Peter exhaled and then strolled back and sat down with Rosa again. He drew the bow across the thickest string, extending out a long note with an abundance of vibrato. His brother settled onto the well-worn divan at the opposite end of the room. How often had they had conversations just like this, Peter practicing and Stone lounging comfortably, staring up at the ceiling? Their lives were changing. Not only his, but good Lord. Stone had a wife now!
He stared across the room with an apologetic grimace.
Stone suspected a change in him, and he wasn’t wrong.
Because…
Peter was coming to realize that music, playing the cello, was not the only thing he wanted from life. And unfortunately, Sir Bickford-Crowden was already hinting he’d invite Peter to tour with him. What was that old saying? Be careful what you wish for?
Peter’s gut clenched.
The thought of spending a year traveling with a man who barked his instructions and had never learned any proper manners, placing practice and study above everything, both inanimate and living, sounded less and less appealing every day. His mentor was a man who was adulated most everywhere he went. He expected similar devotion of all who dwelt in his realm.
And yet, Sir William was not a happy person. He rarely smiled and had not laughed even once in Peter’s presence.
Peter didn’t like the man and had no desire to spend the next few years in his proximity. Even more importantly though, he didn’t want to become him—an angry, sad, and lonely musician.
Peter loved playing, he loved making music, but that didn’t necessitate that he turn his back on everything else important to him. It didn’t oblige him to abandon love.
Miranda—his one true chance at happiness.
“I want to marry her.” He didn’t care that she was barren. He didn’t care about her past with Chase or with anyone else. “I want to take her to Essex and make our home together at Millcot Lodge. More than anything, I want to spend my life with her.”
Stone turned where he sat, rested his elbows on his knees, and then stared intently across the room at him. “Then I support you in that decision. But I think accomplishing that is going to require patience on your part.”
Peter winced. Because his brother’s thoughts confirmed his own—even though he wanted nothing more than pack up and drive up to London that very day. “But—”
“As far as I know, she isn’t going anywhere,” Stone said. “But Natalie says Lady Starling is particularly concerned about your career. And anxious to hear that you are making the most of this,” he burst off the settee and gestured around the room, “opportunity.”
What did that mean? Peter’s own words taunted him.
She’s more than a possession. She’s my life.
Miranda hadn’t understood why he’d named his instruments. “But it, pardon me, she, is replaceable. She’s an inanimate object—wood, metal, glue.”
She owns my heart, He’d told her.
His music was a part of him. A part of his soul, of his heart.
But it no longer owned his heart.
Miranda did.
“The first night… I told her music was my life,” Peter uttered mostly to himself.
“Brilliant way to start a relationship.” Stone punched the air with his right fist, dancing around restlessly as though fighting a ghost.
Peter grunted. “I didn’t set out to—”
“So, why did you court her then?” He stopped long enough to send Peter a hard stare.
He’d argue with his brother, but that was precisely what he’d done.
“Because I just knew.” As much as the admission sounded like romantic drivel, it was true. “She loves me.” He plucked out an arpeggio.” At least, I think she loves me. How do I get her to admit that?”
Stone crossed the room to the window. Peter knew precisely what he saw. The old church, a mercantile, and just beyond that, between the two large oaks, the sometimes blue, sometimes grey water in the channel.
Hundreds of miles beyond that, the coast of France.
Stone rubbed the back of his neck. “My gut says to finish what you’ve started here.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll keep an eye on her in London.
Dare Peter hope she would be at the hotel when he returned at Christmastime?
Early that last morning, after handing Miranda into her carriage, relinquishing her into the capable hands of her protector and manservant, Peter had gone back into the hotel and reserved room number eight again. Feeling optimistic, he’d paid for two nights: Christmas Eve and Christmas night.
In the event she showed up, he would want to have her all to himself for more than one night before traveling to Raven’s Park and presenting her to his parents as his betrothed.
And in the event she did not show, he would have the room to himself where he could drown his sorrows without fear of being interrupted or caught looking forlorn and lovesick by any of his London pals.
The second scenario was unthinkable. He couldn’t envision the remainder of his life without her.
Long after Stone and his new wife departed Brighton, and as the air turned colder, his optimism was tested by more than a few occasional bouts of anxiety. And yet all he could do for now was practice and play—channel all those emotions into his music.
Peter had always considered himself something of a patient, enduring person. How else could he have spent hours contorting his fingers and wrist so that they obeyed his brain or days on end practicing the same stanza over and over again?
Where love was concerned, however, patience did not come naturally.
Which apparently impressed Sir Bickford-Crowden to no end.
One week before the apprenticeship was scheduled to end, the master musician invited Peter into his office, handed him a cigar, and directed him to sit down.
“I’ve been pleased with the progress you’ve made under my tutelage,” he said, his eyes squinted beneath his single bushy eyebrow. “And as you are aware, I’m scheduled to play in the world’s grandest venues over the coming year. Paris, Rome, Athens, and Vienna. I have chosen you to travel with me. You will accompany me on the tour and perform alongside me when the occasion demands it.”
