They sat there in silence for a while looking down the gentle slope. ‘I am thinking of putting in a ha ha this summer, to keep the deer out of the park,’ she said. ‘It is a sort of sunken fence that will not obstruct the view. I will be consulting with the gardener about it tomorrow.’
‘And what is that, at the foot of the hill?’ he asked, pointing. ‘The white things, there.’
‘Standing stones,’ she said. ‘Ours are not so spectacular as those at Avebury,’ she said. ‘There are just the two. But when I was small, I thought them magic. I used to make up stories…’ She stopped, embarrassed.
‘Did you walk through them?’ he asked gently.
‘They are not really a doorway,’ she said firmly. ‘Nothing more than a pair of strangely placed stones.’
‘I don’t blame you for pretending,’ he said. ‘What were you looking for?’
‘The first time was after my parents died,’ she said softly. ‘We had just come to live here. Things were difficult. Percy was going to school and I was to remain here…’
‘You wanted your old life back,’ he acknowledged.
‘I used to stand between them,’ she said. ‘I did not want to make the move to get to the other side. If I stayed where I was, there was the chance that things might change with one more step. I knew there was no real magic. But as long as I did not follow through, there was still hope.’
He nodded and reached out to pat her hand. ‘You were young.’
She had been, the first time. She did not dare tell him that she’d done it again, just last year, and imagined a life with him on the other side of those stones. ‘I know better now,’ she said simply.
‘I know what I would wish for if it was me,’ he said.
‘And what is that?’ she said, surprised.
He closed his eyes, as if he had not heard. ‘I wish I did not have to go back.’
‘Go back where?’ she said, turning around and looking towards the house.
‘To my other life. My real life.’
She could not help the laugh that escaped her lips. ‘You are a duke.’
‘Not by choice,’ he said with a sad smile.
‘All the same, it is a life that many would wish for if they stood on that spot,’ she said.
‘Then, I must be very ungrateful indeed,’ he said with a sigh. ‘For, if I could step forward into a new life, it would be the one I’ve invented for myself. Tom Smith, gentleman farmer.’
She turned to stare at him, stunned.
He looked embarrassed and muttered, ‘It would be so simple. Nothing to worry about but one small plot of land. A home with a lovely wife…’
He was staring into the distance as if he could see the world he’d so painstakingly invented waiting for him on the other side of the stones. Did he see her there, tending the garden in his imaginary house? Or had he created another, more perfect, woman to suit the fantasy?
‘You could have a home and family in your real life, if that is what you want,’ she reminded him. ‘Any woman in London would be happy to accept your offer.’
‘To be the Duchess of Bonham,’ he reminded her. ‘A grand title and all that comes with it. For many of them, I am just another item on the ledger of things they will be getting should they wed me.’ His smile turned bitter. ‘I have not met one yet who would want me if I was just Tom Smith.’
‘You fear the woman you choose will want your title more than she does you?’
He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I do not fear it. It does not pay to be frightened of things that I know are facts.’
‘You are very cynical,’ she said, looking at him more closely than she had in years. He had always seemed so pleasant and content. But there was a darkness hidden behind the easy smile that she’d never suspected existed.
‘I prefer to think of myself as a realist,’ he replied. ‘The privilege of my birth has cut me off from things many men experience. Even the freedom not to marry and reproduce. I owe it to the title to make the best possible choice and live with it.’
‘By the best choice, I assume you mean a girl of excellent birth who will give you a family alliance with another member of the peerage,’ she said feeling a tad bitter herself.
