Page 11 of Tall, Dark and December (The Rake Review #12)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

WHERE AN ARTIST PUTS HERSELF FIRST

I sabella danced into the parlor with her usual jaunty step, her chignon spilling golden strands about her flushed cheeks. She had a straw basket looped over her arm, cloth from one of her embroidery projects poking out. Penelope believed this part of the story but, upon further reflection, realized the funds generated from the employment didn’t match the task. She supposed they’d needed the money too desperately for her to question where it was coming from, which was her fault.

Isabella lingered in the doorway, sensing her sister’s pensive mood. She was shrewd, secretive, and more attuned to Penelope’s scandal and how it had shaped their family than Penelope had comprehended. As West had rightly declared, a gossip column targeting rakes was a fine slice of revenge, indeed. Shakespearean in nature. Rather cunning.

Taking a step closer, the basket banging her hip, Isabella’s mouth formed a comical O. “Is that paint on your skirt? Did you have a mishap in your studio?” She sniffed, hand curling at her nose. “You’re drinking.”

Penelope was drinking. Actually, she was halfway to foxed.

Anger first, brandy second, tears last, after this undertaking.

Penelope slid the wrapped bundle she’d located beneath her sister’s feather mattress on the table. “You were planning a special December column to usher in a new year. Another exposé featuring Tall, Dark, and December , the first time a man’s been featured twice. I’m thankful you didn’t plan to share it was me Weston’s been seeing, only a lonely matron and a rake still on the hunt.” She acknowledged her sister with her chipped tumbler, grateful a thousand times over that the Duke of Mercer’s investigator uncovered this before it turned into a disaster worse than Penelope’s had been.

Isabella’s lips tensed, her face going a waxy white. “It’s not me. I don’t write the columns. I’m just a conduit with access to the chatter circulating among society. My embroidery work gets me into a fair number of households and idle discussions with servants go along with it. I assume she has others like me as she can’t be everywhere at once. I was contacted via messenger, and I’ve communicated as such the entire time. The package you found was supposed to be delivered tomorrow, an idea for a special edition, a gift to the Belle’s readers for a successful year. She asked for suggestions. I merely gave her one.”

Penelope took a shaking sip, relief making her dizzy. “A paid informant.”

Entering the parlor, Isabella slumped into the armchair across from Penelope. “We needed the money. I saw how juggling our finances was tearing you down. I’m old enough to help. My embroidery work is real. I swear it, Pen. It brings in enough to pay the coal bill most months.” She dropped her basket to the floor. “But it’s not enough.”

Penelope closed her eyes to the reality of their circumstances. Neville was out of the picture, too far from her heart to be a possibility, and Wes had drawn a line in the sand she didn’t think she could cross. Dear heaven, what were they going to do now? “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to keep you from this.”

“He was going to ruin you, Pen, like the other one. Ruin us . I saw him leaving one morning, and… and I thought being mentioned twice might stop it.”

The weight of her decisions dropped to Penelope’s shoulders like a boulder. This helplessness must be what parenting feels like . “You were too young to understand the other, as you call Alain. I want you to know, as a woman, I wasn’t coerced, and I don’t regret it. I regret how it impacted you and our family. As for Weston—” She tapped her fingernails against crystal, his tormented expression and unholy green eyes flashing before her. “I think he loves me, Isa. As I love him.”

“And?” Isabella asked in a breathless whisper.

Penelope sagged, boneless from heartache. “Sailing home on the fastest transport to America? I fear he’s suffered quite enough of the English.”

Isabella sniffled, her words cloaked in emotion one of them was comfortable showing. “I lost you after Mama and Papa were gone, after… Alain . You changed. My impulsive, exuberant sister became someone else.”

Penelope laughed, rubbing her stomach with the rounded edge of the glass. “I grew up, Isa. We all have to, although I tried to shelter you for as long as I could. Mama’s issues made it impossible for me to remain a girl. Someone had to put the pieces of our life together, and that someone was me.”

She beckoned Isabella to her, opening her arms. Her sister crawled into the embrace like she had when she was barely out of leading strings. “You have to end this association with the Brazen Belle. Today . We’ll write a note and send that through your messenger. It’s over. We’ll work this out another way. I promise.”

Then she let her sister cry—as she longed to.

It took West two days to get the paint out of his hair. His trousers were ruined, according to Brixworth, and his boots sent to Hoby for repair no one expected to be successful.

