Page 32 of The Rise of a Forsaken Lady
“Um…thank you,” she finally said with her fingers twisting in her skirts. “I think I must apologize too, as I cannot let you take all the blame. I am not the most receptive person when it comes to such cues, even as bad as you were in giving them.”
Relief swamped Lord Hillbrook’s eyes, “May we start over then? Erase the last years of miscommunication?”
A tingling sense of suspicion that Lord Hillbrook was aiming for something more than a renewed friendship between them ran through Penelope, but she ignored it. “I’d like that, thank you.”
His angelic blue eyes were near, and she looked away for a moment. Something strange was fluttering over her skin and she dared to look back at him.
“Lady Penelope,” Hillbrook said, “I will not push you, but I must have you know that I am fully decided on courting you whenever we work through these lingering hesitations between us. I think it’s best for us to know each other first.”
“But I think I know you….” Penelope said. “Don’t I?”
He smirked, “What is the name of my favorite horse?”
“Er…” she wracked her brain, knowing that Edward had uttered something of the sort some day in the past. It was named after a Roman Emperor, that she knew, but the exact word kept flickering away from her, “um…Vespasian?”
He shook his head, “Try again.”
“Gaius?”
Blue eyes were dancing. “No, but you are on the right track. It is a Roman Emperor.”
“Tiberius?” she tried, cringing a little.
“Caligula,” the Baron smiled as he sat back. “See, we do need to learn about each other.”
Huffing out a breath, Penelope castigated herself. Caligula, now that he had said it, the word rang with the bellows of gongs in her head. Caligula,of course, it was Caligula, the nickname of Gaius Julius Caesar. How could she have forgotten that?
“I suppose you are right,” she admitted.
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her left, “I will call on you tomorrow.”
The feel of his kiss shocked her a little, and she tugged her hand out of his hold. “I…look forward to it.”
Her words surprised her, and she blinked again. Lord Hillbrook was as thrown as she was, but he collected himself faster than she did. She stood as he did and curtsied when he bowed, said his farewells and left. Numbly, she sank back to the chair and stared out blankly. When it all came together, she shook her head.
“Did that just happen?” she asked disbelieving to the thin air.
“I suppose it did,” Martha said to her. “I must admit, I am a little baffled too.”
Lifting her hand to her face, Penelope looked it over to see if there were a mark resting there to prove that Lord Hillbrook had kissed her hand.
Standing, she left the room only to come across Edward who had a wide smile across his face. If figured Hillbrook had told Edward about his ‘getting to know her’ push, and she did not need to hear how happy he was about it. He opened his mouth, but she held up a hand.
“Stow it, Eddie.”
His smile morphed into a frown, “But Penelope—” Calling out to her back did not stop her from walking away, and she went directly to the stables, needing the presence of Bessie to center her mind.
The stables were a sanctuary to her, a place of peace and calm where the glaring issues she found herself mired in gradually faded into the background. She went over to Bessie and entered her stall. The chestnut mare tossed her head up when she saw her, and Penelope smiled.
“Been a while, eh, Bessie,” she greeted. “Two days I suppose is not that much of a long time, but it is for me.” She reached out and rubbed Bessie’s nose. “It’s been a busy few days. I made a vow to go back to finding a husband, and then, out of the blue, Lord Hillbrook comes and apologies to me for years of, er…miscommunication, between us for years. And then he promises to court me if and when I am ready. What do you think about that?”
Edward had chastised her for speaking to Bessie as if she was a human who could reply to him, but she kept on doing so. Bessie was a part of her, and if she had problems, why wouldn’t she want her best friend to know? Bessie cocked her head to the side and her ears twitched.
“I know,” she murmured. “Stephen Russell, the Lord of Hillbrook, a resident thorn in my side for so many years is now…wanting to be a true friend to me. I know he admired me for a few years but I…I still feel it strange to enter into a relationship deeper than a friendship with him. Edward would be glad to the ends of the earth though.”
She tickled Bessie’s jaw and smiled. “I might humor him for a while but…I cannot tell where the wind will blow me. Could it be that I had not given Hillbrook, er Stephen—gads, that is strange to say—a fair chance over these years?”
Familiar footsteps from outside told her who was coming, and she did not have a faint illusion that Mr. Moore had not heard her. He had probably been out there for a while, just giving her some privacy. He came to stand beside her but did not say a word. His presence was just as calming as Bessie was, but he did not enter the stall, just lingering outside.
