Eleven
“My, you had some excitement while the girls and I were out!” Aunt Laura exclaimed, breezing into Penelope’s bedroom that evening. Kate and Marie rushed in behind her.
“Oh, yes.” Penelope quickly sat up, resting the book she’d been attempting to read on the blue and green coverlet. “I never would have guessed little Simon had been stealing from us.”
“Yes, yes, George told me all about that.” Aunt Laura waved dismissively. “But Colonel Holbrook proposed. Penelope, that is wonderful! Everything we’ve hoped for.”
Penelope’s heart sank and she glanced down at her hands, folding them nervously in her lap.
Kate and Marie sat on either side of her. Kate reached over and clasped Penelope’s hands. “Do you want to marry Colonel Holbrook?”
Penelope looked up, meeting her cousin’s worried gaze. She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came readily to her lips. All afternoon she’d tried to picture herself as Colonel Holbrook’s wife. Standing at his side, sharing his bed, being his partner in life, but all she could see was John.
John set fire to her blood.
The memory of John’s hands made her hungry for more while the mere thought of Colonel Holbrook’s intimate touch turned her stomach. “I… I don’t know,” she whispered, afraid to look at her aunt.
Penelope knew she could not rely on the generosity of her aunt and uncle forever. They would never turn her out, but being responsible for three girls out in society was exhausting, and marriage offers weren’t exactly pouring in for Penelope.
“Kate, Marie, leave Penelope and I to a moment alone.”
For once the twins did not argue with their mother and filed slowly from the room after giving Penelope encouraging hugs.
Laura sighed, perching on the mattress beside Penelope. “I know you were hoping for a love match,” she said after a long moment. “When I was your age, I was much the same.”
Penelope glanced into her aunt’s kind eyes.
“My marriage to your uncle was arranged by my parents, and I was terribly disappointed at the time.” A small, wistful smile quirked Laura’s lips. “I had grand ideas of meeting a dashing gentleman and falling madly in love.”
“Not an uncommon dream,” Penelope said.
“No.” Aunt Laura turned to Penelope with a warm grin. “And I found that love, Penelope. Not in the way I would have expected, however. It took time, and work, but I fell in love with the very man I married.”
Penelope gulped. While her aunt’s words were meant to be comforting, she could not shed a sense of suffocating panic.
