A Rogue by Any Other Name
Page 48

Silly Penelope.
He hadn’t wanted to marry her.
He’d married her for Falconwell. Why was that so difficult for her to remember? She swallowed around the knot in her throat, taking a deep breath. She would not allow herself to cry. Not tonight. Not in this new house, with its curious servants. Not on her wedding night.
The first night of the rest of her life.
Her first night as Marchioness of Bourne, with the freedoms that came with the title.
So, no, she would not cry. Instead, she would have an adventure.
Lifting a large candlestick from a nearby table, she entered the room, a pool of golden light following her, revealing a long wall of shelves filled to bursting with books and a marble fireplace with two large, lovely chairs arranged comfortably nearby. She paused at the hearth to investigate the enormous painting that hung above, lifting her candle to lend more light to the landscape.
Recognition flared.
It was Falconwell.
Not the house, but the land. The rolling hills that gave way to the stunning, glittering lake that marked the western edge of the lush, green property—the jewel of Surrey. The land that had once been his birthright.
He awoke to Falconwell.
When he slept in this room, that was.
The thought chased away any sympathy she might have felt in that moment, and she spun away, irritation and disappointment flaring. Her candle revealed the end of a massive bed—bigger than any bed she’d ever seen. Penelope gasped at its sheer size, enormous oak posts at each of its corners, each more finely wrought than the last, the canopy above rising at least seven feet—maybe more. It was shrouded in fabrics the color of wine and midnight, and she could not stop herself from reaching out to run her fingers over the velvet draping.
It was lush and rich and extravagant in the extreme.
And devastatingly masculine.
The thought had her turning away to face the rest of the room, her gaze following the candlelight as it caught a large crystal decanter filled with dark liquid and a matching set of tumblers.
She wondered how often he poured himself a finger of scotch and took to his massive bed. Wondered how often he poured an equal amount of the liquor for a guest.
The idea of another woman in Michael’s bed, dark and voluptuous, matching him in her beauty and her boldness, fueled Penelope’s ire.
He’d left her there, in his home, on her first night as his wife.
And he’d gone off to drink scotch with a goddess.
It did not matter that she had no proof; it made her angry nonetheless.
Had their conversation in the carriage meant nothing? How were they to prove to London and to society that this sham of a marriage was nothing close to the scandal it was if he was off gallivanting with . . . with . . . ladies of the evening?
And what was she to do while he lived the life of a rakish libertine?
Sit here with needlepoint until he decided to grace her with his presence?
No.
She would not do it.
“Most definitely not,” she vowed softly, triumphantly in the dark room, as though once the words were spoken aloud, they could not be rescinded.
And perhaps they couldn’t.
Her gaze set upon the decanter once more, the deep cuts in the glass, the wide base, designed to keep the bottle from tipping over on rough seas. He would have a ship’s captain’s decanter in this decadent room, a den of fabric and sin that could have belonged to any self-respecting pirate.
Well. She would show him rough seas.
Before she could give it much thought, she was headed for the drink, setting down her candelabrum, turning over a tumbler and pouring more scotch into the glass than any decent woman should drink.
That she was not certain exactly how much scotch a decent woman could drink was irrelevant.
She took a perverse pleasure in the way the amber liquid filled the crystal, and she snickered as she wondered what her new husband would think if he arrived home to that moment—his proper wife, plucked from the path to spinsterhood, clutching a glass half-full of scotch.
Half-full of the future.
Half-full of adventure.
With a grin, Penelope toasted herself in the wide mirror mounted behind the decanter and took a long drink of the whiskey.
And nearly died.
She was not prepared for the wicked burn that seared down her throat and pooled in her stomach, making her retch once before she regained control of her faculties. “Blech!” she announced to the empty room, looking down into the glass and wondering why anyone—particularly the wealthiest men in Britain—might actually choose to drink such smoky, bitter swill.
It tasted like fire. Fire and . . . trees.
And it was foul.
As far as adventures went, this one was not looking at all promising.
She thought she might be sick.
She perched on the edge of the sideboard, bending over and wondering if it was possible that she might have actually done serious, irreversible damage to her innards. She took several deep breaths, and the burn started to subside, leaving behind a languid, vaguely encouraging warmth.
She righted herself.
It wasn’t so bad, after all.
She stood again, lifting the candelabrum once more and heading for the bookshelves, tilting her head to read the titles of the leather-bound books that filled them to bursting. It seemed strange that Michael might have books. She could not imagine him ever stopping long enough to read. But here they were—Homer, Shakespeare, Chaucer, several German tomes on agriculture, and an entire shelf of histories of the British Kings. And Debrett’s Peerage.
She ran her fingers across the gilded lettering of the volume—the complete history of the British aristocracy—its spine worn from use. For someone who was so happily absent from society, Michael seemed to peruse the volume quite a bit.