Page 13 of To Swoon and to Spar
These thoughts were rudely interrupted when a damp, freezing-cold cloth was flung onto his head.
“What the hell,” he demanded, engaging in a fair bit of undignified limb-flailing as he struggled to extricate himself from the bedspread. He blinked blearily, taking in the sight of his wife, wrapped in a dressing gown of similar age and aesthetic appeal to that of her nightgown, sitting in an armchair before the fire, watching him with some satisfaction.
“Was that cold?” she inquired innocently. “I suppose I could have heated the water in the basin first, but it seemed like an awful lot of trouble.”
“What iswrongwith you?”
“If I had to suffer your cold feet, then it seemed as though some degree of revenge was in order.” She examined her fingernails idly as she spoke.
“You know, annulling this marriage seems more appealing with each day that passes,” he said, flinging the damp cloth onto the floor and shoving back the sheets, shivering as the cool air of the room hit more of his skin.
“No, it doesn’t,” she said serenely. “You want that house.”
Penvale could not argue, so he contented himself with pulling hisshirt over his head before she had a chance to look away, hoping to embarrass her. She didn’t blush, but she did avert her gaze in a hurry. Penvale decided that, on the whole, he’d take it.
“Get dressed,” he said, reaching for a pair of trousers. “I’m going to go check on the state of the roads. As you so kindly pointed out, there’s a house waiting for us.”
For once, she seemed content not to argue, and within an hour they had breakfasted and were back on the road. It was slow progress, given the previous day’s rain, so it was nearly dark when they found themselves rattling down a long gravel lane, through a pair of imposing wrought iron gates, and up a steady incline before coming to a halt in front of Trethwick Abbey.
Penvale peered out the window at his ancestral home in the dim light of dusk—a place so terribly alive in his memories but which he had not actually seen with his own eyes since he was a boy of ten.
Trethwick Abbey was a uniform weathered gray stone, featuring large mullioned windows and matching turrets on either end of the building. Perched on a hilltop, lawns sloping away from its walls in three directions, it was situated at the edge of a dramatic sea cliff. From the back of the house, Penvale recalled, one could walk along the narrow path that clung to the cliff’s edge and peer down to the rocks and crashing waves below. Diana had never been afraid of much as a girl, but she’d clung to his hand when they’d walked that path. It was one of the rare times in his life when he’d felt like her protective elder brother.
He sensed Jane’s eyes on him, but he did not look at her as the carriage door was opened and he leaped down. He turned back to offer his arm, which she took somewhat reluctantly as she stepped down beside him. Her head came up only to his shoulder, but shewas wearing a bonnet that matched her green woolen cape, and she looked…
He struggled for the right adjective. “Pretty” wasn’t the word to describe Jane at all; her features were too stern, the lines of her face too sharp. “Handsome,” perhaps, was closer, with those vivid eyes and glossy dark hair; as she stood there next to him, she looked every inch the wife of a viscount. A wife any man might be proud to parade around on his arm.
So long as she remained silent.
“Are you going to keep gaping, or can we possibly go inside, where it’s warm?” she asked impatiently, tugging on his arm. It was strange, he thought, to be bringing his bride home, only to realize that she knew this place better than he did. She had been living here for the past three years, after all; he hadn’t so much as laid eyes upon it in nearly twenty.
The heavy oak front door opened as they climbed the steps, lit by flickering torchlight, and a careworn face that Penvale recalled from his childhood awaited them as they walked inside.
“Crowe,” he said, nodding at the butler; he remembered thinking even as a boy that Crowe was old, but the figure before him was truly elderly, his face heavily creased with wrinkles. There was pride in the way Crowe held himself at stiff attention, however, and in the entirely correct bow he offered.
“Lord Penvale,” Crowe said. His gaze moved to Jane, something flickering there. “Miss Spencer.”
“It’s Lady Penvale now, actually,” Penvale said, even as Jane opened her mouth to reply, and he watched something soften slightly in his butler’s austere appearance.
Crowe glanced between them. “Mr. Bourne’s letter informing usthat you would be assuming ownership of the house left out a few details, it would seem.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Penvale murmured, then added in a louder voice, “I believe my uncle has already arranged for his things to be sent to him in London. Is the viscount’s bedroom ready?”
“It is, my lord,” Crowe confirmed. “Mr. Bourne did not sleep in the viscount’s bedchamber.”
Penvale, who was turning to walk up the stairs, paused at this. “He didn’t?”
“No, my lord,” Crowe said. “He slept in a suite of rooms in the southern wing of the house. I believe he found the view superior.”
This seemed unlikely to Penvale, since the viscount’s suite of rooms had the best views in the entire house, featuring enormous windows looking out over the tumultuous sea far below. Something within him eased at the knowledge that his uncle had not been able to bring himself to sleep in the room that once belonged to Penvale’s father.
“See that Lady Penvale’s things are moved into the viscountess’s bedroom,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, faltering. “I’m perfectly happy to remain—”
“But I am not,” he said shortly, turning to her and lowering his voice. “I know that this is an unusual marriage in some respects, but I do not think it unreasonable to at least expect my wife to sleep in the adjoining room.”
He was fairly certain that none of his friends slept in adjoining rooms; he’d never made inquiries in this regard, but he’d stake a sizable portion of his remaining fortune on Audley, Jeremy, and Belfry sharing a bed each night with their wife.
