Something in his expression softened further. He offered her his arm, and she took it, and they turned toward the door together.
The trouble with bravery, Cecil thought, moments after he had stepped through the front door of Penelope and Lionel’s home,was that it had a tendency to desert one at the least convenient moments.
He was not, by any reasonable measure, a man who frightened easily. He had faced his responsibilities head-on before his father passed and even more so afterwards, without doubt or relent. He had sat across negotiating tables from men twice his age and emerged with every advantage. He had, on one memorable occasion, talked his way out of a duel before breakfast.
And yet here he stood in a well-appointed foyer, holding the arm of the woman he intended to marry, and he was quite genuinely the most nervous he had ever been in his life.
He was acutely aware of the sound of his own heartbeat. He noted, with the detached observation of a man who had betterthings to do than to note his own symptoms, that his palms were somewhat less steady than usual and that he had checked the set of his cravat in the carriage window four separate times. He suspected Penelope had noticed that he was fiddling with his pocket watch, though she had said nothing.
He was still taking inventory of his own shortcomings when the door to the study opened, and Lionel walked out into the hallway.
His attire was casual and comfortable, which suggested he had not been expecting callers, and his expression underwent a rapid and somewhat spectacular series of changes as his gaze moved from his sister to the man beside her and then back again. Something settled in his face then – something cold and deliberate –, and he turned to the butler, who had just walked around the end of the hallway and unwittingly joined the fiasco about to take place.
“Fetch my rifle,” Lionel said.
Cecil felt his heart drop into his stomach, and he turned to his —hopefully soon— soon-to-be bride.
“Lionel, please. Don’t be ridiculous —” Penelope began, her voice admirably steady.
“I made myself perfectly clear,” Lionel said, still looking at the butler rather than at either of them. “The last time this man appeared at my door, I told him precisely what would happenif he came again. Unlike some people in this room, I keep my word.”
The butler, who had the expression of a man deeply grateful for his professional neutrality, hesitated.
“You cannot shoot him,” Penelope sighed, exasperated.
“I can, and I intend to. Barnaby, where is my rifle —"
“You are not getting it!” Penelope released Cecil's arm and stepped between them with a composure Cecil found simultaneously impressive and deeply touching. “You are going to stand here and listen to what he has to say. That is all I ask. Simply listen.”
Lionel's jaw clenched, and Cecil noticed how the hate in his gaze had cleared up almost immediately as he shifted his attention to his sister. Lionel looked at his sister for a long moment, and something flickered across his expression – love, clearly, and the kind of protectiveness that Cecil recognised with a jolt because he had worn the exact same expression himself, more times than he could count.
“I know you were distraught after the party,” Lionel said quietly. “I did not ask you about it, because I could see you did not wish to speak of it and I did not want to pressure you. But I am not a fool, Penelope, and I am not blind. And I am not going to stand in my own home and welcome the man who made you look like that.”
His gaze moved to Cecil, cool and measuring. “You will leave my property now, or so help me – I really will shoot you.”
“I understand, but I cannot. Not until you’ve heard me speak. Please.” Cecil requested.
The word came out steadier than he expected. Lionel blinked, seemingly confused about whether he wanted to admire his bravery or actually make good on his threats.
“I understand,” Cecil said again, more deliberately, “Why you are doing this. I would do – and have done the same, for my own sisters. Though I am unfamiliar with the discomfort of being the one who needs protecting from, I can see why you believed it to be entirely necessary. But I meant what I said when I tried to call on you this past week. I love your sister. I intend to marry her, with your blessing, and I will spend every day that follows ensuring she never has cause to look the way she did after that party again. She deserves that. She deserves better than what I gave her, and I know it. I am asking you to let me prove it.”
Silence filled the foyer as Lionel stared at him, looking more and more as though he regretted not having his rifle in his hands. Then, slowly, his expression shifted into something harder to read – not softer, exactly, but less like a man preparing for battle.
“Marry,” he repeated, as though the word had been received in a foreign language and he was translating it carefully. “You wish to marry my sister.”
The words must not have appealed to him, because he let out a short sound that was not quite a laugh, but sounded close enough to it.
“You should have thought of that before, Your Grace. Because I will tell you plainly – I will never give my approval to a match my sister does not want. And Penelope does not intend to marry. She has told me as much herself. So you may take your intentions and your flowers and direct yourself back to wherever you came from.”
“Actually,” Penelope said, from directly beside him, her voice becoming softer with each word. “He did ask me first.”
Another wave of silence fell, longer this time, and Lionel turned to look at his sister very slowly, his face the very picture of disbelief and confusion.
“I beg your pardon?”
“He asked me first,” Penelope repeated, with a composure that Cecil found extraordinary, given the circumstances. “Yesterday, at Nora's estate, when I visited her for tea. And I agreed.”
The expression on Lionel's face moved through more emotions; some surprise, a little more disbelief, and then it finally landed on something that looked remarkably like offence. “You agreed to – behind my back –”
