Page 3 of To Swoon and to Spar
“You,” Penvale said with all the smugness of an elder brother, “do not currently possess information she is desperate to be privy to.” He glanced down at Diana. “Will you behave now?”
Diana narrowed her eyes at him but made no move to physically assault him, which he took as a good sign, and he slowly removed his hand.
“You were saying,” she said in tones of exaggerated sweetness, “that you are going to bemarried?”
Penvale, sensing that the situation was under control, busied himself at the sideboard pouring a glass of brandy to replace the one Diana had dropped. Diana, for her part, flounced back to the fireplace and—in what Penvale was convinced was a move designed purely to spite him—sank down upon her husband’s lap.
“Oof,” said Jeremy.
“Be quiet,” Diana told him affectionately.
“Uncle John paid me a visit today,” Penvale said, stoppering the bottle of brandy and crossing the room to resume his seat before the fire, fresh glass in hand. “It seems he is ready to sell Trethwick Abbey at last.”
As he’d expected, Jeremy and Diana both sat up straighter at this news.
“Why do I sense there’s some sort of catch?” Diana asked suspiciously.
“Because there is, naturally,” Penvale said gloomily, staring down into his glass. “Apparently, he acquired a ward at some point in thepast few years—the daughter of an old friend from his years in the navy, I believe.”
Diana frowned. “I don’t recall ever hearing of her,” she said, sounding rather put out. Diana’s ear for gossip was excellent, and she seemed to consider any she did not know as a personal affront.
“Her father was a gentleman but did not possess a title, so the family might not be familiar to you. Evidently, she is not fond of town, so our uncle has allowed her to rusticate in Cornwall until now,” Penvale explained. “It seems to have belatedly occurred to him, however, that he could relieve himself of this burden by simply marrying her off—and how efficient it would be to pawn her off onmeand save himself the bother of trying to find someone to sponsor her for a Season.” He strove to keep any note of bitterness out of his voice as he spoke; he was nearly certain what he was going to do, so there was no use moping about it.
“Penvale,” Diana said, rising to her feet and beginning to pace—a sure sign that she was deeply perturbed—“you cannot seriously be considering going through with this.”
“I assure you, I can,” Penvale said, watching her walk back and forth before the fire. “Sit down. The sight of you pacing is disturbing.”
“The notion of you marrying some infant country bumpkin that you’ve never evenmetis disturbing!” Diana retorted, flopping onto the armchair next to Jeremy’s. Without looking at her, Jeremy reached out and took her hand.
“She’s not an infant, she’s one-and-twenty,” Penvale said coolly. He had specifically asked, as he didn’t trust his uncle not to marry off a girl still in the schoolroom. “And I haven’t agreed to anything yet—I’ve asked to meet her before anything is decided, to make sure she’s not being forced into this against her will.”
“But if she’s agreeable, you plan to go through with it?” Jeremy asked. He was regarding Penvale quite seriously; it was not a look Penvale was accustomed to seeing on the face of the Marquess of Willingham, infamous rake and seducer, always ready to laugh at a bawdy joke or open another bottle of spirits. Jeremy’s marriage to Diana the previous autumn had been a love match, though, and Penvale had never seen his friend take anything as seriously as he took his wedding vows.
That did not, however, mean that Penvale was in any mood to be lectured about the sanctity of marriage by a man who, not six months earlier, had sustained minor injuries climbing down a trellis to escape a lover’s irate husband.
“I do,” Penvale said shortly, in a way that he hoped would forestall further argument. “To begin with, I’m fairly sure that if I reject this offer now, my uncle will never sell Trethwick Abbey to me, just to be a bastard.” Every interaction he’d ever had with the man supported this supposition, after all. “Furthermore, what do I care? I’ve a title—I was going to have to marry at some point, if only to have an heir, so who am I to complain when a bride has practically been dropped into my lap?”
“How romantic,” Diana said with an eye roll.
“Oh, yes, and your marrying Templeton in your very first Season was itself the height of romance,” he shot back, referring to Diana’s first husband, whom she’d wed for entirely mercenary reasons and who had left her a very young, very rich widow.
“Penvale,” Jeremy said pleasantly, “don’t be an ass.”
Penvale opened his mouth to retort, then shut it again, scrubbing a hand wearily across his face. It had been a long day, and he did not feel like ending it by quarreling with his favorite people. “The point is,” he said, “I’m not holding out for a love match, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t take this opportunity.” He looked directly at his sister.“Diana… we could go back to Trethwick Abbey at last. We could gohome.”
Something in her expression softened. Penvale was often told how strong the physical resemblance was between him and his sister, with their honey-colored hair and hazel eyes—they even shared a few mannerisms. But Penvale could never quite see it; when he looked at Diana, he simply saw his little sister, who had been his most steadfast companion since childhood, even as she sometimes drove him mad.
“I barely remember it,” she said, more gently than he’d heard her speak in quite some time. “I was so young…”
In that moment, their five-year age gap—which normally felt slight, especially now that she’d married Jeremy—seemed to stretch between them like a gulf. Trethwick Abbey loomed large in his memories: the imposing gray stone house, of course, but also the land that surrounded it, the cliffs and rolling green hills and wild, tumultuous ocean offering the constant sound of crashing waves.
He hadn’t seen it in twenty years, yet it had lived clearly in his mind all this time—and he finally had his chance to reclaim it. He damned well wasn’t going to let it slip through his fingers. “All the more reason for me to see this through, then—so you can come visit.” He drained the remainder of his drink in one long gulp, relishing the slight burn in his throat. He cast a glance out the window, where a cold rain beat against the glass, and was glad he’d brought his carriage this evening.
The clock chimed eleven, startling Penvale; he hadn’t realized it had grown so late. “I should be off,” he announced, rising.
“You needn’t go yet,” Jeremy said, but Penvale waved him off—he’d never once felt unwelcome here, but he was also sure that, mildly horrifying as the prospect was, Diana and Jeremy would have little difficulty occupying themselves once he was gone.
He paused, surprised by the slight pang he felt at the thought of them tucked up cozily here together while he retreated to Bourne House alone. But, he reminded himself as he said his farewells and waited for his carriage to be brought around, if tomorrow went well, his days of living alone were numbered.
