In for a Penny (10 page)

She shivered at the sound, pressing up against him. Nev pushed back, and she opened her thighs wider and took a shuddering breath—

“I’m just up from town, Nate. I told Hathick there was no need to announce me, I—
oh
!”

He turned around, sure this was all a horrid dream, but it wasn’t. His mother was standing there, immaculate, her golden hair piled on her head.

He stepped frantically in front of Penelope. “God
damn
it, Mother, do you never knock?”

“Nate! Such language! You ought to know better how to behave to a
lady
! I saw no need to knock. I am sure it never occurred to me that you would be mauling your wife at breakfast as if she were a common trollop.” His mother sniffed, and for one furious, unfilial moment Nev would have liked to break her neck.

Penelope was tugging her skirts into place, bright red all over. Her eyes were open and full of horror.

“Go and wait in the parlor, Mother. I’ll be out in a moment.”

“You’re going to make your mother wait in the parlor?” Lady Bedlow asked. “I’ve had nothing to eat, and—”

“Go,” Nev said, with a firmness that surprised him. It surprised him even more when his mother actually left the room in a huff.

He turned. Penelope had mostly righted her clothes, and her hair was back in place, but she looked utterly wretched. His mother was right; he had no notion of how to behave to a lady. He had let his desire overcome what little sense he had,
and he had exposed Penelope to ridicule. Of course one could not treat one’s wife as one might treat one’s mistress. No matter how enticing she was or how much honey she spilled on her fingers.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I should have been more careful.”

She shook her head. “I ought not to have allowed it, I know that very well. I suppose she is right. I am common at heart. I must be.”

“You are uncommon generous. She shouldn’t have said that. I really am sorry—this hasn’t been a good time for her.” Lady Bedlow had never stood up well to strain. When seven-year-old Nev had broken his nose falling out of a tree and, frightened by the amount of blood, had gone crying to his mother, she’d fainted dead away. You couldn’t blame her; she couldn’t help it. It had been Lord Bedlow who had stanched the bleeding and called the doctor, he remembered; and who had told him, not unkindly, that a gentleman didn’t cry, no matter how bad the pain. For a moment he missed his father.

Penelope’s eyes filled with sympathy. Thinking of someone else seemed to ease her discomfort. She smoothed her skirts, straightened, looked competent and reassuring again. Penelope, Nev thought, was naturally responsible. “Of course it hasn’t, poor lady. I promise you, I shan’t regard it in the least. Go on.” She smiled. “And please, tell her anything she wishes to take to the Dower House is hers.”

“You’re too good to me,” Nev said, and meant it.

She looked down and blushed. She was so easy to please. Nev wished his mother at Jericho.

“You can’t talk to Penelope that way, Mama,” he said.

“Oh, I see how it is. Just because she is willing to allow you liberties that any self-respecting young
lady
would scorn, you’ll take her side against your own mother!”

“If being kissed by her husband is a liberty any self-respecting young lady would scorn, I am glad Penelope is a Cit!”

“At the breakfast table, Nate? Where do you get it from? Your father would never have dreamed of doing such a thing!”

He would never have dreamed of doing such a thing with you
, Nev thought. “Penelope has done us all a very great favor, Mama. I wish you could be civil to her.”

“Oh, civil I shall certainly be—I would not dream of stooping to her level with vulgar scenes and catty remarks,” Lady Bedlow said, with a sort of unhealthy agitation. “But you cannot expect me to be
grateful
that she is lording it over me, in my home, turning my son against me, using my breakfast parlor as if it were a brothel—” Her face was white. Nev looked closer and saw the dark circles under her eyes.

“Come here, Mama,” he said gently, and held out an arm.

She flew to him, with a muffled, “Oh, Nate! It’s been so dreadful—”

He stroked her hair. “I know, Mama. I know you didn’t mean it.” And for the moment he believed it.

Penelope watched in disbelief as the dowager Lady Bedlow’s servants carted away a sofa, an ormolu clock, a painting of two shepherdesses, a small table, and—well, most of the other furniture Penelope remembered seeing in the parlor. The morning room and the master bedrooms had already been despoiled the night before.

“How much furniture can she
fit
in the Dower House?” Nev asked, bemused. “I’ve been there, and it’s just not that big.”

