Penelope by Anya Wylde Page A

with a circus, begging a gin seller to adopt her, and
joining the barmy Finnshire witch in the forest, she arrived at the
obvious conclusion. She would have to bid the dowager goodbye. The
question was what in the world was she supposed to say to her?
    She tried to
come up with an answer, but her thoughts refused to behave. They
meandered away from the dowager again and again and landed right on
top of the duke. Her mind flitted from the image of the tumble down
the stairs to the duke’s arms holding her, from the terror he had
induced, to the accusations hurled at her. Why had he looked so
desolate in the end? His voice had been full of self-loathing. Or
was it regret? He was so hard to read.
    She shook
herself and touched her ankle. The pain helped her focus. The
rotten man was intelligent enough to hate himself. He was
despicable and it was only right that he should know his own
character. The brute. He did not deserve her sympathy. She was a
goose for trying to see some good in him.
    The rude man
had dared to insinuate that she, Miss Penelope Winifred Rose
Spebbington Fairweather, would stoop so low as to seduce him, and
that too on her first day in London. He thought she was a loose
skirt, a doxie, a bawdy basket.
    “Arrrgh,”
Penelope growled aloud.
    That man needed
to be taught a lesson. Duke or not, someone had to bring him down
to earth. He behaved as if he was King George … or rather God
himself. She scowled. A mad pixie he had called her. Well, he was
the demented one …
    A shuffle and a
slight noise distracted her from her gloomy thoughts. The goat sat
on the carpet scratching behind its ear.
    She turned an
evil eye on the goat.
    “Lady
Bathsheba, you look content. I suppose you have had your breakfast,
whereas I have no idea if anyone will appear with a tray for me. I
will not risk my neck by attempting those winding oak stairs with a
sprained ankle.”
    Lady Bathsheba
crossed her two front feet and prepared for a long monologue.
Penelope had been silent for too long, and now she turned to her
favourite audience, one that could not interrupt.
    If a goat could
sigh, then Lady Bathsheba did just that.
    “I am hungry,
extremely hungry. I suppose I could shove you in the fireplace and
cook you. You deserve it, you know. I would not be in this
predicament but for you.” She warmed to her topic, “Yes, that’s it.
It’s not me, it’s you. You are the crux of this whole mess. Why did
you have to run into the duke’s room of all places? Just because he
called you a goat? There I said it. Goat, goat, goat. You are a
goat. Do what you want to my room and clothes, I don’t care. You
should be running scared, Lady Bathsheba, instead of looking bored.
I mean it, at the moment I don’t see my beloved pet sitting on the
carpet. What I see is a big fat juicy piece of mutton waiting to be
tossed into the fire. And as for the duke, I hope I never see him
again. I suppose he is busy all day doing whatever dukes do, and by
the time he returns, I will be in the carriage on my way to
wherever… Can you believe his arrogance in assuming—”
    “Assuming?” the
duke spoke up from the doorway.
    Ideally when
Penelope had spotted him, she should have continued sitting on the
chair and waved an imperious hand at him. It was the sort of thing
that a refined lady would do. She should have, but she didn’t.
Instead, she squeaked, and for some extraordinary reason sprang off
her chair, and then raced to the bed and dived under the quilts.
Her wits, it seemed, were scared of the duke. They fled in his
presence.
    The duke looked
first at the chair and then at the bed. One eyebrow rose in
question and then dropped back in place.
    He tried to
look non-threatening as he said, “Calm down, I am here to carry you
downstairs for breakfast.”
    Penelope slid
further back in her bed and clutched the sheets in a deathly
grip.
    The duke
scowled and said, “I don’t want to carry you down any more than you
want to be carried by me,