And Garrick was going to do the same. The last bit, anyway. He was going to banish Pen from his thoughts, from his yearning, from his mind.
All he had to do was see her one last time, and then, he would bid her farewell forever. He did not know where the thought emerged from, but once it had appeared, it remained tenacious, refusing to be tamped down or otherwise chased away.
One more time. Yes. One more time, and he could say his goodbyes. That evening at The Beggar’s Purse had been far too rushed and jumbled. His emotions had been overwhelming, and he had pushed her away in a reactionary way.
But after all the time they had spent together, surely a true goodbye was warranted. If he could meet with her again, speak with her, he was sure it would be the cure to what ailed him. A final severing of the ties that had bound them would render him free. Free to pursue Lady Hester with an unburdened conscience.
“I’ll not do it,” Aidan denied, stubborn and foolish as ever. “I can never forget about Pen. You have met her. You ought to know the impossibility of striking her from your mind. She is unique. An original.”
Yes, she was. And yes, he did.
“You will have to,” he countered. “Else, I will have no choice but to tell Mother and Father about where you have been and why. I do imagine Father would cut off your purse strings quite readily were he to learn the truth, do you not?”
Aidan paled, and Garrick knew a moment of guilt for his threat, necessary though it was. “You can do as you wish, Garrick. I need to do right by Pen, and I’ll not stop until I do.”
Garrick bit his inner lip. “Damn it, Aidan, you’ve done enough. Leave the lady be.”
He ought to have been saying the same words to himself.
And yet, as he turned his gaze back toward Lady Hester on the opposite side of the assembly room, he knew he could not. He had to see Pen one more time.
Tonight.
* * *
The hour was late,and after an exhausting evening spent working on the ledgers she had been neglecting over the last few days, Pen was drained. Her head ached, her eyes were strained, her fingers were cramped and ink-stained from so much tallying, and yet, the greatest pain afflicting her of all was not even physical in nature.
Rather, it was her heart. Her silly, fickle, ridiculous, foolish, utterly useless heart.
As she walked the familiar corridor in The Sinner’s Palace to her chamber door, the realization she had been avoiding since she had last seen Garrick hit her. She had fallen in love. Again. The heart she had believed broken, dashed to bits, and incapable of feeling after Daniel, had proven her wrong. For it now belonged to Garrick Weir, Viscount Lindsey, heir to a duke, proper, elegant, perfect aristocrat.
A man as out of reach to her as the stars and the moon and the sun.
She nearly staggered under the weight of the unwanted knowledge. Instead, she summoned her strength with a deep breath, and forced herself to continue the handful of steps to her door. A night’s rest awaited. She would close her eyes and not see his face, but fall into the pleasant abyss of slumber instead. Go to a place where he could not haunt her every waking hour.
You are stronger than this, Penelope Sutton. You have already learned your lessons the hard way.
She would forget all about Garrick, just as he had forgotten her. Nary a word from him. Not even a curtly phrased missive thanking her and her brothers for the role they had played in helping to bring Aidan home and seeing his captors jailed. Not so much as a syllable since he had told her to go.
Why should she be surprised that the lofty lord—who loved to look down his nose at her whenever he was not kissing her senseless—had not returned to plague her? She ought not. He had been clear from the moment they had first met that he did not want her in his brother’s life. Naturally, he would not want her in his either. She was the sort of woman a nob like him bedded but never wedded.
Which was perfectly fine with Pen. She never wanted to marry. Her life here at The Sinner’s Palace was complete. She would dote on her oldest brother Jasper’s daughters and any nieces and nephews which followed, keep the ledgers, and never again let an arrogant viscount’s lips touch hers.
She opened the door to her chamber, and all her stern bravado fled.
For there, in the center of the small space that was purely her own, stood none other than Lord Lordly himself, just as handsome and forbidden as ever. How out of place he looked in his formal evening wear, dressed as if he were about to attend a fancy societal ball.
Because probably he either was or already had.
Her heart ached at the sight of him, so beloved and unwanted at the same time.
“My lord,” she said, shocked.
He executed a perfect bow, flawless as ever. “Pen.”
His familiarity was not lost on her. However, she would not pin her hopes upon a name. Likely, he had only found his way to her chamber that he might accuse her of more sins. Perhaps he was here to suggest yet again that she was somehow involved in the plot the Knightlys had devised to swindle Aidan’s family out of one thousand pounds.
Grudgingly, she dipped into an abbreviated curtsy in return before rising, determined to learn why he had come.
“What are you doing here in my chamber?” she asked, casting a careful glance around her to make sure no one else was moving about in the corridor.
It would not do for any of her siblings to see him in her room, but she was also hesitant to cross the threshold and join him within. Being alone with him, and in proximity, seemed terribly reckless at the moment.
“Thank Christ it is yours.” His solemnity broke as he flashed her a charming grin, the kind that reached his eyes. “I was not certain if I dared trust the scamp whose palm I greased to show me the way.”
It was not the first time he had bought his way into the private quarters of The Sinner’s Palace. Heavens knew she should not be surprised he had done so again, though she and her siblings had given those in their employ a stern reprimand about allowing patrons to encroach on their sacred territory.
“I suppose a future duke’s money can buy you all manner of things,” she said bitterly, reminded of their disparate circumstances.
With Aidan, the differences between their worlds had never mattered. Yet with Garrick, it did, because she had allowed herself to fall for him, and he would never return those feelings.
“Not everything,” he said, his gaze seeming to devour her face. “Not the things that matter most.”
She wanted to ask him what he meant, but he had not answered her initial question, and if any of her brothers were to find him here, she shuddered to think what would happen. Although Wolf and Hart had been reluctantly understanding about that night at The Beggar’s Purse and the evening before it, they remained disapproving of the quality in general and the Weir brothers in particular. They had been repeatedly warning her against future interaction with either of them. But in truth, there was only one Weir brother who made her heart pound faster and her knees go weak.
There was no help for it. She was going to have to join him in the room and close the door for the sake of their privacy. But that was fine. She could resist him. She was strong. She was a Sutton.
She stepped over the threshold and closed the door at her back. The action seemed to make the room one hundred times smaller and her skin a thousand times hotter.
Pen crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive gesture and reverted to humor in an attempt to distract herself from how badly she wanted to throw herself into his arms. “Well, Lord Lordly? What have you to say for yourself? What brings you to my lowly corner of the East End now? Perhaps you have decided I am torturing orphans or am plotting to kidnap your cat.”
The thought of Rosie made a bittersweet pang in her heart, joining the ache. His adorable feline had been a surprise. She could not shake the impression there was far more to Garrick than she had initially supposed. But he was not hers to discover, and nor would he ever be.
“Nothing as insidious as that,” he said calmly, his sinful lips still compressed in a stern slant, as if he wanted to smile but refused to allow it.
He took a few steps in her direction, bringing him nearer. Almost close enough to touch.
She remained at the door, watchful, not trusting herself in his presence. The time since she had seen him last had felt like a terrible eternity. “What, then?”
“You,” he said. “You have brought me here, Pen. I had to see you.”