Chapter 2
“These are the times that try men's souls.”
—Thomas Paine, The American Crisis
Peregrine watched Charity and her father, trying to give them privacy for their conversation. But their postures spoke as loudly as words. Charity was ramrod straight, eyes downcast. Cresswell flung his hands about as he spoke.
There was little respect showing, and Peregrine considered interrupting.
Lord Cresswell’s timing was terrible. Perry rather felt like a clock that had been over-wound. Or perhaps more like a row of buttons under strain, threatening to pop.
It had been only days since he had vowed to put himself on a path towards some sort of redemption.
To be—for Charity’s sake, if not his own—a better man.
But while the monster had been staring from the mask of his mother’s face, it forced him to ask himself whether he might be labouring under a delusion.
He was still a violent creature with questionable morals. How could he ever be more? Being a man worthy of Charity’s affection seemed impossible.
His mother’s soulless stare, devoid of anything light and human, had immediately torn the scales from his eyes. He was so na?ve. He could not cleave to the idea that he had the ability to achieve moral righteousness. Not when all his paths lead into darkness.
Not when he had contemplated strangling his own mother in front of Charity and the entire assembly of Allied Sovereigns.
He had weighed the act of murder against the evil of keeping his hands at his sides. And in the end… he had chosen again to stay silent. To do nothing, which let his mother continue with her plans and put innocents at risk.
It had been an echo of the choice he had made before, when he had been torn between justice for Grenville and letting his mother bind him with the secret.
If he struck down his mother that way—even if it was the right thing to do—he would lose everything.
His sister. The respect of the ton. His life. And Charity.
He believed he had made the wrong choice before, when Grenville had died by his hand. He thought he had been prepared to pay the price if given a second chance to set things right. But again, he had shied away.
Perry had let his mother go—again—because this time, he did not want to give up all possibility of a life with Charity. He couldn’t bear the idea that she would look at him and see another monster. One capable of murdering his own mother.
Why did he have to make this choice between two versions of damnation? Why did wanting to keep Charity’s regard feel like such a selfish desire? It made him furious.
And left him blackly hopeless.
As if to further prove his unworthiness, he considered punishing Cresswell for his disrespect to his daughter. A parent shouldn’t cause such pain to someone who loved them.
Perry held onto his temper as the man pushed past him without a word of acknowledgement. Even though the skin of his knuckles itched as though they demanded to be put to use on the lord’s face.
Charity’s father stalked back inside without a glance backwards, and though it was a struggle, Perry let him go, too. Physical harm to Cresswell would go as poorly as it would against his mother. Even if the man was being a colossal prig.
Peregrine turned his eyes back towards the duchess, noticing she had failed to mask her feelings. Seeing her struggle made it possible for him to slam the door shut on his own issues.
“Charity,” he called to her, striding towards her and sweeping her into his arms once he checked to make sure her father was really gone.
She burrowed into his chest without even looking to see if others were nearby, which said a great deal about her state of mind. He could feel the way she trembled along the entire length of his body, which again made him want to set her aside and chase down Cresswell.
“Easy, Sparkles,” he whispered in her ear. He slowed his breathing, hoping it would calm her. At least it would rein in his own racing pulse and cool his own savage temper. He hoped.
“Why must I choose?” Charity’s voice was almost inaudible. “I do not want to have to choose this.”
“What must you choose?” he asked softly, stroking his cheek against hers.
She was silent for so long, he began to wonder if she would answer.
“Even if we did not have to contend with your mother… What if my parents will never let the past go? Or if they will never accept the idea of us together? What if they are never willing to set aside the fact that you are Lord Fitzroy and acknowledge we care for one another? Must I choose between having you in my life and having my family?”
He did not possess the answer to this dilemma either. “There must be a solution, Charity. Just breathe. It will be all right.”
She said nothing. But there was something about her stiffness, the downward cast of her eyelashes.
Unspoken disagreement. A denial so plain, he could almost hear her unspoken words. Will it?
Perry swallowed. There was a sour taste of defeat on his tongue. A second sharp sense of loss.
