Page 18 of A Tryst By the Sea
That should have been us.Gill wanted to take Penelope in his arms again, and Penelope wanted to be free of him for all time.
“How long have you been contemplating this decision?”
“Years, my lord. Not the done thing, and I will be ruined in polite society, but neither of us can make a fresh start as long as we’re wed to each other. I dread your mother’s attempts to reconcile us, Vergilius. Promise me you won’t let her meddle again.”
Mama, oddly enough, had been skeptical of Penelope’s fitness as a bride for the Summerton heir from the beginning. Too pale, too quiet, too unlike dear, robust Bella, who had made Tommiesohappy. Mama had even, once or twice, hinted that Penelope had fulfilled the worst of Mama’s predictions, for which Gill had wanted to disown his only surviving parent.
“I can no more control my mother’s mischief than I can control the tides, Penelope. As you say, half of London will soon know our business.”Allof London would know their business. A peer did not dissolve his marriage unless the succession was imperiled, and then the matter was still an enormous scandal.
“All it takes to thwart the tides is a stout seawall, Vergilius. I plan to spend spring traveling in the north.”
Gill would probably spend spring in a drunken stupor. “The Lakes?”
“Too crowded. I’ve always wanted to see the Highlands.”
That was news to him, as this whole damnable disaster was news to him, and yet, for once, years of parliamentary wrangling came to his aid. When caught in an ambush,parlay. Bargain. Ask questions. Offer terms, and the ambush could become a negotiation.
“This will be complicated, Penelope. Legally complicated.” Was she relieved that he wasn’t refusing her demand? Gill didn’t think so, but then, he hardly knew his wife.
“You could divorce me, though I know that’s beastly expensive. I’m sure some obliging fellow would be willing to play the role of my paramour for a sum certain.”
“The courts won’t stand for perjury, and neither will I. Unless you are willing to commit adultery in truth, divorce is not an option.”
For a fraught, hideous moment, while the children on the beach appeared to argue over where to lay the blankets, Gill feared Penelope was about to shatter his already broken heart.
“Adultery is beyond me,” she said tiredly. “The bishops will have to sort this out.”
What the hell good had the bishops been when Gill’s beautiful, perfect firstborn had breathed his last after only a few days in the world? When his wife had retreated into a silence that had lasted months? When he’d wanted to tell Parliament and Tommie and the whole blasted peerage to leap into the Thames on an outgoing tide?
We must soldier on as best we can, my lord.Except there had been noweabout it. Gill had soldiered on in one direction, and now Penelope planned to do her soldiering on in the bedamned Highlands.
Men ran around in skirts in the Highlands. Reivers and outlaws and such.
“The lawyers will sort it out, or pretend to,” Gill said. “Mostly, they will send me enormous bills for a lot of talk that won’t result in an agreement for years.” Penelope must want her freedom very badly to inflict that penance on a man who had never wished her ill.
“I don’t need much,” she said. “My pin money will be sufficient… You won’t begrudge me my pin money, will you?”
Gill’s list of hates was growing faster than his list of goals, for he hated the uncertainty in Penelope’s voice.
“You haven’t thought this through,” Gill said, while the little family settled on a spot above the tide line and fairly near the rocks where tide pools collected. “You will need a property of your own, Penelope. A place to live, and for the sake of your security, I want that property to be owned by a trust answerable only to you. Tommie might have to serve as one of the trustees for appearances’ sake, but I do not—”
“NotTommie. Anybody but Tommie. Some of your father’s friends will do.”
Gill had always thought Penelope and Tommie were reasonably friendly, but perhaps her objection was based simply on Tommie’s status as Gill’s brother. Gill had his own reasons for wanting Tommie’s involvement to be merely for show.
“Papa’s friends are elderly, Pen. You need trustees likely to be around for the next forty years at least. I will come up with a list of names, and you will choose among them.”
She nodded, brushing a strand of hair back. “Why do happy families always intrude on one’s peace at the worst times?”
Happy families, like Tommie and Bella’s? “That young father detests this outing because the children will soon descend into more bickering, the sun will grow too hot, and the picnic will feature sand in every bite. The mother is worried for her complexion, and the children will try her nerves all morning with attempts to swim in a surf that could drown them. Those people onlylookhappy.”
Penelope surprised him by leaning against his side. “Thank you, Vergilius.”
She was not thanking him merely for disparaging the foursome on the beach. Gill conjured up some of the daring he’d claimed as a younger man and slipped an arm around Penelope’s shoulders.
“I need time, Pen. Time to get our affairs in order—between us—before I broach this topic with the solicitors. I want as little opportunity for them to meddle as possible. You should have the dower house, but I’m sure—”
“Notthe dower house. Your mother considers that hers, and it’s half a mile from the Hall.”
