Penelope found herself grateful for every moment of it, and most especially, she was grateful for him.
She found herself relaxing more and more the further they got from her home, the tension in her shoulders gradually easing as the city gave way to the wide, quiet grounds of the Westerdale estate.
“Welcome to your new home, angel,” Cecil said as he helped her out of the carriage. “I mean, it will be soon. I gave the servants the afternoon off, so that we could have some peace and quiet. The introductions can take place after we are wed.”
She glanced around the estate, taking in the quiet magnificence and neatness of the house and lawns, feeling excited over spending the rest of her days here with her husband.
“Thank you. Will you give me a tour, please? It looks beautiful.”
Cecil nodded, taking her hand as he led her to the front door. “Certainly. And I am glad you think so. The renovations were quite necessary and the end results were better than I had hoped. Come along, precious.”
He showed her through the house at a leisurely pace, unhurried, pointing out rooms with the attentiveness of one who was thinking about someone else's comfort as he did it. He showed her the library first, and she lingered longest there, trailing her fingers along the shelves, eager to spend endless hours fixated on remarkable pieces of poetry and prose. After that was a grand hall with its south-facing windows, and the long gallery with the portraits of his ancestors, one of whom had, by her assessment, a remarkable resemblance to Cecil himself.
“Your grandfather?” she guessed.
“Great-great-uncle,” he said. “The resemblance has been a source of mild alarm in the family for three generations.”
She laughed, and he looked pleased, and they moved on to the next room, their arms linked all the way.
He brought her at last to the sunroom at the east end of the house – a bright, airy room full of afternoon light, the windows looking out over a garden that was just beginning to come into spring colour. And there, in the centre of the floor, someone had laid out a blanket in pale wool, with a bottle of wine and a smallarrangement of cheese, crackers, and some cake on a low tray beside it.
Penelope looked at it, and then at Cecil, and felt something warm move through her that had nothing to do with the afternoon sun coming through the glass.
“Sit,” he instructed quietly. “Please.”
She did as he asked, the blanket soft beneath her, as she settled down. That, along with the cosy air that came from the sunlight that filled the room, made her feel entirely and completely relaxed for the first time in weeks.
Cecil poured her a glass of wine and handed it over, then settled beside her and, without ceremony, lifted her feet gently into his lap and began to massage them with a thoroughness and attention that drew an entirely involuntary sigh from her lips.
“Better?” he asked.
“Considerably,” she nodded, letting her head fall back slightly. “How did you know?”
“Because you have been managing everything by yourself for weeks and you have not once asked for help, and your neck has had the particular set it gets when you are holding yourself very carefully upright.” His hands worked steadily, gently, and sure. “I should have come sooner.”
She looked at him across the blanket, at the quiet certainty in his face, and felt the warmth settle deeper.
“Cecil, I am managing everything for the wedding because I know that you are busy making arrangements for the life we will live together soon. And I have not been without help –”
“Still... I mean it,” he sighed. “I should have come to see you sooner. There is a great deal I intend to say to you, and most of it begins with an apology... My father was a selfish man. I do not say that lightly, or simply out of old bitterness – I say it because it is the most accurate description I have. He was selfish in the way that certain people are: entirely, without apology, and with such consistency that it became invisible to him. He loved nothing more than his own comfort and his own advantage, and he valued people – including his own children – only as long as they could be useful to him.”
Penelope did not interrupt, noting that his hands did not stop as he spoke, her heart aching at the emptiness in his eyes.
“He taught me,” Cecil continued, “Or rather, he demonstrated – because he never bothered to teach us anything directly – that every relationship had its purpose. That people entered arrangements with one another because it served them to do so. That sentiment was a luxury that foolish people indulged in, and practical people did not... I believed him. I had no reason not to. It was the only model I had ever seen, and I was young, and it worked – or it appeared to. It kept things orderly. Predictable. Safe.”
He looked up from her feet and found her eyes.
“And then I got to know you,” he said, “And none of it worked anymore. You did not fit into the model. You were not a transaction and you were not a convenience and no matter how many times I tried to reduce you to something manageable, you refused to cooperate.”
He exhaled, a short, rueful sound. “You made me feel things I had no language for. And I was a coward about it, Penelope. I ran from it, and in running, I hurt you. I will carry that.”
“Cecil –”
“I am not finished,” he shushed her gently as he met her gaze. “I want to say this properly, so that you know it has been thought through and not merely said. I will not carry his values forward. I will not let the way he lived shape the way I love you. I am going to spend the rest of my life being better – for myself, and for you, and for whatever life we build together – and I intend to give you my best. Not what I thought was sufficient. My actual best. That is what you deserve. And I am sorry it took me so long to realise it.”
The afternoon was very quiet around them, but Penelope could hear the distant sound of birds in the garden outside and the soft sound of her own breathing, and nothing else.
She set her glass down and reached forward, taking his hand where it rested on her ankle, smiling when he turned it over and held hers.
