Page 5 of Claimed By Her Forbidden Duke
“I do not know,” she mumbled.
“Say you will,” Mary enthused, her brow pinched but her eyes bright with hope. “It is painful to see how Finley swats away every interaction. Heavens, you cannot even greet a man tonight without him glaring or steering you away.”
That was rather true, and Penelope’s shoulders slumped in the defeating knowledge of it.
Was she depriving herself if she refused?
She would simply go back home with Finley, back to Langwaite Manor, and pretend like nothing had been suggested and refused. She would go back to being protected and kept inside those same walls, only to hope that her brother would be a little less overbearing at the next event and let her socialize as she ought to.
And the thought of that, of simply repeating the same happenstance every time, every day, with nothing to throw a wrong stitch in the carefully sewn pattern of her life, was the thing that solidified her resolve.
“All right,” she whispered, her heart constricting.
Was she really agreeing to this? Heavens, was she actually going to go through with it?
She was already nodding. “I will do it. I will meet Julian Gray.”
She did not accept out of comfort or a desire to experience such a night with the escort, but because her friends all gazed at her with hopeful expressions.
Penelope made herself consider the cost of the evening and nodded once more.
“How delightful!” Mary exclaimed, clapping happily. “Oh, I cannot wait to hear what stories you will have for us the next time we meet for afternoon tea. In fact, we ought to arrange that now. I have not seen Baby Ayersfield for a while. Perhaps we should have tea at Daphne’s townhouse.”
“Agreed,” Daphne said brightly. “I do believe Harry will be out on business meetings tomorrow, so we may discuss and hear Penelope’s stories without being disturbed.”
“Only, there isonedisturbance,” Cecilia muttered under her breath a moment before a shadow fell over the doorway.
Penelope looked around to see Finley standing there, a frown on his face.
The Countess of Tilsbury saw him and declared it was time to reconvene with the gentlemen.
Penelope returned to her brother’s side, silently glancing back at her friends, still dazed and lost in her thoughts of what would happen later that night.
“What were you discussing in there? It looked riveting.”
“Nothing,” Penelope said quickly as the small crowd retreated to the dining room. “Merely Lady Ayersfield’s recent birth.”
And how I will become a changed woman tonight.
ChapterTwo
“With the rates for the current transport across the sea, we could be looking at it being worth importing the goods.”
Edmund Hawke, the Duke of Blackstone, caught wind of the exact nature of the conversation as he strode into Bracken Inn, a tavern set back on the darker streets of London.
“Exactly,” a second man whispered to the first one, the four of them huddled in a dimly lit corner as if the darkness granted them privacy. “I can make the drop this coming week, right there at the docks, if Mr. Haddon can arrange transport.”
There was a meaningful look at the man who had first spoken, and he snorted. “Of course I can. That’s what my business does, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed, it does.” Edmund interrupted their conversation, having snuck up on their table, keeping to the shadows.
The four men were so engrossed in discussing their deal that they hadn’t noticed. At once, they started and looked up at him.
“Although not the transport legally stated on your documents, I assume,” Edmund added, arching an eyebrow.
He recognized three of them—Haddon, Gardener, and Roland. The fourth man was someone he didn’t know, and didn’t need to.
The game of cards lay in progress on the wooden, stained table the men sat around.
