The words landed like a punch to the gut. I looked away, blinking the tears from my eyes.
“But what if he makes the wrong choice?” I was acutely aware of how small and pathetic I sounded.
“Which choice is the wrong one?” Peggy asked.
“If he chooses—” But I didn’t have the answer, and that was the problem. What was right for me wasn’t right for him.
Aunty Karma squeezed my forearm. “The strength of any marriage?—”
“We’re not married,” I muttered. “We’re not even engaged.”
She waved it away. “The strength of any marriage of souls is in the togetherness. Taking on everythingtogether. As a partnership.”
“That’s it,” Mum said. “You need to work together, otherwise you’re not really partners, you’re two people circulating in each other’s orbit.”
“So, you think I should…” I let the sentence trail off, inviting one of these witches to deliver their words of wisdom with a little more clarity.
“Talk to him, you bloody idiot,” Aunty Karma said.
“Ask him what he wants,” Mum said.
“You might be surprised,” Peggy added.
Imagine the power these women could summon if they’d brought their bloody cauldron.
The stable yard was quiet when I returned. The Old Coach House was empty; everyone had gone. The champagne bottle sat abandoned on the desk. Petey wasn’t in the folly either. Eventually, I found him in the East Drawing Room, curled up on the sofa with his laptop. He looked up when I entered, his eyebrows raised almost in a dare. The guilt made my chest ache.
“Hi,” I said, somewhat gingerly.
“Hi.”
I crossed the room and sat beside him on the sofa, resting a hand on his socked foot.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “For how I spoke to you. For trying to make decisions for you. For bringing up your father. All of it. I was freaking out. I’m sorry.”
Petey’s eyes softened. He closed his laptop and put it on the coffee table. “You pulled away from me. You’ve never done that before. You scared me, William.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I reached for his hand. “I was scared too.”
“About the interviews?”
“No. I mean, yes. But not really.” I took a deep breath. “I’m scared you’re leaving, and I don’t know how to ask you to stay. I love you, Petey. I want a future with you. I want you here, at Buckford, with me. Not because I need to protect you and I can do that here, but because I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
Petey’s thumb rubbed the back of my hand.
“I’ve been so happy here with you. It’s been magical. All of it.”
Hope flared in my chest—but then Petey wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“But I can’t stay. My whole career is in London. I’ve worked so hard for it. I can’t give it up. What if we don’t work out? Could you imagine? Then I’d have losteverything. My parents already think I’m a disaster.”
Sod his bloody parents. I wanted to tear strips off them for what they’d done to this beautiful man and his sense of himself and his place in the world.
“I’ve never wanted a future with anyone before,” he said. “Well, except for Timothée Chalamet, but that was a phase and a very confusing time.”
I nodded. “That movie has a lot to answer for.”
“No kidding. The point is, I never even let myself imagine a future with anyone until I met you. Now all I want is a future with you. But I can’t see how it works, how we can both be happy. We might have to do the long-distance thing for a while. See how it goes.” The thought of it killed me—but at least it wasn’t the end. He wasn’t giving up on us. That gave me hope. He must have seen the strain on my face. “Tackle the hard stuff, remember?”
