Never Had a Dream Come True (15 page)

It was too much too soon.

“Please,” Penny whispered. “Don’t make me tell you. I don’t want to think about it anymore. Can’t we just forget about it?”

“Penelope de Vere, I thought you knew me better than this. Of course I won’t let this be. You know I love you dearly, as you have always been more a sister, not merely a friend, to Fanny, and I promise you, my dear, I will not let you leave this house until I know what happened to you.”

“Mama, please,” Francesca begged. “You have to let Penny rest. Anyone can see she has gone through quite an ordeal, and I don’t think this is the time to force her to tell you anything.”

Ignoring her daughter’s outburst, Lady Newbury continued, “I will give you the choice of telling me alone, if you prefer. But I tell you this: if you don’t tell me, you will have to answer to both me and my husband first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Mama!”

“Fanny, don’t you see your friend has been handled quite roughly by someone? I can’t ignore that, and I am surprised that you insist that I do.”

“It’s all right,” Penny whispered to Francesca, knowing quite well Lady Newbury was right. She would have to tell them sooner or later. By choosing their home as her refuge, she had put them in an awkward position. They were not her legal guardians and had no right to let her stay without her parents’ consent, or to hide her from them.

“Could I speak to you alone tomorrow morning? I don’t think I can face…it…now. I-I need to sleep. Please?”

“You can come to my private rooms when you feel you are ready. I will send my husband away, if it feels easier for you to speak only to me.”

“Thank you.”

Lady Newbury put her arms around Penny and gave her a soft, motherly hug, meant to strengthen her gently.

“I’m so sorry,” Penny sobbed as soon as the door closed behind Lady Newbury. “I had nowhere else to go.”

“You know you are always welcome to come to me wherever I am.” Francesca smiled reassuringly. “And considering your disheveled person, I am most grateful you did come here. Although I would prefer you used the front door next time.”

The gentle, friendly bantering felt amazingly good, and Penny couldn’t help but giggle. It was a strange strangled sound, but still a giggle.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to attend Almack’s this evening as we had planned.”

“I missed you dearly—for a while,” Francesca said with a secretive smile which caught Penny’s attention.

“Oh, dear, what happened?”

“Devlin kissed me!” Francesca squealed, unable to hide the extraordinary feelings filling her heart and soul.

“What? That’s… That’s… What was it like?” Penny knew what Francesca’s game was, and she was thankful for it. Talking about something else calmed her and gave her thoughts a chance to settle down again.

“It was divine,” Francesca sighed, with a dreamy smile. “Heaven on earth.”

The memory of the kiss she and Rake had shared in this very house echoed through Penny’s heart, and she closed her eyes for a second as she remembered the sweetness of the moment.

“Heaven on earth,” she whispered, repeating Francesca’s words.

“Exactly,” her friend continued with a giddy laugh. “It was simply perfect. Ah, I’m so happy I don’t know what to do or say. I find myself wandering around squealing with joy now and then. My family thinks I’m crazy, but I don’t care. I’m happy!”

Penny smiled and smiled as Francesca told her every little detail of the secret meeting which had ended with this perfect kiss and a joint promise of marriage, and even though she couldn’t be happier for her friend she couldn’t stop the envy which slowly overtook the giddiness.

It wasn’t that she envied Francesca her man or the love they shared. It was the easiness of her friend’s life which made her feel small and petty. She too wanted to have such a happy life without heartaches at every bend of the road.

But Penny’s life wasn’t as grand and easy as her friend’s. She didn’t have a family who would do anything for her. No, her family obviously preferred to do anything
to
her.

As if she sensed her friend’s change of emotions, Francesca got down on her knees in front of Penny and took her cold hands in her warm ones.

“Please Penny, tell me.”

Penny looked into Francesca’s grey eyes, so much like Rake’s but without the wickedness, and saw only love and concern. She swallowed and closed her eyes.

Why not? Why not tell Francesca and get it off her chest? It wouldn’t be easier to talk about it tomorrow.

