Page 63 of His Wild Duchess
Penelope let out a laugh as Fred guided her towards the pavilion as the orchestra began to play the next song. Air seemed to fill within her, just like the hot air balloons, and she took off, soaring across the ground with Fred leading the way. For the first time, dancing within a crowd was something to enjoy, something to anticipate. There were no judgemental members of the Ton, no faces to know or names to remember. The masks made them all one and the same, and Penelope couldn’t be more astounded by it.
“Pen,” Fred said a few moments into the dance. “You know that Georgie and I are mighty close, right?”
She nodded, almost not even paying attention as the music filled her soul.
“He tells me all sorts of things,” he continued. “And now that we’re here, he told me of your and his predicament. If you catch my meanin’.”
Penelope’s gaze shot back towards him, eyes narrowed as she spun around. “Whatdoyou mean, Fred?”
“George told me of your deal.”
“I see,” she muttered, looking over Fred’s shoulder to catch a glimpse at George, who watched them rather dutifully. “Is there something you wish to tell me about it?”
Fred sighed, a frown taking over his face despite the lively music and atmosphere surrounding them. “It ain’t nothin’ I’ve ever heard of.”
“Do they not arrange marriages in America?”
“Sure, some high and mighty families might,” he said with a shrug, his belly bouncing. “But it ain’t what the country is about. Freedom, you hear? Free will, free to choose, that sort of thing.”
“I’m afraid England does not allow the same carefree ideals for its ‘high and mighty’, as you so efficiently stated,” she said with a grin. “I do quite like that. High and mighty.”
Fred chuckled. “That ain’t the point, Pen. How about this: can you look me dead in the eyes and say you don’t want a true-blooded marriage?”
“You have such a way with words, Fred.”
“Pen,” he grumbled. “I think you don’t know your answer, so you avoid the question.”
Looking away, Penelope felt a pit begin to form in the depths of her stomach. It was frightening how Fred knew so much after knowing her for so little. Despite that gnawing feeling that toldher she wasn’t being true to herself, Penelope shrugged, meeting his gaze once more with as much confidence she could muster.
“I don’t believe it has anything to do with whether or not I want a true marriage. All I wanted was to be free to live my own life, the way that I saw fit.”
Fred’s eyebrows raised so high they almost became one with his hairline. “No longer, then?”
“What?”
“You used a whole lot of past tense there, Pen. It ain’t your future no more?”
“Well, I…” Penelope’s words trailed off. She hadn’t even realized she spoke in that way. Sure, she could’ve simply blamed it on a slip of the tongue, the rambuctiousness of their surroundings affecting her ability to collect her thoughts appropriately, but something told her that there was no way she could convince Fred of that notion.
There couldn’t be a further meaning behind that, at least, not one that Penelope could see.
“Maybe there’s more for you to think about,” Fred mused, the corner of his lip curling into an amused smile.
“What more is there?”
Fred shrugged. “Well, is there somethin’elseyou want?”
As the music swelled, the couples surrounding them beginning to spin around, Fred gripped onto her to do the same. They spun and spun, the world around Penelope becoming nothing more than a blur or color and sound. Her stomach, that was suddenly wound in knots, threatened to spill all over the floor as her gaze searched for a single person within the surrounding crowds.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Penelope saw him. George stood there, amidst a blur of colors, looking like a creature out of a novel. Her breath was stolen, and whether it was from the dance or him, she didn’t have a moment to care. Penelope clung to Fred as though he were her tether to reality, even though everything within her told her to run to George, run to him and demand to know what it was that he felt.
But instead, she remained there, caught between hope and dread.
CHAPTER 18
George was beginning to unravel, unsure if he’d even recognize himself if he’d look in a looking glass. Disregarding the masks they all wore, there were far deeper, more personal reasons why he found himself unfamiliar in his own body. Just then, surrounded by pleasures beyond his imaginations, George found himself overcome with anger, heat boiling beneath his skin as though a fire had been lit below his feet. As if nothing else around him existed, nothing but Penelope.
Penelope dancing with Fred. He had a hand resting on her waist, another holding her hand. They were movements that the dance was dependent on, and every pairing followed suit without question. Despite doing it himself countless times, George stared at them, his mind writhing with the idea of them touching in such an intimate way. Not only that, but Penelope looked up to Fred with wide, open eyes, her lips pressed firmly together as she listened to the words he spoke.
