Page 30

Preston jumped to his feet. “Please tell him Her Grace is not at home.”

“What?” Penelope shook her head. “No, of course don’t tell him that. Please bring him here. And please bring us tea.”

“Very well.” Porter nodded and left the room.

Penelope’s eyes locked with Preston’s. “You forbade me to help him, but you cannot forbid me to see my own father, Grandhampton.”

Preston said nothing, only glared at her in silent fury.

When the door opened and Papa came in, Penelope fought the urge to hide her sketchbook under the cushion. She didn’t live with him anymore. He couldn’t forbid her anything.

“Papa.” She nodded to him.

Papa pressed out a smile on his reddish face. He fidgeted with his hands and rubbed his palms over his breeches as he met Preston’s eyes. Her husband glared at him without a word.

He looked around. “What a marvelous sitting room you have here.”

“How can we help you, Lord Beckett?” asked Preston coldly.

“Duke,” said Penelope. “There’s no need to be rude. Papa, please, sit down. Tea will be brought soon.”

Papa nodded and briskly sat on the sofa opposite her. Surprising her, Preston walked over and sat on the same sofa as her. He picked up her sketchbook and placed it on the table between their sofas.

Papa’s gaze dropped to Penelope’s unfinished sketch, and she felt her cheeks blazing, expecting him to reprimand her. But he seemed to have merely noticed it.

“I came to inquire after you, daughter,” he said to her. “How are you settling into your new life?”

The door opened and Porter came in with the tray of tea. He set it down and poured cups for the three of them, then retreated from the sitting room.

As she watched her papa pick up his cup and sip from it, she thought there was a mask of false politeness over his features. He tried to look pleasant, but Penelope didn’t remember him being especially polite with her since Mama died.

“I’m settling in well,” she said as she picked up her own cup. “Thank you for inquiring. How have you been, Papa? Is your health well?”

He waved his hand. “No, not very, my dear. Headaches…stomach troubles…this and that.”

Penelope frowned. Was it from his drinking?

She had just opened her mouth to ask when he looked around the room, his gaze lingering on the marble bust of one of the previous dukes, on the paintings, on the vases.

“Very beautiful art you have here,” he said. His eyes stopped on Penelope’s painting, one that she’d had the footmen hang on the wall instead of an old medieval painting of a horse. In fact, she had asked to replace a few paintings in the house with her own, and, to her surprise, she hadn’t heard a word of protest from her husband. This particular one was something she’d finished quite quickly, a watercolor of a vase full of peonies. It seemed to brighten the interior even more as the flowers practically glowed, sunlit and almost translucent. “Like that one. That must have cost you a fortune to acquire.”

Penelope’s stomach dropped. Of course her papa wouldn’t recognize any of her paintings. But that he assumed it was a valuable professional painting made her heart soar.

“That one was painted by your daughter,” said Preston, his dark eyes sharp and glinting on her papa.

Penelope hadn’t expected her husband to say a single word to Papa. And did she hear a note of pride in his voice?

“Do you think your daughter an artist, Lord Beckett?” asked her husband.

Then Preston brought his china cup to his mouth and his beautiful lips curled around the edge to drink the tea.

Papa wriggled on his sofa. His jaw ticked so hard, the curls of his powdered wig moved. Penelope tensed. She had a perfectly fitted new gown on, the color of black pearls, that slithered over her body like liquid fog, thanks to the incredible talent of Mrs. Newman. But it suddenly felt like it had become too tight.

“Artist?” Papa’s eyebrows snapped together like two opposing magnets. “Perhaps that one is a good painting, but that doesn’t mean you’re a true artist. Do you still have those silly notions, Penelope?”

Penelope shrank in her seat. What else could he have said when after her mother’s death six years ago he had gone into her room and thrown her easel through her window and into the garden? The sound of the shattering glass had deafened her.

She should say something. But just like she’d promised her father then that she would abandon any artistic ambitions, she pulled her shoulders deeper into herself and tucked her chin in. Her breathing became shallow.