“Yes, Miss.” He left the doorway and soon enough returned with a maid in tow and Rutledge. The man looked rough—even while he looked the part of a gentleman in a dark grey cutaway jacket and blue brocade waistcoat, there was stubble on his cheek and his eyes looked wild.
Penelope stood, “My lord?”
“There you are,” he grinned. “I have been thinking about you.”
“Have you?” Penelope asked. “What about?”
Alice looked over to Benedict, who was looking at Rutledge with concern, his lips flattened with displeasure. “This is not good.”
Rutledge flopped on a sofa, his head lolling back before he straightened and blinked twice, his words holding a hint of a slur. “Do you know how many women have thrown themselves at me, trying to coerce me or bribe or even guilt me into marrying them?
“If you aren’t aware, it’s a long list, and you were at the near bottom, but thanks to powers that be—” he fumbled into his inner pocket and produced a ring, “—you have your wish. You will be my bride-to-be. Coming from a long line of traders, your options are rather limited.”
He tossed the ring to Penelope, but it landed short. “Put it on and we can get married. It is your wish after all. You have been casting your wiles at me this entire Season, you little tart.”
Alice felt a cold spike run through her and for a moment, she could not think of one thing to do—but Penelope did. She scooped the ring up and dropped it on his lap. “I am not a tart, your lordship, and if that is how you propose to me, ill-mannered and stinking of blue ruin, I must reject your offer.”
Rutledge’s face turned purple. “You dare to refuse me? When all this time you’d been tripping over your heels to get my attention?”
“That wasbeforeI realized how much of a lout you are,” Penelope snapped. “You are a good-for-naught womanizer with no morals or principles. I wish I could go back to the day when I thought you were upstanding and did pine for your attention. Now though, I see who you are. Leave me be.”
Shoving to his feet, Rutledge swayed, but he grabbed Penelope’s arm and tugged her closer. “We are to marry or my guts will be garters and my skin leather for boots. Now come, you little bitch—”
Benedict was on his feet and dragging Rutledge off her, damn nearly shoving the drunk man into the wall. “The lady said to leave.”
Shaking his head like a wet dog, Rutledge sneered. “Who the devil do you think you are?”
“The next Duke of Valhaven, and if you dare touch that woman again, I will have you jailed,” Benedict ordered.
“Woman?” Rutledge sneered. “She is no woman. Just a fast little bitch, good for nothing but breeding.”
“That’s enough,” Benedict snapped and yanked Rutledge away. “Get out of this house, now!”
“Make me!” Rutledge swung a fist and Alice screamed in fear, but Benedict adroitly dodged the blow and landed three ones of his own, in Rutledge’s ribs, belly, and the last one to his chin that sent the louse flying into an end table.
The wood cracked and snapped under his weight and went down with him, leaving the man dazed and barely moving on the ground.
Benedict grabbed him by the lapels and snarled. “If you think I will let you disrespect this lady in her home, I am going to throw you out myself.”
Rushing to her sister’s side, Alice hugged her tight, even more when Penelope started to cry. Benedict was maneuvering Rutledge out of the room and down the stairs, while Alice thanked her stars that her aunt, uncle, and Eliza were not home.
She didn’t know what excuse she would have given them if they had been.
“It will be all right,” Alice tried to comfort Penelope, but her words were hollow. “It will be all right, Penelope. You will be better off without him.”
The cutting sobs that wracked her sister made Alice’s heart twist in two; she had thought—she had been so sure—that getting Rutledge to do right by her sister would make it all right. How wrong she had been.
Now, the bright picture she had seen for Penelope crumbled like cake before her face; if her sister was with child—this would not end well.
Stomping boots had her twisting to see Benedict entering the room, his face thunderous. For a moment, she could see the very same expression on Edward’s face when she told him what happened with Rutledge.
The rose-tinted spectacles she wore fell from her face and now, she saw the truth; the man would have never done right by Penelope. Her sister would have lived unhappily for the rest of her life.
Benedict was quiet, only looking on, while she tried to calm her sister; it took a while for Penelope to stop shedding tears. She was taken aback when he came forward and handed Penelope a glass of water.
“If it is any consolation, Miss Penelope,” Benedict said quietly, “it is better for you to know this now than if you did marry. The man is a morally bankrupt peasant. Apparently, the man is buried in debt. Thank heavens you escaped his clutches—he would have only dragged you down with him.”
Pressing the back of her hand to her eyes, Penelope whispered, “I was in love with him.”
