“Mama, there are not. Anyway, I sleep a good deal. It was only last night I couldn’t sleep. I’m sorry I woke you, but-”

“Oh, and you’ve spilled something on your sleeve!” Lady Bedlow spit into her handkerchief and rubbed at an invisible spot of food on the muslin. “You know what a light sleeper I am. If you must read in the middle of the night, you might at least bring your book to your room with you. I can see how you thought that Mr. Young’s book would help you sleep, however. How a daughter of mine ever turned out so clever, I do not know. I suppose it’s just as well; Sir Jasper told me he prefers a well-read girl.”

Louisa jerked her arm away. “I do not give-I do not care what Sir Jasper prefers!”

Penelope could not help thinking that her own vulgar family had never made such an awkward display. She thought of her mother’s endless matchmaking. It had irked her, of course, but-why hadn’t it bothered her the way Lady Bedlow’s bothered Louisa? The girl looked like a cornered fox. And there were shadows under her eyes.

When the gentlemen finally did return, Nev came at once to Penelope-Penelope took resigned note of how her heart jumped when he did-but his first words were, “Louisa looks miserable. What’s my mother been saying?”

“She is miserable,” Penelope whispered. “You had better go to her, or Sir Jasper will do it first, and I can’t answer for the consequences.”

It struck Penelope again, with a pang, how many more social graces Nev possessed than herself. Within two minutes he had maneuvered things so that Louisa was playing the harpsichord and she and Nev were singing a version of “No John No” that was a good deal less scandalous than the version Penelope had learned from her mother.

Sir Jasper came and sat by Penelope. “I have been hearing great things about your work to improve Loweston.”

Never had Penelope felt so undeserving of praise. She flushed. “I wish I could do ten times more. Our people have suffered from the conditions there far more than we ever could.”

“I saw your invalid today. It was very kind of you to take her in. Her mother is friends with yours, I collect?”

As afraid as Penelope was of what Sir Jasper might have guessed, her first thought was still to deny the more plausible explanation, the friendship between her mother and poor Mrs. Raeburn. She despised herself even as she said, “They knew each other a little growing up. Miss Raeburn’s mother works for my father now.” Never say ‘brewery.’

“Miss Raeburn must have worked very hard to rise from such a background to be one of the lights of the London stage.”

Penelope felt cold. “I am sure she did. I quite admired her in Twelfth Night.”

Sir Jasper frowned. He leaned toward her. “I should not say this, but I have been touched by your efforts for the district. I do not like to see you play the fool. Miss Raeburn’s name has been linked with your husband’s. I am morally certain they have been intimately connected.”

Penelope stared at him, wishing she had worn long sleeves and faintly wondering at his bringing up such a subject with her at all. I know, she wanted to scream. I know. What kind of idiot do you take me for? Of course, that would have been shocking; she had to pretend to have no knowledge of any such thing. She had to pray that Sir Jasper would be discreet. Yet she was damned if she would thank him for his officiousness. “What a gentleman does when he is not at home is nothing to do with his wife.”

Where had that sprung from? She sounded like an obedient little aristocratic wife, conniving at her own humiliation. What would she have said, if she had really not known? Probably the same thing. She was like that: a steady girl. The thought goaded her into an almost sarcastic, “But it was so very kind of you to pay her a visit. Did you know her in London too?”

“Oh, I wasn’t there to see her,” Sir Jasper said. “I must seem a regular old woman to you! No, that was my pretext, but I was there on quite another account. I had received word from your vicar that Jack Bailey’s injury matched that inflicted by a mantrap, and I wished to see if he might be any connection to your poaching gang before I called in the constable.” He smiled at her. “I daresay he has been taken up by now.”

Fourteen

Penelope really felt faint. She could not believe her own blindness. No wonder Bailey had not wanted to show the nurse. How worried Mrs. Bailey must have been about her husband, to insist! In the midst of her own troubles, the woman had found a kind word for Penelope, and Penelope, like the worst sort of fool, had betrayed her to that snake Snively-

“Pray excuse me,” she said through numb lips. “I must-I must speak to my husband.”

He made a fine show of remorse. “My dear Lady Bedlow, you look quite dreadful! It was wrong of me to tell you about Miss Raeburn. You are taking it much too hard.”

“I am fine.” As if she were expected to hear that one of her people was to be arrested on her information with perfect equanimity! And she must pretend that her shock was caused by the news of her husband’s infidelity, because aiding poachers was surely a bigger scandal. She shuddered. “Please-my husband-”

Sir Jasper placed a restraining hand upon her arm. She nearly threw it off, like a restive mare. “I beg of you, Lady Bedlow, do not say what you may regret. Anyone can see that Lord Bedlow is very fond of you. You were right in your first reaction, though I suppose it does not come natural to you. In our set, keeping a mistress is really not uncommon, no matter how devoted the husband.”

She bit her tongue to keep from laughing. Yes, there was something so bourgeois about a faithful husband! His sympathy was repulsive. And how dare he continue to talk to her of such things openly, as if she were a-a common trollop?

She realized she had borrowed that phrase from Lady Bedlow, that dreadful morning in the breakfast room. The thought filled her with a kind of disgust.

Penelope had wanted to be one of these people all her life, but now she thought, Well, and I am common. As common as Miss Raeburn and the Baileys. Let Sir Jasper despise her. It was better than his respect. She drew herself up. “I promise you I shall not cause a scene. Only I should like to go home.”

She thought she caught a gleam in his eye, almost of satisfaction. At once she chided herself for indulging morbid fancies. Because Sir Jasper was offensive and a Tory, it did not follow that he was malicious. Indeed, he was everything that was tactful and solicitous in pulling Nev aside and telling him that she had been taken ill.

Nev was at once more solicitous and less tactful-in a moment he was at her side, asking what was wrong, did she have a fever, feeling her forehead when she said no, though she did not think he would be able to tell a fever by that method anyway.

“I’m fine,” she repeated over and over. “I just want to lie down.” She waited in a fever of impatience as they drove to the Dower House to let down Lady Bedlow and Louisa. Louisa was concerned for Penelope’s health. Lady Bedlow pretended to be, but it was clear that she felt Penelope had been taken ill on purpose to deny Sir Jasper the chance to win over Louisa. Clear to Penelope, anyway. Nev wasn’t listening to his mother; his eyes were fixed on Penelope’s face, and every time the carriage jolted he cursed under his breath.

It was touching, and yet she knew it was because of Miss Wray. If Nev’s mistress were not prostrate with fever, he would never be this concerned over a slight headache. Still, Penelope was weak-willed; she leaned into him and let him stroke her hair.

When they had let off Louisa and Lady Bedlow, he turned to her, his arm tightening around her shoulders. “What’s wrong? You aren’t fine, don’t tell me you’re fine-”