“I hear,” Mr. Whitlock went on, waving his hand vaguely, “that your town’s women still undergo… training? Lessons on how to best serve their husbands?”
“Finishing school,” her father corrected at once, his voice puffed with pride. “Yes, well—family is the marrow of this place. We are not like the larger cities, cut off and diluted. Here, we keep to tradition. Our women take such pride in their role, in learning obedience, that we see it our duty to teach them once they come of age.”
Penelope’s lashes lowered, her hands folding at her waist in perfect imitation of that obedience, the basket still resting on her arm. But inside—inside there was a stirring, a question she hadn’t let herself ask before.
Pride? Was it pride to bend, to be trained into silence? To be subservient? Or was it simply control?
She used to believe it. Truly, she had. That obedience was honor, that punishment was love. That men acted with such violence to only correct improper behavior. But now… now, with Elias’s voice in her head, with his hands and his hunger and his strange restraint, the certainty no longer held.
The chains her father called tradition felt less and less like safety.
A vampire had offered her a deal not born out of a wish to control her. Had fully given her the freedom of choice. But he was a monster. Wasn’t he?
Her father shifted, his lips quirking with polite amusement. “Perhaps, we may discuss the town in greater detail”—he started, gesturing to the house—“allow the children time to reacquaint themselves after so long apart?”
Henry inclined his head, his smile never faltering. “I should like that very much, Sir.”
“Well, I suppose there is much to discuss,” Mr. Whitlock agreed, nodding along. “If you show my wife the kitchen she can fetch us tea while we converse, won’t you dear?”
Mrs. Whitlock offered a tight smile. “Of course, anything you wish.”
9
PENELOPE
“You seem… unchanged,” Penelope said softly, though her words came out as more a murmur than a statement, her eyes fixed on the cobblestones street beneath her feet.
Henry had offered to take her on a walk. How long had it been since she had left the garden without her father acting as her ward?
Henry glanced at her, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “And you,” he replied, voice low and measured, “appear much the same as I remember… though perhaps quieter. More deliberate in your words.”
Penelope flushed, lacing her hands together. “Deliberate, am I? I suppose one must be, when walking through a town where every eye seems to weigh upon one. Especially when a lady is unwed. You have been gone long, but the town remains much the same. I fear it might bore you.”
“Bore me?” he asked, catching her gaze before looking back at the thoroughfare before them. “How could any claim boredom in your presence.”
“You needn’t claim such interest, Henry. I have every intention of agreeing to our union.”
“And what if my interest is not false? Do I need your leave to express it?”
She looked up at him then, startled by the intimacy of his admission, but the words held nothing improper, only warmth and familiarity. She found herself suddenly aware of the small space between them on the narrow street, the heavy eyes of passerby weighing what them being together meant.
“Tell me,” he continued, “what have you found yourself doing in the time I was away?”
“The piano, of course. These days it seems to be my only interlude from my day-to-days.”
Henry hummed in agreement. “Yes, your father speaks of your troubles with monsters. Says they have become more frequent.”
“Yes—my father, Mayor Adams, has been very cautious of our women. He takes pride in his duty to our people.”
“One can never be too careful when monsters are involved,” Henry said. His tone was measured, scholarly, though there was a curl of disdain beneath it. “Vile things. Some say they are curses sent by God, warnings of what a man might become if he were truly wicked, or if he strayed too far from His grace.”
“Wicked?” she echoed.
“It is said so,” he murmured, careful, almost hesitant, as if weighing each syllable. “Yet some—rare few—have claimed that even the wicked act with an understanding of choice. But those who are educated know better. Monsters do not grasp such complexities as choice. They are creatures of hunger, nothing more.”
She swallowed hard, the thought twisting in her mind.Choice. Elias had chosen nothing but restraint—the same restraint that had spared her life, spared hervirtue. He had not claimed her, not broken her, though she had felt the weight of his hunger. He had shown her more control, more reverence,than any man she had ever known. And yet, her pulse betrayed her, thundering with the memory of him—his fangs, his hands, the breathless danger of wanting. He even played the piano and spoke more eloquently than most men she knew.
“Do you… believe that monsters might ever be… good?” she asked, barely daring to speak.