Penelope couldn’t help laughing. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said
anything
she wishes to take. Were you fond of those things?”

“Not particularly. But we can’t afford to replace any of them, can we?”

“No, but we can’t afford to entertain either, so who’s to know?”

Nev grinned. “It’s clear you’ve never lived in the country. The servants will tell everyone in the neighborhood by tonight.”

Penelope felt a slight pang. She so wanted to make a good impression in the neighborhood. On the other hand, she reminded herself, people would hardly like her
more
for a show of vulgar wealth. “If those things make her happy, I don’t mind. I’ve never liked Fragonard, anyway.”

“Who?”

Penelope felt another, greater pang. Her mother would have recognized the name. So would Edward. “The man who painted those shepherdesses. I’ve always preferred Boucher.”
She realized he wouldn’t recognize that name either, and flushed.

“What are you doing today?” he asked.

“I’m going to visit the laborers.” Penelope tried not to sound as nervous as she felt. “Isn’t the lady of the manor supposed to do that? They always do in books.”

Nev looked uneasy. “I suppose so—who are you taking with you?”

Penelope did not quite like the idea of venturing into those rough cottages. She couldn’t shake the image of the lean, grim men in the fields. She had told herself not to be fanciful, that none of them would dare lay a finger on Lady Bedlow, but at Nev’s evident concern her fears flooded back. “I thought I might take one of the grooms, to drive the cart.”

“Take Jack.”

She nodded. “Is there anything I should take with me, do you think? Or would that seem like charity and offend people?”

“I don’t know. Shall we send to my mother and ask her?”

Penelope hesitated. In a moment, she knew, she would say yes, because it was the sensible thing to do. But a tiny, foolish part of her did not want Lady Bedlow to know how unequipped Penelope was to be a countess.

“Here, how’s this? We won’t take anything with us this time, but we’ll note what people need and go back in a few days. That is—would you like me to go with you?”

She looked up, unable to keep the relief off her face. “Yes, but not if you have other things to attend to.”

“Nothing that can’t wait.” His slight hesitation told her he hadn’t had any plans at all.

Penelope realized quickly enough that even if she had filled every corner of the cart with food, it would not have made up what these people lacked. The cottages were tiny, ramshackle,
and threadbare. A straw pallet, a kettle, and perhaps a table with a chair or two were the usual furnishings; fuel for a fire at which to boil the kettle was a rare luxury.

Some of the laborers seemed embarrassed by their poverty; others sat with an air of grim satisfaction, seeming to say,
Look, and see how I live!
Penelope did not know what to say or what to ask; she tried not to look too obviously at the privation. Nev seemed able to make polite conversation—to ask about children and histories and employment, and get, sometimes, something more than respectful monosyllables. Penelope tried to at least commit names to memory, but each lean, prematurely weathered face seemed to blend into the next.

One, however, stood out: Aggie Cusher. She was a young woman, even rather pretty, despite straggly blonde hair, a lined face, and a few missing teeth. She wore a bright satin ribbon in her hair, and it looked as out of place in that cottage as a golden saltcellar would have. A skinny blonde girl of eight or nine, in a dress several sizes too small for her, pounded oats at the table; an unhealthy-looking child, perhaps two-and-a-half years old, played in the corner.

“Welcome, my lady, my lord, Mrs. Joe Cusher at your service—that is, I’m Agnes,” the young woman said softly enough, and bobbed a curtsy, but there was an indefinable air of hostility about her.

“What a lovely ribbon,” Penelope offered.

“Thank you.” Agnes almost smiled, glancing at the little girl.

The girl paused in her pounding. “I gave it to her. I earned the money myself.”

“I’m sure your mother is very proud of your hard work.” To Penelope’s surprise, a shadow passed across Agnes’s face at these unexceptionable words.

“I work for Mr. Kedge,” the little girl said.

“And does Joe work for Mr. Kedge too?” Penelope asked. It was a rhetorical question, to fill the strangely awkward silence; they were on land leased to Tom Kedge.

“He did.” Agnes’s gaze flicked to Nev for a moment.

“Oh, I’m sorry—are you a widow?” Penelope asked.

“Joe ain’t dead,” Agnes flashed.

