Page 15 of To Swoon and to Spar
“I’m sure you’re right,” Jane said, her tone indicating quite the opposite. “Let’s continue, shall we?”
Later that evening, Penvale was in his suite of rooms, listening to the storm outside. He’d forgotten what winters in Cornwall were like—not as cold as those in London but with fierce storms that rolled in off the sea. How many winter nights had he spent in Bourne House, listening to the drizzle tapping against the windows, longing for the sound of a Cornish storm? He’d never feared them, not even as a boy—he’d loved the howling wind, the noise of the waves crashing below.
And here he was, amid a storm at Trethwick Abbey once more, warm and snug in an armchair before the fire in the sitting room attached to his bedchamber, a glass of brandy in hand.
This was it, he reflected. Everything he’d spent the past decade of his life working toward. He’d carefully hoarded his fortune; rather than spending money on drink or women, as seemed the habit among gentlemen, he’d invested the money he’d earned at the gaming tables in funds and dabbled in the stock exchange. And it had paid off in the end, for here he was, drinking brandy in a room that had belonged to his father and his father’s father and generations of viscounts before him. His single-minded focus had led to this moment.
So why, then, did he feel oddly… hollow?
He was acutely conscious, all at once, of the many miles that separated him from his friends. He had a sudden vision of them all settled cozily before a blazing fire at Audley’s house, warm drinks in hand, perhaps playing a raucous game of charades. The thought made him feel rather melancholy, and he grimaced in disgust at himself. It had been a long day, to cap a long, uncomfortable journey, and his exhaustion was clearly making him maudlin.
The sole thought that comforted him as he made his preparations for bed was that, with the noise of the storm, any unnatural sounds that might pipe up during the night would be lost to the howling wind. Anyone wishing to haunt his house would need to wait until tomorrow.
Chapter Five
A disturbing sight greeted Janeat the breakfast table the next morning: her husband, in apparent good humor, glowing with health, already seated and waiting for her.
This was not at all what she’d been expecting—Penvale was an aristocrat. A viscount! He’d lived a life of idle luxury. He was supposed to be late to bed and late to rise, greeting the day with a bleary eye, courtesy of the previous evening’s excesses.
Instead, here he was, appearing entirely alert, clean-shaven and immaculately attired, calmly slicing a sausage into small pieces, his eyes on the newspaper before him. She cast a surreptitious glance as she passed behind him to take a seat, expecting it to be one of the London papers—days old, given their remote location—but, to her surprise, she realized the one he’d selected was theRoyal Cornwall Gazette.She sank down into a chair opposite him and reached for the teapot, slightly nettled that he hadn’t so much as acknowledged her presence. While she had always thought the dictum that a gentleman should stand whenever a lady did was silly, she nonetheless found his failure to do so a bit jarring.
She filled her teacup, taking care to ensure the china teapot made a particularly heavyclunkwhen she set it back down on the table.
Penvale’s eyes didn’t budge from the newspaper.
She stirred a lump of sugar into her tea, making sure her spoon clattered loudly against the cup.
Penvale turned the page.
Just as she was beginning to wonder whether he’d notice if she stripped naked and danced atop the table, he glanced in her direction as he reached for a piece of toast—
And visibly started.
Unbelievable.Had he not even known she was here?
“When didyouget here?” he asked, making her feel vaguely like she’d committed a crime by daring to sit down at her own breakfast table.
She supposed it was his breakfast table now. It had never really been hers.
The injustice of this fact burned at the back of her throat. It wasn’t that she was unaware of all the ways the world was unfair—she had only to look at the small whitewashed cottages inhabited by the estate’s tenant farmers to understand how an accident of birth could lead to vastly differing fates in life. And while she’d had the good fortune to be born the daughter of a gentleman, with a mother whose dowry had kept the family quite comfortable and ensured that Jane’s education—with a governess and, later, at finishing school—was provided for, her upbringing had been nothing compared to the luxury that Penvale and his friends were accustomed to.
Despite that understanding, it pained Jane all the same, the knowledge that this house and land that she had come to love so much would never be hers, would instead be transferred from the hands of one man to another. Into the hands of a man who had not even visited the estate in two decades.
She was coming to understand how badly he’d wanted his homereturned to him, how much of his life had been centered on this goal. But did he love Trethwick Abbey the way she did? Was it freedom to him the way it was to her?
Somehow she thought not.
“I’ve been sitting here for a couple of minutes now,” she informed him, ignoring the jug of milk to take a sip of hot, sweet tea. “Should you have your ears checked, in addition to your eyes?”
“All of my senses are in perfect working order,” he said, which Jane did not think was entirely true; after nearly a fortnight observing the way he squinted down at every newspaper he picked up on the occasions when he was able to acquire one at their lodgings, she was nearly certain he needed spectacles, but if he was content to stubbornly persist (as men, she understood, were generally fond of doing), then who was she to waste her breath suggesting otherwise?
“I suppose I’m not yet used to having someone to breakfast with,” he said a bit sheepishly. There was an odd note in his voice, and for a fleeting moment she had the strangest thought that he might be as lonely as she had always been.
Surely not,she thought, dismissing the idea as soon as it had occurred to her. She’d seen his easy rapport with his sister, his friends—what could this man know of loneliness?
“I did not expect you to be up so early,” she said, rising from her seat and crossing to the sideboard, where an array of breakfast dishes was laid out; apparently wishing to compensate for his earlier lapse in manners, he immediately sprang to his feet.
“Ah,” he said, watching her survey the food options before her. “You were expecting me to remain abed until early afternoon, then roll into the breakfast room still half-foxed and reeking of spirits, and prepare to begin the entire cycle of indulgence anew?”
