A Rogue by Any Other Name (6 page)

—M

Eton College, November 1813

That night, when all the house was asleep, Penelope donned her warmest cloak, fetched her muff and a lantern from her writing desk, and took a walk on her land.

Well, not precisely
her
land. The land that was attached to her hand in marriage. The land that Tommy and any number of handsome young suitors would happily accept in exchange for plucking Penelope from her family fold and taking her to wife.

How very romantic.

She’d gone too many years hoping for more. Believing—even as she told herself not to—that she might be that lucky, too. That she might find something more, some
one
more.

No. She wouldn’t think on it.

Especially not now that she was headed straight for precisely the kind of marriage she’d always hoped to avoid. Now, she had no doubt that her father was committed to marrying off his eldest child this season—to Tommy or someone else. She considered the unmarried men of the
ton
who were desperate enough to marry a twenty-eight-year-old with a broken engagement in her past. Not a single one seemed like a husband she could care for.

A husband she could love.

So, it was Tommy.

It would be Tommy.

She braced herself against the cold, ducking her face into her cloak and pulling her hood low over her brow. Well-bred ladies did not take walks in the dead of night, she knew, but all of Surrey was asleep, it was miles to the nearest neighbor, and the bitter cold matched her bitter irritation at the events of the day.

It was not fair that a broken engagement from the distant past made for such a challenging present. One would think that eight years would have made London forget the legendary autumn of 1823, but instead, Penelope was plagued with her history. In ballrooms, the whispers remained; in ladies’ salons, the fans still fluttered like hummingbird wings, hiding the quiet conversations of which she caught snippets now and then—hushed speculation about what she’d done to lose the interest of her duke, or about why she thought herself high enough to turn down the other offers.

It wasn’t that she thought highly of herself, of course.

It was that she thought highly of the promise of more.

Of a life filled with more than the husband she’d been trained to expect would be fond of her but not love her, and the child or two who she’d always assumed would love her but not know her.

Was that too much to ask?

Apparently.

She marched up a snowy rise, pausing briefly on the crest of the ridge, looking down toward the blackness of the lake below, the lake that marked the edge of Needham and Bourne lands . . . or,
former
Bourne lands. And, as she stood, staring into the darkness, thinking on her future, she realized just how little she wanted a quiet life of pastel colors and quadrilles and tepid lemonade.

She wanted more.

The word whispered through her thoughts on a wave of sadness.

More.

More than she would have, it turned out.

More than she ever should have dreamed.

It wasn’t that she was unhappy with her existence. It was luxurious, really. She was well kept and well fed and wanted for very little. She had a family that was, for the most part, tolerable, and friends with whom she could spend an afternoon now and then. And, when it came right down to it, her days weren’t that much different now than they would be if she were married to Tommy.

Why did it make her so sad to think of marrying Tommy, then?

After all, he was kind, generous, had a modicum of good humor and a warm smile. He was not so handsome as to attract attention and not so clever as to intimidate.

Those all seemed like suitable characteristics.

She imagined taking his hand and allowing him to escort her to a ball, to the theatre, to dinner. She imagined dancing with him. Smiling up at him. She imagined the feel of his hand in hers.

It was
—

It was clammy.

There was no reason to believe that Tommy would have moist hands, of course, indeed, he likely had warm, perfectly dry hands. Penelope wiped her gloved palm on her skirts nonetheless. Weren’t husbands supposed to have strong, firm hands? Especially in fantasy?

Why didn’t Tommy?

He was a good friend. It wasn’t very kind of her to imagine him with clammy hands. He deserved better.

She took a deep breath, enjoying the sting of the frigid air, closed her eyes, and tried again . . . tried her very best to imagine being Lady Thomas Alles.

She smiled up at her husband. Lovingly.

He smiled down at her. “
Let’s make a go of it, shall we?
”

She opened her eyes.

Drat.

She trudged down the rise toward the icy lake.

She would marry Tommy.

For her own good.

For the good of her sisters.

Except, it didn’t seem at all good. Not really.

Nevertheless. It was what eldest daughters of good breeding did.

They did as they were told.

Even if they absolutely didn’t want to.

Even if they wanted more.

And that was when she saw the light in the distance, in the copse of trees at the far edge of the lake.

She stopped, squinting into the darkness, ignoring the biting wind on her cheeks. Perhaps she’d imagined it. Perhaps it had been the moon glinting off the snow.

A reasonable possibility, if not for the falling snow blocking the moon from view.

The light flickered again, and Penelope gasped, taking one step back, eyes going wide as it moved quickly through the trees.

She squinted into the darkness leaning forward without moving her feet, fixated on the place where a faint yellow light flickered in the woods, as though the inch or two would make it easier to see the source of the light.

“There’s someone . . .” she whispered, the words trailing off in the cold silence.

Someone was there.

It could have been a servant, but it seemed unlikely. Needham servants had no reason to be by the lake in the dead of night, and it had been years since the last of the servants had left Falconwell. After they’d gone, the contents of the estate had been collected and the enormous stone structure had been left empty and unloved. No one had been to the house in years.

She had to do something.

It could be anything. A fire. A trespasser. A
ghost.

Well, likely not the latter.

But it was quite possible that it was a trespasser—soon to be intruder—ready to lay siege to Falconwell. If it was, someone had to do something. After all, intruders simply could not be allowed to take up residence inside the estate of the Marquess of Bourne.

