Page 22 of How Not to Marry a Duke

Chapter Seven

Penelope's Secret

"She has been imprisoned in the tower for seven years," Penelope read aloud, "and yet her beauty remains unmarred by suffering, her spirit unbroken by—" She paused, frowning at the page. "Seven years? In a tower? Without proper nutrition or sunlight? I find myself skeptical of her complexion."

Florinda shifted in her chair by the window—the morning room had become her domain during daylight hours, a prison of cushions and blankets from which she could not escape without assistance. "Mrs. Radcliffe is not known for her medical accuracy."

"Seven years," Penelope repeated. "I have been here for three weeks and I am already contemplating whether the curtains could be fashioned into a rope. This woman must have the patience of a saint or the mental acuity of a turnip."

"Perhaps both." Florinda accepted the cup of tea Penelope poured for her—her third of the afternoon, because apparently invalid status came with mandatory hydration. "Gothic heroines do tend toward the insipid. All that swooning leaves little time for developing a personality."

"And yet we keep reading."

"We keep reading," Florinda agreed, "because occasionally the villain gets eaten by wolves, and that is deeply satisfying."

Penelope laughed—that warm, genuine sound that made it impossible to dislike her—and set the book aside. The afternoon sun slanted through the windows, catching the gold in her hair and making her look, Florinda thought with considerable irritation, like precisely the sort of woman a duke ought to marry. Pleasant. Pretty. Uncomplicated.

Florinda was none of those things. She was sharp-tongued and past her prime and currently unable to stand without assistance, and she had spent the past week developing feelings for this woman's fiancé that were as inappropriate as they were inconvenient.

This was, she reflected, what came of reading too many novels. One began to imagine one's own life as a Gothic melodrama, complete with forbidden passion and doomed longing and a great deal of staring out of windows.

She was staring out of a window right now. How mortifying.

"You've gone quiet," Penelope observed. "Are you in pain? Shall I call for the surgeon?"

"I am in perfect health, apart from the shattered leg and the bruised dignity." Florinda turned away from the window with what she hoped was a casual air. "I was merely contemplating the tragedy of Gothic heroines. They fall in love so easily. It seems terribly inconvenient."

"Terribly," Penelope agreed. Her voice had gone oddly flat.

Florinda looked at her properly then. Penelope was staring at the abandoned novel with a face that did not match her cheerful tone—distant, almost melancholy.

"Are you quite well?"

"Perfectly." Penelope's smile returned, bright and practised. "I was just thinking about how rarely Gothic novels feature heroines who make sensible choices. They always follow their hearts into disaster when they ought to be considering their prospects."

"Prospects," Florinda repeated. "You sound like my stepmother."

"Your stepmother sounds like a wise woman."

"She is. Terrifyingly so." Florinda hesitated, then added: "She would tell you that following one's heart is a luxury most women cannot afford."

"She would be correct." Penelope picked up her teacup, cradling it in both hands as though seeking warmth. "Love is not a requirement for a successful marriage. Security is. Compatibility is. The ability to maintain a household and raise children without murdering one another—that is the foundation upon which sensible unions are built."

The words had the ring of an oft-repeated lesson. Florinda found herself saying, before she could think better of it: "That sounds like a speech you have given yourself many times."

Penelope's hands tightened on her cup. "Does it?"

"It does." Florinda should stop. She should change the subject, discuss the weather, return to mocking Mrs. Radcliffe's medical inaccuracies. Instead: "Have you ever been in love, Lady Penelope?"

The silence stretched. Florinda counted three of her own heartbeats—a habit she appeared to have acquired from someone she was not going to think about—before Penelope answered.

"Once." The word emerged like a confession. "I was very young. It did not... answer."

"What happened?"

Penelope's laugh was brittle. "What always happens. He was unsuitable. My father forbade it. I was sensible." She set down her teacup with careful precision. "He was a dancing master. Can you imagine? The scandal if anyone had known I fancied myself in love with the man who taught me to waltz."

A dancing master. Florinda tried to reconcile this with Penelope's composed exterior—this woman who seemed to have been born for drawing rooms and proper marriages and the role of duchess.