Chapter 11
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
—Oliver Goldsmith
Between the good roads and an early start after a restless night at the inn, Peregrine was back at the estate an hour or so before noon. He managed a quick refresh and was still changing his clothing when Quinn came and found him with his valet.
“My lord, forgive the interruption, but the Duchess of Atholl is downstairs looking to speak with you.”
“Already?” Peregrine was stunned. He hadn’t expected her to return to London until the afternoon. For her to arrive practically on his heels from Windsor, she would have left very early. Whatever could have happened at the Frogmore dinner? “Is she…”
“Her Grace appears upset,” Quinn confirmed, folding his hands together. “I took the liberty of settling her in the drawing room.”
Silently, Croft decided on the simplest knot for his cravat and Peregrine strode out the door the moment it was tied. His flummoxed valet was left behind, still holding his coat.
Downstairs, Charity was hunched in on herself, almost like she was in pain. It made Perry angry enough to want to make someone bleed. “Charity?” he asked, holding onto his temper. “Did someone at Frogmore harm you?”
“No,” she whispered, letting her head fall into her hands. “No one hurt me.”
Peregrine closed the distance, holding out his hands to her. But she stared at them miserably, refusing to meet his eyes. “I have done something terrible. Something incredibly stupid.”
Whatever it was that had happened, she needed bracing more than kindness. “Get to your feet, Sparkles. Or else I will get down on my knees to have this conversation. What will you?”
Finally she looked up, eyes puffy and shadowed as though she hadn’t slept a wink. She had been crying. Cursing, he reached down and pulled her to her feet, taking her to the couch instead where they could sit together.
“Tell me what happened.”
The dam broke, and she quietly confessed everything. From the moment she had left his side at Ascot onwards. Patiently, he listened, holding Charity’s hand in his even though she tried at first to pull away.
Even before she got to the end of her story, it was easy to guess what happened.
“I shouldn’t have said anything. It wasn’t my place.” Charity tried to get up—to pace, presumably. “I’m afraid I may have made the Queen our enemy.”
“Charity.” Peregrine held her fast, looking up at her.
“She is wroth because she is wrong, and she knows that you spoke the truth. William will be a terrible king, and you were the only one who could tell her. It was more important that she hear the truth than be told flattering lies. It was a hard thing to do—but I agree with you. It was the right thing.”
“Well, the truth meant she asked the Archbishop to withhold the special licence.” She looked drawn. Did she imagine he would be upset with her?
Perry gave her a gentle, wicked look. “Perhaps I should tell you why Prinny objected to the licence at first. He did not think marriage was a requirement for… delighting in each other’s company.”
“That man would think such a thing,” Charity replied tartly, blushing. “Still, Perry… I ruined our wedding. I feel awful about it.”
Peregrine pulled her down beside him again, pressing a kiss to her temple. And then he twined his arms around her tightly. Petulant sovereigns were not her fault.
“A delay, that is all. She may have blocked the licence, but she cannot stop us from getting married. You and I could leave for Gretna Green at any time we wanted to. Right now, even. Do you want to go?”
It was a jest more than an offer, but he felt the way Charity tensed. She wanted to throw her cap over the windmill and say yes. She really did. “We shouldn’t,” Charity admitted after a long pause. “We can’t ignore our duties or your mother.”
He smiled ruefully, and together they sat in stillness for a long moment, losing themselves in the sound of one another’s breath. Until his mother was defeated, they were in limbo. Existing only for the moment.
This was no way to live. Hope required having something worth fighting for. So far, they had barely been able to think about life beyond ‘tomorrow.’
It was time to change that.
Charity looked up in surprise when he stood, tugging her hand. “Come on, Sparkles,” he cajoled her. “Forget the Queen. She will either admit she made a mistake, or she won’t. In the meantime, you and I have other things to do.”
“We—we do?”
“It does not matter if we marry tomorrow. Sooner or later, you will be my wife,” he murmured to her, drawing her close. His chest warmed at the thought of them bound together in every way. “All of this will be yours as well as mine. And you’ve not even had a proper tour of the house.”
“Oh.” She let out a small, shaky laugh, reluctant.
