“Louisa told you not to have an affair?”
“She was suspicious of Edward,” Penelope confided. “And I felt guilty because I hadn’t told him no, and I made things worse. And then she told me what you said, and the truth is-” She looked at him with sudden decision. “The truth is that-”
She was going to tell him everything, just as he’d always wanted her to. And she was going to do it because she was drunk. “Penelope, stop. Tell me in the morning.”
“I thought you wanted to know. I thought you wanted to know how I really felt.”
“I do. I do, more than anything. But tell me in the morning.”
“All right. I never knew being foxed was so pleasant. Why on earth did you give it up?”
Somehow it was easier to say it when Penelope was soft and slow and heavy in his arms and the house was dark. “My father was drunk. He was drunk and he got his brains blown out. I’m not going to do that to you.”
“Oh, Nev,” she said sadly. “You would never do that to me anyway.”
“Before I met you I was drunk almost every night. I was a good-for-nothing. I don’t want to be that person anymore.”
She sighed. “Mr. Garrett said you could not compromise. Because you studied Latin. I told him it was stuff, but maybe I was wrong.”
They were at his door. Nev opened it with his foot and set her down on the bed. “What do you mean?”
“You can drink a little.” She smiled as if she were pointing out the obvious. “And play cards a little.” She fell back on the bed, bouncing slightly. He watched her breasts and hips through the layers of muslin.
“I’m afraid. I’m afraid that if I start I won’t be able to stop.” Afraid was an understatement. He was terrified that the person he had become over the last few months was an illusion, who would vanish like words written in the sand when confronted with temptation. That his true self was the hard-drinking ne’er-do-well he’d been.
She frowned. “Let’s try an experiment. You’ll drink a glass of brandy, and then you’ll stop.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you’ll probably be too drunk to make love to me, and I’ll cry.” She smiled lazily up at him from where she sprawled on the bed.
He sat on the edge of the bed and ran a finger along her thigh. “I could make love to you now.” He let his finger slide over the juncture of her thighs.
She tilted her hips up. “Mm. Brandy first.”
“I don’t know if I can wait that long.” He slid his finger up and down and watched her back arch.
“If you hurry…you can be done by the time…Molly takes my clothes off.” She closed her eyes.
“I like you just fine dressed like this.”
She smiled and shook her head. “I have a surprise for you. I-I hope you don’t laugh at me.”
A surprise involving Penelope and nightclothes? “You win. One glass.” Her smile was triumphant, but she sighed when he drew back his hand.
She stumbled getting to her feet, and he put out a hand to steady her. “It’s not the punch,” she said. “You make me dizzy.”
When the door was shut, he drew in a deep breath and rang the bell.
“Davies, will you decant a bottle of brandy for me?”
Davies’s eyes widened. Of course the entire household knew of his recent puritanism. Nev tried to look as if he did not see anything unusual about his request. What made it so odd was that Davies had decanted probably hundreds of bottles for him, over the years.
“Of course, my lord, at once.” Davies didn’t move. Then, abruptly-“My lord, is everything all right?”
Nev wanted to snap at him, but he was touched by the man’s concern. “Everything is splendid. I am simply in the mood for some brandy.”
Davies nodded, and in a few minutes he was back with a full decanter and a snifter. After the man had left the room, Nev poured himself a glass. He stared at it, turning it in his hand. This was it, then.
For a moment he was tempted to pour it in the grate and tell Penelope he had drunk it. But that would be ridiculous. He was a grown man, and he refused to be afraid of a damn glass of liquor. He took a small sip. It tasted just as good as he remembered.
The warmth spread down his throat, all the way to his stomach. But there was no time to savor it. Penelope must be ready by now. He smiled and gulped the brandy down.
Changing into his nightclothes, he already felt himself affected. His hands were clumsy on the ties of his dressing gown. He hadn’t eaten in a few hours, and he had grown unaccustomed to liquor.
To his surprise, being drunk was not the seductive paradise he had created in his mind during these last few months of sobriety. He felt a little happier, that was all. He could still remember his problems but they seemed smaller, further away.
Penelope wasn’t far away, though. She was in the next room. His smile grew. He had been afraid he would want another glass; at that moment he didn’t want anything that would delay getting to Penelope.
He didn’t bother to knock. Penelope was waiting; she was on him before he got two steps into the room. Her mouth was sweet and warm, and the heavy embroidered silk of her robe was smooth and sensuous under his hands. There was a heady floral scent in his nostrils.
“You did drink the brandy,” she said happily when he finally pulled his mouth away from hers.
“You told me to, didn’t you? I-” He got a good look at her and stopped talking. She was wearing a dressing gown made of the same fabric that covered the ridiculous new settee. In the candlelight the golden dragons glimmered and the contrast of the dark blue silk with her pale skin was shocking. The robe covered most of her; all he could see was her head and neck, her bare feet, and the ends of her fingers. It reminded him of that first night at Loweston, of Penelope swathed in her nightshirt. There were three great purple chrysanthemums curling in her loosely pinned hair. “You-you-where did you get chrysanthemums?”
She smiled. “My mother grows them in our back garden at home. I asked her to send me a few plants. I didn’t tell her why I wanted them.”
Penelope had gone to all this trouble for him, because of a chance remark. “You’re the best wife in the world.” Pulling her forward by her wide yellow sash, he crushed her mouth beneath his. He felt for the ends of the sash and worked them free. His fingers told him the best part, but he didn’t believe it until he pulled back and looked.
She was naked underneath.
Nev had died and gone to heaven. He raised one hand to her breast, filled with intoxicated wonder. “So beautiful. So damned beautiful…Sorry, dashed.”
She hummed in satisfaction. “Come here.” She tugged him over to the settee. He sat, reaching for her eagerly, but before he could kiss her she climbed on top of him, pushing him back against the cushions, and trailed openmouthed kisses down his neck. “Nev.” Her breath was hot against his skin. “Mine.”
“Yours,” he gasped.
“I bought you. I bought you and you’re mine.”
He nodded, drunk on happiness and desire, and threaded his fingers in her hair. A chrysanthemum fell to the floor and filled the room with fragrance.
Penelope woke up feeling happy, although she didn’t remember why. It was late, nearly ten o’clock. She ought to be up doing things, but somehow it was all right that she wasn’t. She was wearing-she was wearing a Chinese silk dressing gown and sleeping in Nev’s bed. His hand rested lightly on her waist. She smiled.
However, she also had to use the necessary. She sat up gingerly, trying not to wake Nev-abruptly nausea washed over her and her head ached. At the same time she remembered everything that had happened the night before.
Oh, God. She had exposed herself utterly. Figuratively and literally. She barely made it to the basin in her room before being sick. So this was a hangover.
But it was worse than that. She had wondered about love, she had wondered if Nev loved her and if she loved him, but it had been almost like a game; she had never quite believed in it. It was real now. She was in love, she loved him madly. She had always thought that grand passions were a myth created by fools to explain their own weak-willed behavior, and now their reality was blinding. Penelope felt as if she had turned a corner on an ordinary London street and seen a great dragon coiled there.