Free In for a Penny by Rose Lerner Page A

have afforded it.”
    Lord Bedlow waved a hand airily. “Oh, post-horses are no good. My father used to keep our own horses at every coaching inn on the Norwich Road…” He trailed off.
    “What does an extra day matter?” Penelope asked gently, although a moment before she had felt like snapping at him. After all, she would have liked to lessen their journey too. She was tired and jostled, the relentless rhythm of hoofbeats and carriage wheels was giving her a headache, and Lord Bedlow had already eaten most of the food her mother had packed for them—but she wasn’t complaining.
    He slumped back against the seat cushions. “It doesn’t, I suppose.”
    “Are you very eager to be home?”
    It was painfully easy to tell when Lord Bedlow was being evasive. He fidgeted like a guilty schoolboy.
    She hid a smile. “Not very eager, then?”
    He shook his head. “I—I suppose I ought to warn you. I haven’t been there in over a year. I don’t quite know what to expect. My father’s solicitor assured me it could be put to rights with a little money.”
    “But you’re worried?”
    “My sister told me it wouldn’t look like I remembered. She didn’t think the harvests had been very good.” He looked at her. “But—it couldn’t have got too bad, could it? In a few years?”
    Penelope had no idea how bad it could have got. She had never been out of the city for more than a few days before. “I don’t know anything about farming.”
    Lord Bedlow sighed and resumed staring moodily out the window. She wanted to ask more, to ask if he trusted his father’s solicitor and what kind of accounting system the steward used and if he’d looked at the books. But she doubted he would have useful answers to any of her questions, and she didn’t want to make him feel worse.
    She wondered what it would have been like to make her wedding journey with Edward. There would have been no uncomfortable silences, of that she was sure.
    She watched her husband surreptitiously. It was getting dark. In a few hours they would have to stop and take rooms for the night.
    Would Lord Bedlow find it tiresome to have to tutor a virgin? Would he expect her to know things she didn’t? What if she turned out to be a poor study?
    And yet, he had seemed happy with her response, the one time he had kissed her. She closed her eyes and replayed the moment for the thousandth time—his lips descending on hers, his body warm and close. Again, that uncomfortably tantalizing ache started in her—well, down there —and moved throughout her body. His hand on her breast had burned through her dress, her corset, and her shift. What would it feel like on her skin?
    It was getting too dark for Nev to see much out the window. He turned his gaze to Miss Brown, who was leaning back in her seat with her eyes closed. Since she couldn’t see him, he let himself ogle the swell of her bosom above the black muslin of her gown. He remembered the feel of her breast in his hand. Soon Miss Brown wouldn’t be obliged to wrench herself away when he touched her.
    He recalled abruptly that she wasn’t Miss Brown any longer; she was Lady Bedlow now. That sounded deuced odd. Lady Bedlow was his mother . “Can I call you Penelope?”
    Her eyes flew open. She flushed and shifted in her seat. Was there something improper about his request? “Um—yes, of course.”
    “Is everything all right?”
    “Yes, of course,” she repeated quickly. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
    Nev could think of only too many reasons.
    “What shall I call you? Bedlow?”
    “I suppose so.” He grimaced. “I haven’t got used to it yet.”
    “Your friend called you Nev at Lady Ambersleigh’s.”
    “You remember that?”
    She smiled. “It isn’t every day the heir to an earldom offers to choose my hors d’oeuvres,” she teased.
    “Really? Even with a hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds?”
    Her face fell.
    “Oh, Lord, how tactless of me! I didn’t find out about your dowry until