Page 62 of To Swoon and to Spar
But Penvale would not be more comfortable, she realized. Penvale missed his friends—she knew he was looking forward to seeing them. And at some point, this knowledge had come to matter to her.
Her eyes caught his and held. “No. That won’t be necessary.”
Soon enough, it was the first of May, and their guests were upon them—carriage after carriage arriving from London, polished to a shine, impressive teams of horses tossing their glossy heads as they pulled up before the manor. First to arrive were Lord James Audley and Lady James—Violet, Diana’s friend. Then it was Lord JulianBelfry and his wife, Emily, who was looking to be in exceptionally good humor, and whose welfare her husband appeared puzzlingly obsessed with.
“We’ll just be going upstairs so that Emily might lie down,” Lord Julian announced almost as soon they arrived.
“I do not need to lie down,” Emily assured Jane as she resisted her husband’s attempts to propel her toward the staircase, her grip firm on a basket in one hand from which a small, furry, black-and-white bewhiskered face was evident.
“And perhaps a cold compress? She appears flushed.”
“It was warm in the carriage,” Emily confided in the moment before Lord Julian secured a firm grip about her waist; Jane would not have been surprised to see him sweep his wife entirely off her feet and carry her upstairs. Emily clearly had similar concerns, for she gave a bemused wave to Jane and Penvale before allowing herself to be whisked away. “And if you could send a dish of milk up for Cecil—!” she called over one shoulder, gesturing at the basket, from which a series of increasingly audible meows was emanating.
Jane glanced at Penvale, who grinned at her, their shared amusement and confusion somehow conveyed without speaking, and in that instant, she felt more married than she had at any point in the preceding four months, up to and including the moment she’d lost her virginity against a wall in her morning room.
And it was… nice.
She didn’t have time to reflect upon this, because there were guests to get settled in their rooms, polite conversation to make, all the niceties of society to observe. None of these things put Jane at ease, and then, even more alarming, was the arrival of Diana and Lord Willingham, the former alighting from her carriage like a queen surveying herterritory. Her imperious expression faded as she gazed up at the house, replaced by a slight frown, a look of uncertainty in her eyes, that was not at all in keeping with the woman Jane had met.
“All right, my magnificent sapphire?” asked her husband, stepping down from the carriage behind her and not sidestepping fast enough to avoid a sharp elbow to the stomach. “Oof,” he said good-naturedly, but he winked at Jane as he said it, and she was quite certain that he was annoying Diana on purpose. She liked him all the better for it.
“Lady Penvale,” he said, bowing over Jane’s hand quite gallantly.
“Jane,” she said; hearing it come out a bit stiffly, she added, “If we are family now, you should call me Jane.”
He smiled at her, a dazzling smile that she imagined must have set every female heart within a ten-mile radius aflutter before he was wed; perhaps it still did. “Then you must call me Jeremy,” he said. “Everyone else does.”
“All right,” she said cautiously, still unaccustomed to friendly overtures, but he didn’t seem put off by her hesitant tone.
“Jane,” Diana said, nodding at her like a soldier recognizing a worthy opponent.
Jane gave her a cool nod in return. “Diana.”
“This is friendly!” Jeremy said brightly, and Diana rolled her eyes.
“Where is that idiotic brother of mine?” she asked Jane, who was surprised to feel a strange rush of protective irritation on the part of Penvale.
“He’s getting everyone else settled,” she said a bit sharply. “Since you took your time getting here.”
Diana lifted a single eyebrow, while Jeremy grinned; they were not, in fact, that much later than anyone else—they were not even the last to arrive—and Jane knew this perfectly well, and she guessed they did,too. Diana opened her mouth to reply, but before she could do so, Jane felt the weight of a hand on her shoulder and knew without turning that it was her husband. He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze.
“Diana, Jeremy,” he said, not removing his hand even as he drew up next to her, reaching out with his free hand to clap Jeremy on the back, then to ruffle Diana’s hair, which earned him a sharp punch on the arm from his sister.
Diana made a great show of inspecting the state of her brother’s shoes. “You haven’t become so rusticated that you’ve taken to mucking about with the pigs, I see.”
Glancing at Penvale, Jane saw him flash a grin at his sister—his grins were a glorious sight, she thought, watching his face light up—and she looked back at Jeremy and Diana in time to see them both look rather surprised at whatever they saw in Penvale’s expression.
“It’s good to see you, too, Diana,” he said dryly, then added more gently, “Do you… want to look around?”
Diana’s eyes flicked back up toward the soaring turrets and imposing stone walls of the house before her. That hesitant look crept across her face once again; Jeremy clearly saw it, too, because he nudged her gently. “Why don’t you and Penvale go on a walk together? Jane can show me inside.”
Diana nodded after a moment, her mouth a firm line as she pressed her lips together, and Penvale gave Jane’s shoulder one last squeeze before he reached out to curve his arm around Diana’s shoulders. Jane watched as Diana immediately shrugged him off, but then inclined her head so that it rested against his shoulder briefly before they set off slowly along the drive.
“It’s sogreen,” Diana said for at least the third time. The first two times, Penvale had good-naturedly agreed, since it had been more than three months since he’d seen her—the longest time they’d been apart since his school days—and he didn’t wish to immediately commence a quarrel, but by the third time, his patience had worn thin.
“Diana, it’s bloody Cornwall, obviously, it’s green,” he said as they rounded the corner of the house and set off in the direction of the cliff path. “It’s nothing but moors and rolling hills and sheep and the damned ocean, what did you expect?”
“Have you considered a future of gainful employment in which you give tours of the estate?” Diana asked waspishly. “Sheep, hills, very helpful, thank you so much for that illuminating description.”
