The Light in the Duke's Shadow: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 9

  Penelope said, “I can think of things aplenty that I can see with my own eyes and would never speak about.”

  Gina dissolved into giggles. Penelope followed the young maid into laughter. They laughed for so long that Penelope felt tears rolling down her face from it. She wiped the tears away as her laughter died.

  “Oh,” Penelope said as she remembered something. “With all the excitement of the Duke’s arrival, I forgot to say that I managed to talk Mother into taking me by Gunter’s Tea Shop. We got some of that caramel that you like so well.”

  Gina clapped her hands together with excitement as Penelope got off the bed. Penelope went to the vanity and pulled open the top right drawer. It was the drawer where she stashed all of her favourite secret things, such as the sweet candy that she and Gina liked to share occasionally. Penelope gave her friend a smile.

  “Here,” Penelope said as she tossed a little bag of the candies to Gina who quickly took out one of the candies and popped it into her mouth. “They always make my jaw tired,” Penelope said in amusement as she came over and took a candy that Gina held out to her.

  Gina said around the candy, “That’s what they do.”

  “Yet we still eat them,” Penelope said with a grin before she put the candy in her mouth. The sweet, almost buttery, flavour spread over her tongue as she chewed the sweet.

  Gina eyed Penelope and asked, “He is handsome, isn’t he? I saw it in your face when you were walking down the hall. You looked liked you were far away.”

  “He is far more handsome than he should be,” Penelope admitted. “When you met your Michael, did you know right away that you loved him?”

  Gina’s smile took on sadness. “Heaven no,” she whispered. “He was a braggart. I rather disliked him at first meeting.”

  Penelope eyed her friend with interest. “You never talk of him,” Penelope noted. “You talk of the twins and your mother, but never Michael.”

  “It hurts to talk of him,” Gina admitted in a quiet voice. Penelope ached for the pain she heard in the woman’s voice.

  Penelope whispered, “I am sorry that I brought him up.”

  “Don’t be,” Gina said with a shake of her head as she sat the candy bag down on the bed. “No one speaks of him. I tell the twins about him sometimes, but they are so little that they won’t even remember him.”

  Penelope frowned. “It is good to talk about people, even when they are gone. I am grateful Mother told me of my grandmother. I was young when she died, but the stories that I heard from my mother made her alive for me. I might have gone my whole life and never known that I have her eyes.”

  “The twins favour Michael in the face. I swear that I can see him in Jonas some days,” Gina said as she worried with the stitches in the bed sheet.

  They sat there in silence for a long time. Penelope lost herself somewhat in thoughts of her grandmother. Gina sat staring at the bed sheet for a long while. Penelope wondered if Gina was perhaps with Michael in those minutes, and Penelope dared not intrude.

  After some time Gina said, “He helped me with a basket I was carrying. It was heavily laden with the washing for the house that I worked at then. That’s the day that I began to see the real Michael.”

  Penelope smiled. “I do not know what love even feels like. I lived knowing that love was not the most important thing in the world. Duty came first, and I had made my peace with that.”

  “You sound as if you have changed your way of thinking,” Gina said with a knowing smile.

  Penelope pondered for a second the intuition of women and how she could feel so confused and yet so open to everyone’s eyes. “I told my mother last night that I do not wish to marry. She had a predictable response,” Penelope said with a smile. With a shrug, Penelope continued, “What if love is important? What if I deny it, and I miss that destiny that I wanted to fight so fiercely for?”

  “Marriage is not the end of the world,” Gina said. “Yet, here I am widowed. I do not know if I am qualified to speak on this matter.”

  Penelope looked at Gina. “But you would have been married still if Michael had not died. I know that by the way you speak of him. I consider you as knowledgeable as any married woman I know. Perhaps you are more so because you also know grief.”

  Gina smiled at Penelope and took Penelope’s hand in her own. “Most of the upper crust that I know would not deem to look at me, much less bestow candy upon me. Miss Penelope, you are a kind sort, and I don’t believe for an instant that the Lord would be so cruel as to make you live a life without love. You shall find your peace in this life, I’m sure of it.”

  “Speaking of candy,” Penelope said as she felt the pressure of tears building up behind her eyes. She blinked them away and turned her thoughts towards other things than the kind words that sought to make her forget herself and look a fool. “I would like you to take the remainder of this bag of sweets to your children.”

  Gina looked at the bag that lay between them. “Miss, that is too generous. My children will think themselves above their station and be intolerable.”

