Sweet Madness: A Veiled Seduction Novel (21 page)

The quadrille came to a close. Penelope watched as Gabriel escorted Miss Bell back to a group of young ladies who were probably not that much younger than she. And yet, as they twittered and laughed gaily, she felt so far removed from that kind of innocence, she might as well have never been so.

A swift, sudden anger overwhelmed her, burning through her heart. A blanket of confusion and guilt doused it quickly, however. Who was she mad at? Michael? Miss Bell and her friends? She had no right to be angry at anyone but herself for the turn her life had taken. She never would have thought she’d be uneasy in a ballroom, however. When had she become so? She wouldn’t know, she supposed. She’d avoided them since Michael’s death herself, a part of her past she hadn’t felt comfortable returning to. But just like her penchant for black, she’d never analyzed the change. She’d just gone on.

“Is everything all right?”

She started at Gabriel’s question. She’d been so lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t seen him bid Miss Bell and her friends good-bye and cross the room.

No. No, it wasn’t all right. But she didn’t wish to talk about it, especially not there. She wanted to go back to Somerton Park. Penelope pasted on a smile. “Of course. More important, is everything well with
you
?”

The concern on his face didn’t precisely disappear, but it
was
pushed aside by an expression of triumph. “I’ve never been better. Truly.” He breathed in, as if experiencing the world in an entirely new way. “Thank you, Pen. It’s really working.”

She nodded, her smile turning real. “I think so, too.”

The strains of a waltz met their ears then, and Gabriel held his hand out to her. “A celebratory waltz, m’lady?”

She stared at his fingers for a long moment. She used to love to waltz, but that was another thing she hadn’t done since Michael had died. Another part of her that had apparently been spoiled, because right then, with the unpredictable way she was feeling, she didn’t think she could bring herself to dance it, even with Gabriel. Anger spiked again and flitted away just as quickly, leaving her feeling even more off kilter.

She shook her head. “A-another time, perhaps?”

His gaze became troubled again, but he merely withdrew his hand. “Of course.”

“Actually,” she said, touching her fingers to her forehead, “I think I would like to return to Somerton Park. If you don’t mind.”

A frown turned his lips. “Certainly,” he said, taking her elbow gently. “Let us go.” He steered her through the crush, tension vibrating off of him, but somehow Penelope knew it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her. She accepted her cloak gratefully when they reached the front door, wrapping the heavy garment around herself and pulling the oversized hood up around her face. A few minutes later, Gabriel handed her into the gig and they were on their way back to Geoffrey and Liliana’s.

He didn’t press her on the short ride home, though from the worried looks he sent her, he’d dearly wanted to. Penelope pulled her cloak more tightly around herself and stared out at the passing scenery. The night had chilled, leaving a sheen of moisture over the foliage that glistened in the moonlight. The landscape looked as cold as she felt, and nearly as bleak.

When they arrived at Somerton Park, Penelope slipped down from the seat on her own and hurried to the entrance. She didn’t wait for anyone to meet her but rather went straight to her room and shut the door behind her. For the first time in a fortnight, she went to bed alone.

*   *   *

Gabriel stood at the interior sitting room door that joined his room to Penelope’s, his hand poised to knock—much as he had been these past few minutes. He lowered his fist to his side. Did it matter if he knocked? If she told him to go away, he wouldn’t listen. He’d go in anyway.

So that’s what he did.

Thankfully she hadn’t locked the door. He’d have hated to be forced to explain to Stratford why he’d kicked in the man’s door.

Gabriel had to search to find her. Her room was dark, the only light coming from a weak fire in the grate. His eyes looked for her on the bed, but her silhouette was not there. Nor was she at the vanity, on the chaise near the foot of her four-poster, or pacing anywhere in the room.

Finally he spotted her, or what had to be her, curled up into an impossibly small ball in a wingback chair in the far corner. Her arms were wrapped around her knees and her head rested atop them, her blond ringlets pulled back into a simple knot, making her look very much like a vulnerable child. His stomach clenched into an aching fist.

He moved quickly into the room, dropping to his knees on the carpet before her chair. “Pen? What is it?”

His chest clenched, too, when she lifted her head and he saw her tear-ravaged face. Actually, the tears had dried away, but they’d left their tracks behind, and her eyes were swollen and rimmed red. She sniffed in a rush of air. “I can’t waltz anymore,” she said, as if that explained her pitiful state.

“All right,” he said carefully, shaken to see Pen thus.