“She’s got one hell of an arm,” was all his smirking brother said when he arrived at Tierney House covered in Penny’s fury. The duke’s estate was closer to Islington than his terrace, and if he was being truthful, this was the time a lad needed family. Camille had fussed over him in a maternal manner absent from his life since he was eight years old, offering tea and sympathy before getting down to brass tacks. With a steely-eyed sapphire gaze West feared in no small measure, the Duchess of Mercer advised him to offer the woman he loved her heart’s desire along with his heart.

Meaning his heart wasn’t the only thing he should bring to the negotiation.

He didn’t argue about the love comment, which he deemed progress.

Consequently, in his off hours from the warehouse, he spent the next three days strategizing with Tristan and Brixworth, who, for a stuffy old goat, had excellent ideas about how to woo a lady.

West also hoped the time would allow Penny’s blistering temper to cool.

In the end, brotherhood prevailed because the production required resources only a duke could muster.

Leaving West to skulk about the foyer of the furnished Highgate cottage he’d agreed to purchase in totality the day before, peeking through the velvet drape every minute like a girl awaiting the arrival of a trunk of new gowns. If he was going to stay in London, he needed space, and Limehouse wasn’t the place, not for her.

He went to his knee to scrub mud from his boot, nerves jumping, heart kicking—and this decidedly lacking place of power was how Penny found him.

“Oh, no ,” she said when she stepped through the doorway, bumping back into the Duchess of Mercer, her escort. “I had a feeling something was suspicious about this visit. A new etiquette client in Highgate, my foot! The Tierney clan is up to no good.”

West glanced up from his crouched position, his heart taking the blow with poise. Her spencer and gown were matching colors of a sunset vista, cobalt shot through with a smoky gray. Her spectacles were new, and she’d gotten a haircut, leading him to believe she’d been as restless as he had.

Camille took Penny’s hand and, with the forthrightness of her nature and the confidence of her station, said, “Allot him thirty minutes, perhaps all you’ll give him ever again. Tie up the loose ends and make peace. I’ll be outside in my carriage. I have Jane Austen and a heated brick to keep me company.”

“What happens if I don’t come out in thirty minutes?” Penny asked without glancing his way. The tremor in her voice gave West leagues of hope.

The duchess flashed an easy smile, her eyes catching his over Penny’s shoulder and silently telling him: Don’t bungle this. “That’s up to you, darling.”

Penny turned to him when the door closed. “Are we alone?”

He nodded, silent as she removed her spencer and hung it on a peg on the hall stand and removed her spectacles, placing them on a shelf. She had a fiery look in her amber eyes he wasn’t going to challenge. Let her lead, Tristan had instructed. Advice West planned to follow.

When she started unfastening the hooks securing her bodice, his mind went blank.

Strolling past him, Penny crossed to the grand staircase, a feature he loved about the place, the steps wide and made of rich, dark oak. She and the house were too fine for a raggedy orphan from the Philadelphia slums, but he’d take both if he was able. She trailed her fingers over the carved newel post and along the banister he’d buffed to a shine during a nervous burst of energy at dawn, one hand still working on her bodice closings.

She ascended the staircase like a vision from his dreams while he, discomfited and aroused, struggled to place his next move. Was she still angry? His gaze roamed the corridor to the parlor, where the pieces of his proposal lay in wait. The air was redolent of roses and the piquant scent of cranberry scones, her favorite. There were chocolates, too, and plans. So many plans.

Nonetheless, when Penny disappeared from view, he took the stairs two at a time.

He caught her on the second landing, hooking his arm around her waist from behind and tossing her over his shoulder. “Weston Whitaker,” she said on a gasping laugh, slapping at his back. “Put me down, you brute.”

“Do you remember how we said our next time would be?”

“No,” she answered, but a quiver lanced the word, betraying her.

He raced his hand up her leg to her thigh, her skin warm beneath copious layers. “A tight space, hardly enough for two. I find you. I take you. No words, no disrobing. Do you recall that fantasy?”

She’d whispered this while she rode him, her breath a hot promise in his ear, her luscious quim gripping his cock. He’d come while imagining it, powerfully enough to blur his vision. She liked lewd talk; a complete shock the first time she did it.

He hadn’t expected his day to start like this, but he wasn’t rejecting the boon.

The first room he hit was a linen closet. Perfect . In seconds, he had her out of his arms, backed against a shelf, his lips seizing hers. Her hands gripped his biceps, her moan as she strained to reach him a delicious echo. Tongues tangling, they fought for control and balance, stumbling, rocking the shelves until a stack of sheets rained down on them.

She turned her head, breaking the kiss. Then they stared, the air around them sparking. The scent of rosewater and starch stung his nose as he drew a fast breath. Her teasing scent chased it, right into his heart.

“We make love,” he rasped, “ then we make peace.”

