Page 41 of His Wild Duchess
George narrowed his eyes. “You’re worried about the cottage, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to,” he replied. “Is that it? The first one was missing the stable and barn, so now you’re worried this one will be missing something too.”
Penelope watched him. He didn’t seem to be giving up anytime soon. With a sigh, she smiled. “Yes, that’s it. I worry about the cottage.”
“Well, I wouldn’t fret too much. From what I heard, it should be up to your standards.”
“Who exactly do you get these houses from?”
George shrugged, pulling back the curtain to peer out the window. “You know, here and there.”
She raised a brow. “I don’t know, actually. Who’s ‘here and there’?”
“Do you really want to ruin the mystery of it all?”
Penelope rolled her eyes. “Fine, don’t tell me.”
The carriage ride quickly became bumpy as they went off the road, going down a path that led up to the cottage.
Penelope looked over at him. “Where did you live in the New World?”
“Hm?” he said, eyebrows raised, obviously surprised that she asked. “Many places, I suppose.”
“Name one.”
“I arrived in New York,” he began. “And stayed there for a while. There were a few gentlemen I had known in London that went off to find fortune there, so we found each other within the city.”
“I thought you went out west.”
“Well, once we settled our business in New York, we went separate ways,” he explained with a shrug. “I sought exploration and hard work with expansion into the west.”
Penelope smiled eagerly, wanting to hear more. “And where’d you stay out there?”
“Darling, there wasn’t much of anything out there.”
“You lived in the wilderness, didn’t you?”
George smirked, raising a brow at her. “Why’re you so interested?”
“Is it not exciting to you?”
“Of course it is,” he said. “Why do you think I did it?”
Penelope sighed. “It is like what I seek,” she said. “Thatis why I’m interested. While it isn’t America, it is my own New World, living the life I saw myself living. To hear it from you makes it feel all the more possible.”
George smiled as the carriage rolled to a stop. “I hope you never stop believing in your own future.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t say that too fast, now,” George teased as he opened the carriage door, letting the wolfhounds eagerly jump out, “I find myself a hard temptation to ignore.”
“You flatter yourself.”
“Indeed I do,” George said while stepping out the carriage.
Unlike last time, when he held his hand out to her, Penelope gladly took it, feeling the warm of his large, calloused hand engulf her own. She stepped into the cloudy, humid afternoon, the tall overgrown blades of grass reaching as high as her waist.
