“That’s enough,” he snapped. “I don’t want to hear another word about your sordid past.”
She bit her lip but kept on talking. “The note you received was, as I said, from an old nemesis. He’s dead now. My past… it can die with him.” She came to him, and, stunned, he watched his urbane and glamorous wife go down on her knees in front of him. She took one of his hands in both of hers, her beautiful face turned up to his, her eyes glimmering. “I know lying about my past is unforgiveable, but since our marriage, I’ve been a good and true wife to you. All I’ve wanted is to make you happy. And we’ve been happy, haven’t we? If you could somehow find it in your heart to give me another chance, I’ll make you even happier. I’ll make amends, do whatever you ask…”
“Can you change the past?” he said hoarsely.
Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, sliding down her cheeks.
Can’t think. Don’t want to feel. He pulled away, rubbed his hands over his face. “I need time.”
“Please, Marcus—”
“Do not push me, Pandora,” he warned. “I will think on our future and decide what to do next. In the meantime, we will keep up appearances in front of the children. In public, you will play the part of mama and wife as if nothing has happened. And if you step one foot out of line, I will divorce you and to hell with the consequences. Am I understood?”
“Yes,” she said in a suffocated voice. “Marcus, I love you—”
“Do not say those words to me again,” he bit out. “Do I make myself clear?”
She flinched as if he’d physically struck her.
“Answer me.” Goddamnit, he hated himself for being a bastard. Hated her for pushing him into acting like one.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Very clear.”
Furious at her—at himself—he stalked out.
Chapter Seven
1817
Penny had always had a temper. Octavian had cautioned her about it; Harry and Flora had taught her to control it. From the latter two—Flora especially—she’d learned to channel her hotheaded tendencies and use them to her advantage as a spy. Consequently, as Pompeia, her trademarks had been boldness and derring-do, even in the face of great odds.
As a wife, however, Penny was learning that controlling one’s pique was a different matter altogether. Especially when one was married to a man as stubborn as her husband. After spending a glorious wedding trip at his cozy property in the Cotswolds, they’d returned to London. Which was when she realized that the honeymoon was over—both literally and figuratively.
Marcus returned to his routine. While he visited her bed every night and they breakfasted together, he was gone on business during the day, then off to his club after that. Occasionally, he escorted her to a social affair. Other than that, she found herself alone… a lot. She knew she needed her own routine, but it proved difficult to find one that didn’t drive her out of her skull with boredom or irritation. Two weeks of this and she was ready to burst out of her skin.
After a lifetime of poverty and danger, one would think that having idle time and too much money to spend would be a welcome change. It wasn’t. She’d rather be chased by enemy agents through the warren-like streets of the Marais than endure another visit with two-faced bitches who smiled at her politely and then wagged their forked tongues behind her back. Yet social torture and endless visits to the dressmaker seemed to be the cornerstones of the genteel female existence. Since Penny was determined to be a proper marchioness for Marcus, this would have to be her life, too.
Needless to say, this did not put her in the best of moods.
Now she turned on her bench at her vanity to face her husband. Standing in the doorway of her dressing room, he was austere perfection in his black silk dressing robe, his hair still wet and curling from his bath. Even casually dressed, he looked handsome and dignified… but that didn’t make his request—or more accurately, his decree—any more reasonable.
“I told you before,” she retorted. “I am not having supper with your mama again.”
“You are. We can’t avoid her forever, darling,” he said.
“You don’t have to avoid her. You can go.” She crossed her arms. “And you can make excuses for me—tell her I have a megrim or that I’ve come down with the Plague.”
Marcus’ lips tipped up slightly, but he didn’t relent. “I’m not going to lie for you.”
“Fine. Then tell her the truth.” Penny rose, her primrose satin dressing robe swirling around her. “Tell her I don’t want to go to her supper party because she is condescending and rude. She makes no bones about disliking me, Marcus, and how much she wishes you’d wed someone else. If I have to hear one more word about the Perfect Miss Pilkington, I swear to God I shall scream.”
“You’re overreacting,” he said—the absolutely wrong thing to say as far as she was concerned. “Mama is merely surprised at our marriage, as she has every right to be. It did take place with some haste.”
“Marry in haste, repent in leisure?” she said bitterly. “I’m sure your mother wishes you were repenting. I hear Cora Pilkington is still free.”
“There’s no need to be flippant. Mama will come to accept our marriage in time. As for Miss Pilkington, she has nothing to do with this.”
“She has plenty to do with it,” Penny said hotly. “She’s leading a dashed campaign against me.”
“A campaign? How do you mean?”
The fact that Marcus looked puzzled elevated her temperature another dangerous notch. “I mean she’s using her influence against me. She’s making it difficult for me to enter certain circles.”
“Has she been rude to you?” he said, frowning.
“Not directly.” She waved a frustrated hand. “That’s not the way her sort does it.”
Society, Penny was learning, carried on its own version of espionage. Debutantes wielded words like stilettos, used gossip and innuendo to poison, and hid behind shining shields of virtue and politesse. To Penny, the world of the ton was every bit as treacherous as the world she’d inhabited before, and Cora Pilkington, the coy blond bitch, was the worst of the lot.
“How, precisely, does her sort do it?” her husband inquired.
It frustrated Penny to no end that she had to explain such obvious facts to his lordship. “Cora Pilkington whispers behind her fan to her cronies when I’m around. Her compliments are more false than her eyelashes. And she… she looks smug.”
“If looking smug were a crime, the entire ton would be behind bars. Have you any real evidence of Miss Pilkington’s plot against you?”
Fuming at his reasonable tone, Penny said, “You want an example? Fine. At Lady Ippleby’s luncheon last week, I was standing with Miss Pilkington and her friends when a spider crawled past, and Miss Pilkington screeched. Since she looked ready to faint, I stomped on the blasted thing.”
“And?”
“She thanked me,” Penny said darkly.
“Ah. Clearly, she has it in for you.”
“Do not mock me. It was how she thanked me that showed her true character.” Anger heated Penny’s chest at the memory of Cora’s snide, breathy tones, which she now mimicked. “You’re so hardy, Lady Blackwood, compared to the rest of us fragile blooms. I declare, I’d faint dead away if the remnants of that dreadful creature were clinging to the bottom of my slipper.”
Following Cora’s lead, the other hens had shivered and taken a step back from Penny as if she’d caught some miserable disease.
“That’s it?” Looking exasperated, Marcus said, “Perhaps being afraid of spiders, Miss Pilkington merely admires your lack of squeamishness. Whatever the case, I’m sure she didn’t mean to offend. In fact, when I saw her last, she had nothing but kind words to say about you.”
God’s teeth, how could he be so obtuse? How could the brilliant Lieutenant-Colonel Harrington, hero of the battlefield, be so bloody stupid when it came to females? Of course, that had worked to her advantage in the past… but still.
“It’s no surprise that she’d say that to you. She wants you to believe that she’s virtuous. All the while, she’s a snake in the grass, waiting to slither into your bed,” Penny said indignantly.
“That is both ridiculous and offensive.” Marcus’ features tightened with distaste. “Moreover, you are veering wildly off topic. We were discussing your requested presence at my mama’s supper party, which has naught to do with Miss Pilkington. This is about you doing your duty as my wife—as the Marchioness of Blackwood.”
“Do not lecture me about duty.”
“Don’t act like a spoiled child, and I won’t have to.”
At his calm superiority, her irritation boiled over. “If I’m acting like a child, then it’s because you’ve assigned me to that role!”
“What the devil does that mean?”
“It means, Marcus, that when you go gallivanting off to your meetings or your club, you leave me here, alone in the house, with nothing to do,” she said acidly.