A Tryst by the Sea by Grace Burrowes

Author:Grace Burrowes [Burrowes, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781952443824
Publisher: Grace Burrowes Publishing

Gill had wanted to reserve mornings for wooing, but he’d been unable to abide by his own rules. On a blanket on the beach, over a tray of sandwiches on the terrace, at breakfast in bright seaside sunshine, he and Penelope considered finances, who should be told what, and other details of untangling a long and public marriage.

He had the sense that much of what they discussed should have been covered earlier—years earlier. Penelope was appalled by the sums the dowager viscountess and the Lychmont household drained from Gill’s exchequer. He had not known the extent of her charitable efforts, nor how much she genuinely took them to heart.

Children in the mines. Children in the mills. Children on the streets. The pattern was clear and laudable—and closely mirrored Gill’s agenda in the Lords. How had he not known this about his own wife?

Or—more accurately—how had he not appreciated it about her? All he’d noticed was that she was often from home during the day, attending committee meetings. Parliament did its work mostly in the evening, and thus husband and wife had seen little of each other for much of the year.

“Did you want to marry me?” Penelope asked as Gill did up her hooks. He had changed for supper in his room at the inn, a pleasant little chamber with a view of the elm grove. He’d then come to the cottage to escort Penelope to dinner.

Gill paused, batting aside a now habitual urge to kiss Penelope’s nape. This was their fourth day by the sea, and they were again dining with Lord and Lady Tregoning. Gill had thought separate quarters a terrible idea, but he’d been wrong.

Taking meals together, spending mornings wandering the beaches and paths, and afternoons sipping tea and making lists on the terrace had provided both proximity and privacy. No servants hovering to carry tales belowstairs. No social whirl keeping everybody up until all hours—and no stilted breakfasts either.

By degrees, conversation had wandered, from Gill’s resentment of his mother’s extravagance, to questions like the one Penelope had just posed. Had he wanted to marry Penelope?

“With the general caveat that young men are often idiots,” he said, finishing up her hooks, “I did very much want to marry you.”

Penelope gestured toward the bed. “For the usual reason?”

Gill took up the shawl she’d draped over the back of a wing chair. “That figured heavily in my longings, of course, but you were not exactly a retiring bride. Not once we came here for our wedding journey. I went from being relieved at having the whole matchmaking ordeal behind me and being rather pleased to have a pretty, sweet wife, to being…”

He wrapped the shawl around her and sneaked in a little pat to her shoulder.

“Vergilius?”

“Besotted,” he said. “I became besotted with you. You had read so many books, and you remembered what you’d read. You argued with me over battles and statutes, and you expected no quarter when I returned fire. Then we’d end up in bed, and I realized…”

Penelope faced him and fluffed his cravat.

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