Page 12 of Five Nights with a Rakish Duke
“Granted, I saw that too,” he agreed before turning his eyes on his sister. “Margaret, do calm yourself a little. You’ll make yourself ill.”
“I just do not see why our cousin has to be here all the time,” she argued pointedly, talking as though Penelope weren’t there at all.
“I live here,” Penelope said with feeling and clenched her fists together.
“It is our home now.” Margaret whipped her head around. Penelope was ready to argue, yet the words died in her throat. The reminder that she no longer had a right to live there, all because her father was gone, made tears spring to her eyes.
“Margaret, please,” Adam said, stepping forward. “Give me a minute with our cousin. Go practice your piano again if you must.”
Margaret clearly didn’t take kindly to being dismissed, but finding no argument against it, she left, making good measure to lift her chin higher in the air and flounce away with anger in every step.
Penelope was having to hold her breath in the effort to stop her tears from coming. The thing that broke down her resilience was hearing the drawing room door bang in the distance. The moment the tears started, Adam moved toward her and took her hands.
“I- I’m sorry, Adam,” she stammered softly through her tears.
“You never need to apologize to me,” he said just as gently, pressing their palms together comfortingly. “I know it sounds a ridiculous thing to say, but if you can, ignore Margaret.”
“Ignore her?” Penelope repeated in amazement. “She will always dislike me, won’t she? I have never even done anything to her, except now I live in a house she deems is yours and hers.”
“This was your home, cousin,” he said, walking closer toward her. “It will always be your home for as long as you want it. Rest assured of that.”
She smiled up at him through her tears, gazing at her cousin. In truth, she didn’t know how she would have coped without him ever since the loss of her father and his. He had been a rock of strength. With dark blond hair and eyes so dark that they were almost black, he was quite a handsome man with that depth to his eyes, but it was the friendliness of his smile that always made her feel safe.
“I do not know what I would have done without you, Adam,” she whispered through her tears.
“You never need to wonder that.” He stepped toward her again until they were very close indeed with her palms pressed in his. “Now, I wish I could stay with you, but I have a pressing engagement I cannot avoid.”
“You cannot stay behind just because I am shedding a few tears,” she said, loosening one of her hands from his and pressing the back of her wrist to her eyes in an effort to stop the tears.
“Ask me to, and I will. I give you my word on that.”
“You are truly kind,” she replied and looked up to him, sniffing once more to stop her tears. “There. I’m all better now. Please, go; enjoy your evening.”
“As you wish,” he said, stepping back and releasing her hand. “If Margaret gives you any more trouble, just tell me. You know I won’t stand for any of it.”
“I know,” she said.
“It feels odd to me too, going to events now that both of our fathers are gone.” He offered a comforting sad sort of smile that she shared before he slipped out of the door, giving her one last wave that she returned.
Once he was gone, and the butler closed the door behind him, Penelope turned away, unable to look the butler in the eye. She walked down the hallway until she drew level with her father’s painting and lifted her gaze to it.
The last Earl of Larson was a regal man indeed. Possessing the same light brown hair as her own, it was coiffed neatly back with a rather full cravat framing what was becoming the chubbiness of his cheeks in his growing age. Yet he was not old. Nor was he ill. He was wrenched from the world much sooner than he should have been.
Feeling the grief overtake her again, Penelope turned away from the painting and walked quickly through the corridor, heading back to the library in the hope that she wouldn’t meet Margaret again. As she took up her place in the window seat and retrieved her book, pulling it into her lap, she couldn’t concentrate on the words. She was thinking far too much of her father now, and her uncle, as well as the accident that had taken them both.
Why did they have to die in that carriage accident?
Chapter Five
“Asher, you are not making any sense,” Dorian said as the carriage pulled through Covent Garden.
“It’s a very simple question,” Asher contended, shrugging as though it were no big deal. “Do you know a lady of that description?”
Clearly a little frustrated, Dorian sat back on the carriage bench opposite Asher and tipped his head back. “Describe her again.”
“Short, petite, green eyes, light brown hair, very pretty smile, and a delicacy to her features,” Asher related, listing off the attributes of the lady he had kissed in the garden the night before and had not yet stopped thinking about. “She was wearing a green dress last night.”
“No, can’t say that I know her,” Dorian responded, lowering his chin again.
