Page 18 of To Swoon and to Spar
He looked around the room, knowing perfectly well what he would find: a few empty chairs and a set of bookshelves full of tomes on estate management and old account books. There was no one to be seen—where would they even hide?
The uneasy feeling did not abate; if anything, it intensified, and he took a few steps forward, walking around his desk to approach the bookshelves, examine them more carefully. Nothing looked amiss, but he could not shake his lingering unease.
Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he turned back to his desk—
And froze.
Because at that precise moment, he heard someone whisper his name.
He whirled around, his heart pounding in his chest, but nothing had changed. It was still an empty room.
An empty room in which someone had just whispered to him.
Penvale was so deep in thought that at first he didn’t even notice Jane in the library.
He entered the room slowly, almost without realizing where he was. He’d wandered the halls, his head a mire of thoughts and half-formed questions, and his feet seemed to have brought him here of their own accord. He glanced up only once he was well into the room, moving in the direction of the fireplace, and he saw her.
She was tucked into an armchair before the fire, her knees drawn up toward her chest, her slippers discarded on the floor before her. There was a book open on her lap. She hadn’t dressed her hair properly that day, merely plaiting it into a heavy braid which fell over one shoulder, tendrils of loose hair framing her face. She was wearing an old gown several years out of fashion, and she had a woolly gray shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her fair cheeks were flushed from the warmth of the room, and there was a tea tray on a nearby ottoman, a chipped china teacup still half-full.
It was a thoroughly domestic, cozy scene—or at least it would have been, had it not been spoiled by one small detail: Jane’s violet eyes werecurrently fixed on him with an expression that could only be described as exasperated.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
All at once, the combination of his lurking headache, the frustrations of his tenants, the uneasy sensation he’d experienced in his study, that bloody odd whisper, and the fact that he’d acquired a wife who seemed to somehow think thatthiswas what passed for a polite greeting, meant that Penvale had had quite enough.
“Last I checked, I do live here,” he said peevishly.
“But…here?” she pressed, an expression of dark suspicion on her face. “In the library? I’ve never seen you in here before.”
“Did you not realize I know how to read?” he asked, causing her scowl to deepen.
“Come to think of it, I’ve never seen you with a book in your hand.”
He flung himself down in the armchair next to hers, reaching for the lone remaining crumpet on a plate that presumably once held several. “I read plenty when I need to,” he said, taking a bite. “If I want to learn more about a certain topic, or acquire a specific skill, or need a piece of information.”
“But what about for enjoyment?” Jane pressed, looking scandalized. “For fun? A novel, for example?”
“I’ve never read a novel,” Penvale said, and popped the remainder of the crumpet into his mouth.
Jane was gaping at him like a fish; her expression of frank astonishment considerably softened the sharp lines of her face, and she looked almost…pretty. In the traditional sense of the word, like something pleasant to rest one’s eyes upon, as opposed to something more compelling, more challenging, impossible to tear one’s gaze from. At leastthat was how he usually felt when he looked at her. He realized that he preferred the latter to the former.
“What do you mean?” she asked after a moment, apparently having recovered the power of speech. “You must have read a novel.”
Penvale paused, considering. “No,” he decided. “I really don’t think I have. Violet loves them, though, and has convinced Diana to read her fair share, so Ifeelas though I’ve read one—I’ve certainly been subjected to many a breathless summary.” Jane was looking more indignant by the moment, but he wasn’t finished yet. “Which is the one where they hate each other, but then they love each other in the end?” He paused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, that could describe about half of them, from what I’ve gathered, but this one seemed to make a particular fuss of the fact that theyreallyhated each other.”
“Are you,” Jane began in barely more than a whisper, “describingPride and Prejudice?”
Penvale snapped his fingers. “That’s the one! Or,” he added, “I suppose I could also be describing the story of Diana and Jeremy’s courtship. Who can say?”
Jane inhaled sharply. “I should fling this book at your head.”
“You wouldn’t be the first to make such a threat,” Penvale assured her. “But I wish you wouldn’t—I’ve got a devil of a headache.”
Jane regarded him thoughtfully, a faint frown creasing the smooth skin of her forehead. “I wasn’t joking the other morning,” she said after a moment. “I really do think you need spectacles.”
Penvale felt a rush of entirely absurd masculine pride and said curtly, “I can see perfectly well. Look at you. Violet eyes. Black hair. Height of a twelve-year-old”—Jane scowled—“and, oh, yes, there it is, that charming smile of yours.”
“Fine,” she said, tossing her book rather unceremoniously onto his lap. “Read a few sentences from that, if you please.”
