In for a Penny (5 page)

Miss Brown’s lips parted in a silent exclamation. “I hadn’t thought—”

He didn’t want to hear it. He turned back to the list.
5. Do not resent me. We have made an honest bargain, from which you benefit as much as I do.
He shrank from the cold statement of it, in that neat clerk’s hand. How like a merchant she sounded, there! But he knew very well how she would react to that sentiment—or rather, he thought she would react unpredictably, but badly.

6. Allow me to still correspond with Edward.
“Why the devil would you ask me who you can correspond with?”

She blinked. “You’ll be my husband.”

His brow wrinkled. “I can’t remember m’mother ever asking my father who to write to. She’d be in the morning room half the day scribbling away and he never came near her. So long as you don’t bed the fellow—”

She looked away.

He frowned. Could Edward possibly be—but no, she was a virgin, he would stake his life on it. And then he forgot all about Edward as item #7 burned into his eyes. “No
mistresses
?”

The black words stood out accusingly from the crisp white paper she had used.
7. No mistresses.
Nev remembered his fingertips burning on Amy’s shoulder as he watched Miss Brown. He felt overheated. “You saw me at Vauxhall, didn’t you?”

“I told you, I changed my mind!” She would not meet his eyes. “You mustn’t suppose that I think I have bought you, and will try to control your every movement. I know it’s nothing to do with me if I—if you occasionally find yourself in need of more than I can provide.” Her voice trembled a little. “So long as you’re discreet and don’t give me the pox.”

He had a sudden image of Miss Brown, raving, her pretty features rotting away. He shuddered. It didn’t matter; he had known in the back of his mind that he would have to give Amy her
congé
anyway. She was too expensive.

“I promise you”—he drew a deep breath and didn’t think about Amy—“I promise you that the connection you witnessed will be at an end immediately, and that your sensibilities will never hereafter be wounded by hearing of another.”

Her eyes flew to his face. Then she smiled, shyly. “It would, perhaps, be nobler to insist on letting you go your own way, but I won’t. You are very generous. Thank you.”

He knew very well he wasn’t generous in the least. But he let himself smile back and say with mock solemnity, “No mistresses.”

By rights, Penelope ought to have been hoping her parents would take a dislike to Lord Bedlow at dinner; then she could say that she had done her best and be free of the whole matter.
But when he showed up with his cinnamon hair combed rigidly into place and a nervous smile on his lips, she felt it would be hideously unjust if they rejected him. Couldn’t they see he was
trying
?

She found herself relieved and a little disconcerted when both her parents showed signs of succumbing to his charm. He complimented the food, Mrs. Brown’s embarrassingly large pearls, and Penelope’s gown—all with apparent sincerity.

When her father, who did not drink, offered to have a bottle of claret opened, Penelope held her breath. One of the things her father had never forgiven Edward for was that he had once, years ago, got himself foxed at a Brown Jug Brewery Christmas party. Mr. Brown had made some terrible remarks about Papists. And Penelope knew that Lord Bedlow drank.

To her surprise, the earl hesitated for only a moment before saying, “No, thank you.” Mr. Brown commended him and launched into one of his sermons on the value of sobriety. And her father owned a brewery! But Lord Bedlow didn’t even point out the inconsistency. Penelope flushed in mortification and sighed in relief all at once.

She was on tenterhooks for the half hour the gentlemen remained at table with their watered-down wine. She played snatches of Scotch airs on the piano and replied to her mother’s conversation in monosyllables.

She heard her father’s uproarious laughter first. Then she caught the sound of footsteps, and they entered the room, her father’s arm slung about Lord Bedlow’s taller shoulders.

“That’s a good one! Mrs. Brown, do you know what his lordship said when I told him how many obscure musical instruments Penny would insist on bringing with her to his house? ‘In for a Penny, in for a pound,’ he says!” Mr. Brown laughed again.

Penelope flushed. She knew it was contrary, but the more her parents were won over, the more she resented how easily they were taken in. It was so obvious that a gentleman like
Lord Bedlow would not have found anything to admire in a prosaic parvenue like her if he had not needed her money, or anything to flatter in her parents—so patently clear that he was too good for them, and too good for her.

But Lord Bedlow, though he had to slouch to fit under Mr. Brown’s arm, just smiled sheepishly at her and winked. If he was disgusted, he hid it well.

It was as though he had the Midas touch. He went straight to her mother’s wall of sentimental engravings and old book illustrations in gilt frames, and pointed to a garishly colored old engraving of Venice that her mother loved. “It’s the Bridge of Sighs! Have you been to Venice, Miss Brown?”

