While it was a relief to know that she wasn’t in any immediate danger, to learn that the man responsible for paying all her debts was the same man who had doggedly pursued her husband through the courts was bizarre. Why would he do that? It made absolutely no sense.
She was nothing to him. Just another face in an ever-changing sea of faces on the busy witness stand of the Old Bailey. Their interactions had been brief and impersonal. Or at least his interactions with her had been impersonal. He never once showed an ounce of human emotion in all the many long hours of the trial. For her, those hours had been deeply personal and life-changing. One minute she had been unhappily married to a brute and the next unwittingly married to a traitor who had been sentenced to death. Now, suddenly, out of the blue, the prosecution lawyer decided he needed to pay all her rent... Why? And more importantly, what the blazes was she supposed to say to him on the subject when he imminently arrived at her small apartment.
‘It is peculiar though...isn’t it? Why would he do it?’ Penny asked. Clarissa had asked the same question at least sixty times since Seb had told her the news just after dawn. What exactly had motivated him to be so unwelcomely generous? Guilt? Penny sincerely hoped not. ‘And what possessed him to set a Bow Street Runner on me to watch my every move?’ Knowing she had been under surveillance when she had assumed she was safe—completely incognito—really bothered her. Aside from the unpalatable fact that it was reminiscent of her years under watch during her awful marriage, if the Runner had easily found her, would the press? Or her horrid husband’s criminal friends? That was the trouble with London. In a vastly overcrowded capital, it was too easy to hide in plain sight. She had become complacent and, in so doing, had stayed far longer than she had originally intended. A situation she needed to quickly remedy for Freddie’s sake.
‘I don’t think he did that for anything other than noble reasons. In many ways, I would actually find it a comfort that somebody cared enough to want to ensure my safety and...’ Clarissa’s voice petered off as Penny glared and the fraught silence settled between them once again.
They had spoken about this most of the morning. While Clarissa seemed of the opinion it was perfectly acceptable to take the man’s money now that they knew who it came from, because it made her life considerably easier, Penny found the idea of his or anyone’s charity abhorrent. Again, it felt uncomfortably familiar. Penhurst had made her jump through hoops for every farthing she dared ask for and then used it to his advantage afterwards. You need a new dress? Wear this one... Freddie needs toys? He can have them if you stop bothering Nanny Francis... Your mother is dying and you need to take the post to visit her? If you do as you are told for the next week, and beg convincingly, I might give you the fare...
Such experiences scarred a person.
Besides, never a lender or a borrower be. Her father’s old motto rung in her ears and was too ingrained to shift. She had marched blindly into a marriage with a shameless borrower and her life had been both miserable and embarrassing as a result. Before he began his career as a criminal, it had been Penny who had had to deal with the debt collectors and the awkward conversations with friends who had lent him money in good faith when Penhurst knew full well he was in no position to pay it back.
Just thinking about how her life had been made her muscles tense and her toes curl inside her shoes. She would not start her new life beholden to anyone.
How did one explain all that to Clarissa?
Nor could Clarissa possibly empathise, particularly as their perspectives were so at odds. But then Clarissa had not had every aspect of her life controlled and Penny had. What she had initially assumed was her besotted groom’s eagerness to have her in his life had quickly turned into a rigid and oppressive life which his penchant for ruthless violence ensured she adhered to. Simple, everyday activities like walking to the village to buy ribbons were restricted unless expressly sanctioned by him. Not that she ever did buy ribbons. To buy ribbons, one needed pin money and despite bringing a significant dowry to the marriage, Penhurst never gave her a farthing unless it had many strings attached.
Control like that made you crave the opposite. Freedom and independence like she used to have. Which was why Penny was eager to start afresh. A new life. A new place. A new, improved and better her, shaped by her past certainly, but not tied to it. Rightly or wrongly, she saw her current situation as a second chance and one she refused to squander. Well before his arrest, her life shackled to Penhurst had become a wretched existence. That that had ended, regardless of the circumstances, had to be viewed as a blessing and she was not inclined to mourn its loss.
Her friend wanted to anchor her here where the past hovered ominously to haunt her for her own well-meant but ultimately insulting reasons. Poor, mistreated, misguided and fragile Penny. A label which was probably well deserved, but now galled, because it reminded her too much of the woman she had temporarily been, but now loathed. Much as she loved Clarissa and would be forever grateful to her, her overprotectiveness now was stifling and, when they clashed on any topics involving Penny’s future, felt alarmingly like control once again and instinctively that made her chafe against it. Like her awful husband and her oppressive sham of a marriage, the green, anxiously compliant and tragic Lady Penelope Penhurst was dead and good riddance to her. Long live Penny Henley! Whoever Penny Henley was.
They had both lapsed back into their own quiet thoughts, the brittle peace broken only by the ominous ticking of the second-hand clock on the tiny mantel, until the polite tap on the door had her practically jumping out of her seat.
‘Finally!’ Clarissa stood with the innate grace her plainer friend had always envied and smoothed down her dress, the action highlighting the first beginnings of the tiny baby bump forming in her normally perfectly flat tummy. The bump which she had yet to formally appraise Penny of, no doubt not to give her another excuse to want to stop being a needy burden on her generous friend’s time. ‘Sit straighter. Pull your shoulders back. Don’t smile. Remember, you want to keep the upper hand.’
Clarissa had staged the room to put the lawyer at a distinct disadvantage. Penny sat in the tallest and most regal chair, one which her friend had had delivered from her own house less than an hour ago to give the illusion of a gravitas she did not feel. Both Clarissa and Seb were to sit on the small sofa near the room’s only window, there for moral support and to ensure Penny did not allow herself to be walked over. This was well meant, but it galled. As if she would continue being a doormat after all the times Penhurst had metaphorically wiped his muddy feet on her back!
Lord Hadleigh got to sit in the short, hard chair next to the roaring fireplace. Being mild by October standards, the unnecessary fire would also serve to make the interfering lawyer feel uncomfortable. Clarissa intended the man to bake like a crusty loaf while he sweated out his apology. While Penny thought all her friend’s staging was taking things a bit too far, she did hope the searing heat would encourage him to leave swiftly. Hopefully with a polite flea in his ear, put there by the new, assertive, improved version of herself and after promising to acquire a refund from Mr Cohen for the rent. Because Lord only knew Penny stood no chance of scrabbling together a year’s worth of rent any time soon to repay him.
Clarissa opened the door and the lawyer positively filled the frame. An unpleasant surprise, when she had worked hard to convince herself he had only seemed imposing in the courtroom because of his austere barrister’s attire, and she had been entirely intimidated by the proceedings and the intentional, dramatic theatre of the Old Bailey.
He stepped in, his sharp eyes taking in the whole room, and only then did she notice Clarissa’s enormous husband behind him. Heavens, the barrister really was tall! And handsome, in an aristocratic and detached sort of way. She hadn’t noticed that before—probably because of the wig and gown. The intimidating staging of the legal system.
‘We shan’t beat around the bush...’ Clarissa gestured specifically to the tiny chair ‘...seeing that you clearly have some explaining to do and we are keen to hear it.’
He walked straight past the chair and stopped in front of Penny, inclining his