Alice looked extraordinarily nervous. “Is there anything else you’ll be needing from me?”
Penelope shook her head. “Not tonight, Alice.”
“Thank you, mum.” She turned for the door and had almost reached freedom when Penelope called her back.
“Oh, there is one thing.” The girl turned back, wide-eyed and waiting. “Could you tell me where the master’s chamber is?”
“You mean, Bourne’s rooms?”
There it was again. Bourne.
“Yes.”
“Most of us use the next door down the hallway, but you’ve a door direct,” Alice said, pointing at a door at the far end of the room, nearly tucked away behind the dressing screen.
A door direct.
Penelope’s heart began to beat a bit faster. “I see.”
Of course she’d have a direct passage to her husband’s rooms.
He was, after all, her husband.
Perhaps he’d use it.
Something shimmered through her, something that she could not identify. Fear, possibly.
Excitement.
Adventure.
“I’m certain he won’t mind you being in here, milady. He does not often sleep here.”
Penelope felt heat wash over her cheeks again. “I see,” she repeated. He slept somewhere else. With someone else.
“Good night, m’lady.”
“Good night, Alice.”
The girl was gone then, and Penelope stood staring at that door, unbearably curious about what was behind it. The curiosity remained as her trunks arrived, followed by her supper—a simple, sumptuous meal of fresh bread and cheese, warm ham, and lovely, rich chutney. It gnawed at her while she ate, and as her newly arrived maid unpacked her most vital pieces of clothing, and while the boys who had brought her trunks filled her bath, and while she bathed, and dried, and dressed, and tried desperately to write a letter to her cousin Catherine.
When the clock struck midnight, and she realized that her wedding day—and wedding night—had come and gone, the curiosity about what was behind that door turned into disappointment.
And then irritation. Her gaze was drawn to the adjoining door once more. She eyed the mahogany, anger and not a little bit of embarrassment coursing through her. And in that split second, she made her decision.
She went to the door and yanked it open, revealing a great, yawning darkness.
The servants knew he did not plan to return that night, or they would have kept a fire lit for him. She was the only one who had expected him to return. The only one who thought, perhaps, their wedding night might be something . . . more.
Silly Penelope.
He hadn’t wanted to marry her.
He’d married her for Falconwell. Why was that so difficult for her to remember? She swallowed around the knot in her throat, taking a deep breath. She would not allow herself to cry. Not tonight. Not in this new house, with its curious servants. Not on her wedding night.
The first night of the rest of her life.
Her first night as Marchioness of Bourne, with the freedoms that came with the title.
So, no, she would not cry. Instead, she would have an adventure.
Lifting a large candlestick from a nearby table, she entered the room, a pool of golden light following her, revealing a long wall of shelves filled to bursting with books and a marble fireplace with two large, lovely chairs arranged comfortably nearby. She paused at the hearth to investigate the enormous painting that hung above, lifting her candle to lend more light to the landscape.
Recognition flared.
It was Falconwell.
Not the house, but the land. The rolling hills that gave way to the stunning, glittering lake that marked the western edge of the lush, green property—the jewel of Surrey. The land that had once been his birthright.
He awoke to Falconwell.
When he slept in this room, that was.
The thought chased away any sympathy she might have felt in that moment, and she spun away, irritation and disappointment flaring. Her candle revealed the end of a massive bed—bigger than any bed she’d ever seen. Penelope gasped at its sheer size, enormous oak posts at each of its corners, each more finely wrought than the last, the canopy above rising at least seven feet—maybe more. It was shrouded in fabrics the color of wine and midnight, and she could not stop herself from reaching out to run her fingers over the velvet draping.
It was lush and rich and extravagant in the extreme.
And devastatingly masculine.
The thought had her turning away to face the rest of the room, her gaze following the candlelight as it caught a large crystal decanter filled with dark liquid and a matching set of tumblers.
She wondered how often he poured himself a finger of scotch and took to his massive bed. Wondered how often he poured an equal amount of the liquor for a guest.
The idea of another woman in Michael’s bed, dark and voluptuous, matching him in her beauty and her boldness, fueled Penelope’s ire.
He’d left her there, in his home, on her first night as his wife.
And he’d gone off to drink scotch with a goddess.
It did not matter that she had no proof; it made her angry nonetheless.
Had their conversation in the carriage meant nothing? How were they to prove to London and to society that this sham of a marriage was nothing close to the scandal it was if he was off gallivanting with . . . with . . . ladies of the evening?
And what was she to do while he lived the life of a rakish libertine?
Sit here with needlepoint until he decided to grace her with his presence?
No.
She would not do it.
“Most definitely not,” she vowed softly, triumphantly in the dark room, as though once the words were spoken aloud, they could not be rescinded.
And perhaps they couldn’t.
Her gaze set upon the decanter once more, the deep cuts in the glass, the wide base, designed to keep the bottle from tipping over on rough seas. He would have a ship’s captain’s decanter in this decadent room, a den of fabric and sin that could have belonged to any self-respecting pirate.
Well. She would show him rough seas.
Before she could give it much thought, she was headed for the drink, setting down her candelabrum, turning over a tumbler and pouring more scotch into the glass than any decent woman should drink.
That she was not certain exactly how much scotch a decent woman could drink was irrelevant.
She took a perverse pleasure in the way the amber liquid filled the crystal, and she snickered as she wondered what her new husband would think if he arrived home to that moment—his proper wife, plucked from the path to spinsterhood, clutching a glass half-full of scotch.
Half-full of the future.
Half-full of adventure.
With a grin, Penelope toasted herself in the wide mirror mounted behind the decanter and took a long drink of the whiskey.
And nearly died.
She was not prepared for the wicked burn that seared down her throat and pooled in her stomach, making her retch once before she regained control of her faculties. “Blech!” she announced to the empty room, looking down into the glass and wondering why anyone—particularly the wealthiest men in Britain—might actually choose to drink such smoky, bitter swill.
It tasted like fire. Fire and . . . trees.
And it was foul.
As far as adventures went, this one was not looking at all promising.
She thought she might be sick.