He’d argue with his brother, but that was precisely what he’d done.
“Because I just knew.” As much as the admission sounded like romantic drivel, it was true. “She loves me.” He plucked out an arpeggio.” At least, I think she loves me. How do I get her to admit that?”
Stone crossed the room to the window. Peter knew precisely what he saw. The old church, a mercantile, and just beyond that, between the two large oaks, the sometimes blue, sometimes grey water in the channel.
Hundreds of miles beyond that, the coast of France.
Stone rubbed the back of his neck. “My gut says to finish what you’ve started here.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll keep an eye on her in London.
Dare Peter hope she would be at the hotel when he returned at Christmastime?
Early that last morning, after handing Miranda into her carriage, relinquishing her into the capable hands of her protector and manservant, Peter had gone back into the hotel and reserved room number eight again. Feeling optimistic, he’d paid for two nights: Christmas Eve and Christmas night.
In the event she showed up, he would want to have her all to himself for more than one night before traveling to Raven’s Park and presenting her to his parents as his betrothed.
And in the event she did not show, he would have the room to himself where he could drown his sorrows without fear of being interrupted or caught looking forlorn and lovesick by any of his London pals.
The second scenario was unthinkable. He couldn’t envision the remainder of his life without her.
Long after Stone and his new wife departed Brighton, and as the air turned colder, his optimism was tested by more than a few occasional bouts of anxiety. And yet all he could do for now was practice and play—channel all those emotions into his music.
Peter had always considered himself something of a patient, enduring person. How else could he have spent hours contorting his fingers and wrist so that they obeyed his brain or days on end practicing the same stanza over and over again?
Where love was concerned, however, patience did not come naturally.
Which apparently impressed Sir Bickford-Crowden to no end.
One week before the apprenticeship was scheduled to end, the master musician invited Peter into his office, handed him a cigar, and directed him to sit down.
“I’ve been pleased with the progress you’ve made under my tutelage,” he said, his eyes squinted beneath his single bushy eyebrow. “And as you are aware, I’m scheduled to play in the world’s grandest venues over the coming year. Paris, Rome, Athens, and Vienna. I have chosen you to travel with me. You will accompany me on the tour and perform alongside me when the occasion demands it.”
Peter sat up straight, reeling from the knowledge that he’d achieved one of the greatest honors he could have reached for at this point of his career. It was enough to satisfy him musically.
It wasn’t enough to satisfy him as a man, as a person.
Peter realized that he wasn’t being asked; he was being told. If he passed this opportunity up, nothing like it would ever come again.
He would be relegated to playing in London occasionally, for his mothers’ friends at their balls, at the occasional society benefit. But he would have essentially have already peaked in his field. He’d have drawn the disapproval of the most lauded man in this business.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”
Chapter 9
Waiting
“Welcome home, Mr. Peter! We didn’t expect you’d make the trip in this weather. I wouldn’t plan on making it to Raven’s Park by Christmas this year, not unless this storm lets up overnight.” Mr. Thomas, his parents’ butler at Burtis Hall, pushed the door closed behind Peter, silencing the blistering wind and swirling snow.
Nothing short of a blizzard at least ten times this violent would have kept him from making it back to London in time for Christmas Eve, even though the journey had already taken him three times as long as it ought to have.
But he had made it with time to spare and not lost a single appendage to frostbite.
Today was the twenty-third. He would purchase a ring and flowers for her tomorrow morning before checking into the hotel and settling in for what he hoped wouldn’t turn out to be the greatest disappointment of his life.
“I think there must be three feet of the white stuff outside.” He was exaggerating, but the butler merely laughed with a twinkle in his eyes as Peter handed over his scarf, hat, and gloves.
“Four at the very least,” Mr. Thomas responded. “Of course, you’ll be wanting hot tea after you’ve changed out of those wet garments. I’ll have a fire burning in the drawing-room before you can whistle your favorite carol.”
Peter smiled gratefully before turning to climb the stairway to the main part of the house. The manor felt unusually quiet; most of his family and all but for skeletal staff were spending the holidays at Raven’s Park.
He wasn’t worried about telling his parents of his decision to marry Miranda. His father might have a few questions, but where push came to shove, he’d never failed to support his children when they’d maid less than conventional choices.
They’d hardly blinked when his oldest brother, Rome, married a woman who’d spent most of her adult life working as a lady’s maid, nor when his youngest brother married after barely reaching his majority. And his father had encouraged Natalie to marry Hawthorne, despite discovering that the man’s deceased father had been a murderer.
Other gentlemen might happily leave their families to travel to exotic places and see the world, but Peter had realized he was content to be the favorite uncle to his nieces and nephews, a friend to his brothers and sisters and their spouses, and a comfort to his parents.
Life was too short to live far from the people who loved you.
Miranda would gain his entire family when they married.
He stepped into his familiar chamber, which had been dusted in preparation for his return home, and moved across the room to stare out the window.
Would she be there? For seven months, he’d wondered. He’d waffled between fearing the worst and imagining a future with the woman who, he truly believed, was destined for him.
Peter’s gut clenched. Even if Miranda did not meet him at the hotel as he’d hoped, as he wished for with all of his heart, he’d find a way to make her his. If she didn’t want him, he was going to need to hear it from her own lips.
She had been correct in that they’d barely had a chance to know one another, but not in that he hadn’t known her. Because he had. In every way that mattered. He knew her heart, her soul, her needs, and her dreams. He knew them, he dared to think, almost better than she did.
Because she’d given him a glimpse into her soul, into her heart.
And then he’d handed over his.
He only hoped she was brave enough to keep it. And that she could trust him enough to give him hers in return.
“No one else has checked in, sir. But the room has been prepared, just as you requested, Mr. Spencer.” The hotelier handed Peter the familiar key. It was early yet, barely four in the afternoon. She wouldn’t have come yet.
And the weather, he was certain, wouldn’t be enough to keep her away. Meeting the love of your life after several months’ absence was not the sort of decision a person put off because of a few snowflakes.