Discovering the Devil

O n e

I

PENELOPE gazed at her ring finger with mild fascination as she held it up to the light. The ruby ring perched there twinkled delightfully in the morning rays. She tilted to her hand slightly to the left then slightly to the right, trying to decide which angle best captured the bloody jewel's beauty.

"Duke Burberry outdid himself," Countess of Au Printemps, the mother of Penelope, remarked.

Penelope dropped her fingers just as suddenly as she had raised them and went back to nibbling her morning biscuit. "He didn't buy it, you know. It was an heirloom."

"He didn't have to give you such a beautiful heirloom," the countess argued.

Penelope smiled. "He does if he wants me to marry him."

"And will you?"

"Will I what?" Penelope asked innocently, as if she didn't understand the question.

"Will you marry him?"

Penelope sighed. "I already said no, Mother. It was the duke who insisted I keep the ring and think on it."

The countess put down her newspaper to shake her head at her daughter. "Good god, Penelope! You're too good for even a duke?"

"I never said I was too good for anybody. I'd just like to be in love with my intended," Penelope told her mother, a phrase that had been repeated for probably the thousandth time.

"Love isn't instantaneous, darling. You cannot just expect it to spring from thin air," Countess Diana said exasperatedly.

"I never claimed to believe love was any of those things. But, I won't marry without it." Her mother remained silent. Penelope slipped off the heirloom and set it on the table. It looked more beautiful set down than on her hand. How fitting. "I should put this in its box. It's too bad. It really is a nice ring."

"You won't be young forever," Diana reminded her daughter.

"If you mean my looks will fade with age, dear mother, you're wrong. I'll grow to be exactly like you; a great beauty always." This wasn't an empty compliment. Diana had aged deliciously.

Penelope, her only child, took after her completely. They both had light brown eyes framed by long, dark-brown lashes. Both mother and daughter possessed a cloud-like halo of tight, chocolate brown coils. While the countess chose to wear it styled at her nape in a coiffure, Penelope loved to pile her coils atop her head. They were both incredibly lithe with delicate features and a rich, rose mahogany complexion. The countess' looks had always been praised, just like her daughter's.

"That's not what I meant," Diana replied irritably. These years are the best for childbearing. The older you grow, the harder it is." Penelope didn't dare to tell her mother she saw no future where she would squeeze a squealing brat out of her most sensitive possession. Instead, she sipped her tea. "Heed my advice, Penelope, and it heed it well. Love must not always precede a marriage. Oftentimes there is only fondness. Love comes with time."

Penelope knew this. How could she not? She wasn't a wide-eyed, naïve teenage girl, after all, her twenty-third birthday was almost within arms reach. This ridiculous ideation was told to everyone around her to barely conceal the obvious—she had absolutely no intention of getting married.

Penelope had courted a great many men, and tumbled with a few too. While there had been laughter, fondness, and some deep infatuations, there had never been an attraction strong enough to convince her to give up her current life. Life within the comforts of her childhood home offered her security, happiness, and—most importantly—independence.