Page 2 of To Swoon and to Spar
In actuality, where he would havelikedto have Smithers show his uncle was to the nearest pigsty, but he somehow thought that even the most obedient of butlers would balk at this request. Mud was terribly difficult to scrub out of fabric, after all.
A moment later, his uncle walked into the room. It had been a few years since Penvale had last seen John Bourne in the flesh, but he still looked largely the same: brown hair liberally streaked with gray, hazel eyes that matched Penvale’s own, and a rather diminutive frame that did nothing to lessen the cunning, canny look in his eyes.
“Uncle,” Penvale said calmly, determinedly not rising. “How unexpected.”
“Peter,” his uncle replied, nodding in acknowledgment, and Penvale immediately stiffened. No one—not his friends, not even his own sister—called him by his given name. He’d inherited the viscountcy at such a young age that he’d grown used to being addressed as Penvale, the title becoming as worn and comfortable as an old pair of shoes. He had memories of his parents calling him Peter, and of Diana doing so in the squeaky voice of a young child, but no one else had done so since then, and to hear the name now, on his uncle’s lips, caused a visceral thrill of distaste.
“Penvale will do fine,” he said shortly. “Please, sit.” He didn’t think he’d allowed his hostility to come through in his voice, and he had an excellent poker face.
His uncle took a seat opposite him, surveying his surroundings as he did so. Penvale could practically see him calculating the probableworth of every object in the room. Not that Penvale was in a position to judge, considering he’d done the same as soon as he’d moved into the house, which had been the London residence of the viscounts Penvale for generations.
Penvale leaned back in his chair, refusing to be the first to speak; he wasn’t the one who’d shown up unannounced and uninvited. The role of haughty nobleman was not one that came naturally to him—possessing a title without its accompanying estate did tend to keep a man humble—but his desire to make his uncle uncomfortable proved to be excellent motivation.
He took a sip of tea from the blue-and-white china teacup sitting to the left of his elbow. It had gone lukewarm, but he bravely carried on, pointedly declining any display of hospitality toward his uncle. As an Englishman, Penvale didn’t ordinarily like to suffer the horrors of lukewarm tea, but sacrifices must be made for the sake of rather pettily sending a message, et cetera.
“I’ll not beat around the bush,” his uncle said after a moment, and Penvale mentally awarded himself the first point. “I’m prepared to sell Trethwick Abbey to you at last.”
Penvale froze for a moment before leaning back in his seat. Trethwick Abbey had been the country seat of the viscountcy and was also the rare estate that was unentailed from the title, meaning that when Penvale’s father had died and there were steep death duties to be paid, with the estate already in debt, there had been little choice but to sell it. And his uncle, who had made a fortune with the East India Company, had immediately presented himself as a willing buyer.
Penvale himself had been only ten years old at the time, and even if he’d attempted to raise some sort of objection, there’d been no chance that his father’s solicitors would have listened to him. Instead, he’dwatched as the idyllic home of his childhood was sold to a man he’d never met—a man he knew his father had despised. He and Diana had been sent to live with their mother’s sister, and that had been the end of it.
Until, that is, Penvale had left Oxford, taken up his seat in Parliament, made his presence in London known, and begun making discreet inquiries about what price his uncle would be willing to sell Trethwick Abbey for.
The answer: none that Penvale could afford. Not yet, at least. And for the better part of the past decade, that answer had remained the same.
Which was why he met his uncle’s sudden pronouncement with nothing more than a careful “Oh?” He refused to let himself get his hopes up—not about this.
“The last time my solicitor heard from yours, you made an offer that I rejected,” his uncle said calmly, leaning back in his seat, lacing his hands over his stomach, and looking for all the world as though he were quite at home and not the slightest bit uncomfortable. “I still won’t acceptthatprice, mind you—but if you were prepared to increase it by ten percent, I’d be amenable.”
Penvale’s mind was racing; he hadn’t really thought his uncle would accept his most recent offer—he’d merely been trying to find out if he was interested in negotiating, which had not been the case at the time.
So what had changed?
“I’d be amenable on one condition,” his uncle added, and Penvale’s heart sank as he waited to learn what unreasonable demand would be forthcoming.
“I have a ward who’s in need of a husband, and I’d like you to marry her.”
“You’re doingwhat?” Diana asked, and then proceeded to drop an entire glass of brandy on the floor.
“Diana,” Jeremy said in pained tones, “I do not understand why you treat drinks with such reckless abandon.”
“For heaven’s sake,” she said, recovering from her shock and bending to collect the glass, casting an exasperated glance at the wet spot on the Axminster carpet in her library. “I threw a drink at youone time,Jeremy—”
At this, Penvale looked inquiringly at his friend.
“And I probably deserved it,” Jeremy confirmed with an inexplicably fond look at his wife. “But now, to continue flinging about perfectly good brandy—!”
“I shall make it up to you later,” Diana said, batting her eyelashes, and Penvale wondered whether it would be too dramatic if he jumped out a window.
“None of that, please,” he said, covering his ears. “My delicate constitution can’t handle lewd banter involving my sister.”
“Involving,”Jeremy repeated. “She was the only onedoingany lewd bantering.” He adopted an expression of angelic innocence. “I have been on my very best behavior.”
“Is that what you call it?” Diana asked thoughtfully. “Because if my memories of this afternoon in the drawing room are accurate—”
Penvale was a man of nearly thirty, the holder of an ancient title, a member of the House of Lords, for Christ’s sake. But he did not hesitate for a single second before walking over to his sister and firmly clapping his hand over her mouth.
“You’re a brave man, Penvale,” Jeremy said, reclining in his armchair before the fireplace. It was a wet, dreary evening in mid-January, but it was warm and cozy indoors, a fire crackling merrily in the grate. “I think she’d bite my hand off if I tried that.”
