Page 27 of A Tryst By the Sea
Gill would not try to trap Penelope with a child, of that much he was certain.
Over the past days, the longer he’d listened to her recount the sheer misery she’d endured with Mama and Bella taking turns disrespecting her authority, invading her household, and imposing patently stupid advice on her, the more he’d realized that Penelope’s depths of self-restraint rivaled the ocean itself.
Equally bad advice had come to Gill from Tommie,old married manthat he’d claimed to be at barely twenty. Papa’s friends had been similarly backward in their suggestions for how to deal with a bereaved wife, and Gill—regret piled upon woe placed atop self-recrimination—had listened to them.
He did not dress for dinner, but instead donned the riding attire he’d wear in the morning, a reminder of where this final interlude with Penelope would end. He also did not question his motives for agreeing to her proposition.
For selfish reasons, for stupid reasons, for no reasons at all, he wanted to be what she’d asked him to be—her lover—if only for one night.
The meal was simple—cold ham-and-cheese sandwiches, apple tarts, a bottle of Merlot. Gill appropriated the hamper from the porter when he met that good soul on the path under the elms.
“And her ladyship will want breakfast brought over, as usual,” Gill said. “Leave it outside the door, for she might not rise with the sun.”
The porter winked and trotted back to the inn. Gill had already settled up both his account and Penelope’s, because it was still his privilege to see to her financial needs. Three months hence…
He knocked on the cottage door, which opened almost immediately. Penelope was in an old morning gown, a shawl about her shoulders. She looked tired, dear, and determined as she stepped back to let him into the cottage.
“Do we fortify ourselves with sustenance first,” Gill asked, “or fortify ourselves with pleasure and eat later?”
If he’d shocked his wife, the only sign was a slight raising of her brows. “I suppose the wine should breathe.”
Gill set the hamper on the kitchen table. “Merlot typically breathes for less than an hour, Penelope. I have missed you for nine years, and I will not be rushed once we are in the bedroom.”
She blushed even as her chin came up. “Nor will I. We can eat later. A midnight snack.”
Oh ho.Gill followed her into the bedroom, though doing so felt precipitous. “I did not mean that I’d fall upon you like a plundering barbarian.”
“I was rather hoping you would, because now that the moment is here…” Penelope halted before the cheval mirror. “I did not exactly dress for the occasion, did I?”
Gill came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. “Now that you are about to have your wish come true—and one of my wishes, too, lest there be any doubt—you feel awkward. You are suffering cold feet and doubting yourself, but let’s not take that path tonight, Penelope. Let’s not be so polite and careful and proper. Let’s take the other path, the one where we speak honestly with each other, we show some trust and patience, and we listen without leaping to conclusions.”
They’d made a start down that other, wilder path in the past week. Too little, too late, but not in vain. Not entirely in vain. Even without this last night of passion, Gill would treasure the memory of this week for the rest of his life.
Penelope turned to embrace him. For a moment, they simply held each other, and for Gill, that was a time to relearn the pleasure of having his wife near. She was petite but sturdy, curved in all the right places, and she always smelled of flowers.
He paid attention to the exact texture of her hair, so thick and fine.
To the rhythm of her breathing, to the moment when she finally let herself lean into him.
“I am afraid, Gill.”
So am I.“What scares you the most?”
“The fear that I am making the worst mistake of my life.”
He realized two heartbeats after she’d spoken that she did not refer to a night beneath the covers. She referred to giving up on a ten-year marriage, very likely the only marriage she would have.
Gill set aside the rising joy of sexual anticipation and set aside his own myriad fears as well.
“I suspect had we been more willing to err, to share doubts and worries, we might not have come to this moment. But we were not brave the way we might have been. We were… proper, correct, tidy. We minded our elders and the etiquette books instead of minding each other. We were as we thought we should be, and now you want to live as your heart tells you to. That adjustment will take time.”
“And you?” she asked, stepping back. “What adjustments will you make?”
Gill had thought about this during the late-evening hours in his solitary room. “I will be more ruthless in the Lords. I won’t abandon my scruples, but I will take the gloves off, Pen. The world is changing, and change for the better in the midst of upheaval will take concerted effort.”
He sat on the vanity stool to pull off his boots. “The same with Bella, Mama, and Tommie. You have kept them from plaguing me too awfully, but they will descend upon me, expecting to get the same reception they had from me when I was one-and-twenty and new to the title. They are in for a polite, stern awakening.”
“Good,” Penelope said, turning down the bedcovers. “Long overdue, and if you truly wanted a challenge, you could have MacMillan take a look at the Lychmont account books.”