Before she could shut him down, West glanced about, strategizing. He wasn’t an engineer for nothing. A wooden bench buried beneath a pile of cotton cloths was wedged along one wall. Tugging her to it, he knocked the linens to the floor and tested it with his fist. Shaky but solid, it might hold them. “Like the carriage,” he reminded her, the image of her climbing atop him in the rocking vehicle sending a surge of blood to his cock.

Tunneling her fingers in his hair, she tugged his lips to hers. “No words, Whitaker.”

He made quick work of it, going with Penny’s lead as his brother had suggested. They instituted a combined effort to undo his trouser buttons, allowing his shaft to spring free. After, it was simply a matter of him sitting, her climbing astride, clothing yanked to her waist, no disrobing if they played by the rules. Simple mathematics, his favorite kind.

The only casualty were her drawers, which he destroyed in the handling.

Guiding him, she lowered herself on his shaft in a prolonged, blinding glide. He groaned as her back rounded, her breast bumping his lips, ideal placement, the inner curve exposed by her gaping bodice. Her nipples he’d have to cherish at a later time as the position was more grind than stroke, more wiggle than thrust. He was simply too tall to reach them.

Along the way, he lost himself, the norm every damned time with her, although bits and pieces of the encounter would travel back to him. Her teeth catching his bottom lip when he grabbed her hips to increase the cadence. Kisses spinning into murmured cries, spinning into whispered pleas. Hairpins dropping to the floor, auburn strands spilling over his hand. Her eyes, a tawny wonder in the slice of light flowing in the high window. The sweet curve of her breast, her hip flexing beneath his fingertips. The scent of her bleeding into his soul. The sound of their bodies joining, raw and erotic.

“I love you,” he whispered as she clenched around him and began to shudder, her response sending him over the edge seconds later. He embraced her as they trembled, closing his eyes to the incredible sensations, wanting to protect her forever. Wanting to let himself adore her as he wished to.

Cheek to cheek, lungs churning, they tumbled into bliss.

Penelope loved West’s cottage.

Newer than the musty wreck she leased in Islington, it was full of high ceilings and, she imagined, a flood of light on sunny days. The grand staircase was glorious and the carpets lining every parlor Axminster, not faded relics like hers. The furnishings were sedate but quality, the only change she’d make would be to remove the portraits in the breakfast room. A dour group she’d relegate to the garret if the choice were hers.

Penelope brought her hands to her cheeks with a flushed sigh.

Maybe the choice was going to be hers.

Cranberry scones and two dozen pale-yellow roses, her favorites, resided in the front parlor. Chocolates from the best merchant in London and a wrapped box she’d shaken and sniffed to no avail. Elizabeth the cat snoozing in a crate near the hearth, her presence making the house seem like a home.

She knew she owed West a response to his admission.

I love you, he’d whispered in a tender tone that softened her heart to butter. Men were dunderheads, even the kindhearted ones. She couldn’t hold his foolishness against him forever, not if he was finally willing to trust her with the reasons for his scars and his headaches. She’d best get used to being vexed with him because it was likely to happen often.

Thus, Penelope lingered in his study just after daybreak, too nervous to sleep. She’d left West tangled in silk sheets, slumber claiming him moments after the close of their second encounter, an energetic romp atop his sprawling and remarkably soundless bed.

She laughed, delighted, her passion having worn him out, worn him down .

Sitting at his desk, snacking on scones and tea, she thumbed through the sheets spread across it, searching for clues about her endless fascination. His bold script was handwriting she’d recognize among a thousand others. She traced her finger down a row of equations that made her head ache to consider. He really was brilliant despite his idiocy about his feelings.

With her help, he would conquer the steam industry and love.

When he ambled in later that morning, the wrinkled sheet wrapped around him like a shawl, his hair an absolute fright, she coughed in amusement, choking on her scone.

He yawned and rubbed his eyes, not fully awake. “You weren’t supposed to come down without me. Or render me senseless during that last go. I think I pulled a muscle in my leg.”

She nodded to the wrapped box. She’d been waiting patiently for hours . “Can I open it now?”

Limping over, he emptied her teacup and inhaled the remaining scones. Between bites, he said, “That’s for Isabella. An embroidery set I saw at a shop on Regent. Studded with fake diamonds or something. We’ll give it to her together. It’s silly but, apparently, so is she.” Penelope had explained her sister’s role in The Rake Review , minor for the most part, to his masked but obvious relief. “Your present is out back.”

The wave of emotion hit her, overwhelming in its force. The past week with and without him had nearly broken her. Despite the trouble Isa had caused, he’d gotten her a gift? Penelope dropped her face to her hands and let out a gasping wail.

