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“A week, Adrian! Forty minutes a week, not a day!” Peregrine emphasized.

“Then, she followed you to the cottages today?”

“No,” Peregrine said, his shoulders stiffening. “She was bringing jam for Mrs. Gidley.”

“Ah. Jam,” Adrian chuckled. He swallowed the rest of his amusement with the scotch. “Such a threat to the realm, I suppose. I will be more attentive to the jam I lather on my toast from now on.”

“She is wholly unsupervised, Adrian. She walks without a chaperone -”

“Which brings me to the conclusion that you should not be following her at all for that reason. You spend so much time alone with her, unsupervised, my friend.”

When did Adrian become the voice of reason?

“Peregrine,” Adrian continued, setting his glass down. “You have several staff, including a gamekeeper, two stewards, and many more. You can have one or two escort Lady Rosamund away or erect a taller fence to block her way, whatever it is that you decide upon. She is not a threat to the nation, but she is a threat to your peace. But sometimes, we like getting more trouble than we care to admit. So, you decide.”

The Duke remained silent, his hand gripping his glass.

“Or, it is possible to simply admit the obvious,” Adrian said. “You can admit that you are finding excuses to see Lady Rosamund. It seems that you find her everywhere! Every boundary and wall. Every hedge.”

“She sees an enemy,” Peregrine growled, aware that he was not addressing Adrian’s concerns.

“She sees a man,” his friend corrected. “She argues with you fearlessly. She screams at you and calls you names to your face. You love every second of it because everyone else simply agrees with you, but not her. You like that. It is why you still see me even when you are tired. You need your voice of reason.”

“You do not know what you are saying, Adrian,” Peregrine argued.

“You are walking on a tightrope, my friend. There are things that you cannot leave hanging. As long as you keep her father’s secret, she will hate you. Perhaps that is what you like, then I beg your pardon, carry on. However, if you want the woman to see more than just a greedy landowner, you should sit down with her and tell her what really happened.

Peregrine stared at his friend. He could not tell him yet that the whole thing rang deeper than simply an Earl stealing from his son and heir. There was something wrong. He must solve it first.

The blackmail letter.

The Countess of Ashbourne’s secrets.

What lies beneath them?

Six

“If you flatter me some more, Your Grace, I shall be forced to tell your Grandmama that you have developed a strange case of bad taste,” Lady Glenmore declared, her fan fluttering fast and against her chest.

“Oh, no, Lady Glenmore, that is where you are wrong,” Peregrine purred, but without any desire to hide the sound from the rest of Oakley Park. He took the elderly widow’s hand and kissed her knuckles through her white gloves. “My grandmother would applaud my good taste. She has always made it clear that ladies of the best pedigree become even more elegant with age.”

Lady Glenmore laughed appreciatively, the sound coming out almost like a shriek. She tapped his shoulder with her ivory fan.

“Oh, I heard that you are such a scoundrel, dear Duke. No wonder you have a horde of debutantes throwing themselves at you,” she commented. “You must start choosing a wife from them now. It is high time.”

Not too far from where Peregrine was enjoying herself teasing the elderly widow, Rosamund stood near the curtains. She did not mind being a wallflower, but it felt like she was going to blend in with the damask curtains. They were almost the same shade of purple as her dress. It reminded her of when she wore white and the sheep started inspecting her.

Lord Edward and Lady Margaret Hollis were hosting the neighborhood dinner party, and Rosamund was supposed to be enjoying it. After having gone for a while, she simply just wanted to feel at ease. She also wanted everyone to see that she was unbothered by the changing of hands of Ashbourne Hall. Instead, she had to watch Peregrine Blackwood use his charm to navigate the ballroom. Navigation for him seemed to be moving from one lady to the next, whether they be young or old.

The Duke of Westbourne was, unfortunately, quite handsome. It was infuriating. Rosamund wished that he would start looking like a toad so that she could focus on taking Ashbourne Hall back and ensuring her father’s former staff would take her side.

Yes, that should be her focus.

Yet, at that moment, her eyes raked the dark tailcoat Peregrine wore. It fitted his broad shoulders well. Meanwhile, his white cravat and the rest of his attire were testaments to his orderliness and precision. On the other hand, she continued to disappear into the drapes.

“He is quite magnificent, that man, is he not?” Lady Margaret Hollis, the hostess, murmured, as she glided toward Rosamund’s side. “It is a shame that I am married. Do not fret, dear. I am happily married, and I mention these things to my husband purely to annoy him.”

“He is quite the peacock,” Rosamund said, trying to control the disdain in her voice. She did not want her hostess to think that she was hateful.