Page 90 of A Lord Apart (The Way to a Lord's Heart 2)

“Lady Whitfield,” he called.

What were they doing in the garden, uninvited? Had they been spying, watching and waiting for her to appear alone? For a tremulous moment, Penelope feared they’d come to take her away. No one would know where to look for her. She started to back away, then gathered her wits. She wouldnotlet them intimidate her. She’d done nothing wrong. She’d proved that over and over. She didn’t have to do it again. And here, in her new home, there were people within earshot who would help her.

The men stopped several paces away.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“You are not surprised to see us?” asked the bewhiskered man, as if a normal person would have been surprised.

That was his way—to make anything one did or said seem suspicious. As the conversation continued, his tone would grow sharper, more incredulous. He would try to make Penelope doubt her own words. But she wouldn’t; she’d learned her lesson about that trick. “My husband told me of your earlier visit,” she said.

Her interrogator looked grave, shaking his head. “Husband. I’d thought better of you, Miss Pendleton. Lady Whitfield, I should say. I wouldn’t have said you were the sort to bring ruin on a fine old family. Because ruin follows you, doesn’t it?” He nodded at his dark-haired companion to emphasize the point.

Penelope hid her reaction. “You follow me apparently,” she replied.

“That you’d put the taint of treason on the viscount.” The questioner shook his head and gave her his disappointed expression. She’d seen it before. She was supposed to argue now, try to convince him that she would never do that, that there had been no treason. And he would not be convinced. It was his business not to be convinced. Penelope was overcome by the terrible frustration she’d experienced under this man’s badgering. He didn’t care for truth; he wanted confessions. “You’re trespassing,” she said.

“Go and get the notebooks and bring them to us!”

He used the harsh voice he’d employed in the worst of her interrogations. The bark of an officer on the battlefield, the growl of an enraged patriarch. Penelope had snapped to attention under that voice. For a long time, she’d even tried to obey. Until she learned that no justice lay behind it, and nothing she could do would appease. A stark, simple answer was best. “No.”

The side-whiskered man came closer, so that he could stare right into her eyes. “Do it, or we will rain destruction on you and your unfortunatehusband.”

Penelope hid her shaking hands in her skirts. Threats were this man’s specialty. He could make you imagine all sorts of disasters. And yet few of his dire predictions had ever come true, she reminded herself. She steadied. “Leave now, or I will call someone to escort you off the property.”

“You jumped-up little—”

The dark-haired man interrupted with a hand on his companion’s arm, pulling him back. The latter glared at Penelope, fiercely contemptuous. “You’re making a serious mistake,” he said. “We will not let this go.” His friend tugged again, and they turned and strode away.

When they were gone, Penelope sank onto a bench and struggled to calm down. That man was a master at destroying peace. What he said wasn’t real. Deep breaths helped. “Ruin does not follow me,” she murmured. But the reality was that he’d spoken her persistent fears. Her doubts began to clamor for attention.

Daniel found her there sometime later, when the late-afternoon air had grown cool. “I’ve been looking for you. No one knew where you’d gone.” He sat beside her and took her hands. “You’re cold. Come inside.”

Should she tell him? Or pretend nothing had happened?

“Something’s wrong. What is it, Penelope?”

She couldn’t stay silent under those tender eyes. “The Foreign Office men were here.”

“Today? In my garden? On my land?” Daniel was annoyed, particularly because the intrusion had obviously upset her.

Penelope nodded.

“What insolence. I’ll have the gates locked.”

“I brought them down on you.”

“No. You didn’t.” He spoke sharply to shake her out of her despond. “My mother did. They’d be plaguing me for her notebooks if you had never existed.”

“Oh, yes.” She spoke as if she’d forgotten this detail. Her tone was distant. She’d gone to a place far from him.

Daniel suppressed his anxiety. “You see?”

“But I’ve made it worse. If I weren’t here—”

“They would be acting just the same,” Daniel repeated.

“He said I’d bring ruin on you. That they would rain destruction on us. What would that mean?”

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