  Penelope laughed. “Then they shall be honorary nobles, and I give them free rein to tell anyone that gives them disrespect to come to talk with myself.”

  “I think they can just keep their wits about them,” Gina said with a giggle. “They are too little to have more than a nibble anyway.”

  Penelope said, “Well, then that candy should do them a good long while. Unless, of course, their mummy decides she wants a little nip of the sweets too.”

  The two of them shared a grin. Gina nodded as she scooped up the candy bag. “You really are too kind, Miss,” Gina said.

  Despite their familiarity with each other, Gina had never dropped off Penelope’s title. It had bothered Penelope at first, but Gina said it was just a habit. It would not do to let herself get too familiar with those above her station. Some nobles were not as forgiving as Penelope.

  There was the sound of a bell, and Gina got up quickly. “That’ll be the kitchen maid looking for help. I should see if I can lend a hand while there is little to do up here.”

  “Very well,” Penelope said with a nod.

  Gina left the room with a wave and smile. Penelope found the silence after her friend had gone heavy and almost unbearable. She dared not go back to the Duke’s room, and she had no wish to do needlework with her mother.

  Penelope stood up and dusted off her muslin dress, even if it were not dirty. She watched the material fall down around her legs and thought of the dresses she wore at the country estate. Her mother even allowed her to wear ones that were up to her knees at times. Penelope smiled thinking of that and wished it were more the fashion in London so she could be a bit more comfortable.

  She went out into the hallway in search of her governess. The woman was often found in the library at this time of day, and Penelope swept along the hallway to the stairs, her eyes only glancing at the Duke’s door as she passed by.

  ***

  Governess Lorraine Morton was an English born, but French-raised woman. She had moved to France with her mother and father when she was a mere baby. What she knew of England was from her years after she graduated finishing school. Miss Lorraine or Governess was how Penelope had always addressed the woman.

  Penelope found Miss Lorraine in the library browsing through books of poetry. “What shall it be today?” Penelope asked with a grin, and the woman’s eyes lifted to Penelope as a smile spread across her lips.

  “Ah, Penny, come,” Miss Lorraine said with a soft French accent that lilted her words into sweet music.

  Penelope came over and sank down into a chair near where the woman stood running her fingers lovingly over the spines of the books, both new and old. “Your father still continues to dismay that I had him purchase Lord Byron’s collections,” Miss Lorraine remarked.

  “I know,” Penelope said with a smile.

  Miss Lorraine turned with her chosen book of poetry, Lord Byron’s first volume, and sat down
in the chair near Penelope’s own. The chairs were tucked into a corner of the library with a small table between them just large enough to house two teacups along with the oil lamp that graced the table.

  “I heard of our new guest,” Miss Lorraine said pointedly as her eyes looked over the top of the book that she had just opened.

  Penelope nodded. “Yes,” she said unsure of what else to say on the matter.

  “It is the Duke of Richmond if the staff can be trusted on that matter, and I dare say that I know of no reason they would lie,” Miss Lorraine said curiously, her eyes back on her book.

  Penelope sighed and admitted, “It is the Duke. Mother and I were at that party last night. You remember the one?”

  “Yes,” Miss Lorraine said with a frown. “I wished that I could have attended in your mother’s place.”

  Penelope gave the woman a smile. “I wish so too,” she said without embarrassment. “Are you still feeling ill?”

  “No, but I dare say that if I step outside while the peach trees bloom that I shall be yet again struck down by their foul spores,” Miss Lorraine said with a shake of her head. She put her book down. “I heard what happened at the party. The servants say you were attacked or found him. The accounts are varying. It was noble of you to help him, but you surely have heard of what they say about him.”

  Penelope nodded. “Are you not the one that always said that people should not be judged by the whispers of others?”

  “Guilty as charged,” Miss Lorraine said with a smile. “Why do you not paint this morning?”

  Penelope had not given her easel any thought until the woman mentioned it. “I forgot that I could,” Penelope said with a laugh.

  Miss Lorraine shared her laughter for a moment then shook her head at Penelope. “Well, now that you have remembered yourself, perhaps you should go and paint. It will ease your mind of the confusion that is in your heart.”

  Penelope gave her governess a curious look. “What makes you think I am confused?”

  “It does not take a seer to pick the thoughts out of your head, Penny. Our lessons have long since been merely more than equals conversing, and when you seek me out with that lost look in your eyes, it often means that you are seeking comfort. While I have no answers for you, I am sure that your brush strokes will,” Miss Lorraine said as her eyes twinkled. The woman lifted her book back up, and Penelope knew that she would get no further conversation from the woman.