“I hate this place too,” he confessed. There were a lot of unpleasant memories here—for both of them—but it was time to begin healing them together. “She left her mark on every room.”
“Are there no happy recollections for you here?”
“A few, far distant ones, from before school. Catching fireflies with my father. A dog we used to have. My father fell sick the year I went away. I didn’t know why, then, but I do now.
” He gave her a sideways look. “While I was away, my mother began slowly poisoning him to death, and that tainted a lot of what came after.”
“Oh, Perry…” Charity turned to face him, resting her hand on his chest. “I should have guessed how you felt about this place. Why else take me to the townhouse?”
“Don’t fret. I am just… tired of thinking that I sleep in the room where he died.
I stare at the chairs my mother put in his study afterwards.
I want to let the bad memories go. I want something for us.
Let us transform this into a happy place.
I cannot think of a more fitting revenge to have upon my mother. ”
The corners of her mouth turned up slightly. “All right. First… we should decide whether or not we should burn her things on the lawn.”
He laughed.
It felt strange to talk about inanities like colours, furniture, and draperies. But it also felt good, like a slow stretch of cramped muscles. They had never had a chance to indulge in the chatter of courting couples before. This was… nice.
Perry slipped away to have a quiet word with Quinn while they made their way through the first floor. As they moved slowly from the maintained public spaces towards the family suite, a coil of tension began to grow in his stomach. A sense of nervous anticipation rising.
“You have already seen the adjoining rooms. But there is one other important place to show you here, I think,” he said quickly, reaching around Charity to turn the knob.
Quinn had slipped inside long enough to remove the dust cloths from the furniture, opening the windows to let in fresh air. And the duchess stopped, stock-still in the doorway, looking into the nursery. A room that had been closed up since Lark had left it.
They had never discussed children. Not even in the casual way men and women usually discussed such things. He did not know whether she had given up all thought of having a family of her own when she tied herself to Atholl.
Peregrine certainly had, when he had gained his majority. He had denied even the possibility of marriage for so long that Charity was opening the sluice gates of his imagination.
The air was charged. And Charity was quiet so long that Perry wondered if perhaps she was unready for this discussion. Gingerly, he encircled her with his arms, hanging his chin over her shoulder. Unsure if his touch right now was welcome.
A strange, wistful yearning twisted in his breast. They looked at an empty room, but he saw the future.
Charity carrying his child. Happiness on her face and bundled in her arms. A small legacy of a defiant tendre created by the both of them.
The only true immortality that man was granted in this world.
Peregrine let his hand splay across her lower belly, imagining it swollen with life beneath his fingers. Daydreaming about feeling it quicken beneath his hands. “Not yet. But… maybe someday?”
“Someday,” she finally agreed, her voice sounding thick with emotion. “Someday I would like this very much.”
A drop of wetness fell on his hand. He pulled her tighter against his chest, content to be still. This day was theirs. They should seize this moment, and every other. Time was already cruelly fleeting.
And as the emotions tumbled through his breast, suddenly Peregrine thought of something else he had been wanting to do. “Will you let me try to paint you?”
For a while, art had been an outlet. A voice for the things he couldn’t allow himself to say, or want, or think. But the pleasure in it had withered, and finally gone dormant last spring.
He had locked his work away to gather dust, and hadn’t touched a brush since then. But Charity was rekindling that spark of desire. She reminded him that applying pigments to the canvas was more than just a hobby. For too long, painting had been the only place he was free to feel.
And perhaps she was a muse, after all. He was ready to experience that again.
“Paint me—now?”
He pressed his mouth against the back of her neck, smiling. “Unless you’ll only sit for me once, in which case I had better practice more.”
She prodded him smartly with her elbow, and then wiped at her face. “But, now? I must look like a disaster.”
“I will be certain to have a word with the artist to make sure he only shows your best qualities,” Peregrine teased her. “Although I have to warn you, he might be terrible at his work.”
She huffed at him. “He is not.”
“He appreciates your misplaced loyalty. Would you be loyal still if you knew he also has the strangest urge to paint you when you’ve wrapped yourself up in all his blankets?”
“Goodness. You do not.” Charity spun in his arms, scowling up at him.
Perry let his forehead press against hers, their noses touching. “I do, too.”
“Why!”