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He fetched himself another drink. “Well clear of trouble? I did hear of some stupid talk of you marrying my late, unlamented brother, but thank God that came to naught and you kept yourself off that dangerous shoal.”
She nearly choked on the brandy, but when she recovered her aplomb, she shot him what he could only describe as a sharp, cutty-eyed glance. “Dear Beech, youhavebeen away.”
“Aye.” At the time he had felt the distance—too far from home todoanything—acutely. He distinctly remembered his mother’s letter about an engagement between Penelope Pease and his older brother Caius, if only because the news had given him such an awful, riveting pang that had stayed with him, lodged deep in his chest like a broken rib.
But something in her tone told Marcus he was clearly not in possession of all the facts. “Enlighten me, Pease.”
She laughed, but by the time she answered, the twinkling warmth in her eyes had hardened into studied nonchalance.
“Did no one write to tell you all the gory details? That I made the unforgivable mistake of daring to decline the engagementthat was so thoughtfully and hastily arranged for the Duke of Warwick and me? That I refused tomarry your brother, and was that instant and forevermore declared entirely unsuitable?”
The flush of satisfaction—she had refused Caius!—quickly burned itself out. Such childish triumph was beneath him with his brother cold in his grave.
Still. “Unsuitable for being smart enough to say no to my blaggard of a brother?” Such a choice only raised her up in his estimation. “Hardly.”
“Kind Beech. Youhavebeen away a very long time, haven’t you?” Penelope Pease took another deep drink, before she met his eye. “It’s like this, Beech. I’m ruined, you see. Utterly and completely ruined.”
3
“The devil you say!”
Penelope could tell by the scowl on Marcus Beecham’s delightfully scruffy face that he did not believe her.
“Come now,” Beech continued in his lovely low baritone. “Don’t distress me with such utter nonsense.”
It was kind of him, if naïve. She wouldn’t have expected naiveté of a naval man—especially one so obviously aware of how unfair, unkind and harsh life could be.
“I wish I were, Beech. I wish—” So many things. Things she couldn’t say to dear Beech, who seemed to have come back to her from the dead. Certainly his family had treated him as if he had passed away—they made no mention of him for years. “Doesn’t matter. You’re here, and that’s what matters.”
“Pease.” His tone brooked no change of conversation. “What don’t I know?”
How strange—or refreshing, she was not sure which—that he didn’t know the whole of her very short, but ultimately sordid, affair with his now-deceased brother.
Lord, but they grew them fine, these Beecham boys. They were so alike physically—tall and strong-boned with piercing grey-green eyes—she momentarily forgave herself for her imprudent infatuation for his older brother. But Beech was all tanned, naval robustness—even with that empty sleeve—where Caius had been a paler, more citified version of handsome.
But even with the resemblance, a blind woman could tell that Marcus Beecham had become everything his devilishly good-looking older brother had not been—upstanding, honest and forthright.
Too good for the likes of her.
“All you need to know is that I am ruined, and you are meant to stay well clear of me.”
“Devil take me if I will.” His tanned face was marred only by that ferociously lovely scowl—and that interesting little scar on his forehead. “You’re the first friendly face I’ve seen since I put a foot on land, and I’ll not abandon a friend to the foul winds of rumor.”
“Kind Beech.” He would besucha man.
If only she had had been patient. If only she had been prudent.
If only.
But there was no way to put spilt milk back into the pail. “Sorry, Beech, but I’m afraidI’llsoon be abandoning you. I’m being sent to the hinterlands—banished to some Backwater-By-Nowhere as companion to a maiden aunty in punishment for my sins—whilst my parents try to launch my younger sister, Susanne, off.”
“Like a ship of war, ready to go into battle?” he chuckled.
“Indeed.” Penelope found her own smile to mirror his. “In light of my scandal, they feel they must wage a campaign to find sweet Susanne a husband. But until they depart for London in afew weeks, I am meant to be as quiet and invisible as a mouse, which is why I made for my lonely bolt hole here this evening.”
“Lonely?”
“I beg your pardon, Beech. Imeantto be alone, but that does not mean that I am not delighted to have the unexpected pleasure of your company. Lord, but it has been a long time, hasn’t it?”