This day’s events had wounded them more brutally than he dared to admit. Their lives were in danger, again. His soul might be irredeemable. And Charity had fallen back into a confrontation with her own inner demon: Fate.
Even if Charity chose to fight against the forces tearing them apart, even if his mother was dealt with, it might be a pyrrhic victory if choosing each other cost her everything. She had been shaken so badly. Was she no longer sure they would keep themselves from being sundered?
She was already mourning their end. That was breaking his heart.
“Do not lose your faith, darling.” Peregrine let his lips graze the glory of her hair, letting one hand slide down into the small of her back. “Don’t give up on me already.”
She shuddered, her breathing rough. “Do I have a choice not to? Why are we being punished, Perry?” She clung to him as though he were at risk of being ripped away. “Every time we find a moment of happiness, something snatches it from our grasp. Is it hubris? A curse?”
“Are there no other possibilities? Might there be a purpose to our pain? There is bad blood three generations deep between our families. What if we have been set to this task because only we can set this quarrel right?”
“It hurts to keep fighting to be here, with you,” she admitted softly. “To keep believing that we can persevere when it seems like everything is against us. Sometimes I wonder if we will ever have peace.”
Perry cupped her jaw with his spare hand, tipping her face to his.
Her eyes were dull and rimmed with red, but she met his gaze.
He buried his own pain deeply as he brought his lips down to rest against her brow, trying to quiet the dark whispers in her mind.
Charity seemed unable to find her way free of hopelessness, and if they couldn’t help one another, they would both be truly lost.
“Please always fight for me. Do not surrender to such shadowy thoughts when the sun may yet rise, Sparkles. And—don’t be afraid of my mother. I will burn down the world to protect you. You know that.”
She jerked her chin away, burrowing her face against his shoulder. “I’m not afraid for myself, Perry.”
No, she was afraid she would lose him. He let his eyes close, his arm curling around her waist, fingers sinking into the silk.
Orange and the scent of Charity’s hair, the fading smell of joy, rose from the circle of his arms. She was pressed against him, head to ankle.
The sound of her breathing, the tripping beat of her heart against his chest—it threatened to become his entire world.
The sound of conversation trickled outside through the window glass, a slow leak of poison that kept him from sinking fully into the dream.
“As long as we seek one another, nothing will keep us apart,” he said softly, reminding her of her own words. “Not in this life, or the next.”
Charity shivered. Granted, perhaps his reminder of the next life was not a comforting thought right now. Not when Death herself had wished him a happy birthday.
“Question or command?” she asked, her voice muffled slightly.
His arms tightened. “Ask me your question.”
“When we were in the townhouse, you asked me if things would stay the same if we went back a year. Do you regret this? Would you undo it if you could? It is one thing to face my unhappy parents. But your mother—”
“No, Sparkles. There are no regrets. Well, that might not be strictly true. I do regret the moments of unhappiness. But I would still let them happen over and over again, exactly the same as they happened before.”
“...Really?” She sniffled. “Why not change the pain?”
Perry tucked her head beneath his chin and lifted her left hand in his right, folding their fingers together, palm pressing against palm.
It was hard to find the right words. “When it comes to you, I cannot help but be selfish. I would walk the same steps, again and again, just to make sure that I will always find my way here. To you, and this moment.”
Her fingers bit into his flesh through the clothing. “I am so sorry, Perry. I knew my parents were going to be displeased… but I thought they would relent once they saw I was happy.”
Perry wondered if he should warn her now about the last family secret.
His mother was not the only one who would have been happy to see him dead.
Her mother had managed to bribe people, ensuring he was sent to the most dangerous fronts last year as little more than a common infantryman.
Lady Cresswell had been the one who had him sent to the Nive.
“Question or command?” he asked her.
It took her a moment to decide. “Question.”
“If I knew another secret about our families, would you want to be told?”
Charity seemed reluctant to hear it. “Would it cause a problem if it stayed a secret?”
The truth would come out sooner or later. But he did not want to burden Charity with unwanted knowledge. “No more than it already has,” he hedged.