“A-apparently I detest ballrooms and I can’t wear colors anymore, either,” she said, nodding to an open trunk piled high with haphazardly tossed dresses. Fresh tears sprung to her eyes and spilled over, which seemed to appall her. Her lips pressed hard together even as she trembled. “And every few minutes or so, I’m angry as
hell
about it!”

“All right,” he repeated softly in an attempt to soothe her. He wasn’t certain exactly what she meant, but he recognized her fragile state. He’d witnessed men on the battlefield in various stages of emotions, ranging from despair to rage to terror—and everything in between—and he saw that it wouldn’t take much to push Penelope over the edge of something or another. “You’re angry,” he agreed. “At me?”

She blinked several times. “No.”

Even though he hadn’t thought he’d done anything to upset her, he still breathed a sigh of relief. He
never
wanted to be responsible for her tears. “At yourself?”

Her nod was more circular than anything, as if it couldn’t decide what to be.

So she was angry with herself, but that wasn’t quite it. He glanced again at her messy trunk, and the dresses draped over it or stuffed within. If she
couldn’t
wear colors, as she’d said, it meant she felt she had to stay in black, an obvious reference to her guilt and widowhood. “You’re angry with Michael,” he said, understanding.

“Yes!” Her face crumpled. “What kind of person does that make me? I can’t be angry with him. He was
sick.
”

He reached and covered her clasped hands with one of his. They felt like ice beneath his skin. “Of course you can, Pen. Hell, I’m angry with him myself.”

Her eyes widened and she stared intently at him. “You are?”

“Yes. When I realized he’d taken his own life—” He stopped, unable to voice the whole of his feelings. Because along with having to accept that Michael’s death had been a pointless tragedy—and his anger at his cousin for that thoughtless, foolish act—he also had to cope with the knowledge that had Michael lived, Penelope would never have been driven to treat soldiers, and therefore never would have been able to help
him
. She certainly wouldn’t be in his bed, and God help him, he didn’t know if he would give her up even to bring Michael back. What kind of person did that make
him
? “I would think it perfectly normal. He may have been sick, but Michael’s choices changed
your
life forever. Through no fault of your own, everything you’d hoped and expected for yourself was taken away from you.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Her lip quivered violently, letting him know all was not well beneath the surface. “Michael’s death
was
my fault. Even
he
said so, in the letter he left for me near his body.”

“What?”
The word shot out of him with the shock of it all, but his stunned confusion swiftly turned to rage. That bastard! How could Michael have left such a thing for her to find?

“Not in those exact words, of course. He said he was”—the first sob escaped, a broken sound that cracked him as well—“that he was s-sorry he’d been such a disappointment to me.” She sniffed as tears poured in earnest. “That he’d never thought there was anything wrong with how he was until he m-met me.”

“Oh Christ, Pen.” He reached for her, but she pressed her shoulders back into the chair in a bid to escape his embrace.

“He lived his whole life happy,” she said, “until I came along. He would still be alive if I hadn’t badgered him constantly, if I hadn’t pressed him so hard, if I had just been the society wife I was
raised
to be and let him live his own life when he asked it of me. I even failed him in
that.
”

“That’s—”
Bollocks
, he almost said. “Rubbish. Pure tripe. You
loved
him. You wanted him to be well. There is nothing wrong with that. I don’t care if you turned into the veriest fishwife. Michael made his own choices. The responsibility lies with him.”

She shook her head, and he could stand it no more. He leaned forward and tugged her into his arms, crushing her to him as he rose to a standing position that pulled her upright as well. He didn’t relent as she struggled. Instead he stroked her hair, whispering nonsense until she settled against his chest, her poor body shaking with silent sobs.

They stayed that way for a long time, Gabriel alternately wishing to take her pain for her and fantasizing about digging up his cousin and shooting him himself. Five, ten, fifty times over.

“Pen, you have to see . . . You were a
baby
, for God’s sake,” he murmured against her hair. “You weren’t equipped to handle an illness like Michael’s. And from what you’ve told me, he did nothing to help himself. He could have reached out—if not to you, then to
me.
Hell, to a complete stranger. But he didn’t. It sounds to me that he thought of no one but himself, even to the end. I
pray
he was sick. I
pray
he didn’t think about the damage he’d inflict on those he left behind—on you—because if he had, that would only make him cruel.”

She shuddered in his arms, once, twice. He continued to just hold her and eventually her crying ceased. When Pen pushed against his chest again, he let her go. She stepped back, but didn’t look at him. Instead she stared off over his shoulder, her mind having gone somewhere else. Her eyes looked haunted. Haunted in a way he recognized. He’d seen those same eyes in his own mirror many times.

