Page 95 of A Lord Apart (The Way to a Lord's Heart 2)

“All this jollity is just a skim of illusion over a far different reality,” said Penelope.

Daniel was furious at the agents. Could there be two more irritating people in the world?

“Disaster can strike at any moment,” she added.

He started to argue, then changed his mind. “That’s true. Look at my parents, sailing home from another of their adventures, with one of those notebooks full of secrets, I suppose. Swamped by a storm at sea between one instant and the next.” He took her hand. “But, Penelope, that doesn’t mean the rest is illusion.”

She turned to look at him, her blue eyes wide and apprehensive.

“Foyle’s slightly nonplussed happiness, and this mouthwatering cake, and your comical dogs are just as real.”

“They can be swept away, just as the waves did that ship.”

Daniel shrugged. “Possibly. Probably not, but it might happen. And then we would pick ourselves up and work on a remedy.”

Penelope blinked, then spoke slowly. “The last year was horrible, but I got through it.”

“Like a champion,” he replied. “And then you met me.” He squeezed her fingers and tried a smile.

She gazed up at him. “If Philip hadn’t brought everything down, I never would have met you. Or perhaps I might have, during the season in London.”

“But would my sterling qualities have been so evident, dancing at a stuffy ball or trotting sedately through the park?”

Her expression eased. “Possibly not. And you might not have appreciated mine. I’d have been just another deb.”

“Sylphlike,” said Daniel.

“What?”

“I never pursued acquaintance with the wispy, sylphlike girls. Can’t abide their simpering.”

“I’mnotwispy! And I have never simpered in my life.”

“I know that. But I wouldn’t have from across a drawing room.” It was perfectly true. He’d have turned away. And that certainty made Daniel’s blood run cold. “I never would have found my mother’s notebooks either, hidden like that. Or the letters she wrote your mother. Wouldn’t have known anything about them.” And he would have gone on thinking that his parents were simply selfish, shallow people.

“You might have come upon the letters.”

Daniel shook his head. “With so many other papers to sort through? No. And I was on the point of giving up on those. I’d have lived like my forebears, half-buried in fusty records, making a mad search for the right document when a need arose.”

“You would have gotten a new agent,” she said, as if to defend him.

“Yes. But he wouldn’t have noticed the trunk linings or looked through my mother’s personal correspondence. Too much else to do.”

Penelope nodded. “I suppose I would have accepted an offer from some acquaintance of the Pratts.”

“The Pratts?”

“Mrs. Pratt was to sponsor me for my first season,” she replied.

“That sour old biddy?” He was newly outraged. “You didn’t mention that at the theater.”

“It was no longer relevant.” Penelope grimaced. “She used to be much kinder. But I would have met the gentlemen she presented to me.”

“I certainly would not have been one of them,” said Daniel.

They stared at each other. Another future opened out before them, like a chasm yawning at their feet in an earthquake, revealing dark depths. Daniel wanted to clutch her to him. The people around them seemed to recede, as if they stood alone together.

“The dreadful things that happen make you what you are,” said Penelope.

---