Chapter 6 #2
Lady Worthington nearly choked on her tea, spluttering so violently that Lady Fernsworth had to thump her on the back.
"It’s simply indecent," Honoria gasped, fanning herself with yesterday’s scandal sheet.
"Next she’ll be dancing barefoot in Hyde Park.
She refused him?” she gasped, clutching her teacup so tightly her knuckles turned white, nearly sloshing the contents over the rim.
Her eyes widened to the size of saucers, and she looked as though someone had suggested she dance a reel in her chemise.
“No,” corrected Lady Sutton, who had better connections. “She delayed. Apparently, she wants more groveling.”
Honoria sniffed. “As if he’s worth it.”
Lord Hargrove sulked over his tea. “I was planning to propose.”
Everyone ignored him.
Back at the Peregrine townhouse, Alexandra was sitting in the library, reading The History of English Gardens, marveling at the quiet that wrapped around her.
After the whirlwind of gossip, proposals, and moonlit confessions, the stillness felt almost surreal.
For once, she wasn't running—from suitors, from scandal, from her own feelings. She was simply here, grounded, and perhaps... content. Content in a way she hadn’t known she was searching for until now.
She thought of the girl who had escaped into a hedge maze and collided with a rogue, and smiled.
How far she'd come—and how unexpected the journey had been.
Sophia entered, her skirts swooshing and smile bright. “You look entirely too serene for a woman who just turned the entire social order on its head.”
“I feel serene.” Alexandra closed her book.
“You told him yes, did you not?”
Alexandra hesitated, the ghost of a smirk playing at her lips. "Not in so many words," she said at last, her tone teasing, though a blush crept up her neck that gave her away.
Sophia sat beside her. “Do you love him?”
The question gave her pause. A dozen answers rose to her lips—witty deflections, evasive shrugs, even a dramatic sigh—but none felt quite right. Not anymore.
She thought of the kiss in the rain—the press of his lips against hers, warm and sure despite the cold droplets sliding down her cheeks.
The way he looked at her when she was laughing, like she was something rare and wild.
The quiet moment beneath the wisteria, where time had seemed to slow, wrapped in scent and moonlight and the promise of something more.
“Yes,” she said finally. “I believe I do.”
“Good,” said Sophia. “Because he’s halfway to being a reformed rake, and I suspect that’s your doing.”
Alexandra set the book down, heart light.
“Let us see what he does next,” she added with a knowing glance, her lips curving in that mischievous way Sophia knew too well. A flicker of hope bloomed in her chest, soft and tentative—the kind that makes your heart beat faster not from fear, but from exhilaration.
Magnus knew exactly what to do next.
He called on her father. Again.
But this time, it was not to ask permission.
It was to make a promise. He would win Alexandra’s hand.
“I will not rush her,” he said. “I will wait. As long as it takes.”
Whitby studied him with weary suspicion, the kind born of long years raising three strong-willed daughters and fending off scoundrels. He remembered Alexandra at five years old, declaring she would one day lead an army—or a scandal.
Even then, she had been a force to be reckoned with, her fierce spirit evident in every rebellious declaration.
That wild nature had not dulled over the years—if anything, it had grown sharper and more radiant, much to his consternation and occasional grudging admiration.
She was a woman who knew her mind and followed it, regardless of opinion or consequence.
“And if she says no?” he asked, though his tone carried a flicker of something more—perhaps grudging respect or the faintest hint of reluctant approval.
In truth, he had not thought Magnus would return after the fiasco of yesterday, and here he was, standing like a man who refused to be swayed by either obstacle or propriety.
Magnus smiled. “She will not,” he said, unflinching, though a flicker of tension tightened his jaw. He believed it—needed to believe it—but still, the weight of uncertainty pressed somewhere deep in his chest.
He turned to leave, knowing that more words would not serve and that he would need to show his fortitude through action. The campaign ahead may be long, but for the first time, he was undaunted by the prospect. In fact, it thrilled him.
The first offering arrived at the Peregrine townhouse the next morning, drawing no small bit of attention.
Alexandra received a bouquet of storm lilies the next day.
And the day after that, a book of sonnets annotated in Magnus’s handwriting.
And on the forth day, a note:
I will never stop chasing the storm. Because it always leads me to you.
She folded the note and tucked it into her bodice, letting her fingers linger for a moment over the place it rested.
It was foolish, perhaps, but it felt like hope—soft and exhilarating and terrifying all at once.
In that moment, she understood, the journey had not been about evading love—it had been about learning to trust it, to trust herself.
A slow, sure smile curled across her lips—one of a promise made not just with words, but with the steady beating of two hearts finally aligned.