“My turn.” I shifted closer. I had not before noticed the faintest hint of freckles along his nose. They were a perfectly imperfect asset to his otherwise flawless countenance. “What is your favorite fruit?”
Peter did not hesitate. “Blackberries. As long as you are there to eat more than I do.” I playfully shoved his shoulder, and he smirked. “Otherwise, apples. We have thirteen or so rows of trees that span the back of my estate. They are beautiful in the fall, and my cook makes the best apple pie you’ll ever taste.”
“That sounds wonderful. But I shall have to wait an entire season to try it.” I feigned a scowl.
“I’ll invite you for the first one, I promise,” he said matter-
of-factly. A comfortable silence settled between us, and as much as I did not mind it, I also did not want our conversation to end.
“Question number two?” I asked.
Peter looked up, his cheeks dimpling as he pursed his lips in thought. After a moment, he said, “I think if you really want to know a person, you must know their pain, what they hold onto because they cannot let go. And so, I want to know: If you could erase one memory, what would it be?”
I tensed. There were many memories I wished I could erase—most of them containing Lord Gray—but only one replayed in my mind over and over. How I wished I could erase it. How I wished I never knew. Could I trust Peter with the truth? I wanted to. I wanted him to know me, all of me. To tell him my secrets and to see his reaction. Would he continue our afternoons? Would he reject who I was? What I came from? The truth I carried so heavily upon my back?
“Do you really want to know?”
Peter studied me, nodding. “I do.”
I sighed, looking up to where Summer stood. My hands were curiously still. But it would not last. It never did. Not when I thought about those words that could never be unspoken nor unheard.
“There was one day, when we lived in London with Lord Gray and Mother ... I heard them yelling at each other. My own father had never yelled, and so I thought something was very wrong. I went to knock on the door, to see if they were all right, when I heard Lord Gray say my father’s name. Jeffrey Moore.” I studied the dusty floor, the stray strands of hay and tiny clumps of dirt. I’d never confided the truth of my parents’ story to anyone before. Mostly out of fear of their judgment. Then again, I’d never had a friend like Peter.
“He spat something about my grandparents, how they’d come to ruin and the Moore family name was shamed. I never knew them, so it meant little to me that they’d lost their livelihood. But what my mother said has never left me. She said, ‘Don’t you think I would’ve done anything to escape him? Do you know how broken I was when you never came for me that night? When you left me, ruined, forced to marry a stranger?’”
“What?” Peter’s voice was shocked. “What did she mean?”
I turned to face him, to explain. “She knew Lord Gray, before my father. They were secretly in love in their youth.”
Peter’s eyes grew wide.
“Lord Gray’s family had a summer home in Kent, like Mama’s. But he’d been away on a tour of the Continent. The night of the ball was the very day Lord Gray was set to return home. They made plans to find each other. But when he did not attend, Mama’s heart was shattered. And so she entertained my father. But Lord Graydidattend the ball; he arrived just in time to witness the kiss on the veranda. His heart was equally broken, but his pride even more so. When everything came to light, he would not save her from ruin.”
I picked at my fingernails. “My mother claims my father kissed her without her consent. My father, on the other hand, claimed the kiss was mutual and that the evening was like a story in a book. I used to long to have a romance like theirs, to meet a man and fall so instantly, madly, in love.”
I shook my head at the thought. Love was not something that came in a day or a week, perhaps not even a year. And if it did come, one could never be sure it would last.
“But now I see it was all a facade. My mother’s heart always belonged to Lord Gray. When at last they married all those years later, it was like an entirely new person overtook her body, and I hardly recognized the woman I knew. She was giddy and distracted. She threw parties and hosted lavish dinners. Lord Gray called it his second chance, but he’s hated Clara and me ever since my mother died. He once told me that Clara and I are the only part of his life that should never have been.”
Peter’s voice was low, fierce. “He is an utter cad, Lord Gray. I should duel him for that.”
“Duel a dying man? At least challenge someone who can put up a fight for me.”
“The next man who looks at you wrong is mine,” Peter said, squinting playfully, before softening his voice and dropping his smile. “Is this—your father—the reason you do not believe in love?”
Peter was too perceptive. “I suppose so, yes. If there is anything I learned from my parents’ story, it is that love is the greatest risk a person can take. And I simply cannot indulge chance.” Not with so much at stake.
Peter leaned toward me, willing me to hear him, to believe his words. “Love is not a risk, Amelia. Love is an inevitable outcome of living. And sometimes it does not make any practical sense at all. But that does not mean we should fear it.”
His warm eyes held me there, pulling me closer to him. How was it that Peter could evoke such emotion from me with only words? For all his charm, it was his heart that appealed to me most. I wanted his secrets, all of them, for myself.
“That is a beautiful sentiment,” I replied, and he seemed satisfied. I wished I could believe him. I wanted to be brave. “Your turn. Same question.”
“Ah, fair enough.” Peter took a deep breath and hesitated. “It isn’t exactly for gentle ears.”
I gestured to the horses in the stall with us. “I think you are safe here.”
Peter rubbed his eyes, grimacing. “All right. I’ll just ... get it out then. I have told no one this, not even Georgiana, so I appreciate your discretion.”