The boy in the corner looked up. “Papa went to ’Stralia,” he said, very clearly.

I should have seen that coming
, Penelope thought, angry with herself. “Do you do all right on your own?” It was a foolish question. Agnes was alive, but for any other definition of “all right” she very clearly wasn’t. And there was no answer that wasn’t humiliating.

Nev went into the corner and sat down across from the sallow little boy. He pulled something from his pocket and spoke to him in a low tone. Penelope forced herself not to strain to hear what he was saying and listen to Agnes.

“I do all right,” Agnes said. “I have help from friends in the village. My brother sends me money from America when he can, and my daughter, Josie—” Tears glimmered in Agnes’s eyes. “I’d like to keep her at home”—Josie rolled her eyes—“but we used to spin for the woolen manufacturers in Norwich, and since the mill opened up there’s no more of that work.”

“Are you able to get help from the parish?” Penelope asked.

Agnes’s face twisted. “No, my lady. I’ve lived here ten years, but Mr. Snively says I haven’t got a settlement. Mr. Snively says I’d have to go home to Harwich and go on the parish there.”

“We’d have a settlement if you married Aaron,” Josie said.

Agnes turned bright red. “Don’t make me slap you, Josie Cusher! I’m already married to your father, in case you’d forgotten.”

“Aaron—” the little girl began to insist.

“Does Mr. Snively decide who gets poor relief?” Penelope broke in.

Agnes looked at once relieved and disgusted. “He’s the head of the Poor Authority, isn’t he?”

Penelope’s eyebrows rose. Mr. Snively hadn’t mentioned that. “I’m sorry. I’m new here, and there are a lot of things I don’t know. I hope you will be patient with me. I mean to help you and the other people here, if I can.”

Agnes’s gaze dwelt almost insultingly on Penelope’s fine clothes and smooth hands. Penelope’s gown was plain, but it was neat and clean and new. Agnes’s dress was none of those things; it was ragged and threadbare and dirty—not even patched, because the fabric was too thin to hold stitches.

“If you wished to go to Harwich, I daresay we could pay your coach fare,” Penelope tried.

“How would Joe find me then?”

“Couldn’t you write to him?”

Agnes looked almost pitying. “I don’t know how to write.”

“I could write it for you,” Penelope offered.

Agnes sighed. “Thank you, but I wouldn’t know where to send it—he don’t have a proper address, like.” She paused. “’Tisn’t like for you, your ladyship. Joe and I don’t write to each other. Joe did send me word once or twice, at the beginning—but he had to pay someone to have it writ, and then he’d to pay to send it, and then I’d to pay to get it and find someone who could read it back to me. A year ago, a letter came, and I hadn’t the sixpence to pay the postage.”

Penelope’s eyes widened. “But—”

Agnes shrugged, hard-faced, but Penelope saw real grief in her eyes. “The baby was sick.”

Penelope wanted to ask more, to clamor
Wasn’t there anything you could have done?
The thought of the unclaimed letter filled her with—it wasn’t quite frustration, and it wasn’t
quite anger. It was more like a restless need to
do
something. Penelope had always believed that if you put your mind to it, worked hard, and didn’t whine, there was no reason you shouldn’t solve nearly any problem. She was beginning to realize that she had never had such huge, hopeless problems as this woman.

There was an unexpected sound in the tiny cottage—the little boy giggled. “Do it again!”

Nev reached forward and pulled a shining sixpence from behind the boy’s ear. He clapped and reached for it, but Nev twirled his hand and it disappeared. Penelope’s heart sank—but she had misjudged Nev. “Look in your pocket,” he said.

The boy did—and there was the sixpence! His eyes went round—and then he closed his fist on it, and put it behind his back. “It’s gone,” he said, slyly.

“Kit, give Lord Bedlow back his sixpence,” Agnes said in a low voice.

Nev looked startled. “He can keep it.”

“I couldn’t—” Agnes stopped herself. “Thank you.” Penelope had always supposed that pride was the one thing that could not be taken from you; now she saw she had been wrong. “Say thank you, Kit,” Agnes said, almost desperately.

But Kit could not say thank you. He could only stare at his fist, and then at Nev. Josie too was staring. Nev shifted awkwardly.

