Page 50 of Five Nights with a Rakish Duke
“Or the action of a man who wishes to be more than that,” Veronica said, smiling through her whisper. “Shh, he will hear us. Ah, Lord Larson, how are you today?”
Adam arrived at their side. “I am well, and yourself, Lady Chambers?” he said jovially, walking straight to stand beside Penelope.
“I am well,” she said with a smile. “I take it you have come to steal your cousin away from me?”
“If I can for a few minutes,” he replied, offering his arm to Penelope. “I wish to check my cousin is well after her headache last night.”
“Well, I–” Penelope was about to come up with an excuse when Veronica spoke over her.
“I will only be too happy to give her to you. I will chaperone the two of you at a short distance.” She disentangled herself from Penelope’s arm and stepped away, the words hardly making her meaning subtle at all.
As she moved, Penelope looked to Adam with wide eyes to find he was chuckling. “Your godmother is not a subtle woman, is she?” he asked softly as he offered his arm to her.
“Subtle, no.” Penelope took his arm, sliding her hand to rest on his elbow. “Audacious, certainly!”
He laughed at her words as he led them to promenade with the other ladies and gentlemen through the park.
“I trust you are recovered after your headache last night?” he asked gently.
“I am, thank you, cousin.” She smiled up at him, but her mind was unable to let the matter rest that had just passed between them. “I hope you will forgive my godmother, Adam. She gets ideas in her head, and her lack of subtlety sometimes means words are spoken that should not be.”
“Merely because she offered to be a chaperone?” Adam laughed as he walked them a little distance from Veronica, then he fixed his eyes ahead, and Penelope rather thought there was a blush entering his cheeks. “Would it be so wrong if I welcomed the idea?”
“Of Veronica being a chaperone?” Penelope asked with a frown.
“No,” he said, lowering his gaze a little. He looked nervous, scratching the back of his head with his other hand and adjusting the top hat on his head before looking at her again. “If I welcomed the idea of you and I requiring a chaperone.”
“Oh…” Penelope gasped in surprise.
Good Lord, Veronica was right.Penelope and Adam stared at one another for a minute as her mind worked quickly to process what he was intimating. He was suggesting the two of them could be more than just cousins after all.
“Adam, I…” She struggled for words, unsure what to say.
“Please, do not answer me now,” he said hurriedly. “All I ask is that you think about it. Would you do that for me, cousin?”
“Of course,” she replied, though her stomach knotted at the idea.
“Now, let us talk of something else.” As he led her through the park, talking of other matters and of Margaret, Penelope barely focused on anything he was saying.
She was trying to think of her hand on his arm and if that brief touch did anything to her, but it didn’t. There was no excitement, no thrill, and even his intimation that maybe they could be something more to each other lacked warmth or any declaration of affection.
Is this what love should be like? Distant and even… a little cold and restrained?
She knew it shouldn’t be. It should be full of the affection she had felt the night before in Asher’s arms laying on the divan, and it should have the passion that Asher caused with his kisses.
No, I cannot love Adam.
* * *
Margaret’s squeal of excitement practically deafened Penelope and Adam as they stepped through the door of the house.
“Good God, Margaret, that nearly shattered our ears,” Adam said as he uncovered his ears. She was jumping up and down in the middle of the entrance hall, waving a piece of paper in her hands.
“I cannot be quiet, and nothing you can say, brother, will make me be calm now.” She giggled and turned in a circle. “Oh, I feel my heart is beating so fast that it will burst out of my body!”
“Have you learned a new piece on the piano?” Penelope asked as she handed her spencer jacket to the butler and stepped forward. Such things were usually the cause of Margaret’s excitement.
“No,” Margaret said, darting her head toward her. “I have a letter from my suitor. Look!” She waved the note in the air for Adam and Penelope to see. Penelope went to take it, eager to see the words.
