Page 64 of Her Sinful Duke

The carriage hastily jolted forward, and Penelope felt her heart sink as she realized the gravity of her situation. She was being sent away, taken against her will to a place far away from everything and everyone she knew. It was a place of horror, and she knew what awaited her upon her return.

“Please, stop! Please, take me back!” she tried to plead with the man, but that yielded no result either. Whether or not he was able to hear her, he didn’t provide her with any response. The only language he understood was the sinking of the coins in his pocket, and Penelope had no money on her to offer him for her safe return.

Tears started to stream down her face as she finally realized that she wouldn’t be returning. As the carriage rattled along the uneven road, her initial surge of adrenaline began to wane. The rhythmic clatter of the wheels and the gentle sway of the carriage combined with her overwhelming emotions left her feeling drained. Despite her fear and anger, exhaustion crept over her, and she found it increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open.

She curled up on the narrow bench, her body shivering in the cool night air that seeped through the cracks of the carriage. The rough woolen blanket she found beneath the seat provided little comfort, but she wrapped it around herself tightly, trying to find some warmth and solace.

Her mind raced with thoughts of escape and despair, but her fatigue was relentless. Gradually her eyelids grew heavier, and despite her best efforts to stay awake, she slipped into restless sleep, her dreams filled with fragmented images of James, Vanessa, and her home slipping away in the distance.

When the carriage finally jolted to a halt, she opened her eyes, and a dark silhouette stood in the open door of the carriage.

“Well, isn’t that our lost little lamb?” someone snickered. “Welcome back, black sheep. This time, you’re here for good.”

CHAPTER31

“Where is Penelope?” James asked the moment Vanessa walked back into the dining hall.

He knew that he shouldn’t have left Penelope alone. She seemed so upset, and they said things which neither of them meant. He needed to speak to her, to explain everything and tell her the truth about why he had been so cold and distant. He should have done so in the beginning, but he was afraid, so dreadfully afraid of loving her and her loving him back. But now, faced with the prospect of losing her, he realized how much she meant to him, how much he loved her.

“Oh, you know Penelope,” Vanessa waved her hand dismissively, addressing both James as well as her parents. “She is unable to face the repercussions of her actions and instead, chooses to run away from problems when they arise.”

“Run away?” James echoed.

Vanessa nodded, on her face a mask of concern. “I don’t know if she told you, but she has a history of troublesome behavior. This is just another instance of it.” She turned to her parents, sighing heavily. “We were all hoping that she had grown out of it, that she had learned her lesson, but it would appear that we were wrong.”

“Indeed,” Vanessa’s father suddenly interjected. “Lord is our witness that we have done everything in our power to help put her back on the right path, but she is just so difficult.”

“Father, that isn’t—” Adeline started, but one stern glance from her father instructed her to be quiet.

“You do not know her as well as you think you do, Adeline, my dear,” her mother joined in the choir of voices, all of which were against Penelope.

James couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The woman he knew would not run away. Not from problems, not from him.

“I am truly sorry to be the one to tell you this, James, but…” Vanessa faltered, as if it were truly difficult for her to talk about this, “but Penelope told me that she couldn’t stay here any longer. She said that she doesn’t want to be married to you anymore, but she doesn’t know how to say it to you.”

James’ eyes widened in shock and disbelief. “What? That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she leave like that?”

It was impossible. He remembered all the time they spent together. He remembered the look in her eyes, the sparkle that would appear the moment he walked into the room and her eyes fell upon him. She wasn’t pretending. Such emotions had to be real. But if they were, why wasn’t she here? Why did she go? None of this was making any sense.

Vanessa sighed sympathetically, casting her eyes downward. “I have no idea why she would do such a thing. To be quite honest, I’ve never understood her. She seems to have a mind of her own, and when she sets it upon something, it has to be done. On this particular occasion, she didn’t tell me everything. But from what she did tell me, she seemed quite adamant. She mentioned feeling overwhelmed and needing space.”

“Space?” he echoed, unable to believe what he was hearing.

She had just been telling him that she resented his cold and aloof behavior and demanded an explanation for it. Would she truly do the same to him now?

“Yes,” Vanessa nodded. She looked down at her feet, seeming somehow apologetic when she locked eyes with him once more. “And she said something else…”

“What else did she say?” he demanded to know.

She hesitated before replying. “She… even suggested that you annul the marriage.”

James took a step back, the words hitting him like a physical blow. “Annul the marriage?” He raked his fingers through his hair nervously. His mind was a haze of doubt and suspicion. “This doesn’t sound like Penelope at all.”

Vanessa’s parents exchanged a meaningful glance, then the earl revealed, “Your Grace… perhaps you don’t know my daughter as well as you think you do. Like Vanessa has already said, she has always been a troubled child, and this behavior doesn’t surprise any of us.”

James looked at Vanessa, at her mother, her father, then finally at the youngest sister. Whatever the others were feeling about Penelope, he could swear that Adeline disagreed. A moment later, she proved it.

“That isn’t true,” Adeline spoke up, her voice trembling, but confident. “Penelope is a good, kind person, which is something Vanessa knows nothing about.”

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