Penelope stared.
“Perhaps it would be more Christian to let her die, is that what you’re saying?” Nev demanded.
Mr. Snively shrank back. “No, no. I suppose your generous hearts have the right of it. Tell me, how is Jack Bailey?”
Nev did not answer, so Penelope said, “His leg looked dreadful to me. I do not see how he can work for at least a month if he wishes to be really healed. Do you think the parish might add to his allotment for that time?”
Mr. Snively frowned. “Alas, the parish is groaning under the relief that is already needed. His leg is very bad, you say?”
Penelope shuddered, remembering. “He not only broke the leg in falling from the ladder, he also fell on the pitchfork he was using to thatch the roof. His leg is quite frightening, with a gaping hole straight through-”
“There, there.” Mr. Snively smiled and patted her arm. Penelope hated his smile; it was like a snake’s. “Your ladyship must not distress herself. I consider it very ill-advised to have allowed you to see the wound at all. Your husband, I presume, did not condone such a thing.”
Nev had been with Miss Wray. “I assure you, I was not nearly so distressed as Mrs. Bailey!” Penelope instantly regretted her words. Whether they liked it or not, Mr. Snively would be their minister for a good many years. Unless someone brains him, she added to herself.
“We’re almost there,” Nev said. “Mama, try not to embarrass us in front of Sir Jasper. Nothing is more terrifying to a gentleman than a matchmaking mama.”
Lady Bedlow huffed indignantly. “Of course I wouldn’t have the ill breeding to-”
“And Louisa, try to be civil. Sir Jasper is our nearest neighbor.”
“Yes, my lord,” Louisa muttered.
The carriage rounded a corner, and Penelope gasped. At the top of a rolling hill, Greygloss lay enthroned in pastoral splendor. It was the largest house Penelope had ever seen: a Palladian manor with enormous symmetrical wings that stretched out from the gleaming white columns of the portico. She had thought the Grange gigantic, but the Grange would fit easily in one-half of Sir Jasper’s house. She leaned across Nev to get a closer look, and felt him sigh.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” he said.
Penelope thought quickly. “One of my father’s friends built himself a seat in Essex. He told me that these Neoclassical homes are almost impossible to get water to because they’re all at the top of a hill.”
Lady Bedlow sniffed. “What a very practical consideration.”
“Don’t provoke me, Mama,” Nev said mildly. “I can still cut down the Loweston oaks, you know. We could use the money.”
The ceiling of Sir Jasper’s entrance hall was impossibly lofty, comprising as it did two stories. The tiled marble floor gleamed, and the furnishings shone richly. It was beautiful and in exquisite taste, but Penelope thought the antiquated, Jacobean Grange was friendlier.
“Good afternoon.” Sir Jasper hurried toward them. “Welcome to my home.” Penelope thought he looked at Louisa when he said it. Certainly he held her hand in his a fraction longer than he should have.
Of course, he was obliged to escort Penelope in to dinner, but Lady Bedlow quickly sat on Penelope’s other side, hoping to leave Sir Jasper’s left for Louisa. Instead, Nev took that chair, talking to the baronet about hunting and looking so very unaware that his choice of seat had any implications whatsoever that Penelope knew he had done it on purpose. She was hard-pressed not to laugh at the look on Lady Bedlow’s face.
The food laid out for them was aggressively English-not a cream sauce or ragout in sight. “Forgive the simplicity of my table,” Sir Jasper said. “I find English cooking more healthful than French, but it must appear sadly plain compared with the efforts of your splendid chef.”
Penelope was unpleasantly reminded of one of her father’s friends, a Methodist who had given up all forms of meat. His elaborate explanation that no, he didn’t judge those who dined on animal flesh, only he found the mind was so much less clouded by carnality when fed on purely vegetable sustenance, had been delivered in precisely the same tone. “Not at all,” she said, smiling. “My father disliked French cooking. It will be quite like home to have some plain beef again.”
Until Sir Jasper’s face went blank, it did not even occur to her that he might not like to hear that Greygloss was quite like home to Penelope Bedlow, née Brown. She wasn’t usually so tactless. And she hadn’t even meant it. Greygloss was far too elegant to be anything like home. God, she wanted to be home. She wanted her mother’s horrible purple tablecloth and people who liked her.
“Your mother’s cook was splendid!” Just the sound of Nev’s voice made Penelope feel better. “I meant to ask her for the receipt for that calves’ feet jelly.” He tasted Sir Jasper’s jelly. “This is very good, but that had something extra in it-I’m terrible at guessing ingredients, but perhaps a spice of some sort?”
“I believe she uses oranges and limes instead of lemon juice,” Penelope said.
“Oh, is that all? We should ask Gaston to make it that way.”
“Won’t he be offended?” Penelope had not dared to ask Gaston to alter any of his recipes, both for fear that Nev liked them the way they were and because she had heard so very much about temperamental French chefs.
Louisa laughed. “Oh, no, not at all. He was forever altering receipts according to our preferences when we were younger. He even used to make me baked cheese in brioche with cheddar, though I know it went sore against the grain. Indeed,” she added, “I have always been so used to French cooking that I do not know how I could feel at home with any other kind.” She did not look at Sir Jasper when she said it, but a defiant note crept into her voice that made her meaning clear to everyone.
Lady Bedlow looked stricken, and Nev’s lips thinned. Penelope sighed inwardly and cast about for some small talk.
Sir Jasper blinked. Then he smiled. “You may find out differently someday. When I was your age I thought I should never feel at home without my collection of model frigates.”
Louisa’s face set rebelliously. Penelope found the image of Sir Jasper making model frigates rather charming; she wondered what Nev’s hobbies had been at seventeen. But she could have told Sir Jasper that it was the worst possible thing to say. No seventeen-year-old girl wanted to be told she was a child.
Lady Bedlow, evidently afraid that Louisa would say something unforgivable, rushed into speech. “Ah yes, being young can be such a trial, can’t it, Sir Jasper? Poor Louisa has been so dull in the country that I’m afraid it’s wearing on her nerves.”
Louisa audibly ground her teeth.
“She’s been begging her brother to host a house party, but-” Lady Bedlow stopped, probably not wanting to come out and say that Nev could not afford it. She gave a trilling laugh. “Well, I doubt his friends would be appropriate company for Louisa anyway.”
Nev set his jaw and didn’t say anything.
“There is nothing wrong with Nate’s friends, Mama!”
Penelope, who had been wanting to slap the dowager countess, was seized with a sudden affection for Louisa.
Nev looked taken aback. “Thank you, but-”
“Anyway, I don’t care about the house party anymore,” the girl said, still flushed. “I know that it’s an unnecessary expense. And it’s-it’s nice to simply do as I like. There’ll be plenty of time to see my friends in the autumn.”
Penelope was once again agreeably surprised. She had assumed, when Louisa had stopped complaining about the house party, that the girl had simply given up the cause as lost. It hadn’t occurred to her that Louisa might genuinely understand why it was impossible.
“That is very mature of you, Lady Louisa.” Sir Jasper looked even more pleased than Penelope felt. “However, there is no need to be so Spartan. I have been thinking of hosting a house party in a fortnight, and if you provide me with the names of a few of your friends I would be happy to invite them.”