To Swoon and to Spar by Martha Waters

Author:Martha Waters
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2023-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

Jane set down the letter, unsure whether she wanted to crumple it up and roll her eyes in irritation or burst into an unseemly fit of laughter. Diana certainly did not stand on formalities in her correspondence, which Jane supposed should not come as a surprise. She was not entirely looking forward to having her sister-in-law under her roof for a few weeks this spring, but she supposed it couldn’t be avoided.

“I’ve had a letter from your sister,” she said, and Penvale, who was still squinting—Jane made a mental note to inquire as to whether there was anyone capable of crafting spectacles in the village—at the letter before him, glanced up at her, faint surprise registering on his face.

“Have you?”

“She wants to know when she and the marquess can come visit.”

“Typical Diana,” he muttered, running a hand over his face. “She couldn’t just wait for a bloody invitation.”

“Shall I send invitations, then?” Jane asked, striving for a neutral tone. She couldn’t bear for him to realize just how uncomfortable she found the thought of playing hostess to his sophisticated London friends, even if some part of her—buried deep within—had grown rather intrigued by the idea of observing her husband in the company of those who knew him best.

Because the fact was, the more time she spent with Penvale, the more she wanted to know about him. She found herself curious about him in a way she had never been curious about anything else, unless she counted the house she lived in. When she had first arrived at Trethwick Abbey, eighteen years old and newly parentless, a single trunk of possessions to her name and nothing to occupy her time, she had spent days wandering the halls of the house, familiarizing herself with each room, each hidden staircase, each tapestry that concealed a door. This practice had been quite useful, as it turned out; who knew that haunting an old manor house would require such familiarity with secret passages?

Now she felt the same urge with Penvale, who was not a static, unmoving, immutable building she could wander through slowly, but someone who himself was undoubtedly changing every day that he spent here, and she felt a sudden piercing ache to know him better, to witness those changes herself, rather than from a remove.

And she could not help but think that if she wished to know her husband better, knowing his friends better was not a bad way to go about that endeavor—those noisy, cheerful friends she had found so intimidating in London.

“Yes,” Penvale said slowly. “To Diana and Jeremy, of course, and Audley and Violet, and Belfry and Emily. West and Lady Fitzwilliam, too.”

Jane frowned. “Have I met those friends?”

Penvale, who had been staring thoughtfully into the middle distance, glanced at her with faint surprise, almost as if—Jane thought grumpily—he had forgotten that he hadn’t been speaking to himself. “They were at the wedding, you were introduced—don’t you recall?”

“There were an awful lot of people there,” Jane said testily.

“Jane.” Penvale’s voice was amused.

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