Free On a Desert Shore by S. K. Rizzolo

the gardeners making their rounds.” They heard footsteps as the voices moved away. Garrod’s eyes were still on her face, uncomfortably probing.
    â€œWe should continue our tour,” she said.
    â€œOf course, ma’am.” He motioned her to the stairs.
    ***
    Penelope and Lewis hesitated on the threshold of Garrod’s drawing room. Though still thin and pale after his ordeal in Newgate prison, her brother wore an air of easy confidence. With their father’s gift of money, Penelope had sent him to a tailor, so she was pleased with his evening gear. This was the first time they had appeared together at a formal gathering, and the sight of his upright form in a skin-tight tailcoat, white waistcoat, and black breeches created a lump in her throat.
    â€œReady?” he said with a grin, offering her his arm.
    The room was hung with crimson and gold satin. Gilded columns supported a painted ceiling where mythological figures lounged at perpetual ease. Windows, which opened to a terrace and flower garden, covered one wall. Occasional tables, sleek sofas, and a grand pianoforte basked in the evening sun. This same glow glanced off the mirrors and bathed the room’s occupants, making them into a living portrait, a tableau vivant of beings from another world. Contrasting her surroundings to the barren lodgings she shared with Lewis, Penelope felt her pulse quicken. Courage, she told herself, and pasted a smile on her face.
    â€œMrs. Wolfe,” said Hugo Garrod. “Allow me to make you known to my family.” Garrod drew them further into the room, pausing first before an older lady, whom he introduced as his sister Anne Yates.
    Mrs. Yates curtseyed, holding out her hand. “Welcome to Laurentum, Mrs. Wolfe, Mr. Durant. Beatrice, Marina. Come greet our guests.”
    Beatrice Honeycutt rose from a sofa against the wall. About thirty years old, she was the niece Garrod had adopted after her own parents died in Jamaica. Unlike him, she’d guarded her pink-cheeked complexion from the rigors of the West Indian climate. She would never be described as beautiful—her nose was too thick and decisive, her eyes with their sparse eyelashes too faded—but she was a woman of obvious breeding. As she greeted Penelope and Lewis, she revealed an awareness that seemed at odds with her rather bovine appearance.
    â€œWhere’s Marina?” said Beatrice, looking around.
    â€œHere I am,” said the girl, who’d been poised at the far end of the room. She came forward. Tonight Marina Garrod wore a gown that made her appear a wood sprite. Her greeting was subdued, delivered in a barely audible voice, but she directed a searching look at Lewis, which he could not fail to observe. Remembering the laughing, vital girl who had dashed off on her father’s arm to see the waterworks at Vauxhall, Penelope was puzzled.
    â€œThat’s an interesting bracelet, Miss Garrod,” she said, unable to think of anything to say. In truth, the ornament warred with the delicate greens of her dress; the black spots on the garish red beads were shiny like onyx. Penelope moved closer to get a better view.
    â€œLike eyes watching you, isn’t it?” Marina said in a clear, carrying voice that caused Beatrice to break off in the middle of her sentence. “I wear it to watch those who look at me.”
    Beatrice’s fingers closed around the girl’s wrist. “So that’s why you hid your arm behind your back when we came down for dinner, you naughty girl. Where did you get that? I thought your bead necklace had been broken.”
    â€œI restrung some of the beads to make a bracelet. Some were lost, thanks to my maid’s clumsiness when she pulled on the necklace too roughly and snapped the string. Leave it alone, Beatrice. It’s mine.”
    â€œOf course it is, my love. Only it clashes.”
    â€œYou don’t like it because it reminds you of my bond with the poor