“Have you—” he began, realization dawning. “Have you ever considered that
you
are suffering from battle fatigue yourself?”

Her pale eyes turned to his then.

“Not from the wars, of course, but the same principle. Trauma fatigue, maybe?”

Her brow furrowed and she said weakly, “No, of course not.”

But he was right. He knew it. “I can think of nothing more traumatic than what you’ve been through, Pen. It must be why you’ve had so much success helping soldiers when you’ve had no formal studies in mental philosophy,” he said. “Because intrinsically
you understand
what we are going through.”

Several emotions played on her face as she took in his words, staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. After several long minutes, her expression smoothed. “You may be right,” she said, a touch of wonder in her voice.

“Yes. And that makes you a
survivor
. Like all of the men you’ve helped.” He reached out a hand to touch her cheek. “Like me.
You
decide how you go on from here, as we all do. If you want to wear colors again, you can. If you want to haunt the ballrooms, you should. And if you want to waltz . . .”

He dropped a hand to her waist and ran the fingers of his other hand down her arm to lift her hand into his. A lone, remaining tear slipped down her cheek as she looked up at him, but then she placed her hand on his shoulder, light and fragile as a butterfly. “Then we waltz,” he said, and pulled her into a slow twirl.

He hummed in three-quarters time, and god-awful humming it was, as he had no sense of pitch. But they waltzed around that darkened bedchamber until he was nearly hoarse.

And then Penelope let him hold her while she slept. As he lay awake, stroking her skin, he prayed he’d gotten through to her. Pen was too beautiful a soul to suffer a moment longer over things that were not her fault. He also gave thanks that he’d been given the chance to help her even the tiniest bit as much as she had him.

L
ater that week, Penelope sat in the parlor with Liliana, poring over the bolts of fabric that had just arrived from London. The two women were sorting them by color and style, matching them to the patterns Penelope had selected. Tomorrow she would take it all to the village and leave the lot with the draper. The man’s wife had done such a lovely job creating the yellow ball gown for Penelope on such short notice that Liliana had decided to employ them to create a new wardrobe for two-year-old Charlotte, as well as layettes and other items for the coming baby, rather than taking her business to Town.

“No, Lily,” Penelope clucked as her cousin held up a striped muslin next to a patterned silk that clashed terribly. “You would never put the two of those together in the same dress.”

“
You
wouldn’t,” Liliana said wryly. “I, on the other hand, have the fashion sense of a chemist. Oh, wait . . .” She scrunched up her nose in a face that made Penelope laugh. Liliana put down the fabric she’d been holding and looked woefully over the array of materials before them, shaking her head. “Charlotte, no doubt, will be ecstatic. Even at two, she has a better sense of style than me. You should see the mutinous pouts she gives me some days, and usually on the days when I think I’ve dressed her quite well.” Liliana sighed. “I am so grateful to have you here with me.”

“Me, too,” Penelope answered warmly, even as a twinge of sadness settled in her heart. Her niece, Charlotte, had been born barely a fortnight after Michael had taken his own life. Penelope had been in no state to be of any help at all with the new baby, and she always felt a bit of guilt for what she’d missed out on. She knew Liliana also felt guilt of her own, as she had been unable to support Penelope as she would have liked to, so caught up was she in the demands of her newborn.

Nor had Penelope been able to turn to her society friends. It had been quite some time before she’d felt able to reengage, and by then, she’d lost any interest in the parties and fashion that had once been so important to her, which left her nothing in common with the young ladies and matrons who’d been her friends. Her life had quite literally entered a black phase that she was only just coming out of.

“Oh, not just because you are saving poor Charlotte from fashion mortification,” Liliana said. “Did I tell you that you were right about the nurse Miss Eden?

Penelope looked up from her task with a start. “No. What do you mean?”

“Upon your recommendation, I asked Geoffrey to have his man of business look more closely into Miss Eden’s background. It turns out that the references she’d provided were forged. Eden wasn’t even her real name. It was Haley, and she’d been turned out from her previous employer’s home for drunkenness that resulted in neglecting her charge.”

“Oh my,” Penelope said, shocked.

“Yes. Thankfully, the babe wasn’t hurt, but I am so grateful you listened to your instincts and said something to me.”

“So am I,” Penelope agreed. Maybe she had been too hard on herself these past years. Maybe she did need to forgive herself. Maybe she needed to trust herself more, too.

The women worked quietly for a few moments, each lost in her own thoughts.

“I am glad to see that you’ve put away the blacks,” Liliana said as she held up two more clashing color swatches. “It wasn’t right, seeing you in them.”

