“Your dowry was to set you and your husband up in life and make you comfortable, not to redeem the mortgages of some profligate lordling!”
“You never wanted Edward to have it either.” She knew that it was childish to be so contrary, but the more her father stormed, the more she clung to her rash decision. “His father’s profligacy is not Lord Bedlow’s fault. Anyway, it is too late now to repine. I have given him my word.”
“Much his lordship will care for the word of a Brown!”
“That is no reason to cheapen it! How many times have you told me that once you’ve shaken hands on a deal, you cannot shrink from it?”
As Penelope was finishing this fine speech, her mother entered the room. Mr. Brown’s face seemed to cave in a little. Turning on his wife, he said, “This is all your doing! Filling her head with notions of lords and family seats! I hope you will be happy, Mrs. Brown, when your daughter is the countess of a run-down, drafty, out-of-the-way place with holes in the upholstery.”
Mrs. Brown stared. “George, whatever are you talking about?”
“She’s said yes to that Nevinstoke you’ve been yammering on about, that’s what! His father’s got himself killed and now he’s bound for the Gazette unless he can marry an heiress, and your daughter was fool enough to accept him.”
“Oh, George, you’re in a taking for nothing. Penny wouldn’t be so foolish, would you, Penny?”
Penelope’s face heated. “I am not foolish. But-but I did agree to marry Lord Bedlow.”
Her mother stared at her in incomprehension. “Why?”
Penelope was conscious that she did not know; embarrassment made her stubborn. She tilted up her chin. “You ought to be pleased, Mama. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Brown’s eyes narrowed. “George, may I talk to Penny alone for a moment?”
Mr. Brown grumbled, but he left the room.
“Penny, what on earth has come over you?” Mrs. Brown asked. “Are you angry with us for something?”
“My decision had nothing to do with you!” Perhaps if her mother had come in first, Penelope might have yielded to her persuasions and sent an apologetic refusal after Lord Bedlow. But now it was too late. “You seemed to like him well enough when you met him. You introduced us to him. You looked him up in Debrett’s the moment we arrived home. What was your purpose, if not exactly what has transpired?”
“I meant you to know him a bit longer first! You needn’t make me out to be some kind of heartless schemer. Why shouldn’t you marry a man with a university education? A man who’s seen something of the world? Who’ll take you to Venice?”
“Edward’s traveling!”
“Pooh, Paris,” Mrs. Brown said, who had loved Paris the one time she had managed to convince Mr. Brown to take her there. “What are you going to tell Edward?”
Penelope’s face crumpled. “Oh, Mama, I don’t know! I didn’t even think of it until Lord Bedlow had gone, and then-”
Mrs. Brown frowned. “Lord Bedlow must have been very persuasive.”
Penelope blushed. “I felt sorry for him.”
A corner of Mrs. Brown’s mouth twitched. “Is that what the young folk are calling it nowadays? When I was a girl we said we was sweet on a boy.”
“Mama,” Penelope snapped, “I am not sweet on Lord Bedlow.”
“Then why are you blushing like a bonfire? I never saw you look like that after half an hour in Edward’s company.”
Penelope raised a hand to her flaming cheeks. “I’m merely a touch discomposed.”
“He didn’t do anything he oughtn’t, did he?”
“Of course not,” Penelope said reflexively. And then, because she hated lying to her mother, “He did kiss me.”
Mrs. Brown was silent a moment. “And did you like it?”
“Mama!”
Mrs. Brown folded her arms. “Don’t you ‘Mama’ me. You’re asking me to let my baby girl marry a man she’s spoken to twice, who’s only after her money, and I am not going to even think about it if you didn’t like the way he kissed you.”
“Mama!” But her mother was implacably silent. “I liked it,” she said very, very quietly.
Mrs. Brown nodded.
“And-and he isn’t only after my money.” Penelope hoped it was the truth. “That is-he was mainly after it, and he wouldn’t have offered for me without it, of course, but-he said he wouldn’t have asked me if he didn’t think we could rub along tolerably well together. And he likes Arne.”
Mrs. Brown’s face softened-a little. “That composer you’re always on about? What a coincidence.” She sighed. “He did seem a nice boy.” After a few more moments’ frowning thought, she said, heavily, “I’ll speak to your father. We shan’t be too hasty, but there’s no harm in talking to the boy, I suppose.”
Nev ’s heart was pounding as he and his father’s man of business waited on the Browns’ steps at five to eleven the following morning. He was sure, perfectly sure, that Miss Brown would have thought it all over and realized what a poor bargain she was getting.
He did not feel much reassured when they were ushered into Mr. Brown’s study and found the brewer and a dapper young clerk in earnest consultation over a ledger so heavy it made Nev ’s eyes ache just looking at it.
The face Mr. Brown turned on him was not particularly friendly. “Well, you’ve ensnared my daughter, so I suppose there’s nothing I can do about that.” He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “If I refused the dowry you’d skip off readily enough, but the girl says to me, ‘Didn’t you teach me that once you’ve shaken hands on a deal, there’s no turning back?’ And bless me if I didn’t. Has your man here got an accounting of your debts?”
Nev breathed an inward sigh of relief. Miss Brown had kept her word. “Yes, sir, and the mortgage papers too.”
Mr. Brown looked them over with an expert eye. “Well, the list’s honest, at least,” he said with some surprise.
Nev stiffened. “Certainly. Wait a moment-how the deuce did you know that?”
For the first time, Mr. Brown’s eyes twinkled a bit. “I asked a few questions. Do you think a man gets to be as rich as I am without being able to do a little thing like investigate a fellow’s debts?”
Nev had never considered the matter. “I suppose not, sir.”
Mr. Brown was looking at the total again. “Do you know, considering how much it’s going to cost me to dig you out of this hole you’ve got yourself into, I wonder if I ought not to ask you to change your name.”
“Er-change my name, sir?”
Mr. Brown nodded. “When my friend Lewis married his daughter to an impoverished nob like yourself, he made the fellow change his name to Lewis. And he was a dook.” Mr. Brown looked at his clerk. “The Browns of Loweston. It has a nice ring, don’t it?”
Nev stared.
“Indeed, sir. But I believe the fad these days is for hyphenation.” The clerk turned to Nev, eyes glowing with enthusiasm. “Which do you like better, my lord? Brown-Ambrey or Ambrey-Brown? I should think Ambrey-Brown, myself. Very euphonious.”
Nev tried to imagine his mother’s face if he told her he was changing his name to Ambrey-Brown.
Mr. Brown and his clerk burst out laughing. “Naw, I’m only teasing you, m’boy.” Mr. Brown clapped Nev on the back, almost knocking him over. “Imagine an earl named Brown!” The brewer laughed harder. The clerk grinned at Nev.
Nev knew a good prank when he saw one. He grinned good-naturedly back. “My congratulations. I was utterly taken in.” He laughed. “My mother would have had spasms.” He laughed harder.
Mr. Brown looked approving.
At the end of it he was ushered in to see Miss Brown again. She did not look as if she had slept well, but her expression was composed as she invited him to sit. “Have you and my father arranged everything to your satisfaction?”
“Indeed,” he said. “I have copies of the settlements right here. They aren’t signed yet-he said he and your mother want to get to know me a little better before they make their decision, and I’m invited to dinner this evening-”