Page 74 of Five Nights with a Rakish Duke
“What? No!” Asher said quickly and walked around the table. He did not miss how Penny recoiled at these words, nearly toppling into a fern beside her. “I mean… it is most improper.”
“Like you two have not been improper already,” Lady Chambers said, rolling her eyes as she took Dorian’s arm.
“How about a tour of the house?” Dorian said, leading her toward the door.
“Dorian, you will not leave us alone in here,” Asher insisted, following them toward the door.
“I believe the tour will take us about an hour,” Dorian said pointedly, glancing back at Asher.
“How lovely.” Lady Chambers reached for the door and stepped through first.
“Dorian…” Asher adopted a rather harsh tone. “You will not do this.” He tried to follow Dorian out of the door, but his friend promptly stood on his toe, forcing him backward before shutting the door in his face. “Dorian!” he called after him, but the only reply he was given was the turn of the key, locking the door. “He’s locked it!”
Asher attempted to open the door a few times, but it was all futile, leading him to look back to Penny. She was now clutching at one of the ferns nearby as if it were the only thing that would keep her standing. She looked up at him at last, those green eyes wide on him, then his gaze flicked down to her neck where he found the emerald necklace that he had given her adorning her throat.
“How could you even wear that after the letter you wrote?” he said, practically spitting with anger as he turned back to the door and heaved on the handle, trying to force it open another time, but it stayed firmly shut. The old expensive oak would not be broken easily.
“What do you mean?” Penny’s voice was high-pitched. Asher darted his head back to her and strode away from the door, crossing a little of the distance toward her.
“You know exactly what I mean. How you could write that letter, say what you said, and stillwantto wear that? It makes no sense to me.” He could see her lips parting as if searching for words. Her beauty was mesmerizing to him even at this moment. She looked in pain, and he hated the sight of that pain, but what would be the point in comforting her?
She loves another. This other man is the one who can comfort her, not I.He moved away from her, reaching the other side of the glasshouse and trying his best to find a pane of glass that was actually a window which could open. He couldn’t find a single one; they were all just single panes, keeping him trapped a prisoner inside.
Dorian will pay for this!
“I do not understand,” Penny said, her voice turning angry now. The volume of it made Asher halt in his movements and look back to her. She stepped forward out of the ferns and toward the other side of the card table with her chin turned up and her green eyes flashing with fury. “I wrote you that letter in the darkest of moments with such pain that it tore me apart, and yet here you could belittle it? You are willing to throw what I feel away all for what? Just so you can run from me?”
He couldn’t understand her words. He gave up trying to open the window and faced her again.
“Are you not the one who has won here?” she asked.
“Won what?” he asked, holding his arms out in an exasperated gesture. “What on earth could I have possibly won?”
“You did not get a fifth night, but you had four, and you get to keep my estates. You made it abundantly clear that five nights was all you ever wanted, so surely four would satisfy you. You have won my estates, and my honor, and… so much more.” She winced and closed her eyes, in clear pain.
“I have won nothing,” he declared firmly, walking back to the card table and placing his hands sharply on the surface. The thud made her eyes shoot open again. “You think I care for keeping your estates? They matter naught to me. Take them, for all I care! I will happily send you the deeds tomorrow. In exchange, you can stay away from me, Penny.”
“Stay away from you?” she repeated, scoffing belittlingly at the idea. “You speak as ifIhave offended you.”
“Cannot you tell that you have?” he said, gesturing to himself.
“As for staying away from you, do you not think the task will be impossible when you are to marry my cousin? Margaret is one of the only two people in my family I have left in this world. It will not be so easy to disappear from each other’s lives.” She spun around and tried to walk away.
Seeing those green eyes leaving him, Asher broke. Something in him that had felt so strong before made him feel weak, crippled, as badly as he had felt the night before when he had stumbled into bed with a physician looking over him, saying the worst of it was simply the alcohol. Fortunately, the bump to his head had just been a scratch after all with no real lasting damage.
“You think I want to marry Margaret?” Asher asked loudly. Penny’s hand froze on the door handle, stopping her from even trying it. “You think I could bear marrying someone I do not care for after what I feel for you?”
The words hung heavy in the air. Penny slowly turned around, her face visible in the feathered candlelight that shone through the ferns and palms. There was silence with just the two of them staring at each other. Asher was the first one to break it. He looked away and ran a hand through his hair, across the scab from the cut to his head the night before.
“What did you say?” Penny asked, still standing by the doorway.
“I have humiliated myself by confessing it to you once, when you love another man,” he said, keeping his eyes down on the stone floor of the glass house. “I will not humiliate myself further by saying it again or declaring just how deep it has become. I read your letter; your meaning was perfectly plain. You wanted nothing more to do with me.”
Penny frowned and hurried away from the door, stumbling over one of the plant pots in her effort to cross the room.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice much gentler as she reached the other side of the card table. “I said I wanted nothing to do with you in my letter, is that what you meant?”
“You made the matter very plain indeed.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket, finding the letter that had not left his person since he had read it, and flung it down on the green felt of the card table. She snatched it up, opening the letter wider.
