Rafe reached over and covered Isla’s ears with both of his hands. “Until?” he asked, urging her to continue. Isla tried to push her father’s hands away, then gave up and frowned at him.
Sabrina closed her eyes for a brief instant, reliving the memory.
“Until I kissed him again. It was his scent, leather and sandalwood, and something unique only to him. And it was the way he kissed me. I knew at once he was the masked man from the ball.”
Rafe released his hands from Isla’s ears. “You. You were the enchantress in the silver gown. My God.”
“I was.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “After you left, Peregrine was lovestruck. I’d never seen him like that. He pined after you for months. It took quite a bit of convincing for him to let you go, and I fear I am in part to blame for that. I told him you were a dream, that no one could be as sweet as you seemed to be. It’s a funny thing, to be wrong. I’m not used to it. I don’t think I like it.” He was silent a long moment. “And here? What happened between the two of you this week during the party?”
Sabrina smoothed her fingers over the fabric of her gown. Her throat tightened, and she had to focus on control lest she start to cry again.
“We fell in together so easily, and once I knew it was him . . . I could not help myself. I wanted to be with him again, to be with him in all ways possible. I knew it couldn’t last, but for a few days I could pretend. I just grasped what brief happiness I could before letting him go.”
“I understand,” Rafe replied, his voice soft and gentle. She’d expected outrage and judgment, but she had to remind herself that Rafe wasn’t like other men.
“When he spoke to me this morning, he said he wanted me to come to Ashbridge with him. I thought . . .” She choked on the rest of her words.
“You thought he meant to offer marriage,” Rafe finished.
Sabrina nodded. “It was silly of me to think that. He doesn’t even know that he met me before. I didn’t tell him. I didn’t want him to think less of me for being a woman who . . .”
“Was driven to desperation?” Rafe inserted. “Sabrina, he would not judge you any more than I. And those who would are hypocrites.”
A flare of hope blossomed in her chest, but like early spring flowers that perish from a harsh frost, her hope wilted away as she remembered just what he’d offered her, and it hadn’t been the role of wife.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. He only wishes to have me as a mistress.” She felt so tired just then. She wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep away the sorrow.
A tic worked in Rafe’s jaw, and he clenched his fists where they rested on his thighs. “You shall not be desperate ever again, Sabrina. I vow it. You will always have a place with Isla and me.”
Sabrina’s heart fluttered at Rafe’s statement. “Thank you, but someday when she is grown and married, she will have no need of me.”
“Grown and married? No, I won’t allow my little darling to ever grow up, and I certainly won’t allow her to marry.” Rafe gave his child an infinitely tender look and turned back to Sabrina. “So you and I shall take care of her. Let there be no more talk of not being needed.”
Sabrina settled back in the coach. She spoke no further on the matter. Someday he would realize she was right and that Isla would not need either of them. When that distant day came, she would have to find a new path in life.
Peregrine stood in the library a long while after Sabrina had left him. It wasn’t until Lawrence found him that he was pulled from the dark mire of his own thoughts.
“Rutland, is everything all right?” the other man asked.
“Er . . . yes . . . no . . . Christ. No, it isn’t.” He walked over to a chair by one of the reading tables and slumped into it.
Lawrence pulled a few books off one of the shelves and retrieved a bottle of whiskey from the space behind them.
“You keep a whiskey bottle behind your books?” Peregrine asked.
“Only the best whiskey. With Charles around, I find it prudent to hide my most expensive liquor behind books. And while Charles does enjoy reading, he would never choose these.” Lawrence nodded at the books he’d pulled off the shelf and set them on the table in front of Peregrine. A small cloud of dust billowed out from the fat volumes, but Peregrine could still see their spines. They were a collection of census records from the area from fifty years ago. No one would willingly crack open such books. Lawrence retrieved two glasses from a drink tray on another reading table nearby and poured them each a glass.
“Now . . . What’s the matter?”
“I made a mistake. I hurt someone I care about.”
Lawrence leaned back in his own chair. “Hurt how?”
“I made an assumption, but I was wrong to. I was callous in my disregard for that person’s feelings. It was not a thing a gentleman would have done.”
“Can you undo it? Or apologize?”
Peregrine shook his head. “I offered someone a position as my mistress rather than my wife. It’s not the sort of thing that even an apology on bended knee would fix.” He sighed and swirled the brown liquid in his glass. All he could think of then was the pain he’d seen in Sabrina’s eyes as he’d offered her the worst possible insult.
“Ah.” Lawrence nodded. “I can see that makes a remedy quite difficult. But I must ask, is marriage not possible?”
“It will be someday when I absolutely must produce an heir, but I cannot stomach the thought of marrying until that necessity arises.” Peregrine took a long drink of the whiskey, embracing the burn.
“Why not?” Lawrence asked.
Peregrine shuddered as memories of the unhappy lives of his parents assailed him. “Because regardless of how a marriage starts out, it eventually becomes painful. Marriage is disagreements, it is agony and loneliness. The last thing I wish to do is force that upon a woman I care about.”
“Rutland, I think of you as a friend, so please do not take insult at what I’m about to say. You are entirely wrong about the nature of marriage,” Lawrence said as he abandoned his glass and sat forward. “In fact, I have never met a person more wrong in the whole of my life, and I’ve traveled to three continents.”
“Well, so long as we’re not being insulting,” Peregrine said with half a grin.
“The problem is, you are looking at the worst of something and seeing it as the whole,” said Lawrence. “If two people care about each other, marriage is nothing like that. Yes, there are moments of pain and disagreement, but friendships and families experience the same thing. Love is the vanquisher of loneliness. It heals pain. You and your wife are in this world together, fighting as one heart and soul.”
“Clearly, you didn’t ever meet my parents.”
“Yes, those who marry for business reasons or lust alone can become trapped—but note that word alone. Those who marry out of love, or build upon a friendship? They have all the power within themselves to be happy.”
Lawrence stood and placed a hand on Peregrine’s shoulder.
“Do not discount it. Trust it. Trust yourself.”
13