“Ah, but if you marry, you’ll no longer be chased about like that.” Adrian tapped his own nose as he winked. “That’s how you outfox them.”
Adrian’s mood was infectious, and Peregrine already felt better. “You almost have me considering it, yet . . .”
“Yet what?” Adrian leaned forward. “I sense there may be a reason you are not saying that is keeping you from contemplating marriage.”
“You know my views on marriage. It’s a travesty inflicted upon men and women.”
Adrian’s jovial expression faded. “Yes, I remember you telling me about your parents, but most marriages are not unhappy, Peregrine. Even those not based on true love are often friendly alliances. You must trust that there is goodness to be had, happiness and joy to be found with the right woman. Haven’t you met anyone who has tempted you to think about that?”
Peregrine was silent a long time. “There was a woman . . . last fall. I met her at Lady Germain’s masquerade ball. There was something about her, something wonderful. She would be one I would consider, but . . .”
“But?”
“I lost her.”
“How so?”
Peregrine smiled ruefully. “You will think me mad.”
“Try me,” Adrian said.
He told Adrian all about how he’d been at Lady Germain’s ball and how a beautiful stranger had waltzed into his arms—and just as quickly out of them. He spoke of his connection with her, his desire to simply hold her, and how he’d felt an affinity for her, something that had frightened and fascinated him all at the same time.
“I may have let myself do something very foolish,” Peregrine admitted.
“Such as?”
“Well . . .” He lowered his voice since he knew that it was impolite to speak of a woman in a club if he wasn’t married to her. Of course, he didn’t even know the woman’s name, but still . . .
“We took a walk in the gardens.”
Adrian lowered his voice as well. “I assume by a walk you mean . . .”
“Yes, and it was her wish, not mine. She told me something rather peculiar.”
“During this walk?”
Peregrine nodded. “She claimed she was trying to avoid marriage to someone and she could only do so by disposing of her maidenhead.”
“And you believed her? That is exactly what a woman would say to entrap a man in marriage.”
“It occurred to me as well, but no one discovered us. She kept her word, and neither of us removed our masks. I don’t even know what she looks like.”
“And you simply . . .”
“Yes, we did. And afterward, we sat together and watched the stars . . .” Peregrine sighed wistfully. He still didn’t understand how that had happened. He had bedded plenty of women before he was an earl, but the peace he’d felt after being with that woman . . . He had wanted more than anything to watch the stars with her forever.
“I think you’re succumbing to an incurable disease,” Adrian said with a hint of a smile.
“What disease is that?”
“Love.”
“Nonsense. One cannot fall in love with a stranger.” Peregrine tasted his drink as his thoughts still held him in that dark starlit meadow.
“No, of course you’re not in love. But you could be. This is proof. If you feel so strongly about her, you should find her.”
“How would I do that? I cannot simply walk up to Lady Germain’s house and ask for her guest list.”
Adrian chuckled. “Actually, you could do that, but I understand your reasoning. You would have an extensive list to check. All the young ladies you would be visiting with would have marriage in mind whilst you’re hunting down your erstwhile cinder princess who vanished before your eyes.”
“Yes, exactly. That is what I wish above all else to avoid.” Peregrine finished his drink.
“Well, then you must let this mystery woman go.”
The thought made Peregrine flinch, but his friend was right. Either he summoned the courage to scour London for the woman from the ball and risk being married to another, or he let the phantom beauty go. At least then he would still have the beautiful memory of her.
“Perhaps you are right. She was a dream, not a reality, and it does me no good to dwell on dreams and not live the life set before me.” Even as he said the words, part of him refused to believe them.
7
Several months ago, the first time Peregrine came to the Cotswolds, he had to keep reminding himself he was not actually a visitor, but a resident. Ashbridge Heath, the ancestral estate of the Earls of Rutland, was one of many fine properties in the area. Peregrine stepped into the foyer of his new home, still feeling like a stranger, but a welcomed one.
“We’re so glad to have you back, my lord,” his butler, Mr. Burton, said with a thin but honest smile.
Two butlers—one for London and one for the country.
Peregrine nearly laughed at the decadent absurdity of it all. But he was glad to be here too. He’d discovered on his first visit that the Cotswolds seemed to have a living spirit all its own, both in the people who lived and worked the land. On market days, the little village streets in the nearby towns were filled with shoppers. Then there was the sight of plows leaving rich brown ribbons of tilled earth unfurling behind them. Men and even women rode over the cresting hills and could be spotted in the distance.
It was a place of infinite variety, where dramatic changes that made the landscape behave differently only a few miles apart. What Peregrine loved most were the wild winds that swept the lonely uplands of the Cotswolds, which had grassy places where sheep scattered about and dry stone walls crossed like braids in all directions.
Unlike Peregrine’s life in London before he became an earl, one that had been lived in cramped, small quarters with no real silence, he welcomed the bleak isolation of these hills and valleys. The wind whistled in a way similar to the cold air of the moors in the north of England. It was not the same as the loneliness he sometimes felt in his London townhouse. Being alone surrounded by nature was something altogether different and beautiful.
What would his mysterious stranger from so long ago think of this? He couldn’t help but wonder what she would say of the landscape as he sat astride his fine bay gelding at the crest of the upper hill near his home. The spirit of the Cotswolds seemed to blow toward him up the hillside, intangible yet alive all around him. What would she think of the stars here? He knew he would be sitting outside tonight, watching the sky in a way he never had before and thinking of her.
Peregrine gave a shake of his head. He had to find a way to banish his thoughts of that woman from his mind. He would never see her again, and that was the simple truth.
He urged his horse down the hill toward a deep wooded cleft. A sense of ancient magic and secretiveness clung to the hills and valleys here. It made him think of the stories he’d heard as a boy of King Arthur meeting with Merlin in the enchanted woods. These clefts were cold, still, and damp, yet not quite silent. If any of the old gods still slept in the world, they would be resting here, and their dreams would be a hum upon the hushed breeze that trickled through the branches and along the moss-covered stones.