“No,” Penelope said. “I have never been out of England.”

Mrs. Brown smiled. “Oh, those old pictures are all mine. Penny is much too elegant for such trifles! I hope very much to go to Venice with Mr. Brown someday.”

“Oh, you must!” Lord Bedlow said. “It’s splendid! I wish the gondoliers still sang Tasso, but it
looks
just the same as always! My grandfather bought some sketches when he was there half a century ago, you know, and a Canaletto, and—”

A familiar gleam came into Mrs. Brown’s eye. “Oh, yes, your grandfather’s art collection is very fine, isn’t it?”

Lord Bedlow shrugged. “I’ve been told it is. People come rather often to view it.”

Mrs. Brown looked anxious. “You haven’t sold any of it, have you?”

Penelope winced at her mother’s lack of tact, but Lord Bedlow did not seem to take offense. “No. Fortunately my father allowed all of it to remain entailed, or I might have been tempted. I had offers from all over the country for the Holbein.”

Lord Bedlow could not have known that those words would advance his suit more than any amount of touching rhetoric. Mrs. Brown’s eyes took on an almost fanatical glow. “You have a Holbein?”

Lord Bedlow nodded. “There are over a hundred paintings. You ought to come out for a few days and look it over. They’re all over the house, and I think there are some boxes of sketches and things in the attic that no one’s looked at in years.”

Penelope grinned outright at the expression on her mother’s face—the face of a woman trying to remain honest when offered an overwhelming bribe.

Mrs. Brown returned to a safer subject. “So Venice really looks like it does in the paintings?”

“Exactly like. It is just as Childe Harold says, you know: ‘I saw from out the wave her structures rise / As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand…’”

Penelope was torn between laughing and gaping in astonishment. The Midas Touch indeed—her mother adored that passage.

“Really?” Mrs. Brown breathed.

“Oh, yes. I only wish the fourth canto had been published when Percy and Thirkell and I went, so that we might have read it to each other in St. Mark’s Square.”

“Will you read it to me?” Mrs. Brown asked. “Poetry isn’t the same unless you can hear it aloud, I find. But Mr. Brown doesn’t care for poetry, and Penny turns up her nose at Byron—”

Lord Bedlow shot a nervous glance at Penelope.

Penelope rolled her eyes. “Naturally I don’t insist that we agree on everything. If I did, it would only be an incentive to falsehood.”

He didn’t answer that; instead he said to Mrs. Brown, “Sometimes I read poetry aloud to myself, if there’s nobody about. But it does somewhat puzzle the servants, I find.” He gave her a smile that was like candlelight—bright yet somehow soft and friendly—and Penelope, for one insane moment, was jealous of her mother.

Mrs. Brown was clearly charmed—how could she help it?
“I do that too. But you know—I haven’t got the voice for it, not really.”

“What do you mean?” Lord Bedlow sounded genuinely puzzled, and if Penelope hadn’t already been thinking of kissing him, she would have for that. “You have a perfectly pleasant voice.”

“Well,” Mrs. Brown said, nonplussed, “thank you, but what I mean is, it don’t sound quite like Lord Byron intended it, do it? With my accent, I mean. It doesn’t flow all crisp consonants and perfect vowels like yours.”

Lord Bedlow looked self-conscious. “All right. I’ll read you the fourth canto, but only if you promise to read me something by Mr. Keats.”

Penelope considered Keats a radical hothead. And she doubted the poet would be flattered by the notion that his verse might be best appreciated by hearing it read in Mrs. Brown’s motherly Cockney voice. But Mrs. Brown
was
flattered, so Penelope could not help being pleased.

Mrs. Brown fetched out the volume of Lord Byron, and Penelope prepared to feign interest; but she found herself rapidly enthralled. Lord Bedlow was a sensitive and engaging reader, and, what made him all the more dangerously appealing, it was evident that he read so well because he loved to do it—because he loved the poetry and wanted to share it. She was reminded disloyally of Edward, who was a charming conversationalist but could not read aloud at all. He had no gift for mimicry; he read everything as if it were a treatise on philosophy. Penelope had always thought it rather sweet. But she heard the music in Lord Bedlow’s voice, and something inside her echoed it.

No sooner had he finished than she impulsively asked, “Do you sing?” She was sure he must.

“What about Keats?”

She was impressed that he remembered and ashamed that she had forgotten. “Oh, of course, Mama—”

Mrs. Brown’s knowing smile made Penelope blush. “No, no, you children sing. I would love to hear that. Lord Bedlow can listen to me butcher the English language another time.”

