The Wallflower Wager - Tessa Dare Page 0,65
their strongbox, dragging their ugliness into the light. She’d avoided it for so long, hoping that someday the time would feel right to confide in someone.
Now she understood that the time would never feel right. There could be no feeling right about things that were so very wrong. No, there would never be a right time to share the memories. But there could be a right person to tell.
And the right person was here, holding her in his arms.
“When I was a girl, my father had a friend. Mr. Lambert.” The name tasted foul on her lips, so she rushed on. “At the end of each summer, he came to visit. He and Father would go hunting, shooting. The usual autumn sport, you know.”
He nodded, waiting for her to go on.
“And ever since I was a young girl, he’d . . . Well, he’d always made a favorite of me.”
Penny could see it now, looking back, how early he’d started gaining her trust. Whenever he visited, he brought her lavish presents and demanded only a kiss in return. He’d given her attention at times when she felt overlooked, left out of Bradford and Timothy’s games. The year she was learning her letters, he would pat his knee in invitation and she would go run to sit on his lap. Come, poppet. Show me how well you read.
And when he held her a bit tighter than she would have liked, or placed his hand beneath her skirt to stroke her leg, Penny didn’t complain. She adored him.
“I looked forward to his visits more than I looked forward to my birthday, or Christmas. He always made me feel special.”
Gabriel quietly took her hand in his.
“He passed me sweetmeats beneath the table, when Mother would have said no. He read to me from books of frightening tales that my nursemaid would never allow. But the treats had to be our secret, he said. I mustn’t tell a soul, or my parents would be quite cross.”
Penny became very good at keeping secrets.
It was the autumn she’d just turned ten when he began to touch her.
“The weather was miserable that year. The rain made sporting impossible most days. While everyone else was reading or doing needlework, Mr. Lambert proposed a new secret. Dancing lessons.”
They met in the great hall on dark, rainy afternoons. Just the two of them. He showed her how a gentleman would bow to her, kiss her hand. Most important, she must carry herself as a lady. He showed her how to hold her body straight and corrected her posture with his hands. At first, he merely skimmed a touch down her body, from shoulders to hips. But then it grew worse. And worse. Gentlemen touched ladies in such a manner, he said.
Looking back, his ploy was so obvious. Like any girl of her age, Penny had been eager to grow up, chafing at her parents’ restrictions. Lambert knew it, and he used it to manipulate her. She was wise beyond her years, he told her. Her parents wanted her to stay a little girl, but he understood she was growing up. Becoming a lady. He suspected as much from the maturity in her manner, but touching her beneath her clothing was the only way to be certain. He made it sound so reasonable, even if his cold hands made her insides squirm. Mr. Lambert was her father’s oldest friend. Penny’s friend, as well. He would never hurt her.
When he departed at the end of the visit, he reminded her sternly—the lessons had to remain their secret. If anyone knew—even the servants—they would tell her parents, and her parents would be angry. They would blame Penny. Not only for the grown-up dancing lessons, but for all their secrets. The forbidden sweets, the gifts, the stories she wasn’t meant to hear and the pictures she wasn’t meant to see . . . Everything.
It would disappoint them greatly to learn how she’d misbehaved over the years.
After that autumn, things were never quite the same.
She was never the same.
When he visited the following year, she feigned illness to avoid him—to the point of making herself vomit. She felt so queasy around him, it wasn’t difficult to pretend. Headaches, colds, her courses . . . She invented every possible excuse.
However, she couldn’t play sick forever. Mama had gently, but firmly, reprimanded her. Mr. Lambert had always made such a point of being kind to her. Penny didn’t want to hurt his feelings, did she?
No, Penny had