A Rogue by Any Other Name (36 page)

She grinned. “I see you know your limitations.”

Silence fell again, and she was surprised when he broke it. “I enjoyed charades. It was as though I was a part of the family.”

The words were so honest and unexpected, so honest, and tears came, unbidden, to prick at Penelope’s eyes. She blinked them back, saying simply, “We are married.”

He searched for her gaze in the darkness. “Is that all it takes? The exchange of vows in front of Vicar Compton, and a family is born?” When she did not reply, he added, “I wish it were so.”

She tried to keep the words light. “You are welcome to my sisters, my lord. I am certain that they would both enjoy having you for a brother . . . what with your friendship with Lord Tottenham and . . .” She stopped.

“And?” he prompted.

She took a breath. “And your ability to keep Pippa from becoming Lady Castleton.”

He sighed, leaning his head back against the seat. “Penelope . . . it is not so easy.”

She stilled, then pulled away from his embrace, the cold attacking instantly. “You mean it does not serve you.”

“No. It does not.”

“Why do their quick marriages matter?” He hesitated, and she filled the silence. “I have tried to understand, Michael . . . but I cannot see it. How does one serve the other? You already have proof of Tommy’s illegitimacy . . .” And suddenly, she understood. “You don’t though, do you?”

He did not look away, but neither did he speak. Her mind spun as she tried to make sense of the arrangement, of how it must have been organized, of the parties who must have been involved, of the logic of the situation. “You don’t have it, but my father does. And you will pay him handsomely for it in married daughters. His favorite commodity.”

“Penelope.” He leaned forward.

She pressed against the door of the coach, as far away as she could get. “Do you deny it?”

He stilled. “No.”

“And so it goes,” she said bitterly, the reality of the situation filling the small space of the carriage, threatening to suffocate her. “My father and my husband conspiring to manage both my sisters and me. Nothing changes. That’s the choice, is it? My sisters’ reputations or my friend’s? One, or t’other?”

“At first, it was a choice,” he conceded. “But now . . . I would not allow your sisters to be ruined, Penelope.”

She raised a brow. “Forgive me if I do not believe you, my lord, considering how much you have threatened those same reputations since our meeting.”

“No more threats. I want them happy. I want you happy.”

He could make her happy.
The thought whispered through her, and she did not doubt it. Not at all. This was a man who had singular focus, and if he set his mind to giving her a lifetime of happiness, he would succeed. But that was not in the cards. “You want your revenge more.”

“I want both. I want everything.”

She turned away from him, speaking to the street beyond the carriage window, suddenly irritated. “Oh, Michael, whoever told you that you could have everything?”

They rode in silence for an age before the coach stopped, and Michael descended, turning back to help her from the conveyance. As he stood there in the dim shadows of the coach, one hand extended, she was reminded of that night at Falconwell, when he’d offered her his hand and his name and his adventure, and she’d taken it, thinking he was still the boy she’d once known.

He was not. He was nothing of that boy . . . now entirely a man with two sides—kind protector and vicious redeemer. He was her husband.

And, God help her, she loved him.

All those years she’d waited for this moment, for this revelation, sure that it would change her life and cause flowers to bloom and birds to sing with its euphoria.

But this love was not euphoric. It was painful.

It was not enough.

She lowered herself from the carriage without his aid, avoiding his strong, gloved hand as she climbed the steps and entered the town house foyer, empty of servants. He followed her, but she did not hesitate, instead heading straight for the stairs and beginning her climb.

“Penelope,” he called from the foot of the stairs, and she closed her eyes against her name, against the way its sound on his lips made her ache.

She did not stop.

He followed, slowly and methodically, up the stairs and down the long, dark hallway to her bedchamber. She had left the door open, knowing that he would find entry even if she locked herself inside. He closed the door behind him as she moved to her dressing table and removed her gloves, draping them carefully over a chair.

“Penelope,” he repeated, with a firmness that demanded obedience.

Well, she was through obeying.

“Please, look at me.”

She did not waver. Did not reply.

“Penelope . . .” He trailed off, and from the corner of her eye, she saw him rake his fingers through his hair, leaving a path of glorious imperfection there—so handsome, so uncharacteristic. “For a decade, I have lived this life. Revenge. Retribution. This is what has fed me—nourished me.”

She did not turn back. Could not. Did not want him to see how he moved her. How much she wanted to scream and rail and tell him that there was more to life . . . more to
him . . .
than this wicked goal.

He would not hear her.

“You’re wrong,” she said, moving to the washbasin at the window. “It has poisoned you, instead.”

“Perhaps it has.”

She poured cool, clear water into the bowl and submerged her hands, watching them pale and waver against the porcelain, the water distorting their truth. When she spoke, it was to those foreign limbs. “You know it will not work, don’t you?” When he did not reply, she continued. “You know that once you’ve meted out your precious revenge, there will be something else. Falconwell, Langford, Tommy . . . then what? What comes next?”

“Then life. Finally,” he said, simply. “Life out from beneath the specter of that man and the past he gave me. Life without retribution.” He paused. “Life with you.”

He was close when he said it, closer than she expected, and she lifted her hands from the water and turned around even as the words stung—even as they made her ache. They were words she had desperately wanted to hear . . . since the beginning of their marriage . . . perhaps since before that. Perhaps since she began writing him letters, knowing he’d never receive them. But no matter how much she wanted to hear those words, she found she could not believe him.

And it was belief—not truth—that mattered. He had taught her that.

He stood less than an arm’s length away, serious and stark, his hazel eyes black in the shadows of the room, and she could not stop herself from speaking even as she knew she would never make him see the truth. “You’re wrong. You shan’t change. Instead, you shall remain in the darkness, cloaked in revenge.” She paused, knowing that the next words were the most important for him to hear. For her to say. “You shall be unhappy, Michael. And I shall be unhappy with you.”

