with perhaps more force than strictly necessary. “It would be terribly rude to refuse.”
“Caroline invites you to dine every fortnight. You do not typically regard it as some Herculean trial.” Her mother set aside her own embroidery, fixing Penelope with that disconcerting maternal gaze that seemed capable of extracting confessions even from stone. “What has changed?”
That frustrating man has changedPenelope thought darkly. Though she could not say it with certainty, she was certain that he saw her as some plaything.
“Nothing has changed,” she said aloud, keeping her attention firmly on the rose she was attempting to stitch. The petals were coming out rather lopsided, but she refused to acknowledge it. “I am merely fatigued from last evening’s ball.”
It was not entirely untrue. The Bancroft ball had been exhausting in ways that had nothing to do with dancing. She could still feel the weight of his eyes following her across the ballroom, could still hear that infuriating drawl as he’d?—
She stabbed her finger with the needle.
“Botheration,” she muttered, pressing her thumb against the small bead of blood welling on her fingertip.
Mrs. Hartwell rose with a rustle of skirts, retrieving her handkerchief and crossing to her daughter. “Here. And do stop massacring that poor fabric.”
Penelope accepted the handkerchief with a sigh of defeat, watching as her mother examined the mangled embroidery with thinly veiled dismay.
“Perhaps,” Mrs. Hartwell suggested delicately, “you might consider retiring early this evening. Caroline will understand if you are unwell.”
The temptation was nearly overwhelming. To plead a headache, to remain safely ensconced in her own chambers, far from her sister’s dining room and the inevitable presence of?—
No.
Penelope straightened her shoulders, that stubborn pride her father often lamented rising to the fore. She would not be driven from her own sister’s table by a rake who’d done nothing more offensive than tease her. She was being ridiculous. Worse, she was being a coward.
“I am perfectly well, Mama,” she said firmly, setting aside the ruined needlework. “Merely distracted. It shall pass.”
Her mother’s expression suggested she remained unconvinced, but she returned to her seat without further comment. They passed the remainder of the afternoon in companionable silence, though Penelope’s thoughts refused to settle.
It was only as her maid was dressing her for dinner—a becoming gown of pale blue silk that Penelope had not consciously selected but somehow found herself wearing—that she allowed herself to acknowledge the truth lurking beneath her unease.
She did not wish to see the Duke of Blackmere because the wretched man unsettled her in ways she could neither explain nor control.
And that, more than anything, was utterly intolerable.
Still, she knew she had little choice and far too soon the day was drawing to a close and she had to find her way to her sister’s home, a heart full of doubts about her choice to attend after all.
Caroline’s townhouse glowed with welcoming warmth as Penelope’s carriage drew to a halt before the elegant façade. Her brother-in-law maintained excellent taste in all things—a fact Caroline never tired of mentioning. The windows blazed with candlelight, and Penelope could hear the murmur of conversation even before the footman handed her down.