Nev thought he had been doing all right; the Browns were less intimidating than he had expected and less different from himself. But Miss Brown had barely spoken all evening, and it worried him. So he was inordinately relieved when she asked if he sang—and asked with real interest. And he was, he admitted to himself, very eager to hear her sing.

She rose and went to the piano. She looked perfectly composed, but her movements were a little clumsy. She glanced at him while she was getting out the music and blushed when their eyes met. He smiled and went to her side.

She was leafing through Arne’s settings of Shakespearean songs and stopped at “Under the Greenwood Tree,” glancing up at him for approval. He nodded, though the choice was an awkward one; it was a song he had sung often with Amy. She played the opening notes and began to sing in a clear, sweet contralto. After a few bars he joined in.

She was no opera singer, of course—neither was he. But, Nev realized, their voices fit together somehow. They seemed instinctively to know when to rise and when to fall in harmony, when to soften and when to strengthen. When the duet was over, he found himself wanting to sing another, and another. Instead he shook himself and turned to her parents. “I don’t wish to overstay my welcome. I thank you for a very pleasant evening.”

Mrs. Brown smiled at him and opened her mouth, but she was forestalled by Mr. Brown, who cleared his throat. “If you’d wait in the other room for a moment, my lord, I’d be much obliged to you.”

He was taken aback, and Miss Brown said, “Papa, you can’t mean to ask the earl—”

But it was Nev’s role tonight to be obliging, so he said, “It’s no bother, honestly,” and let a servant show him into a room across the hall, where half a dozen fine wax candles were already lit. Nev looked at that sign of wealth and plenty, and prayed he had been charming and obliging enough. Or had he been
too
charming and obliging? What if they all thought him an even more inconsequential fellow than before?

He had begun to fidget when Miss Brown came in, sooner than he expected. He stood at once, waiting for her parents to follow her, but instead she was accompanied by a maid who took up a seat in the far corner of the room. Miss Brown came up to him, looking very awkward and pressing her hands together.

“If it’s a no,” he said, “just tell me straight out.”

She glanced up at him. “It isn’t a no.” He couldn’t tell whether she was pleased. “You have my father’s leave to purchase a license.”

He knew he should thank her and go before any of them could change their minds. “Are you quite sure? If you wish, I can wait a few days before I send the notice to the
Gazette
.”

She hesitated, but she shook her head. “I’m sure. Besides, the sooner you announce our engagement the better. Once the word is out, your creditors will stop hounding you.”

That would be nice for his family. “Thank you.”

She tried to smile. “You were very kind to my parents—thank you.”

“I like them.” It would horrify his mother, but it was the truth. He wasn’t sure she believed him, but her smile was real this time.

An hour after Nev announced his engagement to his family, his mother was still crying in her room. At last Louisa came soberly down the stairs.

“Has she turned off the waterworks yet?”

Louisa shook her head. “She blames herself, Nate. She
thinks if she had been able to control Papa, you wouldn’t have to make this tragic sacrifice.” She looked at him sorrowfully. “You should have let me do it, Nate. I was prepared.”

“Louisa, don’t be a goose. We aren’t living in a Minerva Press novel. I’m just glad you gave me the idea. I might not have thought of Miss Brown otherwise.”

Her eyes flew wide. “
I
gave you the idea? Oh, my wretched, wretched tongue! Oh, poor Nate!” She flung herself on him.

“Don’t take on so.” He tried to fend her off. “I daresay you’ll like Miss Brown.”

“Never!” Louisa said fiercely. “I shall detest her eternally!”

“You
won’t
. Wait till you meet her. She likes music.”

“Oh, Nate, you’re so brave!”

He threw up his hands and left the house.

Nev would have preferred to take a few days to screw his courage to the sticking point before going to see Amy. But he had sent the notice to the
Gazette
, and a gentleman did not let a woman find out a thing like that from the
Gazette
.

He walked slowly up the stairs to Amy’s house, as he had hundreds of times. He didn’t even make it all the way to the top before the door opened and Amy looked out. He looked at her, but he didn’t see her brown eyes or the mischievous tilt of her mouth or even the small, creamy breasts that curved into the clean white muslin of her frock. He didn’t remember the year of laughter and sex and casual affection they had shared. He looked at Amy and all he could see were the thousands of pounds she had cost.

She smiled. “Hullo, Nev.”

He tried to smile back, but he felt a little sick. “Hello, Amy.”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “I was about to have lunch. Will you join me, or would you rather go straight to bed?”

“Actually, I—I need to talk to you.”