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“Needham! How crass!”
Lord Needham looked to the ceiling for patience. “I don’t know what you’ve been waiting for, but I do know I’ve coddled you too long, ignoring the fact that the Leighton debacle cast a pall over the lot of you. ” Penelope looked to her sisters, who were both staring down at their laps. Guilt whispered through her as her father continued, “I’m through with it. You’ll marry this season, Penny. ”
Penelope’s throat was working like mad, struggling to swallow against the knot of sawdust that appeared to have become lodged there. “But . . . no one but Tommy has proposed to me in four years. ”
“Tommy’s just the beginning. They’ll propose now. ” She’d seen the look of complete certainty in her father’s eyes enough times in her life to know that he was right.
She looked her father straight in the eye. “Why?”
“Because I’ve added Falconwell to your dowry. ”
He said it in the manner in which one would say things like, It’s a bit cold. Or, This fish needs more salt. As though everyone at the table would simply accept the words as truth. As though four heads would not turn to him, eyes wide, jaws dropped.
“Oh! Needham!” Lady Needham was off again.
Penelope did not take her gaze from her father. “I beg your pardon?”
A memory flashed. A laughing, dark-haired boy, clinging to a low branch of a massive willow tree, reaching down and urging Penelope to join him in his hiding place.
The third of the trio.
Falconwell was Michael’s.
Even if it hadn’t belonged to him in a decade, she’d always think of it that way. It did not feel right that it was somehow, strangely, hers now. All that beautiful, lush land, everything but the house and immediate grounds—the entail.
Michael’s birthright.
Now hers.
“How did you get Falconwell?”
“How is not relevant,” the marquess said, not looking up from his meal. “I can’t have you risking your sisters’ successes on the marriage mart any longer. You need to get yourself married. You shan’t be a spinster for the rest of your days; Falconwell will ensure it. Already has, it looks like. If you don’t like Tommy, I’ve already a half dozen letters of interest from men across Britain. ”
Men who wanted Falconwell.
Let me protect you.
Tommy’s strange words from earlier made sense now. He’d proposed to keep her from the mess of proposals that would come for her dowry. He’d proposed because he was her friend.
And he’d proposed for Falconwell. There was a small parcel of land belonging to Viscount Langford on the far side of Falconwell. Someday, it would be Tommy’s and, if she married him, he’d have Falconwell to add to it.
“Of course!” Olivia interjected. “That explains it!”
He hadn’t told her.
Penelope had known he wasn’t really interested in marrying her, but the proof of it wasn’t exactly a pleasant discovery. She remained focused on her father. “The dowry. It is public?”
“Of course it’s public. What good is it tripling the value of your daughter’s dowry if you don’t make it public?” Penelope ran a fork through her turnip mash, wishing she were anywhere but at that table, at that moment, when her father said, “Don’t look so miserable. Thank your stars you’ll finally have yourself a husband. With Falconwell in your dowry, you could win yourself a prince. ”
“I find myself tiring of princes, Father. ”
“Penelope! No one tires of princes!” her mother interjected.
“I should like to meet a prince,” Olivia interjected, chewing thoughtfully. “If Penelope doesn’t want Falconwell, I should happily have it as part of my dowry. ”
Penelope slid her gaze to her youngest sister. “Yes, I imagine you would, Olivia. But I doubt you will need it. ” Olivia had the same pale hair and pale skin and pale blue eyes that Penelope had, but instead of making her look as Penelope did—like tepid dishwater—Olivia was breathtakingly beautiful and the kind of woman who could snap her fingers and bring men to her side.
Worse, she knew it.
“You do need it. Especially now,” Lord Needham said pragmatically before turning back to Penny. “There was a time when you were young enough to capture the attention of a decent man, but you’re well past that. ”
Penelope wished that one of her sisters would enter into the fray to defend her. To protest their father’s words. To say, perhaps, Penelope doesn’t need it. Someone wonderful will come along and stumble into love with her. At first sight. Obviously.
She ignored the pang of sadness that flared at the silent acceptance of the words. Penelope saw the truth in her father’s gaze. The certainty. And she knew, without a doubt, that she would be married as her father willed, as though it were the Middle Ages, and he was carving off a little piece of his fiefdom.
Except he wasn’t carving off anything. “How is it possible that Falconwell now belongs to the Marquess of Needham and Dolby?”
“That shouldn’t worry you. ”
“But it does,” Penelope pressed. “Where did you get it? Does Michael know?”
“Don’t know,” the marquess said, lifting his wineglass. “Imagine it’s only a matter of time before he does. ”
“Who knows what Michael knows,” her mother scoffed. “No one in polite society has seen the Marquess of Bourne for years. ”
Not since he disappeared in scandal. Not since he’d lost everything to Tommy’s father.
Penelope shook her head. “Did you try to return it to him?”
“Penelope! Don’t be ungrateful!” the marchioness trilled. “The addition of Falconwell to your dowry is a shining example of your father’s generosity!”
An example of her father’s desire to rid himself of his troublesome daughter.
“I don’t want it. ”
She knew the words were a lie even as she said them. Of course she wanted it. The lands attached to Falconwell were lush and vibrant and filled with memories of her childhood.
With memories of Michael.
It had been years since she’d seen him—she’d been a child when he’d left Falconwell, and barely out when his scandal had been the talk of London aristocrats and Surrey servants. Now, if she heard of him at all, it was in snippets of gossip from more experienced women of the ton. He was in London running a gaming hell, she’d once heard from a particularly chatty group of women in a ladies’ salon, but she’d never asked where, seeming to know instinctively that ladies like herself did not frequent the place where Michael had landed when he’d fallen from grace.
“You don’t have a choice, Penelope. It’s mine. And soon it will be your husband’s. Men from across Britain will come for a chance to win it. Marry Tommy now or one of them later, if you like. But you’ll marry this season. ” He leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands over his wide girth. “One day, you’ll thank me. ”
You’ll marry this season.
“Why didn’t you return it to Michael?”
Needham sighed, throwing down his napkin and rising from the table, through with the conversation. “He was careless with it in the first place,” he said simply before quitting the room, Lady Needham fast on his heels.