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“I know, my love, just give us a moment.” Petra gave her husband a warm, placating smile and Wolf stopped pacing. He did not sit back down, but leaned against the mantel as he watched his wife with a lupine intensity that begat his namesake.

“Why do you need information on Barrymore, my lord?” Petra asked softly, her voice barely audible over the hiss of the fire at the hearth.

“I gave him the deed to a property that is…that was very important to me as collateral for a loan.”

Petra’s brows furrowed. “And you wish for it back?”

James swallowed, allowing the truth to sink into his bones. “I did. For me, it symbolized something. Something lost from childhood that one does not get back. But…I’ve come to realize that the price was too steep. I wish for it back so that I may use the funds to help my wife.”

“The wife you didn’t want?” Wolf asked from the hearth, but Petra held up a hand.

James said nothing to that but gripped his fingers together. He had complained to Wolf about his marriage over the years, had he not? Hell, Mariah did not deserve that.

Across from him, Petra did not move. “That is not true, is it?”

James ducked his head. Throughout his decades on the earth, he had seldom found it necessary to articulate the workings of his own heart. Yet, something in the manner of Lady Wolfridge, a woman so remarkably distinct from the polished mannequins of the ton, suggested she might offer a sanctuary for his confession.

So he shook his head.

“But she is not here with you. In London.”

He shook his head again, his eyes burning. “I do not know if she will ever be with me again. I…hurt her. I ruined something precious to her. And…I thought my lost dreams were more important than hers. So much that I did not even acknowledge the possibility that she had dreams beyond being Lady St. George.”

Petra nodded sadly. “It is the great sin of many gentlemen of our age not to acknowledge that women are capable of dreaming beyond marriage. Look at all that women like Miss Nightingale or Mrs. Seacole have done.”

“Mrs. Gaskell.” Wolf added, returning to sit by his wife again, who gave him a small smile before the viscount turned back to James. “Listen old chap, I’m sorry I said you did not want your wife. I had thought it was a marriage of convenience only.”

“So did I,” James admitted. “But then I saw her, really saw all of her, and she was more beautiful than all of my lost dreams combined.”

“Oh,” Petra sighed, her large eyes growing slightly glassy. “Do you mind if I write that down?”

James blinked at her as she rose and scurried to a table with several papers and graphite strewn about.

Turning back toward James, Wolf gave a Gallic shrug. “I am going to offer something to you in confidence: My wife and I share a great love of the genre of mystery, and she has taken to writing herself in the hope of raising more funds for her sanctuary. Although I would happily give everything I have to her, I think she rather enjoys it.”

Exhaling with a smile, Petra returned to them. “My apologies, my lord, I heard my husband share my pastime. Although I do not write of love or romance a great deal, I could not help but document such a lovely sentiment for future writings.”

“Writings…” His thoughts drifted to the letters he had read before a different hearth, his wife’s words telling the legend of Grace O’Malley. “As a writer, what would you like more than anything, my lady?”

“I do not know if I consider myself a great writer…” Lady Wolfridge began before her husband growled.

“Petra, do not disparage yourself.” Wolf practically growled. “You had enough of that from Kemberley.”

The two shared a gaze so intimate that James forced himself to look away before Lady Wolfridge began again.

“Very well, then as a writer, I suppose I would like time and space most of all. I am always being pulled about by so many places and people. My mind has been all topsy-turvy, especially of late.”

“Time and space to write.” James sat back in his chair as puzzle pieces began aligning inside his mind.

“What I was trying to say before my husband growled at me is that I enjoy writing, but it was not my dream. I am not sure if I feel it deep in my soul.” Lady Wolfridge’s large brown eyes bore into him. “Your wife, I am guessing writing is in her soul?”

“Yes,” He could not stop the crack in his voice.

“But you feel that you have harmed her so badly, she would not wish to see you again?”

Before James could answer, Wolf spoke. “You cannot have done worse than I did, St. George.”

Petra looked between the two men before she swiveled toward James. “From hearing your story, my lord, my conclusion is that you must fight for your wife. For her dreams. Whether that is writing, or disposing of Mr. Barrymore.”