“I did not mean any harm to it,” Penelope frowned. The boy was no more than four feet tall, and yet his attitude was that of someone twice his size. “I actually adore animals.”
“It’s not anit, it’s ahim,” he snapped. “And it does not matter if you adore animals or not. You should not be going around touching other people’s pets like this.”
Penelope pressed her lips together in a thin line. The young boy looked at ease in the surroundings.
He must work here, or have someone in his family who does.Though his attitude was abhorrent, Penelope realized that it would be in her best interest to play nice.
“Well, I did not mean to cause harm–” she started to explain herself, but the young lad held up a hand to stop her.
“My father told me not to talk to strangers,” he huffed, moving out a piece of hair from his eyes. “I would imagine he would not be happy that I am entertaining one like yourself, especially with that ridiculous dress you have on.”
Penelope felt her cheeks heat at the comment, suddenly feeling more self-conscious than before as she glanced down at the various stains on her dress. But ever more so, she felt appalled. She had never once been spoken to in this manner by someone that much younger than her .
“Did your father not tell you that it is entirely im proper to speak to someone in this manner?”
“I am speaking to you just fine,” the boy shrugged, kneeling down to pet his dog himself. “Besides, I am only protecting my dog. He might be small, and so people think it is all right to treat him however they please.”
Penelope looked down at the small dog, which looked to be some sort of terrier breed, and then back at the boy.
“I am the last person that he needs to be protected from,” she defended herself. “But you do need a lesson in manners. If you are behaving like this at this age, I cannot imagine the trouble you will have finding a wife when you are older.”
The boy clenched his fists, noticeably offended, and opened his mouth to respond when a deep voice interrupted them from the top of the stairs.
“Odette, enough. Go upstairs.”
Odette?Penelope blinked, flushed. Odette was a girl? She looked back in horror, but the girl was already marching up the stairs.
“Father, I was only–”
“I said enough,” the man chided.
Odette huffed, but she didn’t argue again. “Come now, Apollo,” she signaled to her dog, who followed her up the stairs with its tail still happily wagging.
“I did not realize…” Penelope tried to explain herself, “I mean, it was the trousers and the hair, I thought he was a boy.”
The man did not respond and finally descended the steps. Penelope watched him as he walked towards them. Immediately, she felt at a loss for words.
The man had very dark hair and was clearly handsome with his sharp features. Even though he stood at a distance from her, Penelope could already tell from his tall frame that he towered over her with ease . His gaze was fixed on hers, locking her into place.
Penelope found herself growing even more flushed. She parted her lips to speak, but no words would come out.
She tried to will herself to speak up. After all, Penelope had charmed all manner of gentlemen before, and she had never had any sort of issues with her confidence. It occurred to her then that those interactions would usually take place in a ballroom.
Here she was in a club, one that she had never been to before, and it was unfamiliar territory. That was the reason she was nervous, surely.
After all, it was not every day that Penelope Morton found herself speechless. The man was looking at her again, now with more of a curiosity.
“Who are you and why are you disturbing my establishment?”
CHAPTER 2
Alexander Walford was a man of routine. His days were meticulously planned out from the moment he rose in the morning until he went to sleep.
Disturbances were something that he abhorred the most. Anything that would add a wrench to his otherwise carefully scheduled life.
Most disturbances were easy enough to manage, of course. And easy to predict as well.
But he did not know what to make of this doe-eyed, brown- haired disturbance that stared back at him with frightened eyes.
