A thought struck Penelope like a blow. Mr. Garrett was here at Penelope’s insistence. Why had she meddled? It seemed as if every time she followed her heart instead of her head, she made things worse.

Edward’s voice broke through her reverie. “Penelope, is everything all right? I just asked you four times how you found the weather in Norfolk.”

“I’m sorry. It’s been a difficult week.”

“Poor Penny! Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I want to hear about you. What brings you to this part of England?”

He looked at her in surprise. “I came to see you. Why else would I be here?”

Her face heated. She felt thoughtless, and guilty. “I thought perhaps-on business-you did not write to say you were coming-”

He looked down, fidgeting. “Penelope-”

“Yes?”

“I was passing through on business, it’s true, but I might have gone a shorter way. I convinced your father to let me oversee the transport of the furniture. I didn’t write because-I wasn’t sure of my welcome when I came here tonight. I hoped you would see me-Heavens, how I hoped-but I thought if I came in person there would be less chance to turn me away. Those engravings-how can you ever forgive me?”

She had forgotten them in the joy of seeing him. And now-in the rush of relief at the knowledge that he had been as afraid to lose her friendship as she was to lose his, in the heady sensation of being wanted, just for herself-she had already forgiven him. It was weak of her, but there it was. “If I didn’t forgive you, I couldn’t talk to you, and I’ve been wanting so to talk to you.”

He smiled at her, a sad smile. “I must have been mad. I was mad-all those years, all our plans. I couldn’t bear it. I wanted to hurt you as you had hurt me. It was not the act of a gentleman.”

“I’m so very sorry, Edward,” she said around the lump in her throat. “It is I who am to blame, I who should beg forgiveness. I broke my word to you. And then I did not know how to tell you-it made my letters short and cold, when they should have been so much more. You’ve been so much to me, all my life.”

He reached out and took her hands in his. They were warm, capable, well-shaped hands, nearly as familiar to her as her own. Affection welled up within her at the sight, dear affection and a thousand memories. And yet there was no spark, no sense of physical recognition when he touched her. There never had been, and she had never known what was missing.

Penelope tried to imagine being married to him, sharing a bed with him. It did not repulse her; it only left her feeling blank. Would she ever have realized that something vital was absent? Or would she have gone her whole life believing that anything more-flame, fire, passion-was a lie dreamt up by horrid novelists?

“Penelope, I could forgive everything, if I believed you were happy. But you aren’t. You look like you used to on school vacations.”

She was surprised that he’d noticed how miserable and thin she had been those years at school. He had never said a word about it. God, how she wanted to tell him everything! But he would hate Nev. “I am happy, Edward.” Her voice sounded false to her own ears; could Edward hear it? “It’s only that there have been troubles with the tenants, and I’m tired.”

He nodded seriously. “All over the country, there’s been disquiet. That’s why-” He flushed and smiled. “That’s why I’m to be director of Mr. Meath’s woolen mill in Norwich.”

“Oh, Edward, how wonderful for you!”

His smile broadened. “I’m young for it, but Mr. Meath assures me he has every confidence in me.”

“Edward, that’s wonderful!” Penelope repeated. “But what’s that to do with the disquiet in the countryside?”

“Well, it’s not entirely an honor. They’ve been having some trouble with trade unionists. The old director stepped down because his wife was afraid for their children, and all the other candidates were family men too.”

So Edward was getting promoted because she had not married him. She wasn’t sure what to feel about that. She wished she knew what Edward felt about it. “Will it be safe?”

He smiled at her. “I’ll be all right. But will you? What has happened?”

She settled for part of the truth. “It’s only-Nev’s father did not do well by the estate, and everyone is so poor and has suffered so much here. And so much of my dowry went to pay old debts or into settlements that we haven’t the funds to do everything we need. And Edward, you should see the books-they use a sort of simple double-entry system!”

He stared. “But then how do you know when you’ve wasted money on a project, or when-”

“You can’t!” His horror made her laugh. “I knew you would understand. Here, I’ve got to show you, you’ll die-Molly, come with us, I want to show Mr. Macaulay the books.”

He put on his spectacles to read them and was properly horrified. For half an hour it was quite like old times. She found herself telling him all about Captain Trelawney, and that first night she and Nev had heard the poachers. “He didn’t seem bothered by it at all. And then he said, ‘Well, usually they don’t hit each other in the dark!’ ” she told him, giggling. She waited for him to laugh too, but he didn’t.

He stared at her with a faintly shocked expression, pushing his glasses down his nose to look at her over them in a motion so familiar she shivered. “You mean there are men running around here shooting each other for game? That’s hardly a laughing matter, Penelope.”

Penelope had forgotten how low Edward could make her feel, when he looked at her in that way. “Well, I know that. It was the way he said it that was funny…” She knew she sounded like a chastened schoolgirl and hated it. “Actually, you’re right, it isn’t funny. They’ve caught most of the poachers now, and they’ll transport them all if we can’t stop it. You should see their wives and children. And mothers: one of the villains is a nine-year-old girl. It’s dreadful. They’re half mad with grief and rage.” It all rushed back, and Penelope felt very cold. She wished Nev were here.

“Is that why you were crying when I came in?”

She looked away.

“We used to tell each other everything,” he said sadly.

And Penelope realized something else. She had never told Edward everything. There were a million things she had never told him, ways she had felt, things she had dreamed. She had never told him about wanting to run off to be a sailor. It wasn’t even that she had been afraid he would condemn her, though he would have. It was that she had condemned herself. She had never told anyone those things, until Nev. She had tried to show Edward, along with everyone else, the person she had wanted to be.

They were the same, she and Edward; they had wanted the same things, respected the same things. If she had married Edward, she would have gone on being drab, practical Penelope forever. And she would have thought that she was living her best, truest self. Never joking or crying or making love in the middle of the day. Speaking seriously on serious subjects. And the part of her that had sobbed and beaten the pillow and wanted to be a sailor at Miss Mardling’s would have grown smaller and smaller until it faded away entirely.

Penelope found that she couldn’t quite bear the thought. She did not want to be ashamed of her feelings anymore.

Edward leaned closer to her and spoke quietly. “Penelope, I-I know that this is very improper, and if you never wish to speak of it again we shall not. But I want you to know that if you wished to leave him, you would always have a home with me.”

She stared. It was the last thing she would ever have expected him to say. “L-leave him?” she said, louder than she meant. She glanced at Molly, bent over her sewing at the far end of the room, as she had sat through all Penelope’s tête-à-têtes with Edward for years. The girl hadn’t looked up. “But Edward, he’s my husband!”