'Twas the Night Before Mischief by Nina Rowan Page A

“I’ll have a word with him.”
    â€œAll right.” There was so much she wanted to say to him, so many words locked inside her, but she suppressed them all. Now that she was back where she’d started, there was little sense in bringing forth useless imaginings again.
    She returned home, leaving her father and Darius in the confectionery shop, just as she had done so many times in the past. As she let herself in the front door, a burst of shouting came from the parlor.
    A sudden warmth filled Penelope. She dropped her bag in the foyer and hurried inside. The scent of pine drifted from the tree on the front table, and holly adorned the mantel. Her three young brothers were engaged in a game of blind man’s bluff, while their nursemaid tried to persuade them to sit down for tea.
    â€œPenny!” Her brother James hurled himself across the room, careening into her with a force that knocked life back into her heart.
    With a laugh, she kissed and embraced them all, the boys who had filled her father’s house with such energy. She assured them all she’d brought them back gifts from her journey, promising to tell them tales of her adventures before excusing herself to clean up after the train trip.
    As she returned to the foyer, her stepmother came out of the dining room.
    â€œOh, I was so glad to hear you were on your way home.” Esther hurried forward, as if she were about to embrace Penelope, then stopped uncertainly. “You’re all right?”
    Penelope felt the shame beginning to crawl up the back of her throat. She averted her gaze from her stepmother and nodded. She hadn’t thought much of Esther when she agreed to marry Simon. She’d never thought much of Esther at all, except for when she had first married Penelope’s father.
    â€œWhy did you leave?” Esther asked, her voice containing only a tinge of hurt rather than any judgment.
    Penelope gripped the folds of her skirt. She wanted to regret what she’d done. She knew she should. A respectable young woman didn’t run off to the Highlands with the intention of eloping with a man of whom her father disapproved. If anyone outside of their family found out about this, Henry Darlington would be deeply shamed.
    Yet Penelope couldn’t quite bring herself to be sorry. Not any longer, at least. If she hadn’t sought adventure in the most dramatic manner possible, if she hadn’t allowed Simon to seduce her into eloping with him, if she hadn’t actually gone with him…then Darius Hall wouldn’t have had a reason to come to find her. She would never have experienced him .
    â€œI…I thought I loved Simon Wilkes,” she finally said, then shook her head. She could not be deceitful any longer. “No. I never thought that. I thought it would be an adventure, something daring and reckless. I’ve never done anything reckless. I…I was just tired of being so obedient all the time. I wanted to be like my mother. Or, at least, to know what it might have been like to be her.”
    Esther gazed at her for a moment. “I don’t know if this is any help, but no one has ever wanted you to be like someone else.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œYour father has only ever wanted you to be yourself. So have I.”
    â€œMy father has wanted me to be his invisible daughter.”
    â€œInvisible?” Esther lifted her eyebrows. “He wouldn’t have spent so much time making Darlington’s Confectionery a success unless he thought his very visible daughter would one day run the company.”
    Penelope blinked. “I’d always thought he would leave it to the boys.”
    â€œWell, yes, but to you first, Penny. Did you not know that?”
    â€œI…I never much thought about it. He never said anything.”
    Neither, Penelope realized, had she.
    She swiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “He’d always hoped that one day we