She’s more than a possession. She’s my life.
Miranda had been curious about Rosa. “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 longerownedhis heart.
Miranda did.
“The first night… I told her music was my life,” Peter uttered mostly to himself.
“Brilliant way to begin a relationship.” Stone, who rarely sat in one place for long, punched the air with his right fist, dancing around restlessly as though fighting a ghost.
“I didn’t set out to begin a relation—”
“So, why did you court her then?” Stone stopped long enough to send him a hard stare.
Court her? Damn it, his brother was right. He hated when that happened.
But that was precisely what he’d done. He had courted her. He’d wanted her in his life since the moment he met her.
“Because I just knew. She was the one.” As much as the admission sounded like romantic drivel, it was true. “She loves me.” He plucked out an arpeggio. “At least she said she did the last time I saw her.”
Stone crossed the room to the window. Peter knew precisely what he saw. The old church across the road, a mercantile, and just beyond that, between the two large oaks that towered over the buildings, the sometimes blue, sometimes gray water in the Channel.
Hundreds of miles beyond that, the coast of France.
Stone rubbed the back of his neck. “My gut says finish what you’ve started here.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll keep an eye on her in London for you.”
Dare Peter hope she would meet him 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.
In the weeksthat followed Stone and his new wife’s departure from Brighton, Peter clung to the memory of Miranda’s reluctant declaration of love—a nod—and a single syllable spoken softly. As the air turned colder, his optimism was tested by more than a few occasional bouts of anxiety. And yet all he could do to endure their separation was practice and play—channel all those emotions into his music as he’d done in the past.
He’d 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?
It seemed that where love was concerned, his patience did not come as naturally.
His single-mindedness, however, 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 realization that he’d achieved one of the greatest honors he could have reached at this point of his career.
And… it was enough—enough to satisfy him as a musician.
It wasn’t enough to satisfy him as a man, as a person.
