Page 10 of Five Nights with a Rakish Duke
“You cannot leave me after a kiss like that.”
“You expect far too much,” she said hurriedly. “You never should have done that.”
“Well, you were very much involved in that kiss. As much as I was.”
“Shh!” Penelope begged him to be quiet again, flapping an agitated hand at him. Above them, the top terrace came into view where people were smoking and taking a breather from the heat of the ballroom. She spun around and placed a hand out, connecting with the center of the stranger’s chest and stopping him from coming any nearer. “Leave me be, Sir. Do not follow me anymore.”
“At least tell me you name before you leave me,” he pleaded with her. She didn’t answer; she turned and fled instead. “Just a name? Please?” he called after her. She glanced back once, seeing the way he was standing in the middle of the stone steps, staring up at her with a kind of desperation in his own eyes. Yet, she was unmoved by it. She had already been deceived by the rake’s charms once; she was not going to be again.
“Good night, Sir,” she said with feeling and left him standing there alone.
Chapter Four
“Where did you go last night?” Margaret’s question made Penelope look up from the book she had been reading, seeing her cousin approach. Her cousin was standing in the doorway to the library, leaning on the doorframe with folded arms and raised eyebrows.
Penelope felt her mouth turn a little dry as her hands flustered with turning the page of the book, nervous of what exactly Margaret had seen.
“What do you mean?” Penelope asked innocently as she shifted on the settee by the window.
“I mean you disappeared from the ballroom,” Margaret said pointedly, moving further into the library. “You vanished; even Lady Chambers commented that she could not find you. Where did you go?”
“To the library to read,” Penelope said and lifted the book, blocking out her view of Margaret, “as I am doing now.”
“Who reads at a ball?”
“You wonder why anyone reads at all,” Penelope muttered to herself.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Penelope said a little louder, so her cousin could hear her. It was hardly a great secret that Margaret had no love for reading. She infinitely preferred to practice those arts and skills she thought made her a true ‘lady’, such as the pianoforte or her drawing, even how to instruct the cook to create the perfect menu for a dinner party. Penelope lacked interest in such things herself, preferring a different way of life altogether.
“You vanished from a soiree, Penelope,” Margaret said, striding forward so close to Penelope that she was forced to lower the book and look to her cousin again. “Who did you leave with? You must have left with a man.”
“Why is it so absurd to think I went to read? You see me here reading now.”
“Because you spend enough time in my brother’s library as it is. Why would you go to the library at Lady Chambers’ too?”
“My father’s.”
“What?” Penelope bit her lip to stop herself from talking when she realized what she had done. Larson Manor used to belong to her father, Josiah Burton, the Earl of Larson, but since his untimely passing, both the manor and the title had passed to her cousin, Adam Burton. Only Penelope still couldn’t adjust to thinking of the house as his. It would always be her father’s home in her eyes.
“I should tell Adam what happened last night,” Margaret said, turning on her heels and walking toward the door.
“What? Whatever for?” Penelope asked, rearing forward off the window seat.
“What will he say when he hears you disappeared last night? Probably with a man? He’ll make you marry whoever it was.”
“No!” Penelope jumped up and dropped the book. Despite her call of panic, Margaret didn’t stop, yet became even more animated, hurrying out of the door and into the corridor. Penelope rushed to chase after her cousin.
If anyone knew exactly what had happened the night before, then Penelope’s reputation was well and truly ruined. She had gone outside with one man and ended up kissing another. She would be reviled as a woman who had lost all honor!
“At last, we shall see you married,” Margaret said, glancing back with a rather wicked smile. “At least then you won’t be a drain on my brother’s finances.”
“His finances?” Penelope repeated in horror. “He is an Earl now, Margaret. He is hardly short of money.”
She wants to see me married…The thought of marrying either of the two men she had been outside with the night before made her tremble but for very different reasons. The idea of kissing the Earl of Shrewsbury and being tied to him for life made her shudder in fear. Yet the idea of being bound to the rake made her shudder for different reasons altogether, reasons of excitement.He is a rake! That means he would hardly be faithful, you fool,she chided herself as she continued to chase after Margaret.
“Adaaaam?” Margaret called annoyingly, tapping on the study door. It was answered before Penelope could reach her cousin’s side and stop her. “There you are.”