Images of what had happened earlier flared before her eyes, and before she had a chance to change her mind she started to speak and didn’t finish until she had told her friend everything that had happened, from the beginning to the end.

The whole ugly truth.

And in the end it was her friend’s outrage that made her able to relax and her tears that let her fall asleep. Just the knowledge that she wasn’t alone was enough for Penny to be able to let go of the horrifying experience, if only for a few precious hours.

Tomorrow she would tell Lady Newbury, and then maybe they could talk about the future, or Penny’s lack of one.

All her dreams about love and a family of her own were gone. What was left was a scandalously unmarried woman, a pariah to any man seeking a wife.

In one short moment her father had not only destroyed all her chances of a good life, he had also made sure to scar her heart forever by taking away the only thing she had lived for.

A dream that now would never come true.

“You are worrying me, my dear.”

Penny looked up from her reading and met the concerned eyes of Anna Darling, the Duchess of Berkeley. With a defeated sigh she put the book in her lap. She had known this conversation would take place sooner or later, with no possibility of escape.

“Please don’t worry. I’m fine.”

“No, you are not. Anyone who looks at you can see how you are slowly withering away, and I simply cannot stand idle any longer.”

“Lady Anna…”

The older woman held up one hand. “It’s September, Penny.
September
! You have been moping around like a family ghost for the last five months, and I won’t have it further. Enough is enough. You have to start living again. You have to learn to embrace life again.”

The duchess’s harsh words cut through Penny like knives. “I have been through quite an ordeal, as I thought you were well aware, and I think it earns me the right to expect a little more consideration than this.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?” The duchess snapped the book from Penny’s lap and threw it across the great library of Chester Park. It landed with a thud on the other side of the room. “Well, consider your days of consideration over. A new era has just begun, and it has no place for a young girl who can’t get over the past.”

Penny gasped at her hostess’s unusual harshness. She had never met this Anna Darling before. She had not thought the petite, gentle duchess could behave this obnoxiously.

“I know you have been through something so awful it would have knocked even the strongest person to the floor. But it happened in April, and everyone has moved on since then. Everyone but you.”

“How can I move on?” Penny blinked away the tears of indignation threatening to fill her eyes. “My own father destroyed my life and my every chance for happiness. How can I move on? There is nowhere for me to move to! When this comes out in the open, I will be a social pariah, and not one sane man will consider me as a possible wife, at least not one of my own class.”

“But it won’t come out. No one will ever know. I won’t tell anyone and neither will His Grace. Besides us, it is only Fanny and her parents who know exactly what really happened, even though Richard at first relentlessly tried to threaten us into telling him—the scoundrel.”

Penny ignored the remark about Rake. “But there’s my family, and Lord Bolton and his two footmen. Believe me, sooner or later someone will talk.”

The duchess snorted disrespectfully. “Your family will never say a word. It would not only destroy your reputation but theirs, too. I promise you, they are much too eager to keep their standing among their peers. As to Lord Bolton, he also has too much to lose to let the truth be known. His footmen must know more than anyone else how evil he is and what would happen to them if they should ever mention this to a living soul.”

Penny looked down at her hands. She knew the duchess was right, but it didn’t mean anything to her. So what if the truth never came out? She knew.

She would always have the horrifying memories of the evening at Lord Bolton’s house, and she couldn’t pretend they weren’t there. Every night she dreamt about Lord Bolton and the insanity which oozed from him, and every night she woke up soaking wet with perspiration, screaming with fear.

How could she ever marry someone without telling that person about what had happened to her? How else could she explain her nightmares? And any man who heard the story wouldn’t see her as a possible wife, as she had, after all, been without chaperone in a bachelor’s house. And not only in the house—she had been in a bedroom with him.

There was no way around it.

All her dreams of love and a home of her own were gone. All she had left was the Darling family, and she knew she would sooner or later have to leave them too. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life living upon them as some sort of poor leeching relative. She would have to find a way to support herself, and the only question was how.