  Penelope bid her governess a good day and wandered out into the hallways again. She would go back to her room. The room greeted her much as it had every other time with open arms.

  When Penelope entered the room, she found it as empty as when she had left it. The echoes of her conversation with Gina left as an imprint of where they had sat on the bed. Penelope walked past the bed and into the room that adjoined her bedroom.

  This room was her painting studio where she came to work on her art. The canvas under the piece of linen she used to keep the dust off the paint lay covered in green grasses of the hill that she had begun painting the day before the party. She hardly knew the woman who had done these brush strokes, Penelope marvelled as she traced her fingers over the lines of the grasses.

  Had it really only been a day? It felt more like years. Penelope picked up her brushes and pondered starting a new piece but decided to merely add onto this one. She looked at the canvas and let her mind drift.

  What came to mind was not something she expected. All she could see in her mind’s eye was the Duke of Richmond lying on those cold stones. The light spilled onto half of his face and the blood on the other. She saw it so clearly that she opened her eyes and gasped.

  She shook her head and bid the thoughts to go away. Penelope spread some paints on her palette and dipped her brush nimbly into the coloured liquid that she cut with another substance to make it more fluid.

  The strokes she placed upon the canvas Penelope barely paid attention to. She painted on the green grass that she had done in that other lifetime. She coloured it with her thoughts, and slowly a shape emerged.

  The shape’s dark hair stood out among the green of the grasses. Penelope faded the grasses, wilted them in places, burst others into flowers and blooms. Herself she placed in her painting wearing a dress of soft, dark green satin.

  Penelope blinked at the painting wondering what she had drawn. She saw that it was herself and the Duke of Richmond dancing much as the couples had on the wallpaper that she had admired at the party. The music swirled around them as they danced through the grasses.

  There was a lace of guilt under her pleasure at the painting. It was not the sort of thing that a lady did without permission. She should not have placed the man in her painting for her own whim, yet there he was. Penelope stepped away from the easel and placed down her brushes.

  “Perhaps I should not paint,” Penelope said softly to herself. “Perhaps I will take that nap that I spoke of earlier. Yes.” Penelope nodded to herself. That sounded like a good idea. She would lay and dream until it was time for the evening meal. She certainly felt as if she could not eat anything for luncheon with the way her stomach was tied up in knots.

  Yet, when Penelope tried to sleep, her dreams would not come to her. Eventually, Penelope gave up trying to force sleep. She stretched and brought herself up to a sitting position.

  Penelope glanced at her wardrobe as she stood up. She checked her vanity and was satisfied that her attempts at sleeping had not ruined her hair too much. Her hair seemed to have a mind of its own some days, but today it was well-behaved.

  She left her room and journeyed to the second floor where she found the attic door. The steps that led up to the attic were dusty and poorly lit, but the dust did not worry Penelope. She was not wearing anything that a bit of dust would harm.

  At the top of the stairs, the attic spread out before her. Penelope had thought little of the attic except for when searching out new inspiration or things to play with. However, at the beginning of the Season when her family had moved back to London from their country estate, Penelope had again grown restless. She had come to the attic in search of something to ease her boredom as she waited for the parties to begin and the Season to truly get under way.

  Her mother made her governess give her renewed etiquette lessons during the day in preparation for Penelope’s social debut. In the evenings, though, Penelope wandered the attic in search of ghosts and anything to keep the monotony of her days at bay. It was during one of her evening forays that Penelope had discovered the chest that contained journals from not only her mother but several women in her family.

  Penelope had named the chest the Neverafter Chest, because it was much like a Hope chest that women created for their daughters to have upon their marriage. Only this chest was not full of baby clothing and things that every woman should have. This chest was full of tales of woe and dread.

  The chest sat in a far corner of the attic, and Penelope wondered yet again how it had got there. Penelope did not know the origins of the chest, but she knew that several of the journals dated back to a time before the manor house was built. She pondered who had decided to lock away all the pain of her family’s women in this chest and why they had chosen to do so.

  Certainly, Penelope could guess that such things were meant to be forgotten. You set aside the heartache and hope that those that come after you do not suffer the same fate. Yet, perhaps whoever had placed the chest there had unwittingly cursed her female relatives to stumble blindly over and over into exactly the same scenario.

  Penelope opened the chest and pulled out a journal that had belonged to her grandmother. She had read it first. She took only one at a time and then replaced them. The women whose names were merely branches of her family tree, Penelope did not favour, but Penelope had always been curious about her grandmother.