“In time for what?” she asked.
“A storm is coming, cousin. You’d be wise to batten down the hatches.” He bowed slightly. “My offer stands.”
~~~
Had Cheverley thought himself in pain when he’d dreamed of Penelope?
His dreams and memories were watercolor and canvas—a pale copy of her vividness in flesh and blood.
Excruciating heat seeped from his wrung-out heart.
Physically, the years had altered her little. Her face was, perhaps, more rounded. Her skin, however, remained unlined. And what he could see of her blonde tresses—sadly twisted into a tight knot—showed no hint of grey.
Yet, a hardness he did not recognize effused her presence. A hardness transferred into the molten mess of his own sentiments, floating like crusted flakes of metal—little, doomed ships on an inward, storm-battered sea.
He could reach her in little more than ten steps, though he was no longer as close as he’d been when he’d heard her speak to Anthony with calculated invitation, a spider, confident in her web’s allure.
I am, as you so helpfully pointed out, a widow in need of protection. I must consider which man can make the best offer.
He should leave.Go back to sea. Forever silence the pirate—a mission, unlike his time here, with a distinct beginning and end, a clear measure of achievement.
But Thaddeus—
He inhaled in silence.
But Thaddeus wanted to learn to shoot.
Lord Thomas bowed, turned and walked away, his triumphant smile growing wider as he strode.
Penelope touched her forehead. All traces of her earlier confidence vanished. She moved toward Cheverley—or, at least, toward the doorway to the courtyard. She reached for the door—
Anthony called the room to attention.
With a grimace, she turned, and then rested against a pillar in the shadow of a potted palm.
Anthony spoke, but Cheverley could not understand his words over the rushing in his ears, the over-loud thudding drum inside his chest.
Then, the music began again. The words ran together, but their tone resonated. A mournful song. Anger. Longing. Grief. He couldn’t stop the flood any more than he could tear away his gaze.
Penelope.
Her body tensed—she shoved away from the pillar.
He caught the words—The HMS Defiance—and turned his attention to the stage. In shock, he listened as his terrors were folded into softly spoken rhymes.
A sob that could have been his own wrenched from his wife’s lips.
“Stop,” she whispered. Then louder, “Stop!”
The music came to a jagged end in domino succession, a cacophony that intensified his chill. All eyes turned to Penelope. She gripped her pearls, and for a moment, Chev expected her to rip the strand from her throat.
“I—I can hardly bear my grief.” She appeared lost. Hunted. “I miss him. Imisshim.” She sobbed again. “All the time.”
Anthony moved back to the front of the room.
“The music will continue,” he said to the crowd. Then, to Penelope, “do you think you are the only one who has lost anyone?”
Penelope placed the back of her gloved hand to her lips.
