Page 32 of A Tryst By the Sea
Bella, Gill realized, was profoundly, wretchedly bitter, and in her mind, that bitterness was justified.
Penelope had doubtless grasped the depth of Bella’s unhappiness, but Penelope had also been more egregiously wronged by Gill’s family than she knew.
“You are both leaving for Lychmont in the next hour,” he said, “and you will tell me exactly where the letters are. I will send word through the solicitors regarding new budgetary arrangements to be enforced going forward. What you two have cost me and my wife is incalculable, and you will not be received in this house in future should you presume to call. MacMillan will have the cabriolet brought around.”
“Not the traveling coach?” Mama asked. “You insult your mother, Summerton.”
“Madam, if you do not want to walk to Lychmont in your slippers, you will cease harping like the fishwife you so readily impersonate. Pack your things and be grateful I do not sell the cabriolet to pay your millinery bills. Mrs. Summers,” Gill said, turning to Bella. “I will write to your husband and explain this situation to him. Do not call at the Hall. Do not show your face on any Summerton property other than the one where you bide. You and Tommie should have sorted yourselves out years ago—tell himif you are done with childbearing—but don’t take your frustrations out on others. I will see you off in an hour.”
To their credit, both ladies were in the porte cochere forty-five minutes later, the silence between them as cold as the Thames in winter.
“My lady, where exactly are the letters?” Gill asked as the cabriolet clattered around from the mews.
He saw his mother weigh the possibility of bargaining with him, saw her discard the notion. Penelope had been right. Ruthlessness worked.
“In the escritoire in my sitting room,” Mama said, “bundled beneath some old letters you wrote to your father from university. Bottom right-hand drawer. Penelope’s are there as well. We were going to get them to you, one way or another, but the moment was never right, and then the whole business lost any significance.”
“No, it did not. Safe journey to you both.” He stepped back so the first footman could hand the ladies up. Gill wasn’t about to touch either woman even while wearing his gloves. A groom took the perch at the back of the vehicle.
“They are to arrive in one piece at Lychmont tonight,” Gill said to the groom. “No detouring to call on friends, no circling back to retrieve a forgotten reticule. Get them out of my sight and treat this trip to Lychmont as if you were delivering felons to the hulks. No delays, no frolics, no excuses.”
“Of course, my lord.” The groom was smiling. “One change of horses, and we’ll have them back where they… We’ll have them safely at Lychmont.”
The cabriolet trotted off, and Gill considered whooping with relief. He also considered getting drunk, but no. He had too many notes to write to the shop owners and tradesmen, informing them that further expenses incurred by the dowager or Mr. or Mrs. Thomas Summers would be the sole debt of the relevant party and no responsibility of the Lord Summerton’s.
Over the next two days, he wrote dozens of those notes, in his own hand because his secretary was among the employees given holiday. He went around to Tommie’s clubs and had a quiet word with the relevant staff and did the same at several gaming hells and Bond Street shops.
By midweek, Gill was ready to take himself to the family seat, read what Penelope had written all those years ago, and send the traveling coach to take her to her next abode. But when he finally sat down with a glass of brandy and letters nearly a decade old, he decided on a slight modification to that plan.
The packet arrived at the Siren’s Retreat just as Penelope had run out of excuses to dither and dawdle. The time had come to take up life as a former wife who’d demanded to be set aside. Vergilius had considerately sent the traveling coach, as he’d promised he would.
A brief note accompanied a bundle of what appeared to be old letters:
My lady,
I have evicted Mama and Bella from Town and forbidden them to set foot on any Summerton property save Lychmont. Between the two of them, they waylaid letters you and I meant to exchange years ago. Bella and the dowager appear to have meddled independently, to disastrous effect, another example of the interference that has plagued us since the day we spoke our vows.
I am at the Hall and finally in possession of the missives you wrote to me all those years ago. They will always number among my dearest treasures.
Godspeed,
All my love,
Vergilius
He’dneverreceived her letters? Penelope took the forward-facing seat in the traveling coach, and when the beautiful spring scenery should have claimed her attention, she was instead cast back nine years, to the loneliest, most heartbroken months of her life.
She’d lost a child. Vergilius had lost a childandhis father within a fortnight. The old viscount’s death had meant Vergilius had been compelled to leave Penelope’s side and thus part from the only real support he’d had.
Penelope had written to Vergilius as a means of comforting them both, sending her love, recounting small moments filled with both grief and hope. Wishing him fortitude and expressing all of her longing for the consolation of his simple presence.I’ll come if you send for me, my lord. Physically, I am recovering from my travail, but my heart yearns for the balm of your embrace.
She’d written to him every day for nearly a month, and all the while, Bella had told her not to pester a man newly coping with a peer’s responsibilities.Don’t cling. Don’t impose. Don’t whine.Nobody respects a woman who’s always sniffling into her handkerchief.
“Damn her,” Penelope muttered. “Damn them both to the foulest privy in hell.” Penelope’s anger was on behalf of herself as a much younger wife and—more significantly—on behalf of her husband. Vergilius had doubtless been told not to bother his frail, sad wife, and by the time Penelope had eventually left Town for the Hall, shehadbeen frail and sad.
She’d been hurt at Gill’s apparent silence, and he had been hurt at what he’d thought was her cold, self-absorbed indifference.
Not merely hurt. Husband and wife had been quietly devastated. A wedge of spite, greed, and selfishness had been driven through their marriage at the worst possible time. She read Gill’s letters over twice, murmuring passages aloud.
