The Mysterious Marquess by Grace Burrowes

Author:Grace Burrowes [Burrowes, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grace Burrowes Publishing
Published: 2024-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

Lucien grappled with the revelation that Penelope expected lovemaking of him, and not merely the pretty kind, with words and caresses and tender embraces. He was learning her preferences in that regard. She didn’t like to be rushed, and she needed intermissions to plot her counterstrategies, which was fortunate. Lucien needed intermissions to recover his wits.

But now Penelope expected the carnal kind of lovemaking, too, with trust, pleasure, and intimacy and—she deserved nothing less—exhausted satisfaction.

Lucien watched Lynnfield’s stately park from the carriage window and asked himself impossible questions: Where to start? What to say? Chess was no help. Espionage was no guide. The clamorings of lust felt ridiculous in the stately traveling coach.

Ridiculous, not impossible.

“Have I spoiled everything?” Penelope asked, taking off her bonnet and putting it on the opposite seat. “Are you trying to work out some sort of retraction, Lucien?”

“I’m trying to work out a seduction. One hasn’t much practice, and five minutes is apparently insufficient notice to prepare me for the challenge.” He looped an arm around Pen’s shoulders, for his own comfort and to prevent her from leaping out of the coach on a sudden change of mind. “I sound like a curate trying to explain why his sermon on forgiveness lacked inspiration.”

“You sound like you want to get this right, and so do I, but, Lucien, might we consider this outing in the nature of a rehearsal? A practice debate?”

She tossed her gloves into the crown of her bonnet. Lucien’s top hat sat beside her bonnet, his gloves drooping over the brim. The image of the two hats, side by side, struck him as inordinately touching.

Prosaic and profound.

“You suggest we needn’t write poetry for the ages, but merely some entertaining verse?” A tempting approach, though not good enough for his Pen.

“Something like that. What did Theo wring your ear about at such length?” Penelope took possession of Lucien’s hand. The result was a sort of circular embrace, his arm around her shoulders, his free hand in hers.

Comfy, particularly when Penelope slouched against him and rested her head on his shoulder.

“I have been racking my brain regarding a constructive application of Uncle Theo’s gifts. He’s charming, practical, well liked, well educated when sober, and doesn’t judge his fellow creatures harshly.”

“He’s patience itself with the ladies, Tommie, and Uncle Malcolm. Theo would have made a good vicar.”

Penelope this close bore the fragrance of roses. Whenever Lucien encountered the aroma lately, he was thrown off stride. For years, that scent had presaged terrible homesickness, regret, confusion, and even anger. Now, the aroma was soothing and reassuring.

I am not halfway across the Continent, possibly never to see her again. I am home. In the next instant, the thought reached its logical progression: Penelope is my home.

Her elbow delivered a glancing blow to his ribs as she rearranged herself at his side, and even that soft blow, reminiscent of its sharper, youthful predecessors, pleased Lucien.

“I hope Theo will make a decent steward,” he said. “He knows the properties and tenants.

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