Peter sat up straight, reeling from the knowledge that he’d achieved one of the greatest honors he could have reached for at this point of his career. It was enough to satisfy him musically.
It wasn’t enough to satisfy him as a man, as a person.
Peter realized that he wasn’t being asked; he was being told. If he passed this opportunity up, nothing like it would ever come again.
He would be relegated to playing in London occasionally, for his mothers’ friends at their balls, at the occasional society benefit. But he would have essentially have already peaked in his field. He’d have drawn the disapproval of the most lauded man in this business.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”
Chapter 9
Waiting
“Welcome home, Mr. Peter! We didn’t expect you’d make the trip in this weather. I wouldn’t plan on making it to Raven’s Park by Christmas this year, not unless this storm lets up overnight.” Mr. Thomas, his parents’ butler at Burtis Hall, pushed the door closed behind Peter, silencing the blistering wind and swirling snow.
Nothing short of a blizzard at least ten times this violent would have kept him from making it back to London in time for Christmas Eve, even though the journey had already taken him three times as long as it ought to have.
But he had made it with time to spare and not lost a single appendage to frostbite.
Today was the twenty-third. He would purchase a ring and flowers for her tomorrow morning before checking into the hotel and settling in for what he hoped wouldn’t turn out to be the greatest disappointment of his life.
“I think there must be three feet of the white stuff outside.” He was exaggerating, but the butler merely laughed with a twinkle in his eyes as Peter handed over his scarf, hat, and gloves.
Peter smiled gratefully before turning to climb the stairway to the main part of the house. The manor felt unusually quiet; most of his family and all but for skeletal staff were spending the holidays at Raven’s Park.
He wasn’t worried about telling his parents of his decision to marry Miranda. His father might have a few questions, but where push came to shove, he’d never failed to support his children when they’d maid less than conventional choices.
They’d hardly blinked when his oldest brother, Rome, married a woman who’d spent most of her adult life working as a lady’s maid, nor when his youngest brother married after barely reaching his majority. And his father had encouraged Natalie to marry Hawthorne, despite discovering that the man’s deceased father had been a murderer.
Other gentlemen might happily leave their families to travel to exotic places and see the world, but Peter had realized he was content to be the favorite uncle to his nieces and nephews, a friend to his brothers and sisters and their spouses, and a comfort to his parents.
Life was too short to live far from the people who loved you.
Miranda would gain his entire family when they married.
He stepped into his familiar chamber, which had been dusted in preparation for his return home, and moved across the room to stare out the window.
Would she be there? For seven months, he’d wondered. He’d waffled between fearing the worst and imagining a future with the woman who, he truly believed, was destined for him.
Peter’s gut clenched. Even if Miranda did not meet him at the hotel as he’d hoped, as he wished for with all of his heart, he’d find a way to make her his. If she didn’t want him, he was going to need to hear it from her own lips.
She had been correct in that they’d barely had a chance to know one another, but not in that he hadn’t known her. Because he had. In every way that mattered. He knew her heart, her soul, her needs, and her dreams. He knew them, he dared to think, almost better than she did.
Because she’d given him a glimpse into her soul, into her heart.
And then he’d handed over his.
He only hoped she was brave enough to keep it. And that she could trust him enough to give him hers in return.
“No one else has checked in, sir. But the room has been prepared, just as you requested, Mr. Spencer.” The hotelier handed Peter the familiar key. It was early yet, barely four in the afternoon. She wouldn’t have come yet.
And the weather, he was certain, wouldn’t be enough to keep her away. Meeting the love of your life after several months’ absence was not the sort of decision a person put off because of a few snowflakes.
“My thanks.” Peter removed his hat before climbing the stairs, noticing the oddly familiar paintings in the corridor as well as the scent of lemon oil and wax hovering in the air.
For an instant, recollections replaced anticipation and nervousness.
The door opened easily, and he stepped inside as memories rose up to taunt him. All the doubts he’d done his best to dismiss assaulted him in that moment, leaving his knees feeling weak and settling a queasy feeling in his gut.
In the corner, the tray he’d ordered awaited him. Meats, cheese, fruits, pickled vegetables, and bread along with a bottle of champagne sat ready to be consumed in celebration.
He removed his jacket and waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
Chapter 10
You Didn’t Come
Miranda glanced at the clock on the mantel, a lump of regret clogging her throat. He would be there by now. She knew he’d arrived in town late the day before. Tabetha Spencer had corresponded with her regularly and likely, without meaning to, had kept Miranda informed of Peter’s progress.
But she could not go to the Mivart tonight.
She had nearly changed her mind a thousand times. She would simply tell him… She wouldn’t even have to do that. One look at her and he’d know… Contemplating the resulting aftermath, she had just as quickly decided to stay home.
