Page 41 of The Duchess' Ultimatum
“N – no,” she stammered. “Not at all.”
“My sister…” His brow furrowed and he looked past her as if expecting Barbara to be with her.
“She is fine,” Penelope said. “I mean… I assume she is. I am not here for her.”
“Then why are you here?”
The lie came quickly, because she was not quite ready to ask the real question. “I wished to apologize. I thought I might do so tomorrow, but I had trouble sleeping and…” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “That is the reason why.”
“Apologize? Whatever for?”
“Albina,” she said. “The way she spoke to you earlier. She should not have done so, and I am sorry for her behavior.”
It was subtle, but she could have sworn she saw a shadow of disappointment pass behind Dorian’s eyes. The vague notion that he had hoped she was here for a different reason.
“Oh…” He gave his head a shake. “That is fine. You did not have to – she is not your responsibility. And Joseph has already given me her apologies.”
“He has?” she pretended to sigh with relief, ignoring the way her heart raced. “That is… that is good. She should not have spoken –”
“No doubt she knows it,” he said with a soft smile. “Would you believe she did so on your behalf?”
Penelope leaned back. “What do you mean?”
“She has quite a low opinion of me, if you would believe it. Thinks that all your suffering is to be lain at my feet.” More laughter and she was surprised to see how well he was taking it, that Albina’s words did not affect him as they should have. “I suppose she can’t be blamed for such a thought. Although I do wish she was a little more subtle about voicing her concerns.”
“I will speak with her.”And I will do more than that!Embarrassment flooded Penelope. “And please know that I did not… I never told her to… I had no idea that she would say anything. Nor did I give her a reason to think such things.”
“But I did,” he said. “Do not fear, for Joseph has put her in her place.”
“Good.”
“In truth…” He laughed, and she was surprised at how comfortably he was behaving, no sense at all that her being here was causing him alarm. “Your cousin reminded me a little of you. Perhaps that’s why I have a soft spot for her.”
“Of me? What does that mean?”
“When you first arrived here,” he explained. “You might not have been quite as rude as she was, but you were just as sharp with your tongue. I wonder who taught it to whom…”
Penelope could not help but laugh. “Oh, I was not that bad.”
“You were worse,” he corrected. “Much worse.”
“Yes, well…” Despite the humor in the conversation, Penelope could feel the tension sitting just below the surface. She stood on one side of the doorway, the duke on the other. Less than a foot between them and where it was too dark to see his face clearly, she could see his eyes.
They sparkled in the darkness. No longer sad as they had once been, there was that sense that he could see through her – almost as if he could read her mind. Did he know why she was here? Did he expect it? And did that mean that she hadno reason to worry or overthink? That he… that he wanted the same…
“I have changed much since then,” she said softly.
“Not too much, I hope,” he said. “I rather liked that about you.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “That you are not afraid to speak your mind. To stand up to me, even. It is a rare thing to find a woman who speaks her mind truly, and not what she thinks others wish to hear.”
That sounded purposeful to Penelope, again the sense that Dorian knew why she was here.He wants me to ask the question…
Penelope found that she was having a hard time breathing. The robe she wore felt as if it weighed ten pounds so that she was sweating. But she did what she could to ignore it, a deep breath, focusing the best she could as she tried to sort through her frazzled feelings and come up with a way to speak of that which was plaguing her.
That which had been doing so now for a full week…for years, if I am honest with myself. But it is only now that I have come to realize it.
