Page 79 of Five Nights with a Rakish Duke
This cannot be it?
Chapter Twenty-Six
“My Lady? A letter has arrived for you.”
Penelope looked up from where she was attempting to read a book, drying the tears on her cheeks with her handkerchief as the butler walked in, proffering a letter to her.
“Thank you,” she said. The butler smiled softly then turned away, hurrying and leaving her alone once again.
Penelope looked around the empty room, feeling acutely just how empty it was. The night before after the ball had finished, she had felt unable to go back to her home to face Margaret again. She knew she still needed to speak to Adam, but she couldn’t face it now.
He probably despises me as it is.
She had spent the night at Veronica’s instead and risen early. Veronica had risen not long after and was currently visiting friends, doing her best to stop the gossip and claim it was nothing but a lie, started by someone who wanted to hurt Penelope and the Duke as they began their own courtship. Penelope bit her lip, wondering how believable it was. Enough people had known of Asher’s and Margaret’s courtship that it could make believing the lie a little too difficult to manage.
She turned her attention to the letter in her hands and pulled back the wax seal. Inside, there was a very short note.
Dear Penelope,
I have come to find you at your house, but you are not there. If you can, come to meet me in the summer house of your garden. I will wait for you there.
Asher.
She smiled then wrinkled her nose in surprise. He had called her Penelope, not Penny, which was a little unusual. At least, Asher was as keen to see her as she was him! She folded up the letter and jumped to her feet, calling to the butler that she was going out and would need her spencer jacket.
Within minutes, she was in Veronica’s smallest coach, making her way back home to the house she shared with Adam and Margaret. When they reached the driveway, she urged the driver not to pull up at the door. She didn’t want to risk being seen by Margaret, who could well be looking out of one of the windows, waiting for her return.
Once she was free of the carriage, she hurried past a line of trees that bordered the driveway with the garden and hurried deep into the undergrowth. Being careful to circumvent the house at all times, she kept glancing through the trees, nervous that someone would see her, but she never caught sight of anyone at the house.
As she stepped out of the trees, deep within the garden, out of sight of the house, she began to hurry, holding the skirt of her gown around her knees to aid her run. The clouds in the sky that had been gathering all morning began to weep with great raindrops pouring down. It started out steady, and quickly became torrential, so much so that within a few steps, Penelope was soaked. The loose tendrils of her hair were sticking to her neck, and the skirt of her gown was entangled with her thighs. Even the raindrops ran down her cheeks and nose like tears.
It made her run faster, occasionally slipping on the grass as she went to the furthest reaches of the garden. There, nestled under a canopy of trees, was the summer house. A small white pavilion with great white steps along the front and a double set of glass doors that led into a small room, decorated in white plaster with alabaster statues in alcoves, it was a haven from this deluge.
She hurried up to the doors, feeling her shoes splatter in the puddles on the stone steps and flung open the glass double doors.
“Asher?” she called. Only, as she closed the doors behind her, she found a man turning around to face her, who was not Asher at all. She wiped the rain free of her eyes, checking she was not being deceived.
“Adam?” His fair hair danced across his forehead as he found her with his almost black eyes pinning her to the support. She had never seen such a harsh look on his face before, and it made her shoulders slump. There was something else in his eyes as he looked down her drenched form, something that made her a little afeared as she wrapped her arms around her body.
“I had a feeling if I wrote a letter in his name, you would come.” His simple words made her flinch and look away, closing her eyes.
That was why the letter had addressed her as Penelope, not Penny. Asher wasn’t waiting for her at all; it was Adam. He must have crept into the summer house earlier that day and waited for her to arrive.
“Adam, I can explain,” she began slowly, opening her eyes again. “What you heard last night at the ball, it is all just –”
“No, Penelope. I do not want to hear it.” He cut her off sharply. It was so unlike his normal friendly tone that she recoiled. He strode forward, walking around her so fast that she cricked her neck in the effort to follow him with her gaze. He turned something in the door with a clicking sound then pocketed the key.
“Adam… why have you locked the door?” she asked, her voice beginning to stammer. Adam slowly turned around, leaning back on the locked doors with folded arms.
“Were you actually going to court me? Or was that a lie?” She looked away, running her hands through the tendrils of her hair.
“It was not a lie, it is just…” She struggled for words, finding it even harder to look back to him. “Adam, I am in love with Asher. Is that so bad? He wants to marry me, and I want to marry him. I am truly sorry for saying I would court you when I loved another.” This time, she managed to look at him. “It all just went wrong. I never meant to deceive you.”
“Oh truly? Never meant it?” His voice was sharp. She recoiled away across the room as he strode forward, aware that he was trying to shorten the distance between them. His eyes were flicking down to her drenched dress again. “You said you’d court me, Penelope, and as far as I am concerned, you cannot go back on your word.”
“What on earth does that mean?” she cried, trying to walk around him to reach the door, but he grabbed her wrist and yanked her back to him. “Adam!” she yelped in surprise. He had never touched her in such a way, never been aggressive before. She fell into his chest, trying her best to disentangle her wrist from him. “Let me go!”
“No, Penelope. I won’t.” He reached for her other wrist too and held them both up in front of her, dragging her forward again until her body was flush to his. “I will not lose you now to that man.”
