The Romantic (7 page)

“That should spare you from the worst of the damp,” he said, dusting off his hands as he rose beside the fireplace. “I will make one in the kitchen, too, and a bedchamber once you choose which you prefer. Do you want to sleep down here, or above? The rooms upstairs are much better.”

“I expected a hovel, not a choice of chambers. I will go above and see which suits me.”

“I will tend to the kitchen fire while you do.”

She ascended the narrow stairs to three bedrooms. The one facing the sea was quite large and, she guessed, Mr. Hampton’s own. The two others faced the back of the house and overlooked the little kitchen garden tucked inside its low stone wall.

She paused in one of them, surveying its clean coverlet and white, simple curtains and pine wardrobe.

It was a woman’s room.

There was something to it, a subtle refinement, that proclaimed it feminine.

Or maybe she inhaled a lingering scent that did so.

She felt her face flushing. Of course. How stupid of her. There was another very good reason for a city man to have an isolated retreat not too far from London. A very practical one. And an excellent reason for not having servants here, too.

She did not know much about Mr. Hampton where women were concerned, except that there was a lot of speculation about him, and many unproductive flirtations which he never seemed to notice.

It seemed those flirtations had not all been in vain after all. Evidently it had been discretion, not abstinence, that kept that part of his life hidden from the world.

She paced around the room and wondered which women had visited this cottage and if she knew any of them.

Perhaps there was currently a lady who used this chamber and considered it her own.

“Do you want this in here?”

Mr. Hampton stood at the threshold with her large trunk in his arms. Her mind saw him entering this chamber for a different purpose. It was an exciting and dangerous image, and an alarmingly easy picture for her mind to paint. Her heart rose to her throat.

When she did not answer he strode in and set the trunk down near the wardrobe.

“Perhaps not,” she said.

He bent to lift the trunk again. “The seaside chamber is much more comfortable.”

“Yes. I mean, no. Not that one. That is yours, isn’t it?”

“When I am here it is, but I will not be here, so it can be yours. You will like it. You can hear the surf so clearly at night it is as if you are sleeping on the waves.”

“I do not think I would be comfortable using your chamber, Mr. Hampton.”

“As you prefer.” He set the trunk down again.

“Actually, I was thinking of the small chamber next door. I would be most comfortable in that one.”

He began to bend for the trunk, but stopped. He straightened.

“Why would you find it more comfortable than this one?”

“I think it is very charming and cozy.”

Comprehension flickered deep in his eyes. He knew what conclusions she had drawn. Was it her imagination that she saw the smallest hint of a smile, as if he found her discovery amusing?

“I would prefer that you use this chamber, charming though the small one may be.” He went to the doorway, leaving the trunk where it sat. “You can see the road from this window. When you are alone you may find it comforting to be able to see that no one approaches.”

Julian brought up the smaller trunk and some water, then left Penelope to refresh herself. He strolled out the sitting room door to the little stone terrace that looked over the sea.

The day was not cold, but the brisk breeze carried a salty bite. It whipped around him, echoing the energy of the waves and the swells of the sea.

He had always loved the way the sea’s rhythms threw thoughts into his head and provoked a deeper knowing of himself. The contemplations did not always have words, but the conclusions emerged all the same.

He did not only think about Penelope when he visited this cottage. In fact, he almost never did, although she was never completely absent from his soul. He probably would think of her all the time now, however, since she had actually walked these floors and would soon stand on this terrace.

He pictured the woman in the chamber above, settling into the room she had concluded was used by his lovers.

He could not decide if he would welcome her eternal presence in this corner of his life or not.

The day was clear, and he could see far to the south where the masts of ships heading for the Thames poked into the sky. He had been on enough ships to know that he would have enjoyed a life at sea. He had meant what he said to Pen, however. He did not hold regrets about the path he had chosen instead.

He had taken it even though it meant becoming a solicitor. His father had been an impoverished gentleman but a gentleman all the same, and sons of gentlemen who entered the law were supposed to become barristers. Barristers did not work for pay, although indirectly they really did. Still, the world permitted the little lie and pretended barristers did not soil their hands with trade. Solicitors, however, were paid directly, and that made all the difference to most people.

The choice had meant a more secure existence, and, he suspected, a more interesting one. Barristers briefly entered a person’s life, then left. Solicitors stood by their clients’ sides until the day they died.

He would have been no use at all to Penelope if he had become a barrister.

Had her mother known that? Was that why Lady Laclere had taken him aside that day when he was fifteen and proposed this course to him? She had then told her husband to pay his university fees for two years and later arrange his position as an articled clerk in their old solicitor’s chambers.

She had spoken that day only of concerns about her eldest son, Milton, and his need for good counsel and a practical influence when he assumed the title. But she
was already casting her lure for the Earl of Glasbury by then. Julian had always wondered if she suspected that her daughter would also need counsel in the years to come.

If so, marrying Pen off to Glasbury had been unforgivable.

“Will you eat before you leave? I have laid out some of the food you brought for me.”

He turned at Pen’s voice.

She stood at the door. For an instant he saw the woman-child she had been her first season, coming to him on another terrace, excited about her recent engagement to a great title. She had been so happy, so full of sparkling giggles, that he had had to smile even though it was the most desolate day of his life.

She looked even more beautiful today. Her hair’s simple chignon made her look very young. Her manner even appeared girlishly awkward.

