Page 3 of Claimed By Her Forbidden Duke
Brandy was already being served in one corner, and Penelope noticed that her friends were leaving the dining room. She ached to catch up with them, but Finley kept her back for another moment.
“Do not forget,” he whispered in her ear. “Should you need anything, I will be here. I do not trust those friends you insist on keeping around.”
“Then it is a good job they aremyfriends, is it not?”
Without another word to her brother, Penelope hurried out of the dining room and into the drawing room, where she promptly collapsed into an armchair.
Quickly, she was approached by her triad of friends, whom she had known since before her debutante days.
She had watched them all make excellent matches and rise in their social status, married off—and two of them already mothers—while Penelope herself had an unwanted guard who swatted away every suitor that approached her.
“Finally, you are alone!” The exclamation came from Lady Mary Pemberton, the Countess of Bathurst. She groaned as she, too, fell into a chair next to Penelope. “Honestly, Pen, I thought the Marquess of Controlwaite would never let you leave.”
Penelope sniggered. “If he ever hears you call him that, he will throw a tantrum.”
“He already does,” Cecilia huffed, sitting beside their other friend, Daphne Galpin, the Viscountess Ayersfield, on the settee opposite.
Around them, more ladies filed into the drawing room, indulging in their conversations. Some eyes flicked to Penelope, and suddenly, she felt very exposed for being the only lady in the room not being courted. Even the grim-faced Lady Priscilla, despite her terrible gossip of a mama, was being courted by a viscount who had recently come into his title.
“How has she not been sent to the countryside?” one lady across the room whispered, laughing at her, barely concealing their gossiping.
Why would they conceal it? Penelope was a laughing stock, a spectacle to be put at the mercy of the ton’s gossip mill.
“We all know why.” Another lady sniggered, not so discreetly eyeing Penelope with distaste. “The Marquess likes the influence, the way he can turn suitors away. It makes him feel important, I imagine.”
“True, but what aburden. If I did that to my guardian, I would simply banish myself to the countryside first.”
Penelope burned with humiliation before turning back to her friends, not able to stomach more.
“He is not controlling,” she said, her words strained. “He is… protective.”
Cecilia scoffed. “That is one word for it. For a moment, I half thought he would join us ladies in the drawing room. Does he wish to follow you everywhere? Even to the chamber pot, perhaps?”
“Cecilia!” Daphne chided. “Do not speak so impolitely.”
“Oh, come now. Do not pretend that you have any respect for Lord Langwaite.”
“I have respect,” Daphne countered, “and I will show it, as I was raised properly—and I must remind you thatyoualso were raised properly, my friend.” She cast her eyes at Cecilia, a playful smile dancing on her lips. “However, it is true that I do not like him.”
“Does anybody?” Mary rolled her eyes, her expression quickly sobering. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Catching the light, it danced like fire. “He has turned away every suitor you may have had a chance of speaking with tonight, Pen. You are five-and-twenty and unmarried. In our society, it is amiraclethat men give you any kind of attention.”
Cecilia let out a low, velvety chuckle. “Oh, but Mary, men do love the taste of forbidden fruit. The moment you tell them they cannot have something, they crave it all the more. And our dear Penelope—tragically labeled a spinster, though she may be—is the most tantalizing of all. For not only does she possess a beauty that could make a bishop reconsider his vows, but she is guarded by dear, overzealous Finley, who looms over her like Cerberus at the gates of Hades. Nothing excites a man more than a prize he is told he may not claim.”
She smirked and leaned in conspiratorially. “Mark my words, gentlemen love a woman they must chase. And with Finley snapping at their heels? Why, my darling Pen might just be the most sought-after morsel in the room.”
Daphne let out a sigh, pressing her lips together in a way that suggested both disapproval and reluctant amusement.
“Cecilia, must everything be reduced to temptation and scandal?” She smoothed an invisible wrinkle from her gown before continuing primly, “Penelope’s marital prospects should not be likened to some—some salacious game of cat and mouse. A woman’s reputation is not a trinket for men to trifle with simply because they find the chase amusing.”
She turned to Penelope with a gentler tone. “That said, dearest, your brother’s methods are hardly helping matters. A gentleman may hesitate to court you if he believes he must first survive Finley’s wrath.” She furrowed her brow slightly before she added, “Perhaps a measured approach would serve you best—one that does not rely on either reckless pursuit or excessive protection.”
“What Daphne means to say is that you have a leech for a stepbrother,” Mary corrected.
“A leech who will never let you get married, for it keeps you beneath his thumb,” Cecilia huffed.
“He is my guardian,” Penelope countered, trying to defend her brother. She was terribly annoyed by his behavior too, but she knew he did it for good reasons. “I ought to be grateful. I do believe he has likely saved me from several terrible matches.”
“If that is what you must tell yourself to sleep at night, then by all means.”
