Page 63 of To Swoon and to Spar
“Do you know,” he said thoughtfully, “there have been moments when I’ve come perilously close to missing you whilst I’ve been here? I’m so glad you’ve come to visit to cure me of such uncharacteristic bouts of sentimentality.”
“Doyouknow I was worried that wife of yours was going to murder you and leave your body on a moor for the sheep to eat—”
“I do not believe sheep are carnivorous.”
“—but now that I’ve been reminded of how irritating I find you, I think thatImight murder you and feed you to the sheep myself.”
“A nice diet of grass is more to their liking.”
“Of course, you know that now!” she said. “You’ve become countrified. We’re never going to see you in town again! You’re going to be whiling away your years wandering around the cliffs until a gust of wind catches you and you’re swept into the sea and we never recover your body.”
“You seem oddly preoccupied with my death,” Penvale said, steering her past a muddy puddle, the prospect of mud on her dresssufficiently distracting to prevent her from further catastrophizing about the likely bleak future that awaited him here.
“Someone has to be,” Diana informed him, once she was clear of that harrowing danger.
“Then allow me to reassure you that I’m fairly certain Jane does not intend to murder me.” He delivered the words in what he thought was an offhand manner, but Diana’s head swiveled to look at him so fast, he was surprised she didn’t have whiplash.
“Areyou?”
“For God’s sake.”
“And what, precisely, makes you so certain of that, dearest brother?”
“We’ve become… friendly,” he hedged, which was about as successful an evasion as he might have expected.
“I’ll bet you have,” Diana said, letting out a decidedly witchy cackle. After a moment, however, her frown returned, and she regarded him with considerable scrutiny. “Are you… happy here, then?” she asked, her tone more serious than Penvale was accustomed to hearing. He considered.
It pleased him that he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do, had once more claimed ownership of the house and the land that was his birthright. It was satisfying to work with the tenants, mending their cottages, discussing the intricate details of their crops, potential improvements to the land, to learn about their lives, to earn their trust. It was a nice change of pace, after years in town, to spend months on end breathing in the clean air of the countryside, to look out his window each morning and see hills and the sea, rather than a small patch of green in St. James’s Square, and then nothing but other buildings as far as the eye could see.
But was he trulyhappy?
He wasn’t certain what that even meant; happiness had never been a particular goal of his. It was only after watching his friends marry and settle down to domestic bliss that it had occurred to him that happiness might be achieved. Might be something he was missing.
And it was only in the past couple of weeks that he’d realized he might like such a thing—and that it might be within his reach with the woman he’d married.
“I think… I could be,” he said, which was nothing more or less than the truth.
“Well,” Diana said indignantly, “that’s not good enough. You’remybrother. If you want to be happy here, with Jane, surrounded by all these”—she cast a dubious eye at their surroundings—“sheep,then we need to see to it that you are!” She said this with such determination that Penvale would not have been surprised to see her dash away only to reappear with an army at her back, if she thought it would help.
Penvale, for his part, was feeling rather touched, but he didn’t want to risk his own physical safety by informing Diana of this fact. “I appreciate it,” he said. “But this is my marriage—I need to work it out for myself. Something that I know may be difficult for you and the rest of our friends to comprehend,” he added dryly.
“Jane is the trouble, then?” she pressed. “Because if she is making you miserable, then I assure you, I will have little difficulty in being rid of the minx.”
“Jane isnotthe trouble,” he said sharply. “In fact, Jane is the best part of living here.” He broke off, surprised by the words that had come out of his own mouth—words that he had not intended to speak.
Words that he realized hemeant.
“I know you don’t like her,” he said more calmly. “ButIlike her quite a bit, and that’s the only thing that matters to me.”
Diana came to a halt, the wind whipping at her hair as she stared at him. “Penvale,” she said slowly, “are you inlove?”
Penvale sighed, raking a hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he said, because it was the only answer he could give in that moment. The only answer that didn’t require far too much examination of his own heart, a practice with which he had little experience.
“All right,” Diana said, taking this admirably in stride. “I apologize for insulting her. I don’t dislike her, as it happens; she wouldn’t have been my first choice for you—”
“You’d rather have someone you could bully?” he asked, unable to resist provoking her.
Diana ignored this. “But she is certainly spirited, which I approve of, so you needn’t worry I’ll attempt to poison her.”
