He shifted uncomfortably. “It certainly hasn’t been boring.”
“No,” Pen whispered. “It certainly hasn’t been that.”
Silence settled between them.
Their conversation was every bit as awkward as she’d feared it’d be. The kiss loomed between them. She felt the heat rise again in her cheeks at the mere thought of it.
“And now?” Alworth regarded her carefully. “Did you want to tell me something?”
Pen struggled with the words. “Imagine, my guardian is here.” She spoke as if Alworth hadn’t been present when they’d met Marcus.
“Is he, indeed? Well, then I take it all your problems are solved in one blow.”
His expression held a note of mockery. This was not the Alworth she wanted to talk to. Hard, aloof, with this cold-eyed smile.
She looked away swiftly. “He sent me Charlotte to turn me back into a girl.”
Alworth looked at her without blinking. “So I gather.”
She could not, for the life of her, interpret that immobile countenance of his. “I—I should probably go talk to him,” she stammered.
“Yes, do. The man seems to have a propensity to disappear. You wouldn’t want to lose him again, would you?”
Pen broke away from him.
Marcus had left the card room, with the woman from the scarlet room on his arm. The people melted away in front of them.
Pen boxed her way through the room. Yet the crowd had thickened, and it was getting more difficult to push through.
“Oh! Look who has arrived!” people around her murmured. An excited buzz filled the room.
There, by the entrance, stood a handsome couple. The lady, fashionably dressed in a silver gown, with unruly brown hair, lively eyes, and an amiable smile, stood next to a tall and imposing gentleman, who, with an air of boredom, surveyed the crowd through his quizzing glass.
“Lucy!” Pen heard the shriek as much as everyone else. She needed a moment to realise it came from her. Heads turned in surprise. She scrambled forward. “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy! My dearest, best and only friend.”
Completely forgetting that she was dressed in men’s clothes, Pen fell around the lady’s neck and squeezed her tightly. “How I love you.”
The crowd gasped in horrified unison as they watched Pen Kumari, gentleman and gamester, embrace, kiss, and declare his love to the Duchess of Ashmore—in front of her husband and the entireton.
“Who the blazes are you?”the man beside the duchess enquired in a quietly menacing tone that could’ve frosted over hell itself.
Alworth, stepped up to the rescue. “This, Your Grace, is my very good friend, Pen Kumari. It seems he has, er, forgotten himself in the exuberant joy of being reunited with your wife.”
That didn’t necessarily make things any better. The crowd murmured again. The Indian prince? Did he have anaffairewith the duchess? Since when?
“Do I have to call him out?” the Duke of Ashmore wondered.
“Stand aside, Alworth,” said a deep voice. Dead silence fell as Rochford stepped forward. “This is entirely my responsibility. Miss Penelope Reid is my ward.”
Pen stared at Marcus and felt the pulse beat in her temple.
So he finally acknowledged her. In front of the entireton.
“Pen?” Lucy murmured into her ear. “Is this really your guardian?”
“Of course I am,” Marcus shrugged. “Captain Reid asked me to take on guardianship over his daughter.”
The crowd’s buzzing increased. The scandal!