As she and Nev were leaving, Penelope heard Agnes say, with a catch in her voice, “Tomorrow we’ll go into town and buy some real bread. Would you like that?”

“Can we buy some bacon too?” Kit asked.

“Not this time, sweetheart.”

Penelope thought of her own generous helping of bacon at breakfast that morning. Nev must have been thinking the same thing. “Tell Cook to send them some bacon.”

“Can we?” Penelope wanted to, but—“It wouldn’t be fair, unless we sent them all bacon.” She did not know how to talk
about Agnes’s indefinable anger. Would a gift of food trample the woman’s pride too far?

“Then we’ll send them all bacon.”

“But we can’t afford it. Not until New Year’s, at least.”

“It seems ridiculous to say we can’t afford something, after seeing that home,” Nev said stubbornly. “We’ll stop eating bacon ourselves and send them that—”

She was touched—she hated being the parsimonious, logical one. But her accountant’s mind could do no other. “Nev, we’re two people; we don’t eat much bacon to begin with. And the servants eat what we leave. If we don’t eat bacon, they can’t eat bacon. There must be other things we ought to spend the money on first. I don’t know—plows, or something.”

“Couldn’t we—” Nev lapsed into frustrated silence, and Penelope would have given up a lot more than bacon to take that hopeless look off his face.

“Never mind. We’ll send Kit some bacon.”

One look at his buoyant grin, and Penelope went up in a blaze. So this was passion.

Did
it mean she was common? Gentlemen felt passion, of course. But ladies weren’t supposed to or weren’t supposed to give in to it. Immoderate feeling of any sort was to be shunned. Just because one
enjoyed
eating cake, that didn’t mean one should eat cake with every meal, or one became fat and slothful and a slave to one’s desires. It was all too easy to see how it might happen—she would have let Nev do anything to her, anything at all, right there on the breakfast table.

Control, restraint, elegance—they were all synonymous with that indefinable something that made you gentry and not common. Excess was wearing bright colors and crying in public and talking too loud and eating in big bites and all the things that Penelope had trained herself never, ever to do, ever since her first day at Miss Mardling’s. This was just one
more thing to add to the list.
I am just as good as that stuck-up Lady Bedlow
, she told herself.
My parents are worth a hundred of her. I will not give her justification to sneer at me and call me common. I will be a lady if it kills me
.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Nev tilted his head, pondering. “There’s a pun there, I’m sure of it.” He flashed her another grin and her breath caught in her throat.

It might really kill her.

That evening Lady Bedlow and Louisa were expected at the Grange for dinner.
I would invite you to the Dower House, but I’m afraid I can’t afford to provide the kind of fare that your bride must be accustomed to
, Lady Bedlow had said.

Nev watched his family walk in, feeling unexpectedly and uncomfortably as if he were ranged with Penelope against them.

“Are you settling in nicely at the Dower House?” Penelope asked.

“Oh, nicely enough,” his mother said. “It’s hard to make a new place home after so many years…and I’m afraid it’s smaller than what Louisa is accustomed to, of course—”

“We’re settling in wonderfully.” But even Louisa spoke to Nev, not Penelope. “How are you doing, Nate? How are things here?”

Penelope, her attentive gaze still on his family, gave a tiny sigh and tried to look as if she hadn’t noticed. Nev reached out and grabbed her hand. “
Penelope and I
are doing fine, Louisa. Things have been difficult here, but I daresay we shall come about soon enough.”

Louisa looked hurt, though she still did not look at Penelope. But several minutes later, when they were seated at table, she asked Nev, “
Have
things been difficult? Is there—is there anything I can do?”

Lady Bedlow tsked. “Don’t be silly, Louisa. What could
you possibly do? It is not a woman’s place to deal with money matters outside her household accounts.”

Louisa’s face burned. “Men do not seem to manage the business so well that I could do much worse.”

Penelope made a soft choking noise, as if she were trying not to laugh, and Nev felt a little more charitable toward Louisa. “I quite agree,” he said. “I am all at sea when it comes to accounts. Thank God Penelope knows what she is about.”

“Of course you are all at sea.” Tears filled Lady Bedlow’s eyes. “Your father always dealt with all that. If only he were here—”