Her shoulders dropped. He still didn’t know who she was. She was still just some mystery creature to him. In a strange way, she was jealous of herself. His hold on her hand tightened slightly.
“Please,” he begged.
“You do not know me,” she repeated.
“You asked me to make love to you beneath the stars,” he said, his voice full of quiet desperation. “That is the woman I would spend the rest of my life with.”
“That woman is a dream and nothing more.” She pulled her hand free of his and turned away.
“Sabrina . . .”
She halted in her steps and slowly turned, shivering as the rain made her dress heavy and cold around her.
“Sabrina,” he said again and stood, holding out his hand to her. “Be my wife. Be the light to my darkness, the joy to my sorrow. Be my world, my hope, my life.”
She couldn’t move, no matter how much she wanted to.
“You knew?” Her voice broke a little.
“Yes,” he said.
“When?”
“My heart knew the day I rescued you and your horse from the bog, but my head didn’t realize it until tonight. When we danced, the second I held you in my arms, I knew. It was like coming home. I knew you must be the woman from Lady Germain’s ball, but I also knew you were my darling Sabrina. In that moment, I became whole.”
“But I heard you were engaged . . . that you couldn’t marry someone like me.”
“What? Where on earth did you hear that?”
She explained the conversation she’d overheard from Alexandra and Perdita.
“It wasn’t me they were discussing.” His tone was so honest that she didn’t doubt him. “Please, Sabrina, give me a second chance to love you with all that I am.”
Her bottom lip quivered, and she knew she wouldn’t last a moment longer. She cried at everything now that she was with child.
“Please don’t cry—you’re killing me.” Peregrine stepped toward her, and as if her body had been electrified by the lightning flashing above, she jolted forward, flinging herself into his arms.
He wrapped his arms around her, one hand cradling the back of her head as they swayed, rocking her until all her fears faded away, which only made her cry harder.
The rain lessened into sleet and the heat rising from the ground formed blankets of mist around them.
Peregrine pulled back enough to gaze down at her. “Let me take you back inside. I can’t have you getting ill.”
She tilted her chin back and looked up at him. “You really wish to marry me?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t ask the right question the day you left. I was a monumental fool not to see what was right in front of me. I vow to spend the rest of our lives doing everything I can to make it up to you.”
“That’s good, because soon the two of us will be three. And I shall need your help.”
“Three?” He stared down at her belly. “You don’t mean . . . ?”
She nodded, hoping he would be as excited and full of joy as she was at the thought of a baby on the way.
“My God, this is wonderful.” He picked her up and spun her around in the rain until she laughed.
“You two had better bloody well come inside! You’ll catch your death!” someone shouted from close by.
Peregrine set Sabrina back down, and they saw Rafe and Lawrence standing in the doorway leading back to the ballroom. Peregrine laced his fingers through Sabrina’s, and they rushed back across the rain-soaked stone terrace.
“See, I told you the plan would work.” Lawrence nudged Rafe as Sabrina and Peregrine stepped inside.
“What plan?” Peregrine asked.
“We threw this entire ball just for the two of you. We thought that if you could meet again as you had that first time, magic might happen again. And it worked, didn’t it?” Lawrence grinned. “I assume we will have a wedding to plan next?”
“Tomorrow, if I can manage it,” Peregrine assured him.
Sabrina looked toward Rafe, her heart sinking. “Mr. Lennox, I’m so sorry, but I fear I cannot be Isla’s governess any longer.”
Rafe smiled sadly. “Yes, I know. I knew once we came here that I would lose you to him. I just didn’t imagine it would hurt this much.”
He spoke with such sincerity that Sabrina rushed to hug him and whispered in his ear, “You saved me, and you gave me my life back. I’ll never be able to repay that debt. But I’ll try.” She kissed Rafe’s cheek and then returned to stand beside Peregrine, who put an arm around her shoulders.
“Thank you, both of you,” Peregrine said to the two men. “A man is fortunate indeed to have friends like you.”
“Good heavens!” Zehra gasped as she spotted them. “You both must come inside right now.” She shouldered past her husband and Rafe to drag Sabrina and Peregrine deeper into the house. Some of the guests had noticed their soaked state, and so Zehra hustled them away from the ballroom and up into Sabrina’s bedchamber. Maids and footmen were summoned, hot tea was prepared, and a large tub was filled with hot water.
“Bathe, change, and warm up. Do not worry about the ball this evening. It has served its purpose.” Zehra winked at Sabrina and closed the door to give her and Peregrine some much-needed privacy.
Peregrine removed his mask and came toward her. She held still as he untied the ribbons of her mask and then pulled it away from her face.
“You are more beautiful every time I see you.” He let the mask fall to the floor. “Inside and out, you are the most beautiful soul I’ve ever seen.” He brushed the backs of his knuckles over her cheek, and Sabrina closed her eyes.
She leaned into his caress. “Am I dreaming?”
“Dreaming?”
“Yes. I’ve had such wonderful dreams, such wonderful moments like this, but then I wake and you’re gone and none of it is ever real. I’m afraid if I blink, it will happen again that you vanish.”
The soft smile he flashed at her erased every doubt she had and lit a spark of hope within her.
“If this is a dream, then I am lost in it with you, and neither of us will ever wake again.”
He leaned down and kissed her, and that spark became a wild inferno of joy. The world was full of light and love as lightning struck Sabrina and Peregrine for a third time.
Thank you for reading Escaping the Earl! The next book in the League of Rogues series is Lost with a Scot where Aiden Kincade rescues a princess who washed up on the shores of Scotland. Get it HERE!
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Want to read a gothic romance that has both a regency storyline and a modern storyline? Turn the page to read the prologue and the first chapter of The Shadows of Stormclyffe Hall where the modern day Earl of Weymouth, brooding and sexy Bastian falls hard for an American graduate student writing her thesis on the mystery of Bastian’s home Stormclyffe Hall.
The Shadows of Stormclyffe Hall
Prologue
Weymouth, England, 1811
The crash of thunder woke Richard, Earl of Weymouth. The fire in the hearth was low, the embers no longer crackling, and a cold draft pressed in around him as a storm raged outside. Pulling a loose sheet around his hips, he reached across the bed for his wife, who was still weak from bearing him a healthy son a month ago. His hands stopped short as he encountered nothing but the twisted sheets where her body had lain.