Page 38 of Five Nights with a Rakish Duke
She lifted her hands to it as if just now realizing what a state it was in.
“My apologies,” he said with a smile. “I find you irresistible, Penny, and my hands went wandering of their own accord.”
She smiled and blushed a little more as she attempted to fix her hair. He longed to step toward her and kiss her again, just to see that blush another time.
“Irresistible,” she murmured the word. “I have never been described as such before.”
“I am sure every man thinks it,” Asher said with confidence. “Any man who doesn’t must be blind.” She turned her head a little away from him.
“When will be our next night?”
“Soon,” Asher promised, knowing he would not be able to wait very long before seeing her again. “Very soon.”
Chapter Thirteen
“You would have been appalled, wouldn’t you?” Penelope murmured. She was sitting on the bottom step in the entrance hall, looking at the painting of her father. He couldn’t answer her as much as she wished he could. “I know it’s not good, father, but I cannot help it. I must do it, or I lose my estates forever.”
Yet there was a thought niggling at her. After the last night with Asher, she was quickly beginning to realize something.
Asher was not the man she had thought he would be. Yesterday evening had not been merely illicit but caring too. Had she not been so confident in the rule of five nights, she would have expected that the man felt something for her, yet she knew that couldn’t be true.
The longer she looked into her father’s painted face, longing to speak with him, the more she wished he could help her in her dilemma now. Part of her thought it was best to break off this five-night tryst and give up on the hope of recovering her estates completely, all because the closer she became to Asher, the more she seemed to like him, and the more she forgave his rakish ways. Yet… she couldn’t do it.
“Forgive me, father,” she whispered into the air.
“Now, there’s a sad face.”
The words made Penelope snap her head up off the banister against the staircase where she had been resting her forehead, looking around to see someone had joined her in the hallway. Adam was standing in the doorway of the parlor nearby, watching her as he leaned on the doorframe.
“Penelope, I hate to see you looking so sad,” he said in his kindly way.
“I can’t help it,” she said with a sniff. “Each time I look at the painting, it reminds me of losing him.”
“I know,” Adam replied and stepped out of the doorway, walking slowly toward her. He came to sit beside her on the staircase, so close that she could rest her body against his arm. “The painting of my own father is upstairs. Each time I see it… it is like my insides are shriveled up. If only that accident had not happened.”
“It doesn’t do us well to dwell on it, does it?” Penelope asked as she rested her head on Adam’s shoulder, needing the comfort her cousin could bring her.
“You are right,” he said, lifting his voice a notch. “On that topic, I am eager to see you smile today, come what may. That starts with no more conversation about what we have both lost.” She lifted her head from his with her brow furrowed.
“What follows?”
“This,” he said and reached a hand into the inside pocket of his tailcoat. Slowly, he pulled out a tiny parcel wrapped in tiny brown tissue paper.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You’ll have to open it to find out,” he said with a smile.
“Adam, what do you mean?”
“It’s a gift, Penelope,” he laughed. “Come on; open it before I grow impatient and open it for you.” She laughed too and took the parcel out of his hands, untying the string and peeling back the paper.
Inside, there was a small velvet box, the kind that jewelry was kept in. She pulled back the lid, feeling her jaw slacken in surprise as the morning sun glinted across the surface. It was a golden locket. Perfectly oval in shape, surrounded by a frame that was entwined delicately to look like leaves, the surface itself was emboldened with her initial, P.
“Adam, it’s stunning,” she said, feeling the temptation to cry return, only this time it wasn’t from grief but something else. “It’s for me?”
“Yes,” Adam said.
“Why?” she asked, pulling it free of the box and examining the surface a little more.