He returned to the house. Pen had put out ham and bread and cheese on the small table near the sitting room window.

“I thought we could see the sea from here, and the dining room in back is dark,” she said.

They sat on either side of the table. Julian sensed distraction and discomfort in her.

“Will you be at ease here alone tonight?” he asked.

“Of course. I am a grown woman. I do not need care like a child.”

Her tone was close to a challenge. Not able to imagine what response she expected, he gave none.

“I am thinking that it was unwise to come here. I should have found another solution,” she said.

“You needed a sanctuary.”

“I do not think this cottage should have been that sanctuary.”

“Why not?”

No doubt she thought her expression utterly bland as she cut some ham into tiny pieces, but he knew her too well. Her mind was working hard at something.

“I am concerned for your reputation. If this becomes known, it will be assumed that you are my lover. If Glasbury thinks that, he will ruin you.”

She was lying. Oh, she was truly concerned for him, but that was not the reason for this peevish resistance now.

“However,” she continued, “contemplating the potential consequences of coming here has made me realize that I have another choice where the earl is concerned, besides running away.”

“What is that?”

“I can have an affair and be very indiscreet. I think he would divorce me then. It could work, don’t you think? He always said if I did that it would void our agreement, but since he is trying to void it anyway—Are you unwell? You look peculiar. Are you choking or—”

“I am fine.”

“What do you think? Would it work?”

He tried to summon professional disinterest. “I do think it would induce him to divorce you. If it was commonly known you were having an affair, it would endanger the succession to his title, and humiliate him as well.”

“Do you think he would go to Parliament? I would not want anything less than full freedom.”

“He would want to be able to remarry and have his heir, so he would go to Parliament.”

“Then it may be a course worth weighing seriously. Don’t you agree?”

“It is one solution to your dilemma. I would have proposed it years ago if you had been older and less meticulous in your honesty.”

She stopped eating. She set down her fork.

“You contemplated back then that I should give him evidence of adultery so that he could divorce me?”

“I did.”

Her lids lowered. “It was not only my youth and honesty that kept you silent, I think.” Her tone definitely carried a challenge this time. “You thought that I could never do it, didn’t you? That was why you never raised that option.”

“You were not willing to consider divorcing him because of the public nature of the proceedings and the revelations that must be made. I assumed you would not want the scandal if he divorced you, either.”

“It was not only the scandal, but also the cost of going to Parliament. My family’s finances could not support it.”

“You could have gone to the church’s courts. It did not have to be Parliament.”

“The church was a half-measure, and I was spared the humiliation and obtained the same terms with the agreement you suggested we negotiate. Better ones, since I received some support and was not thrust back on my family.”

“Not entirely the same terms, madame. Had you gone to the church, you might indeed be divorced now, half-measure or not, and the earl could not touch you.”

His own tone had turned firm, but he’d be damned if he would accept responsibility for the course she had taken.

He had advised her to end the marriage. He had come damn close to imploring her to do so.

Her gaze fell and the atmosphere grew heavy. When she looked up again, her eyes held a very determined expression.

“All the same, this option of giving the earl cause to divorce
me
was not among the ones enumerated that day in your chambers. I know the real reason why, and it was not the ones you admit to.”

“I assure you that—”

“You assumed that I could never bear being with a man after what happened with Glasbury. You thought I was ruined forever for such intimacies in any way.”

She flushed deeply. She looked astonished to hear herself speak of such indelicate matters. Almost as astonished as he felt at hearing such an accusation blurted out.

She made a display of turning her attention to her meal. Her manner denied him a response.

Just as well, because the retort flaring in his brain was not the measured, professional kind she expected from her old friend and solicitor.

“Do you advise divorce now? Either I divorce him, or make him divorce me?” she asked.

“If I cannot dissuade him from his current intentions, it may be the only choice.”

“I see others. I can do as I first intended, and run far away.”

“He has shadowed your adult life so far. Will you give him the victory of destroying your future?”

“I hear America is very pleasant. Living there is hardly destruction.”

“To disappear, you will have to go inland to the frontier, and to a life that makes this cottage look like a palace.”

“I think that you exaggerate.” She sighed. “Well, that is all of the choices, I suppose. Except killing him, but that will never do.”

Julian said nothing to that.

He rose. “There is no need to make any decision until after I speak with Glasbury. I will leave you now, if you are sure that you can manage on your own. I have engagements in London that I should not miss, or it may raise curiosity. I will visit you tomorrow, however.”

“That is a lot of riding, Mr. Hampton. You do not need to journey here daily. It will be an inexcusable inconvenience to you. Even on horse, riding cross-country, it will take hours each way.”

“I will return tomorrow afternoon, madame.”

She accompanied him to the kitchen and stepped out into the garden with him. He did not like leaving her here, isolated and alone. He did not mind solitude, and often sought it, but he knew that he was unusual.

She noticed his hesitation. “I will be fine. Thank you for doing this for me. For helping me. I fear that I sounded very ungrateful while we dined. I am not, and I want you to know that.”

“Until tomorrow, then.”

He walked to the curricle with her bold accusation still in his head.

Instead of getting in, he pivoted and returned to where she stood.

“I never thought you were ruined. That day I saw that you were frightened and sad and shocked. To have suggested that you have an affair would have been inappropriate at any time, and especially insensitive and cruel then. But I never thought you were ruined forever.”

She turned to the door. “Well, I thought I was, even if you did not.”

chapter
6