Damn it. I’m tired, I’m worried and I am not looking forward to seeing Lady Penelope. I’m imagining things. I need a good night’s sleep, that’s all.
Theo arrived in London the next afternoon. He stopped overnight at Newmarket then had driven a good part of the way that morning and felt his mood change as though pieces of a broken pattern were slipping back into place. He knew what he was going to say to Lady Penelope, he was braced for the consequences if she took his words badly. He felt, in his heart, that he was doing the honourable thing to redeem the mistake he had made in proposing in the first place and he told himself that his own conscience was the only guide he could take.
Perry, he had concluded, was unhappy with him for hurting Laura and Jared doubtless guessed what he was about and disapproved of him breaking his engagement.
Understanding his friends’ motives and being sure he was doing the right thing still did not quite overcome the sick sinking feeling in his guts as, groomed to perfection by a tight-lipped Pitkin, he knocked on Lord Haddon’s door that afternoon.
The butler was uncertain whether Lady Penelope was receiving. Theo, left to kick his heels in the drawing room, got the impression that the man would have refused anyone else, but his young mistress’s betrothed was a different matter.
Eventually the butler returned. ‘If you would come this way, my lord.’
Theo was braced for her to be chaperoned by her mother and to have to persuade the Countess to leave them by themselves for a while. As it was, Penelope was alone except for a maid. She looked tense and almost harassed.
‘My lord, I did not expect you. My parents will be sorry to have missed you, but they are both out. Mama will be home shortly.’ That seemed to strike her, belatedly, as insufficient. ‘I hope you are well.’
‘Perfectly, thank you. Lady Penelope, I realise this is… unconventional. But might I beg five minutes of your time? Alone.’
‘Alone?’ She glanced at the maid.
‘Perhaps she could stand in the hall with the door open so she can see us?’ he suggested.
‘But not hear us?’ she enquired. Suddenly her air of distraction was replaced by sharp attention. ‘Very well. Winslow, please wait in the hall as his lordship suggests.’
The maid went with considerably less reluctance than Theo expected. He took a deep breath. ‘Lady Penelope. I have come to the conclusion that it was wrong of me to make you a proposal of marriage. We do not know each other beyond the most superficial interactions and our affections are not engaged.’ He paused, expecting outrage or tears or shock, but she was studying him intently, head on one side.
‘Go on.’
‘I now believe that this is not the basis for a happy marriage and that we should put a stop to this engagement before it goes any further and it becomes widely known.’
‘You wish me to jilt you?’
‘I can provide you with any number of good reasons why you might change your mind. My youthful career is not one I am particularly proud of and I am sure any young lady discovering some of the details might wish to withdraw from the engagement without any reflection on herself.’
To his amazement she smiled, a small, almost secret, quirk of the lips. ‘You were a rakehell?’
‘I drank too much, gambled too much, ran up debts. I am prepared to admit penitently to all and sundry that you have made the right choice in spurning me – if it becomes known outside the family, that is. I fully accept that your father is going to be severely displeased with me.’
‘Explain to me why, exactly, you are not prepared to settle for the kind of marriage of convenience and suitability that most of our class consider normal.’ She sank down on the nearest chair, her head tipped to one side as she watched his face.
‘I am in love with another. My immediate thought was to simply keep quiet, to pretend that my heart was not engaged. I have made a commitment to you and I should honour it.’
‘But the lady returns your feelings?’
He nodded.
‘I see. That does make a difference.’
‘You agree with me?’ He heard how incredulous he sounded and bit his tongue.
‘Two unhappy people and one who will never have the opportunity for her marriage to grow into love? Yes, I agree with you. Society would not, but that is a polite hypocrisy.’
Theo was so taken aback that he sat down, uninvited, on the nearest chair.
‘You see, Lord Northam, you interrupted me in the process of writing you a letter in which I was apologising for accepting your suit. I am in the process of running away from home to my lover.’
Chapter Twenty
Theo closed his mouth with a snap. ‘Your lover, Lady Penelope?’