If the man himself was not going to secure his estate, it seemed the task fell to Penelope. She had an equal investment in Falconwell at this point, did she not? If the manor house was taken over by pirates or brigands, that would certainly impact the value of her dowry, would it not?

Not that she had been excited about the prospect of using her dowry.

Nonetheless, it was a matter of principle.

The light flickered again.

It did not seem that there were very many brigands out there, unless they had come ill equipped with light sources.

Come to think of it, it was unlikely that either pirates or brigands were planning to take up residence in Falconwell, what with the ocean being rather far away.

Nevertheless.

Someone was there.

The question remained as to who.

And why.

But there was one thing of which Penelope was certain. Eldest daughters of good breeding did not inspect strange lights in the middle of the night.

That would be decidedly too adventurous.

It would be
more.

And that made the decision for her, really.

She’d said she wanted more, and more had come.

The universe worked in marvelous ways, did it not?

She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and moved forward, excitement propelling her to a large cluster of holly bushes at the edge of the lake before she registered the stupidity of her actions.

She was outside.

In the middle of the night.

In the bitter cold.

Headed toward any number of nefarious, questionable creatures.

And no one knew where she was.

Suddenly, marriage to Tommy did not seem so very bad.

Not when it was very possible that she was about to be murdered by inland pirates.

She heard the crunch of snow nearby, and she stopped short, lifting her lantern high and peering into the darkness beyond the holly, toward the woods where she’d seen the earlier light.

Now, she saw nothing.

Nothing but falling snow and a shadow that could easily have been that of a rabid bear.

“What nonsense,” she whispered to herself, the sound of her voice in the darkness a comfort. “There are no bears in Surrey.”

She remained unconvinced, and she did not linger to discover if that black shadow was, in fact, a bear. She had things to do back at home. First among them, accepting Tommy’s proposal.

And spending some careful time with her needlepoint.

Except, at the precise moment that she’d decided to turn tail and head back, a man came through the trees, lantern in hand.

Chapter Three

Dear M—

A gift! How extravagant. School is certainly turning you into a fine man; last year, you gave me a half-eaten piece of gingerbread. I shall be very excited to see what you’ve planned.

I suppose this means I shall have to find a gift for you as well.

Soonest—P

Needham Manor, November 1813

* * *

Dear P—

That was excellent gingerbread. I should have known that you wouldn’t appreciate my generosity in the slightest. Whatever happened to the thought and how well it counts?

It will be good to be home. I’ve missed Surrey. And you, Sixpence (though it pains me to admit it).

—M

Eton College, November 1813

Flee!

The word echoed through her as though it had been shouted through the night, but Penelope’s limbs seemed unable to follow the command. Instead, she crouched low, hiding behind the bushes and hoping wildly that the man would not see her. Hearing his footsteps in the snow nearby, she crept along the hedge toward the lake, preparing to make a mad dash away from him when she stepped on the edge of her cloak, toppled off-balance, and landed, squarely, in the holly bush.

Which was quite prickly.

“Oof!” She put out one hand to save herself from becoming tangled in the vicious plant, only to be stabbed by a rogue branch. She bit her lip and froze as the footsteps stopped.

She held her breath.

Perhaps he hadn’t seen her. After all, it was very dark.

If only she were not holding a lantern.

She shoved the light into the bush.

It did not help, as she was almost instantly flooded with a different source of light.

His
light.

He took a step toward her.

She pressed backward into the bush, sharp leaves preferable to his shadowed bulk. “Hello.”

He stopped but did not reply, and they remained in long, unbearable silence. Penelope’s heart was pounding, the only part of her that seemed to remember how to move. When she could not bear the silence a moment longer, she spoke from her position, unbalanced in a holly bush, trying for her most firm of tones. “You are trespassing.”

“Am I?” For a pirate, he had a very nice voice. It rolled out from deep in his chest, making her think of goose down and warm brandy. She shook her head at the thought, obviously the product of the cold playing tricks with her mind.

“Yes. You are. The house in the distance is Falconwell Manor. Owned by the Marquess of Bourne.”

There was a beat. “Impressive,” the pirate said, and she had the distinct feeling that he was not at all impressed.

She tried to rise with haughtiness. Failed. Twice. On the third attempt, she brushed off her skirts, and said, “It is
quite
impressive. And I assure you, the marquess will be very unhappy to know that you are”— she waved her muffled hand in the air—“whatever you are doing . . . on his land.”

“Will he?” The pirate seemed unconcerned, lowering his lantern, casting his upper half into shadow, continuing his advance.

“Indeed.” Penelope squared her shoulders. “And I shall give you three pence worth of advice; he is not to be trifled with.”

“It sounds as though you and the marquess are very close.”

She lifted her lantern and began to edge away. “Oh, yes. We are. Quite close. Very, even.”

It was not precisely a lie. They had been very close when he was in short pants.

“I don’t think so,” he said, his voice low and menacing. “In fact, I don’t think the marquess is anywhere near this place. I don’t think anyone is near this place.”

She stopped at the threat in his words, a deer hesitating in advance of a rifle’s report, and considered her options.

“I would not run if I were you,” he continued, reading her mind. “It is dark, and the snow is thick. You would not get very far without . . .”

He trailed off, but she knew the end of the sentence.

Without him catching and killing her.

She closed her eyes.

When she’d said she wanted more, this was not at all what she had been asking for. She was going to die here. In the snow. And they would not find her until spring.

That was, if her corpse was not carried off by hungry wolves.