Setting her knitting needles aside, she closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temple.
It was possible he had not gone to the hotel. Or that he’d gone, and finding the room empty, had been relieved and just as quickly left.
Sir Bickford-Crowden had selected him for the tour.
Not that it was supposed to be public knowledge, but Tabetha was not a lady to keep something so noteworthy to herself.
Miranda lowered her hand to her heart and rubbed her fist over it, as though doing so could relieve her emotional pain. She would not be the barrier that kept him from pursuing such an incredible opportunity.
Knocking sounded from below, and then voices and shuffling footsteps. Miranda straightened her spine, panicked into arranging the blanket she was knitting very carefully to cover her lap.
“I’ll inform her you’re here, sir. Please wait downstairs—”
But before Herman could complete his request, the door burst open. Peter’s presence, energy, and light filled the room.
“I’m so sorry, My Lady.” Herman shot Peter a disgusted glance. “He refused to wait.”
“I suppose he’s waited long enough.” She sighed. “Would you be so kind as to have tea sent up for Mr. Spencer and me?” She should have had a missive delivered to the hotel.
But that had not been part of their bargain.
“If you are quite certain.” Herman met her gaze, and when she nodded, he backed out and closed the door behind him.
Leaving her alone with Peter.
He was as beautiful as ever, but there was something different. Did he appear older? Dark shadows etched beneath his eyes—eyes that burned with…
Determination.
Confidence emanated from him. It was as though his success over the summer had filled him with a greater purpose. Something he’d lacked the last time she’d seen him. She doubted that anything could keep him from achieving his dreams. Seeing it made her proud but also left her feeling bereft.
“Would you care to sit down?” She made a dismal attempt at sounding airy, staying seated as she gestured to a tall cushioned chair placed across from where she sat on the settee.
Noting his cheeks, ruddy from the cold, Miranda resisted the urge to burst out of her seat and throw herself into his arms.
Peter shook his head, giant snowflakes clinging to his sable hair and the shoulders of his greatcoat. He pinned his gaze on her accusingly. “You didn’t come.”
Miranda’s heart jumped at the sound of his voice. She pinched her mouth into a thin line to keep from answering. Of course, she had not gone. She would have ruined everything for him if she had.
His brows lowered. “You didn’t come.”
She ought to have asked Herman to take Peter’s coat and scarf, and the hat he held in his hand. But she shouldn’t invite his company any longer than necessary. She craved it. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and bury her face in his chest. And then tilt back her head so he could claim her lips with his.
She had so much she wanted to share with him.
But it was impossible.
Rather than sit where she indicated, he crossed the room and lowered himself beside her. Not quite touching but close enough that she felt both the cold from his coat and the intensity of his emotions.
“I understand you were quite the success in Brighton.” She would pretend there was no greater significance to his visit. She would pretend her heart wasn’t breaking.
She was allowing him the opportunity to explain that he would be touring throughout the year. She was allowing him a graceful retreat from his brash declaration last spring.
He waved a hand through the air and shrugged. “It was satisfying, but I’m glad it’s over.”
<
br /> “But Sir Bickford-Crowden selected you.” He ought to be excited. “It is only the beginning.”
“How did you know—?” He tilted his head and then understanding dawned. “My mother.”
“Lady Tabetha.” She dropped her gaze to her hands. “Congratulations. It’s a tremendous honor.”
He had turned to face her, his knees touching hers. If she could only reach out and take his hand, feel that connection if only for a second.
It would never be enough.
“It is a great honor, indeed.” His voice rumbled beside her. “Or it would have been, rather… but I declined.”
Miranda blinked away the inconvenient stinging in her eyes. “How exciting it must be—you what?” She jerked her chin up. Did he just say he had… declined?
“It wasn’t what I wanted.” He gave her a sad smile. “After spending half a year doing nothing but practicing, playing, and composing, as well as a string of ridiculous exercises in order to prove myself, I realized that it wasn’t what I wanted. I love my music. I will always love making music. But it isn’t the only thing I want in life.” Peter scrubbed a hand down his face, and she couldn’t help but hold his gaze. “Never have I met a more miserable person than Sir William Bickford-Crowden. Personally, I want more.”
Miranda was stunned, her heart suddenly racing. “What more do you want?” Because she was not imagining that determined look on his face.
He’d come here tonight with a purpose.
“I want you.” His throat moved, as though he was swallowing a difficult emotion. “I want us.”
When she didn’t respond, he continued, “I like playing music for myself, for my mother’s friends occasionally.” His words lit a fire inside of her. “I loved playing for you. I don’t need an international audience. I don’t require the accolades. I know that our time together was short, but it was long enough for me to know you are the other half of my soul. Long enough for me to know I want the two of us to be together forever.”
Mayfair Maiden: Eighth Day of Christmas: A Lord Love A Lady Novella (Regency Cocky Gents Book 4) Page 7
