“Figgy pudding and the rest, I assume?” The question was not a question at all.
“Yes. And caroling,” she added.
“With small children?”
“Many of them, yes.”
“It sounds like precisely the kind of thing I would attend.”
She did not miss his sarcasm, but she refused to be cowed by it. She gave him a firm look and could not resist saying, “If you were ever at Falconwell for Christmas, I imagine you would enjoy it very much.”
He seemed to consider responding, but he held back the words, and Penelope felt a wave of triumph course through her at the crack in his cool demeanor—a minor victory. He closed his eyes and leaned back once more. “So, there I was, feasting on St. Stephen’s Day and there you were, my childhood sweetheart.”
“We weren’t childhood sweethearts.”
“Truth is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not they believe it.”
The logic in the words grated. “The first rule of scoundrels?”
“The first rule of gambling.”
“Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” she said, tartly.
“Come now, you think anyone will care to confirm the part of our tale that began during our childhood?”
“I suppose not,” she grumbled.
“They won’t. And besides, it’s the closest thing to the truth in the entire thing.”
It was?
She would be lying if she said that she had never imagined marrying him, the first boy she’d ever known, the one who made her smile and laugh as a child. But he’d never imagined it, had he? It didn’t matter. Now, as she stared at the man, she was unable to find any trace of the boy she’d once known . . . the boy who might have considered her sweet.
He moved on, pulling her from her thoughts. “So, there you were, all blue-eyed and lovely, veritably glowing in the flames of the figgy pudding, and I couldn’t bear another moment of my unbridled, unsaddled, suddenly unwelcome state of bachelorhood. In you, I saw my heart, my purpose, my very soul.”
Penelope knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn’t stop the wash of warmth that flooded her cheeks at the words, quiet and low in the close quarters of the carriage.
“That—that sounds fine.”
He made a noise. She wasn’t sure what it meant. “I was wearing an evergreen velvet.”
“Very becoming.”
She ignored him. “You had a sprig of holly in your lapel.”
“A nod to the holiday spirit.”
“We danced.”
“A jig?”
His mocking tone pulled her out of her little fantasy, reminding her of the truth. “Possibly.”
He sat up at that. “Come now, Penelope,” he said, chiding, “it was mere weeks ago, and you don’t remember?”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “Fine. A reel.”
“Ah. Yes. Much more exciting than a jig.”
He was exasperating.
“Tell me, why was I there, in Coldharbour, celebrating the Feast of St. Stephen?”
She was beginning to dislike this conversation. “I don’t know.”
“You know I wore a sprig of holly in my lapel . . . surely you considered my motivation in this particular story?”
She hated the way the words oozed out of him, condescending, bordering on scathing. Perhaps that was why she said, “You were here to visit your parents’ graves.”
He stiffened at the words, the only movement in the carriage the slight sway of their bodies with the rhythm of the wheels. “My parents’ graves.”
She did not back down. “Yes. You do it every year at Christmas. You leave roses on your mother’s marker, dahlias on your father’s.”
“I do?” She looked away, out the window. “I must have an excellent connection at a nearby hothouse.”
“You do. My younger sister—Philippa—grows the loveliest flowers, year-round, at Needham Manor.”
He leaned forward, mocking in his whisper. “The first rule of falsehoods is that we only tell them about ourselves, darling.”
She watched the spindly birch trees at the road’s edge fading into the white snow beyond. “It’s not a falsehood. Pippa is a horticulturalist.”
There was a long silence before she looked at him again, discovering him watching her intently. “If someone were to have visited my parents’ gravesites on St. Stephen’s, what would they have found there?”
She could lie. But she didn’t want to. As silly as it was, she wanted him to know that she’d thought of him every Christmas . . . that she’d wondered about him. That she’d cared. Even if he hadn’t bothered to. “Roses and dahlias. Just as you leave them every year.”
It was his turn to look out the window, then, and she took the opportunity to study his features, his firm jaw, the hard look in his eyes, the way his lips—lips she knew from experience were full and soft and wonderful—pressed into a straight line. He was so guarded, the tension in him so unyielding, and she wished she could shake him into emotion, into some shift in his rigid control.
There had been a time when he had been so fluid, filled with unbridled movement. But watching him, it was nearly impossible to believe that he was the same person. She would have given everything she had to know what he was thinking in that moment.
He did not look at her when he spoke. “Well, you seem to have thought of everything. I shall do my best to memorize the tale of our love at first sight. I assume we will be sharing it a great deal.”
She hesitated, then, “Thank you, my lord.”
He snapped his head around. “My lord? My my, Penelope. You intend to be something of a ceremonial wife, don’t you?”
“It is expected that a wife show deference to her husband.”
Michael’s brows pulled together at that. “I suppose that’s how you’ve been trained to behave.”
“You forget I was to be a duchess.”
“I’m sorry you had to settle for a besmirched marquessate.”
“I shall endeavor to persevere,” she replied, the words dry as sand. They rode in silence for a long while before she said, “You will need to return to society. For my sisters.”
“You have grown rather comfortable making demands of me.”
“I married you. I should think you could make a sacrifice or two, considering I gave up everything so you could have your land.”
“Your perfect marriage, you mean?”
She sat back. “It wouldn’t have been perfect.” He said nothing, but his keen gaze made her add quietly, “I do not doubt that it would have been more perfect than this, however.”
Tommy wouldn’t irritate her nearly as much.
They rode in silence for a long while before he said, “I shall attend the requisite functions.” He was looking out the window, the portrait of boredom. “We’ll start with Tottenham. He is as close to a friend as I have.”
The description was discomfiting. Michael had never been one to be without friends. He had been bright and vibrant and charming and filled with life . . . and anyone who knew him as a child had loved him. She had loved him. He had been her dearest friend. What had happened to him? How had he become this cold dark man?