As if she knew what was going on in Penny’s head, the duchess sat down beside her and tenderly put a supportive arm around her shoulders. “You know you are welcome to stay with us for the rest of your life. We would love to have you. It’s just that we adore you too much to see you waste yourself and the happiness you deserve. You are such a lovely girl and worth so much more than spending your life alone.”

“I know,” Penny whispered. “But love is not for me anymore. No man will ever want me when he learns what happened to me that night.”

“But nothing happened.”

“It could have.”

The duchess sighed. Penny’s words were true. “But what about Richard? He will marry you if you just open up to him.”

A strange mix of laughter and sobbing eluded Penny. “No, he won’t.”

“Sweetheart, I know my son, and I have watched him since you all arrived for Fanny’s wedding in August. He wants you badly and suffers because you insist on holding him at arm’s length.”

“I know he wants me.”

“You know?”

“He told me as much.”

The duchess gasped happily. “He did? But this is marvelous news. Oh, Penny, I can hardly believe this. I had hope for him to finally come around and leave this stubbornness about staying a bachelor. But this... this…This is fantastic!”

Penny didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The duchess’s obvious happiness over the possibility of Penny marrying her son was like balm on her shredded heart, and she really wished she wouldn’t have to tell the kind lady the truth.

But she had to. Rake would never marry her, and it wasn’t fair to let the duchess believe he would.

“He is still the same, I’m afraid. He is the most confirmed bachelor of his time, as he claims.”

The duchess frowned. “But you said he had told you he wanted you?”

“Yes, Lady Anna, he did. He asked me to become his mistress.”

The duchess’s immediate anger reminded Penny strongly of the wrath Rake had shown the night she had crashed into the Darling townhouse.

“Are you sure he asked you to become his mistress?” The duchess’s teeth clenched.

Penny nodded, knowing it was better to spill it all out immediately. “Yes, I am. He even asked me in which part of London I would prefer my house to be situated, the house in which the bed would be quite large and well used.”

The duchess sat back and let go of Penny. “I can’t believe this. Not Richard. I’m not ignorant of his behavior just because I’m his mother, and I know he has always been a libertine…But this?”

“I’m sorry,” Penny whispered, and the duchess gave her a half-smile.

“Don’t be, my dear. You did the right thing by telling me. Otherwise I would have been pestering both of you with constant nagging about marriage. I don’t know how to handle this, though. Richard is my son and I love him dearly, but this is unforgivable. You are a part of our family, so how could he even think about anything but marriage with you?”

“Lady Anna, please, can’t you just let it be, for now? I just wanted you to know Rake is not a path I can choose. You know how much I care for him, and I have thought about this a lot. The only thing I know for certain is that I will never give in to his request, as I would rather live a whole life without him than live a half life with him.”

The duchess nodded. “You are stronger than I am, Penny, that’s for sure. All right. I won’t mention this, but I am glad you told me. It forces me to rethink my plans.”

“I don’t know if I like the sound of that,” Penny muttered, knowing too well how the duchess loved to interfere when she had her heart into something.

The duchess gave her a sour look, but ignored the comment. “So what about Mr. Bedford? He’s been here a couple of times, asking about you and quite upset over your refusal to see him. I think the man rather thought you would be his wife by now.”

“I know. I should talk to him and tell him the courtship is over, but I just can’t…”

The duchess clapped her hands. “Then we will invite him over so you two can have a little chat and get things out in the air.”

Penny shook her head, knowing there was no way to stop the duchess from inviting Thomas. She both dreaded and longed to meet him. He was such a good man, and it wasn’t kind of her to hold him to his word when there were other women out there who gladly would marry him any day.

“I received a letter from your mother this morning,” the duchess said, effectively catching Penny’s attention.

“You did? What did it say?”

“She officially agreed to your staying with us as my companion for an indefinite time, and she also said she would spread the word among their acquaintance so you wouldn’t have to answer to them by yourself.”