Penelope looked at Liliana in surprise, but her cousin had turned her eyes back to the layette patterns on the table. It seemed everyone had noticed what she was doing except her. But no longer. Since the day of the assembly, she hadn’t worn black once.

Gabriel’s eyes had lit up that following morning when she’d entered the breakfast room in a morning dress of light blue muslin. The smile that had wreathed his face had filled her with a quiet happiness. Oddly enough, however, while it didn’t bother her to wear her old dresses anymore, they no longer seemed to suit her. Even Gabriel had remarked after a few days that pastels didn’t seem to fit her anymore. He suggested she might order a new wardrobe, selecting rich fabrics in jewel tones. Better suited for the deeper, more mature woman she’d become.
You’ve been through fire, Pen
, he’d said, even as he was removing a lovely pink frock from her body.
It’s only right that you come through it swathed in a more vibrant shade.
And then he’d taken her through an entirely different sort of fire, the kind that scorched her nerves to cinders before leaving her sated and sleepy and immensely pleased.

“Did you decide to put away your mourning because you are ready to move on with someone else?” Liliana asked then with characteristic bluntness and a pointed look that brought heat to Penelope’s cheeks. Had her cousin just read her mind?

Was
she hoping to move forward with Gabriel? Emotion clogged her throat, a combination of excitement and hope and longing all mixed with a very real fear that it would be an awful mistake.
You’ll get hurt,
her heart warned.

And yet the past three weeks had been some of the best she’d ever known. She and Gabriel had spent their days together, out-of-doors when the weather permitted, or pacing the long gallery when the rain or sleet dictated. Most of that time was spent in deep conversation, digging to uncover hidden associations that contributed to his battle fatigue. Some they discovered quite by accident, such as when they’d been walking by the stables when one of the horses was being shoed. The clanging sound and the whinny of the protesting horse had thrown him back into a terrible memory of his own stallion being lanced by a French cavalryman, right from beneath him. Others came from the hard work of taking those memories out and examining them. Many moments had not been easy, not for him—and not for her, either. When he spoke of the deep terrors and hardships he’d experienced over the years in battle, she’d often been unable to check her own tears.

She’d heard many horrors of war, of course, from many a soldier. But never had she experienced them as deeply as she had when they came from someone she love—

Oh, God. Someone she loved.

“Would it be so bad, Pen?” Liliana asked gently.

Penelope’s gaze snapped to her cousin, who was looking at her with understanding. Goodness, her love must be written clearly on her face for Liliana to have picked up on it. Matters of the heart had never been Liliana’s strong suit.

“I don’t know,” Penelope whispered. And she didn’t. She pictured Gabriel in her mind as he’d been these past few weeks, every day growing stronger and more confident in his future. He and Geoffrey had developed a friendship of their own, and Gabriel often rode out with him and assisted with projects on the estate. While he still couldn’t bring himself to venture into the mine, he’d spent many afternoons helping to build a schoolhouse in the small mining village.

Luncheons and dinners with the four of them were lively and terribly interesting, with much of the conversation centered around ways Gabriel could support the plight of war widows and their children. Much talk was made of how to attack the problem with both policy—which Geoffrey vowed not only to support but to help Gabriel present in the House of Lords—and practicality. Discussion of opening a mill on Gabriel’s estate in Birminghamshire, along with a small village similar to what Geoffrey had done here at Somerton Park, was well under way, the men putting numbers to paper to explore the feasibility of it.

Early evenings were spent playing cards and games with Liliana and Geoffrey. Penelope learned that Gabriel was
not
horrible at whist. When she asked him later that night why he’d lost so often when she’d partnered him in London, he’d retorted that he hadn’t been able to concentrate on his cards in those days, as his mind was so focused on wanting her.

When she’d held up their winnings and tartly demanded if his superior play that night meant he no
longer
wanted her, he’d scooped her into his arms and growled, “It’s different now, because I have you.”
She’d happily let him have her again and again throughout the long night.

All in all, her time spent with him was the perfect blend of quiet domesticity and scorching sensuality. Everything that she wanted.

Unless . . .

“Are you still worried he might be mad?” Liliana asked. “I must say, I’ve seen no evidence.”

“Neither have I,” Penelope admitted. “Not really. Not since we left Vickering Place.”

“Do you think it had something to do with his environment there, then?”

Penelope shook her head. “It can’t be that, since he was having the episodes at his home long before he went to the sanatorium. No, it must have been the accumulative effect of his battle fatigue that brought on the attacks.” And he was getting better every day. How well he’d handled the assembly the other night showed that. “I believe he will continue to improve.” But was she willing to stake her future on that?