His sheet falling to the floor, West circled the desk to scoop her into his arms. He had on drawers but nothing else, and his body was hot against hers. “Sweetheart, please stop. I’m hanging by a thread here.”

With a sniff, she pressed her cheek over his thumping heart. “You’re kind.”

“I’m determined is all,” he murmured, his lips dusting the crown of her head. “I’m going to embarrass you. The wrong fork used at a duke’s dinner is surely coming soon. A controversial topic thrown into conversation like a stone. No one would pick me for an earl’s daughter. And this cottage, I mean, Highgate isn’t Mayfair, but the estates are larger with plenty of open land. I have five acres and, God, the air smells wonderful in the morning. Far enough from the city but close, too. I need space and, as it turns out, so do you.”

“I would pick you,” she whispered, “I do, I will if you ask.”

Grabbing the sheet to loop it loosely around his waist, he leaned to open the top desk drawer and came back with a box. His eyes shyly met hers as he opened it. He worked the gold necklace free of the velvet folds and presented it to her. The intricately scrolled locket shimmered in the lamplight. Cradling it in her palm, she flipped the catch. Inside was her penny, held in place by tiny fastenings like the ones binding her to him.

“Keeping a piece of me close to your heart,” he said and took the necklace, placing it around her neck with trembling hands.

She bowed her head, swallowing tightly. She turned when she could and stretched to cover his lips with hers. “I love you, too, Weston Whitaker. Even if you are far too young for me.”

Gripping the sheet at his hip, he grasped her hand, their fingers linking. “Come on, old girl, the main present is outside. Part of the need for space.”

Half-dressed and laughing, they exited a door leading to a side garden and raced along a pebbled path twisting through overgrown hedges. They were barefoot, their breath misting the air. When she stumbled on a stone, West picked her up and ran across the lawn toward a small structure Penelope assumed had once been a working stable. He burst inside the building with a shiver and let her slide down his body. “This damned country. You’ll have to keep me warm, sweetheart,” he said and tucked the sheet around her. “Two minutes, then we’re settling before a roaring hearth and never leaving. Actually, I’ve always wanted to make love before a fire.”

Moving away, he circled the space, pointing and gesturing, animated as he described his vision. This was the daring firebrand she was used to. “It’s large enough for me to section it off, half for my engines, half for your art. I’ve spoken with an architect about shoring up the walls and installing a proper hearth, shelves and the like. More windows on your side. But it has good bones, solid flooring, and I quite like that the exterior looks like an old barn or something.”

Pressing the locket to her chest, the coin warmed beneath her palm. “My studio?”

He spun around, his gaze on the ceiling. “I already bought a carriage load of supplies. Canvases, new ones, and paints, the good stuff already in the tubes. Brushes and a larger easel. Yours looked a little small. I want your paintings in a bloody gallery by this time next year. I’m going to see to it. Tristan knows an art broker.”

She crossed to him, more tears threatening.

“ Ah , Penny, as I always say, you undo me,” he murmured and brought her into his chest. Kissing her brow, he held her tight. “Penelope Whitaker is going to show society exactly what they missed.”

She sniffled, burrowing into him. “Weston Whitaker, too.”

After a moment, he said, “I was thinking about something, sweetheart.”

Peace settled over her, merging into the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear. “Dangerous.”

He laughed, his arms tensing around her. “There’s a loft we could outfit as a bedchamber of sorts. Small, nothing fancy, but we’ll flesh out the walls and make a tidy room. For nights I’m working late and don’t want to wake you. And”—his sigh streaked from his lips and across her brow—“it might work, short hours, I’m meaning, when we’re here and the babe needs a nap.”

She lifted her head, catching his gaze. His were open in more ways than one. Finally . “You’d be agreeable, that is, well, your work is at a critical building point and—”

“I want your children, Lady Penelope, and I want them now . I’m not getting any younger, as you’ve repeatedly declared. I already started a list of things to tell him. You taught me life lessons you had no idea you’d imparted. About love and generosity.” He paused, searching. “And patience.”

Her tears were beyond her control, pooling to trail down her face. “What if it’s a girl?”

West stilled as he sought to give her an honest answer, his sincerity vastly unique in a world of impostors. “I’ll love her so much, like I do you, blindly and forever, that the answers will come to me. It won’t be easy, her finding love, because there isn’t a duke or a prince fit for her. Already, I know I’ll fight to the death for her.”

Penelope longed to bask in her happiness for days, weeks, months , but when she shivered, West scooped her into his arms and raced, laughing, into their new life.