Wed at Leisure(The Taming Series)

CHAPTER SEVEN



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Several hours later, Peter stood in the entryway of Hopford Manor, unaccountably nervous. He was merely doing the polite thing. Calling on a family that had been dealt a renewed shock.

He hadn’t specified whom he had come to see, but it was Kate who descended the stairs, who led him to a parlor and invited him to sit.

“It is good of you to inquire, Your Grace. Thomas is recovering.”

Peter nodded. Took a deep breath. “What did the doctor say?”

“That it very well might reoccur. That there is no known cure. That sometimes the illness is a mild one, attacks terrifying but recoverable. Sometimes not.”

“Perhaps a specialist, someone in London.”

“Yes, perhaps.” Then she burst into tears. Understandably, she’d nearly lost her brother. Or at least, it had felt as though she were about to.


He reached for her, to draw her into his arms, offer comfort, but when his hand touched her arm, he realized how inappropriate his gesture was and retreated. She looked up at him, dark eyes luminous with tears.

“You think I’m overset because he nearly died,” she stated. Surprised, he nodded. “Of course, I am, but it isn’t that. It’s . . . it’s that we weren’t here before. It’s all very well and good to have a grand display of emotions, but we weren’t here. When it mattered, we didn’t come home. I think I went to a ball the night we received the letter that we might lose him. The Granville ball.”

He’d been there that night. If she had fretted, she had not worn her anxiety on the surface. At a loss, he waited silently to see what else she would say.

“Oh, I wanted to go home. But we had made social promises, and Henrietta thought it best to wait for the next letter. And that next letter said that he was making a recovery. So we put the entire incident out of mind.

“Only, I didn’t. I’ve been haunted by that decision for three long months, Peter.” She gestured to his hand, the one that had been outstretched but now hung limply by his side. “So, I don’t deserve your compassion.”

“He recovered,” he said simply, since he could not argue with her logic. In her place he would have felt an equal measure of guilt. “And you have learned from the choice you made.”

“Have I?” she asked.

He couldn’t answer that, of course. He hoped she had. Suspected she had. She was not someone who tripped through life oblivious. She felt . . . deeply. Or he thought she did.

“You asked about my sister earlier. The answer is much the same. I love her dearly but my entire childhood . . . I simply wished to have something to myself. A chance to not . . . compete.”

He laughed. “Compete with Bianca? You are nothing alike.” In his mind, there was no comparison. Yes, Bianca was pretty, and full of bright, voluptuous cheer. But Kate had that intensity, that air about her that drew one in, a moth to a flame, so to speak.

“You don’t know me,” she said, standing. Trained well, he stood, too. “You’ve been so kind and attentive since our ‘truce’ but I don’t understand why.”

And she clearly wanted to know. She had not asked a question but the space was there for him to fill nonetheless.

“I remember what you said, about your mother,” he said carefully, trying to say what he had only felt ten years earlier. “It is understandable that a child who feels unloved might desire it above all else as an adult.”

“I desire love?” She looked incredulous. He felt a bit hot under his cravat but having stepped into the mire, he could retreat or make his way through.

“To be loved,” he corrected. “Or at least the adoring attention of those around you. And if not adoring, then their attention regardless.”

“You have a peculiar theory on human desires.”

“I merely extrapolate.”

“You’ve said as much before, that your father . . . how ridiculous we sound, crying about things long since passed! My mother, your father? Who cares? They are both dead.”

But as much as he had to agree that the past was a reason but should no longer be an excuse, she looked like she did care.

“You are mistress of your own fate. You can choose who you wish to be.”

“You are revoltingly irritating!” She looked angry now. “Is this faradiddle your specialty? Perhaps you should have stayed at Cambridge as your father wished.”

Or perhaps he should have recognized that there were things one did not truly wish to hear, especially on the day one’s brother nearly died.

“As you say, it is long past.”

She pressed her lips together, looked about, and smoothed out her dress. “I should go. It really was kind of you to call.”

But the truth was different from the surface politeness of her words. She was dismissing him. So much for a truce.