His jaw steeled. “And you are such an expert? You with your charmed life, tucked away in Surrey, never a moment risked, not a single mark on your perfect, proper name. You don’t know the first thing about anger, or disappointment, or devastation. You don’t know what it’s like to have your life ripped from under you and want nothing more than to punish the man who did it.”

The quiet words were like a cannon in the room, echoing around Penelope until she could no longer hold her tongue. “You . . . selfish . . . man.” She took a step toward him. “You think I do not understand disappointment? You think I was not disappointed when I watched everyone around me—my friends, my sisters—marry? You think I was not devastated the day I discovered that the man I was to marry was in love with another? You think I was not angry every day that I woke in my father’s home knowing that I might never have contentment . . . and that I would never find love? You think it is easy to be a woman like me, tossed from one man to another to control—father, fiancé, now
husband
?”

She was advancing on him, pressing him back toward the door of the room, too irritated to enjoy the fact that he was retreating along with her. “Need I remind you that I have never, ever had a choice in the direction of my life? That everything I do, everything I am, has been in service to others?”

“That is your fault, Penelope. Not ours. You could have refused. No one was threatening your life.”

“Of course they were!” she exploded. “They were threatening my safety, my security, my future. If not Leighton or Tommy or
you,
what? What was to happen when my father died, and I had
nothing
?”

He came toward her then, taking her shoulders in his hands. “Except it was not out of self-preservation, was it? It was out of guilt and responsibility, and a desire to give your sisters the life you could not have.”

Her gaze narrowed. “I will not apologize for doing what was right for them. We are not all you, Michael, spoiled and selfish and . . .”

“Don’t stop now, darling,” he drawled, releasing her and crossing his arms over his broad chest. “You were just coming to the good bit.” When she didn’t reply, he raised a brow. “Coward. Like it or not, you made your choices, Sixpence. No one else.”

She hated him for using the nickname with her now. “You’re wrong. You think I would have chosen Leighton? You think I would have chosen Tommy? You think I would have chosen—”

She stopped herself . . . wanting desperately to finish the sentence, to say
you.
Wanting to hurt him. To punish him for making everything so much more difficult. For making it impossible to simply love him.

He heard the word anyway. “Say it.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why not? It’s true. If I were the last man in Britain, it would never have been me. I’m the villain in this play, the one who snatched you from your perfect country life, all vengeance and wrath, far too hard and cold and undeserving of you. Of your feelings. Of your company.”

“Your words. Not mine.” Except they weren’t true. Because, of all the things she’d done, of all the matches she’d almost made, he was the only one she’d really wanted.

He took a step backward, raked a hand through his hair, and gave a short huff of laughter. “You have learned to do battle, haven’t you? Poor Penelope no longer.”

She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath, promising herself that she would put him—and the fact that she loved him—from her mind. “No,” she finally agreed. “Poor Penelope no longer.”

Something shifted in him, and for the first time since their marriage, she did not question the emotion in his gaze. Resignation. “So that’s that, is it?”

She nodded once, every inch of her resisting the words, wanting to scream at the injustice of it all. “That’s that. If you insist upon revenge, you do so without me at your side.”

She knew the ultimatum would never be met, but it was no less of a blow when he said, “So be it.”

Chapter Seventeen

Dear M—

I was at the theater tonight, and I heard your name. A handful of ladies were discussing a new gaming hell and its scandalous owners, and I could not help but listen when I heard them mention you. It’s so odd to hear you referred to as Bourne—a name I still associate with your father, but I suppose it’s been yours for a decade.

A decade. Ten years since I’ve seen you or talked to you. Ten years since everything changed. Ten years, and I still miss you.

Unsigned

Dolby House, May 1826

Letter unsent

Michael climbed the steps to Dolby House one week later, responding to the summons from his father-in-law that had arrived at Hell House that morning, as he’d stood in his study and tried to keep himself from rocketing through the house to take hold of his wife and prove once and for all that they were married and that she was his.

It had come to this . . . the embarrassing truth that he spent most of his time at home listening for her footstep beyond the door, waiting for her to come to him, to tell him that she’d changed her mind, to beg him to touch her.

Just as he wished her to touch him.

For six nights, he had spent evenings at the house, avoiding his wife even as he stood on his side of that cursed adjoining bedchamber door, listening as servants filled her bath and chatted with her, then as she’d slid into the water, the sounds of her movement in the water making him ache with temptation.

With desire to prove himself to her.

The experience was torturous. And he deserved it, punishing himself by refusing to enter that room, pull her from her bath and lay her out on her bed, lovely and lush, to ravish her. As he’d turned away from the door that taunted him with the secrets that lay beyond, it was regret he felt.

She was becoming everything he wanted, and she had always been more than he deserved.

Last night had been the worst—she’d been laughing with her maid about something, and he’d stood, one hand on the door handle, the sound of her lyric laughter a siren’s call. He’d pressed his forehead to the door like a fool and listened for long minutes, waiting for something to shift.

Finally, he’d turned away, aching to go to her, to find Worth standing at the far end of the room, just inside the closed door.

He’d been embarrassed and irritated. “Is knocking no longer done?”

Worth raised one ginger brow. “I did not think it necessary, as you are rarely home at this hour.”

“I am home tonight.”

“You are also an idiot.” The housekeeper had never been one to mince words.

“I should sack you for insolence.”

“But you won’t. Because I’m right. What is wrong with you? You clearly care for the lady, and she clearly cares for you.”

“There’s nothing clear about it.”

“You’re right,” the housekeeper said, setting a stack of towels down near the washbasin. “It’s perfectly obscure—the reason why both of you spend so much time on opposite sides of that door, listening for the other.”