“Isawhim. I saw the way he was looking up at you...”
“Oh, Hera.” Penelope shook her head. “He was looking up at the shadow of a woman coming down from the nursery. WhatIdistinctly remember is the way his face fell when he realized it was me—not you—descending the stairs...”
Could that be true?
“...I had suspected his affections were fixed at dinner, but when I saw his expression, I knew for certain he’d finally fallen in love. What’s more, he realized I knew. Whatever words we exchanged were in that vein...”
Hera covered her mouth. That radiant look of expectation had been forher?
She didn’t believe.
She couldn’t.
“...I was, at once, relieved—I cannot expresshowrelieved. For years, I’ve prayed he would find someone to love. Someone who could love him back with equal fervor. But I could never quite imagine him finding among his acquaintance the kind of person who could see past the bravado to the heart within. You are that person. What you heard was me, expressing my relief, and wishing you both happiness.”
“But I saw his list?—”
“The list, my husband assures me, was the result of teasing. The boys are merciless with one another, you know.”
“Theboys?”
She shrugged. “They were still boys when I met them. Three sixteen-year-old boys who thought disrupting a public assembly a lark.” She smiled at the memory. “To hear Chev tell the tale, two of them fell instantly in love with me, but only his was true love.”
“Why didn’t you fall for Hurtheven?”
Pen chuckled. “Spoken like a woman who cannot fathom that everyone does not see the brilliance of her shining star. I didn’t choose Hurtheven because I didn’t evenseeHurtheven.” Her gaze unfocused. She smiled. “When Chev is in the room, Istilldon’t see anyone else. Don’t get me wrong, I do love Hurtheven. As I’ve told you before, he was a rock in my time of trouble. I just don’t love him, well, the wayyoulove him.”
Hera stiffened. “I’ve never said I loved him.”
Pen gave her a pitying glance.
“Oh, very well,” she conceded. “I do.”
Penelope grinned in triumph. “Will you give him a second chance?”
She chewed her lip. Loving him and trusting him were a far cry from one another. “How did he react when you told him about Annis?”
“He wasdevastatedthat you left...I’ve never seen him so distraught. Chev and Ash had to combine their strength to hold him back from chasing after you.”
Devastated?
“And when I told him about Annis, he was, at first, angry you had not confided in him, but his anger turned quickly inward. He knows he has only himself to blame.Believeme—he knows.”
She’d been blaming him, too. The idea of him dwelling in self-recrimination, however, gave her pain. “And is he recovering?”
“What do you think the answer to that question is?”
Hera didn’t immediately reply.
“Perhaps,” Penelope continued, “I had better put it this way—he has recovered as well as you have, which is, I think, not at all.”
Hera lifted her chin. “He hasn’t written.”
“Until Alicia returned, none of us knew if the hearing had been successful. He did not want to mar your chances.”
She glanced up. “He could have written since.”
“He sent me. I rather think he didn’t trust his eloquence to be as convincing.”
