Page 2 of Snowed In with the Runaway Bride

“Welcome, my dear,” he said.

“Thank you, Kendal.”

“Did you have a pleasant journey?”

Her screaming joints warned her not to ignore them, or she would pay for it later. She broadened her smile instead. She knew what was required of her.

“Tolerable, thank you.”

She moved aside as Pippa emerged from the carriage, handed down by Kendal himself. Penny frowned a little as he leaned in close to hear Pippa speak. They seemed quite… cozy together.

One might almost have thought Pippa was his intended bride.

Kendal turned back to Penny with a smile. “Are you ready, my dear?”

Penny shook the thought away and pinned a bright smile to her face while she took the arm Kendal extended to her. Mama was on his other side as Pippa trailed behind them, looking sour.

Surely Penny had imagined any connection between them. “Certainly, Kendal.”

She snuck another look at the doorway as they approached. Hugo was already gone.

He shouldn’t have come.

Hugo backed away from the front door, hating himself for needing to see Penny as soon as she arrived, to make sure she was really here. That she had arrived safely. He had only seen her once since her illness, when she had still been so pale and weak it had terrified him.

Oliver had told him she was nearly well again, but Hugo had needed to see for himself that it was true. He needed to watch Penny step down from the carriage, her hand in his brother's, once again looking around with that expectant look on her face. The one that said she was looking for her next adventure.

She was nearly well again. He could see it for himself. Oh, her movements were slower, more deliberate, but she had taken an interest in the world again. Far too many people became fearful after nearly dying.

But Penny Montgomery was nothing if not stubborn, and while that stubbornness had helped her cling to life when the physicians thought she would die, it also meant she was trouble. She always had been.

It was not his concern. Once the wedding was over, Hugo must leave for his new assignment thousands of miles away with no way of knowing what trouble she had gotten herself into next. She would be all right. Oliver would keep her safe.

Any wish that he, Hugo, could be the one to keep her safe was forced down once again. It had been a useless thought since the day Penny had been introduced to the Dalston family as his brother’s future bride more than a decade years ago.

The wedding had been delayed so many times that he had almost started to believe it would never happen. Now it was not only about to happen, he was obliged to stand witness to it, and celebrate the happy couple at the wedding breakfast, and know Oliver was taking Penny to bed under the same roof where he must sleep.

Perhaps he could manufacture an urgent message from the Admiralty requiring him to return to London immediately after the wedding ceremony. No one could expect him to stay if that happened.

And then perhaps he could stay away long enough to finally become resigned to the fact that Penny would never be his, no matter how much he dreamed of her.

He feared there was no span of time long enough for that.

“Lord Hugo?”

Jolted from his thoughts, Hugo turned to see Teasdale, the family’s butler, observing him quizzically.

“Yes?”

“Your grandmother is looking for you.”

“Thank you, Teasdale.” Even from where he stood at the foot of the staircase, Hugo could hear the riotous sound of the gathered Dalstons in the reception room upstairs. Relatives came from near and far for Christmas at Gaitskill Castle despite its remote location in Cumberland scarcely a day’s ride from the Scottish border. In fact, that very remoteness was what gathered them here, where they could be private together away from Society.

It had been only the Dalstons for Christmas until Oliver had been promised to Penny and the Montgomerys began coming to the annual house party as well so Oliver and Penny could become better acquainted. Hugo had gone to sea as a midshipman not long after and had only attended Christmases sporadically, as his duties allowed.

Now he was finally to have command of his own ship as a full captain, not just a commander. His duties would take him far away from here, and he would never have to watch Penny be happy with Oliver. After all, his brother was the perfect catch for any woman: handsome, honorable, devoted to his duty. If there was a decided lack of ready funds in the family coffers, well, that was what Penny’s substantial dowry was to remedy, and everyone involved knew it. And how could any man married to Penny not be happy?

Hugo climbed the stairs as servants filtered down them, preparing themselves to greet Penny as their future duchess. If she was already limping, she was likely in pain after the long trip from her family’s home near Birmingham. Having to stand and greet the servants would only make that worse.