The future of any children they might produce?

At the idea of a baby of her own, sheer longing settled into her middle. She clutched the pattern of a tiny nightdress to her, imagining that it was for her baby. Hers and Gabriel’s. Was that what she wanted?

She could already be with child, she knew. She and Gabriel had spent every night of the past three weeks in each other’s arms. After that first passionate encounter against her chamber door, however, Gabriel had insisted on spilling his seed outside of her—so she knew the prospect of passing on any madness worried him, too.

And yet there had been that once . . . Just because she’d been married for a half year without conceiving didn’t mean it wasn’t possible.

“Then is it the fact that he’s Michael’s cousin?” Liliana probed. “Do you feel like you’d be betraying your husband’s memory with a member of his own family?”

“No,” she said firmly. She might not be proud of the wife she’d been while he was alive, but she did not feel that finding love again would be a betrayal.

“Well,” Liliana said, “I can hardly answer whether or not Lord Bromwich is the right person for you, but I can say I’m glad he is in your life for however long he remains there. You’ve been more yourself in the past month than in the two years before it. I was afraid that Michael’s death had damaged you beyond repair—that you might never let someone else into your heart.”

Penelope stared at her cousin, the moment seemingly eerily familiar. She’d said much the same words to Liliana once, long ago, in this very house. But where Liliana had been mourning a father’s unconditional love, Penelope was only now coming to terms with the love she and Michael had shared.

Gabriel had helped her to realize that Michael had loved only Michael. Oh, he’d cared about her in his own way, but it was more that he saw her as an extension of himself rather than loving who she was. She didn’t know if Michael would ever have done what it would have taken to get well. He’d been too addicted to the elation when he was feeling high. Not that anyone could get well for another person, of course. But Penelope wondered if he
could have
given it up for her, for their marriage, would he have made the sacrifice if it would have meant her happiness over his?

Gabriel, on the other hand, was a man accustomed to sacrifice. She had a feeling he would give everything for someone he loved.

The question was, did he love her? And if so, was that love worth taking a risk of her own?

*   *   *

Rain chased Gabriel into the stable, just behind Stratford. The sudden deluge had cut short their afternoon of laboring with the men in the village, but nothing could dampen his spirits.

He couldn’t remember having ever felt so alive! Not even as a young man, before the ravages of war had marked him. He still couldn’t sleep at night, but it was no longer horrid dreams that kept him awake into the wee hours. It was plans. Plans for his future. They tumbled about in his mind—even when, by all rights, he should be exhausted from days of hard work and nights of sweet passion in Penelope’s arms.

Penelope.

It had been so long since he’d dared to dream about what lay ahead for him. Contemplating a lonely descent into madness had taught him to live moment to moment. But now . . . it seemed that a whole world of possibilities was open to him once again, that everything he’d ever wanted was within his grasp.

Even her?

She was another thing he’d never allowed himself to hope for—first because she’d been the wife of another and then, later, because he’d been fit for no one.

But now?

Could he allow himself to hope? Because it was one thing to share a bed—two grown people enjoying pleasure and comfort in each other’s arms. But would she even consider a life with him after what she’d suffered with Michael? Yes, as days slipped into weeks without experiencing any bouts of madness, even he’d begun to believe that perhaps battle fatigue was all that was behind his episodes. But was that belief enough to ask Penelope to risk a future with him?

Or would the specter of madness always be in the corner of both of their minds, keeping them from being truly happy?

Thunder rumbled loudly across the sky, followed by a crack of lightning as he and Stratford dismounted. The stable was alive with noise and activity, as stable hands tried to settle the spooked horses.

“Would you mind if we rubbed our mounts down ourselves?” Stratford asked. “It appears the grooms have their hands full.”

“Of course not,” Gabriel said, tying his horse off next to the earl’s. He followed Stratford to collect towels and a curry brush and then started the circular strokes, working from head to tail, enjoying the task. He had to admit, the storm and the whinnies of frightened horses made him a bit edgy, too, but keeping his hands busy stroking the horse seemed to calm him.

Coping. That’s what Penelope had called it. Every day he got better at it. Perhaps in a few months he’d trust himself enough to ask for Penelope’s hand. And perhaps she’d feel confident enough to accept.

“It’s a shame about the rain,” Stratford commented as he rubbed down his own horse. “But I suppose you’ll be wanting to see plenty of it now that you are planning to build a mill on your land. You’ll need full streams to power your machinery, even if you decide to use the newer steam engines as your main source.”