Page 51 of Five Nights with a Rakish Duke
No, Asher. Please do not do this!Yet before her fingers could close over the paper, Adam took it from the air and unfurled the note.
“‘Dearest Lady Margaret,’” he read the note aloud. “‘It is with delight I would like to accept your offer of dinner at your house. I am currently detained with a short illness, but I should be able to wait upon your good nature this Friday evening at eight o’clock.’ Then he goes on for a bit, but… Margaret, you did not say you had invited the Duke of Kendall for dinner?” Adam asked, looking most affronted at the idea.
Penelope had been trying for a few moments to get the paper off him, and eventually she managed it, snatching it away. To her dismay, she saw Asher’s name at the bottom, along with kind words of how much he looked forward to seeing Margaret again. She felt sick and thrust the paper into Adam’s hands who struggled to take it in a kerfuffle.
“Is all well, Penelope?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied as quickly as she could and turned her eyes back to Margaret with a false smile in place. “I am delighted for you, Margaret.”
“You must be green with envy; I know it!” Margaret said with delight. “Think. If I should be married before you?” She giggled and turned in another circle.
“Margaret, I never extended an invitation to the Duke to come to dinner,” Adam raised his voice a little. The volume was so unlike Adam that both Penelope and Margaret looked to him with surprise.
“Do you not want him here?” Margaret asked.
“I…” He paused and pinched the brow of his nose. “The Duke and I had business in the past that did not end well.” He glanced toward Penelope, reminding her of what that business was.
You gambled away the estates that were to be mine. You only have yourself to blame for that, Adam.
“Well, that is in the past, and it was business. This is personal. We are talking of courtship and marriage!” Margaret giggled again. “Oh, I must speak to the housekeeper about what we will serve.”
“Margaret!” Adam hurried across the entrance hall, chasing after his sister, clearly intent on trying to persuade her to cancel the dinner.
Penelope watched them go, open mouthed, unable to stop that queasy feeling from taking over her body. It was so easy for her to relive the night on the daybed with Asher, but clearly those soft touches, with her palms on his chest and his fingers caressing her waist, were merely illicit thrills to him. They meant more to her.
“My Lady?” the butler said, stepping toward her.
“Yes?” Penelope looked around, trying to breathe into her stomach to quell the nausea.
“There was a note left for you too.” He passed it over. “The sender did not leave his name.”
“Thank you,” Penelope said, offering a tight smile before she hurried to the staircase, rushing up the steps as quickly as she could.
Once she was locked tight in her chamber with the door fastened, she breathed a sigh of relief. With the door locked it was as though she could lock out Margaret’s exuberance at courting Asher, a life that Penelope could not have, and block out Adam’s restrained suggestion from earlier that day.
She moved to the window, peeling open the plain red wax seal that had been left unstamped, and opened the letter. It did not take her long to recognize Asher’s handwriting. The short note made her blush, and yearn to return to the night before, yet it wasn’t possible. Asher was to court Margaret, not her.
Dearest Penny,
I was saddened to not find you in my arms when I woke this morning. When will it be our fourth night together?
Chapter Seventeen
“You really aren’t going to a Constable?” Dorian asked as they walked down Bond Street.
“How many times are you going to ask me that?” Asher countered, tilting his eyes to the sky in a pleading gesture to show just how tired he was of Dorian asking the same thing.
“You were attacked.”
“Probably by some drunkard from the ball,” Asher shrugged. He had thought long and hard about the incident and had decided the best thing to do was to move on as though nothing had happened.
“And that’s a good enough excuse as to why they should get away with attacking you? Pah! What a world we live in now,” Dorian said with a shake of his head. “You should still go to a constable.”
“Dorian, listen to me,” Asher urged, taking his friend’s shoulder and bringing the two of them to a stop in the busy street.
Ladies hurrying to shops around them complained at the obstruction, so Asher moved the two of them to the edge of the street, allowing the ladies to hurry into shops with footmen hustling on behind them carrying boxes of newly purchased dresses and materials.
“If I went to a constable, what do you think they would say?” Asher asked, holding his friend’s gaze.
