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Penelope sat in the front row of Amblewood Church, listening as her name and the Duke’s were read out in the banns.
Hearing his Christian name, James, sent a shiver down her spine. He had asked her to call him that, in the brief moment between proposing marriage and hating her. And yet she had never got a proper chance to use it. She’d not given him leave to drop the ‘lady’ from her name, even though she would happily have done so. There hadn’t been time – and of course, for most of their time together, she had pretended not to know her own name.
She winced even thinking of the ruse.
On either side of her, her parents sat, beaming proudly. They were thrilled that their only daughter, whose marriage prospects had been dwindling, was to become a duchess.
But all Penelope could think of was how wrong it all felt. How she would be marrying a man she cared for, perhaps evenloved – if one could fall in love in just five days – yet he despised her.
She didn’t want to live apart from him. If she was going to marry him, and she truly did want to marry him, she wanted to do it properly.
She needed to find a way to earn his forgiveness.
Although she knew it was sinful, she spent the entire sermon devising a plan to win him back. Later, when one of her mother’s friends invited them to tea to celebrate the joyous news, she sat quietly and refined her ideas further. Ironically, it was her knack for coming up with plans that had landed her in this predicament.
"You’re very quiet, dear," Lady Malrose remarked in her overly blue parlour. "Are you thinking of your betrothed?" she asked with a sickly-sweet smile. "Young love – what a thing to remember." She sighed wistfully.
Penelope forced a smile. She was indeed thinking of the Duke – or James, as she supposed she ought to start thinking of him. But not in the way Lady Malrose imagined. Theirs was not the tale of young love she so clearly envisioned.
By the time they arrived home, Penelope had a plan. She didn’t know if it was a good one, but it was the best she could manage – and, at the very least, it shouldn’t make things worse. After all, things between her and the Duke could hardly get any worse.
"Are you still planning to go to London for the Season?" she asked her mother as they sat embroidering in the parlour that evening.
Her mother looked rather taken aback. "Well, there’s not really any need, with you having secured a betrothed, and with your wedding so soon…"
"Could we go, just for a week?" Penelope asked.
"I must say, I’m surprised to hear you ask. You’ve made no secret of your opinions of London in the past," her mother replied with a delicate frown.
"I have no love for the city," Penelope agreed. "But I should like to purchase new garments for my trousseau…and I don’t think Madam Caine in Amblewood is quite up to the task."
She hated telling more lies, but they were for the greater good. She was perfectly satisfied with Madam Caine’s work and hadn’t even thought about her trousseau until her mother had mentioned it earlier. But now, it provided the perfect excuse to go to London. She was to be a duchess, after all – she could not have second-rate garments.
And, thankfully, her mother agreed.
"An excellent thought, my dear. If we leave at once, stay for two weeks at the most, and have the items sent back to us if they are not ready… Yes, I think it’s doable. You should write to your betrothed, though, to let him know where you are – just in case he wishes to visit before the wedding."
Penelope had already told her parents that she, and they, would return to Dunloch for the wedding in two months’ time, as the Duke decreed. But she knew they found it odd that he didn’t wish to meet her family before the day itself, nor had he contacted them to discuss the terms of her dowry. Her mother was most disappointed by the small wedding with no great celebration, but all of it had been left to the Duke to arrange.
Had Penelope been entering into a love match, confident her feelings were returned, she wouldn’t have minded what sort of ceremony they had. But knowing how he felt about her, and that the whole arrangement was, in essence, another lie, made her bitter. She was losing the wedding day she’d imagined, the one her parents had dreamed of since she was a little girl.
And yet, once again, she knew she had no one to blame but herself. She had taken away her own choices with herreckless decision to deceive him, playing fast and loose with her reputation – a reputation she’d been warned to guard for as long as she could remember.
Still, she was determined to make it right. And to do that, she needed to be in London. For in London lived the Duke’s sisters – and she could think of no one better to help her find a way back into his good graces.
???
The Duke, meanwhile, had no plans for their wedding beyond inviting Penelope’s parents. He couldn’t stop the residents of Dunloch from gathering at the church, if they wished – and, given his title and the unexpected marriage, he wouldn’t be surprised if they did. But there would be no celebration afterwards, no wedding breakfast, no dancing.
He was doing what was right. Her parents, of course, would want to be there as witnesses. But once they left, so would she – to whichever estate he chose for her.
He hadn’t yet decided. For some reason, it was hard to picture her in any of them.
Her free spirit seemed ill-suited to the confines of his London townhouse, and the manor in Southampton, though beautiful, felt desolate compared to her bright, sunny nature.
When his thoughts turned to making her happy, he scolded himself. That was not the aim. She had put them in this situation, and she would reap the rewards of her actions. She would be a Duchess, with a title and wealth beyond imagination. She could hold balls, attend events, and socialise to her heart’s content.
