Bonus Epilogue
Marriages of love are not always easy to come by. They are, however, the very best sort to find. Eleanor Sherwood understood these truths excessively well. Her parents, on the other hand, seemed unlikely to ever be similarly enlightened.
Two months had passed since Peter and Eleanor had decided to begin their acquaintance anew.
She had discovered that the gentleman she had already known to be kind and thoughtful was also funny and interesting.
He was clever enough to walk the fine line between refusing to be bullied by her parents and managing to keep the peace with them.
He smiled when he was with her. And she smiled when she was with him.
Her smile was not quite as broad on the night of the final ball of significance as the Season wound to its inevitable conclusion.
She had danced with Peter, which she had enjoyed.
And her parents had been entirely decent to him, which had both surprised and pleased her.
But they would be returning to their country home in only a couple of days, and her anticipated loneliness at being separated from him was weighing on her.
Though she felt a little silly, she slipped out of the ballroom and onto a back terrace, tucked herself into the shadows, and looked out over the garden with an embarrassingly dramatic sigh.
I am twenty-three, not fifteen.
And, yet, she didn’t think she could help herself.
“Are you hiding from someone in particular?”
She turned at the sound of Peter’s voice. His beloved smile greeted her as he stepped up beside her.
“I am choosing to be excessively dramatic,” she said. “After two more sighs, I am considering a very elegant swoon.”
Laughter twinkled in his eyes. “Are you?”
Eleanor made quite a show of sighing deeply and theatrically. Peter only grinned more broadly.
“Dare I ask what has you in such a tragic state?”
She turned a little, facing him. “The Season is nearly over. My parents and I will soon be returning home.” Her mouth tipped in a sad sort of smile. “I will miss you, Peter.”
He glanced back, clearly checking if anyone was nearby. Then, with the terrace still empty, he took her hand in his.
“What if, my dear Eleanor, instead of returning home with your parents, you returned home with me?”
He was too much of a gentleman and, she knew perfectly well, too fond of her to be proposing anything scandalous. Her heart beat faster and harder as she clung to his every word.
“Will you marry me, Eleanor?” he asked. “Build a life with me? Make a home together?”
“My answer to that”—she stepped closer—“will depend on your answer to my question.”
His gaze flitted over her face, his expression and tone growing warmer. “And what question would that be?”
“Why do you wish to marry me?”
He brushed the fingers of his free hand along her cheek. “Because I love you, Eleanor Sherwood.”
She liked that answer quite a lot. “I think that is a very good reason.”
He lifted their entwined hands to his lips and kissed her fingers. “I hope that means you will give me a very good answer.”
“You realize that my parents will claim this was their doing, since they first facilitated the introduction,” she warned.
He shrugged. “And you realize, I hope, that you still haven’t answered my question.”
She closed the remaining gap between them. “Of course I will marry you, Peter. Because I love you.”
“A very good reason for a very, very good answer,” he said.
“Well,” she said, not bothering to hide even the slightest hint of her delight, “I am a lady of remarkably good sense.”