“You don’t need to call meYour Grace,” Prudence told him. “You’re Leonard’s brother. You and I are family in a way. And besides… I would say that the two of us have been through enough together by now that we can call one another…”
“Call each other what?” Peter smiled wryly. “Were you going to say that we’re friends?”
“Perhaps we are,” Prudence told him. “It’s been a long time since the day I confronted you on a balcony. At the very least, we’re co-conspirators, aren’t we?”
“Yes, I think that much is fair to say,” Peter said. “And as your co-conspirator, I think it’s time I was honest with you about some things I’ve been keeping to myself up until now.”
“What do you mean?” Prudence asked.
“May I come in? I’ve had a bit of a journey to get here.”
“Oh yes, of course, come in, sit down. There’s more than enough food,” she said. “The staff has been preparing enough to feed a family of four since Leonard left. I think they’re worried about keeping my spirits up, bless them. So, there’s plenty here for you and me. Help yourself to anything.”
“That’s kind,” Peter said, taking some toast and a few pieces of bacon. “I wonder where to begin.”
“You’d know better than I would,” Prudence told him. “Seeing as I have no idea what you’ve come here to say to me.”
“Yes. Well, you know I didn’t want to marry you,” Peter began.
Prudence laughed. “You know how to spare a lady’s feelings.”
“Forgive me if that’s too blunt…”
“Not at all,” Prudence assured him. “I didn’t want to marry you either. I suppose it’s fair for the two of us to speak openly about it since we’ve been doing that right from the start.”
“I agree,” Peter said. “But what you might not be aware of is myreasonfor not wishing to marry. It had nothing to do with you.”
“No, I didn’t think it did,” Prudence agreed. “I assumed that you wanted to remain single in order to keep your freedom.”
“Not exactly. You see, I’m in love with someone else,” he told her.
Prudence couldn’t have been more surprised if he had told her he was selling hats in the marketplace. “You’re in love?”
“Yes. It took me a very long time to realize it. I don’t think I fully did realize it when Leonard tried to arrange our wedding. I only knew that something about it felt very wrong—felt impossible to bear. The thought of being married to you felt like a trap closing around me. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the lady I would be giving up. But I realized that far too late.”
“It’s the lady I saw you with, isn’t it?” Prudence murmured. “Out on the balcony. The lady you were with when I confronted you. She’s your love, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know if I can rightly call her that. She’s not mine in any sense, nor would she be if I asked her. If I asked heragain, thatis. I’ve gone to her. I’ve confessed my feelings. She wants nothing to do with me, and I don’t blame her for that because the truth is that I have been an awful rake. Everything you must believe about me is true, and the change in me has come far too late to make me worthy of my love.”
“That’s awful,” Prudence murmured.
“Is it? You have a lot of sympathy, given that I have never shown you any particular kindness, Prudence. Why are you being so good to me?”
“As I said, I suppose I consider you to be a brother,” Prudence said. “And besides, if you’ve been to see Leonard, and you know how things stand between the two of us, then you know friends are something I have in short supply these days.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“What’s more, I understand something of what you must be going through—thinking you wanted one thing, only to realize that you wanted another,” she said. “It’s a struggle I’ve dealt with myself in recent days.”
He nodded. “It’s good to know that someone can relate to the way I’m feeling,” he said. “And it’s especially good that it’s you, I think.”
“Why is that especially good?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve been thinking over our situations. Both of our plans seem to have turned out rather badly,” he observed. “Your marriage to Leonard isn’t what you hoped it would be. Is that fair to say.”
“More than fair, I think.”
“And my own romantic endeavors are clearly going badly. So, I think the best thing to do is to rethink the marriage we both began by rejecting,” he said. “What if you and I were to marry after all? We have much in common. What once seemed like a mistake to both of us might be for the best after all. It might prove to be a way for both of us to be happy. I think I could enjoy a life with you, Prudence.”
