Page 74 of His Wild Duchess
Before she could continue, George approached them, crossing the empty dance floor confidently. In that moment, Penelope watched him with wide eyes, her heart racing as his warm gaze held onto her. He was incredibly handsome, grabbing the attention of any and all ladies without barely batting an eye. Standing in front of them, George extended a hand to Penelope, the corner of his lip turning up in a grin.
“Come along, darling,” he said.
“W-What for?”
George laughed. “To open the floor, of course!” He grasped onto her hand, gently pulling her out the crowd and in front of the growing audience.
In the corner of the room, beside the orchestra, Winnifred and Fred were in the middle of a circle, boisterously telling some story to the curious Ton members. They were loud and spoke with their hands, not afraid of their voices carrying through the room. Penelope watched Winnie within the center of it all, the laughing faces all around her not bothering to deter her one bit.
“Perhaps we should go to our friend’s aid,” Penelope whispered to him at the center of the floor.
George followed her gaze over his shoulder. “No need,” he replied.
“But Winnie -”
“Is very much having the time of her life,” he said. Reaching, George tapped his finger beneath Penelope’s chin, raising her gaze towards him as a blush flooded across her cheeks. “Winnifred might look like a dainty flower, but believe me when I say, Penelope, that her stem is stronger than the oldest of trees. She knows exactly what she’s doing.”
Before Penelope could express any more concerns, George held her close to his side, gathering the attention of the onlooking crowd.
“Ladies and Lords,” he called, “We welcome you to Yeats Manor on this splendid evening. Please join the Duchess and mein a waltz!” George cast a look at the orchestra, and the conductor nodded before turning towards the musicians. Within an instant, there was a lovely tune filling the room, all eyes fixed upon them expectantly.
Penelope’s breath came out in short bursts. “George,” she murmured as he turned to face her, “I do not believe I can do this.”
His hand reached for her waist, grasping onto her and tugging her forward to close the space between them. As he held onto her other hand, his gaze fell down to take her in, a smile pulling up at the corner of his mouth. “You are utterly beautiful,” he said. “I fear I did not tell you sooner.”
The music began in a crescendo. Within a second, they were flying around the floor, Penelope’s feet moving without a single thought beneath her. Her eyes were caught on George, and she would not dare pull them away. The sincerity in his words, the unmistakable admiration that brightened his eyes, carried her forward. If there was a world around them, Penelope was ignorant to it. Everything beyond her husband faded away, becoming nothing more than a kaleidoscope of colors painted across an empty canvas.
George never once pulled his gaze away from her. If there were other dancers entering the floor around them, neither would ever realize it. They were utterly entranced, knowing where the other would step without even bothering to glance down at their feet. Penelope felt as though they shared the same mind, in that moment, and every worry she had before trickled out of her. How could she even imagine worrying when someone like George held her in the way he did? She could hardly remember worrying about anything in the first place.
Life beside George suddenly was easy to imagine. Waking up in the morning in the cottage to his breathing, to the pack bounding happily onto the bed, Butternut nestled between them like a babe. She could imagine it as though it were already true: taking walks around the fields, the summer breeze bringing them closer and closer. She’d tend to the gardens, he’d remain in the stables. Fresh bread baked in the ovens as they read their novels beside each other, mismatched tea cups in front of them. Penelope felt herself hold onto George tighter as they spun.
In no way did she see herself being without him, and that thought brought a deep fear into the pit of her stomach. Months ago, Penelope would’ve taken the chance to run away to a cottage hours away from the city with no one other than herself and her animals to keep her company. She’d be occupied by her books, by her growing garden, by her steed and nature herself. But suddenly, those ideas were tainted with loneliness, a gap she had never imagined to be there. And in its place, there was George.
In fact, perhaps…perhaps there wasalwaysGeorge, and she had been too blind to see it. Not blind, but rather stubborn. Sofixed in her ways that she ignored the change happening right in front of her. She held onto him in a different way, then, as the ballroom around them grew more and more focused. Penelope could feel it all ending, could feel him slipping from her fingertips before the music had even ended.
And then, as quickly as it began, the song was over.
George released his hold on her, an unreadable expression on his face as he faced the orchestra, giving them a polite clap as the rest of the audience did as well. Surrounding them were other dancing couples, turning then to clap and bow towards Penelope and George. The eyes clung to her in her most vulnerable state, as her deepest fears suddenly became clear to her, after all that time.
As the crowds pressed in on them, George already engrossed in a conversation, Penelope felt herself slipping away. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, the walls of Yeats Manor seeming to press in on her. Penelope lowered her head as she crept out from the ballroom, one realization echoing in her mind as she searched for her room. Penelope would be leaving soon, and the fact almost brought her to her knees in despair.
Soon, she’d be without George, and that was the greatest sorrow she never realized she had.
CHAPTER 22
George clenched and unclenched his hands, swept away by the phantom pressure of Penelope’s embrace against him. He could not be rid of her, even if he wished to be. Her touch remained upon him like a wound, ever present and reminding. The feeling echoed beneath his skin as though she lived there, always beside him, always in his mind, always clouding his thoughts. All throughout their dance, George could only think of one thing: how hard it would be to let her go. Not just then, when the music had come to a stop, but after it all. Only he knew of the letter that arrived before they came to Yeats Manor, the letter that proclaimed the cottage finally ready to be lived in.
As the waltz carried on around them, George was staring down at his wife, a mantra repeating in the back of his mind.Penelope, my wife. Penelope, my wife. Penelope, my wife.And when it was over, when her hands slipped out of his embrace, her figure disappearing within the crowds, the mantra changed into something cruel, something that had fueled his despair over the past few weeks.
Penelope, soon to be gone.
How could it have been over, just like that? Not just the waltz, but their entire life together. Yes, it began as nothing more than a deal, a ploy meant to convince the Ton of his place in aristocratic London, but it quickly became more. Perhaps Penelope had never felt changed, always remaining in a state of indifference while he suffered from a plague on the heart. It had only been one dance, and yet, George felt as though Penelope had already left him, already living her secluded and independent life in the middle of the English countryside, surrounded by nothing more than her animals.
What had once seemed like the best course of action now felt like a punch to the stomach.
George began to move through the crowd as the orchestra took up their instruments once more, pulling the audience into another dance. Though there were plenty of gentlemen around that he had planned to talk to about the stud farm’s completion, George found himself scanning the crowd for Penelope, but couldn’t see a lick of her auburn hair.
“Georgie,” a familiar voice came from his left.
