His eyes opened, barely. “St. Stephen’s?”
“It might be best if our story began prior to the announcement that Falconwell was . . . part of my dowry.” Penelope pretended to inspect a speck on her traveling cloak, hating the fullness in her throat at the words, the reminder of her true worth. “I’ve always liked Christmas, and the Feast of St. Stephen in Coldharbour is quite . . . festive.”
“Figgy pudding and the rest, I assume?” The question was not a question at all.
“Yes. And caroling,” she added.
“With small children?”
“Many of them, yes.”
“It sounds like precisely the kind of thing I would attend.”
She did not miss his sarcasm, but she refused to be cowed by it. She gave him a firm look and could not resist saying, “If you were ever at Falconwell for Christmas, I imagine you would enjoy it very much.”
He seemed to consider responding, but he held back the words, and Penelope felt a wave of triumph course through her at the crack in his cool demeanor—a minor victory. He closed his eyes and leaned back once more. “So, there I was, feasting on St. Stephen’s Day and there you were, my childhood sweetheart.”
“We weren’t childhood sweethearts.”
“Truth is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not they believe it.”
The logic in the words grated. “The first rule of scoundrels?”
“The first rule of gambling.”
“Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” she said, tartly.
“Come now, you think anyone will care to confirm the part of our tale that began during our childhood?”
“I suppose not,” she grumbled.
“They won’t. And besides, it’s the closest thing to the truth in the entire thing.”
It was?
She would be lying if she said that she had never imagined marrying him, the first boy she’d ever known, the one who made her smile and laugh as a child. But he’d never imagined it, had he? It didn’t matter. Now, as she stared at the man, she was unable to find any trace of the boy she’d once known . . . the boy who might have considered her sweet.
He moved on, pulling her from her thoughts. “So, there you were, all blue-eyed and lovely, veritably glowing in the flames of the figgy pudding, and I couldn’t bear another moment of my unbridled, unsaddled, suddenly unwelcome state of bachelorhood. In you, I saw my heart, my purpose, my very soul.”
Penelope knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn’t stop the wash of warmth that flooded her cheeks at the words, quiet and low in the close quarters of the carriage.
“That—that sounds fine.”
He made a noise. She wasn’t sure what it meant. “I was wearing an evergreen velvet.”
“Very becoming.”
She ignored him. “You had a sprig of holly in your lapel.”
“A nod to the holiday spirit.”
“We danced.”
“A jig?”
His mocking tone pulled her out of her little fantasy, reminding her of the truth. “Possibly.”
He sat up at that. “Come now, Penelope,” he said, chiding, “it was mere weeks ago, and you don’t remember?”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “Fine. A reel.”
“Ah. Yes. Much more exciting than a jig.”
He was exasperating.
“Tell me, why was I there, in Coldharbour, celebrating the Feast of St. Stephen?”
She was beginning to dislike this conversation. “I don’t know.”
“You know I wore a sprig of holly in my lapel . . . surely you considered my motivation in this particular story?”
She hated the way the words oozed out of him, condescending, bordering on scathing. Perhaps that was why she said, “You were here to visit your parents’ graves.”
He stiffened at the words, the only movement in the carriage the slight sway of their bodies with the rhythm of the wheels. “My parents’ graves.”
She did not back down. “Yes. You do it every year at Christmas. You leave roses on your mother’s marker, dahlias on your father’s.”
“I do?” She looked away, out the window. “I must have an excellent connection at a nearby hothouse.”
“You do. My younger sister—Philippa—grows the loveliest flowers, year-round, at Needham Manor.”
He leaned forward, mocking in his whisper. “The first rule of falsehoods is that we only tell them about ourselves, darling.”
She watched the spindly birch trees at the road’s edge fading into the white snow beyond. “It’s not a falsehood. Pippa is a horticulturalist.”
There was a long silence before she looked at him again, discovering him watching her intently. “If someone were to have visited my parents’ gravesites on St. Stephen’s, what would they have found there?”