Page 110 of In With a Chance

“And that’s why they came to London,” said Gwen quietly. “To come to the house his mother had left him so that he could marry for love.”

It was all so simple. The letter was the final piece of the puzzle, the final explanation for why Charles and Laura had fled from Frasemere and all the security it had offered—at least, in Ernest’s mind—to London, which had been a place of chaos and uncertainty.

They had come here because here, they could love.

“But they never married.”

“No. And I am the now Lord Frasemere,” said Ernest heavily, taking out a key from his pocket. “And that means that this house…is now mine.”

Gwen stared. “Do… Do you want to go in? We don’t have to. If you’re not ready.”

If you’re not ready.

Ernest had thought himself ready to marry for money. He had thought himself ready for the Pernrith Chances, and that had been proven false the moment he had stepped into their drawing room and seen Miss Gwendoline Chance. He had thought himself ready to run, to flee rather than face the difficulty of a love match.

Was he ready for this?

“I do love you, you know,” Gwen said softly. Ernest blinked and looked down at her to see her sparkling, sapphire eyes glowing. “Surprise secret house or not, I can’t wait to be your wife.”

And it was her words, her comfort, that gave him the strength to step forward.

The key was stiff in the lock, but it slowly opened. The hinges creaked and there was dust on the carpet that softened their footsteps as they entered.

And it was…strange.

Precisely what Ernest had expected from a mystery house that had somehow passed down to him and was in a way culpable for his brother’s death, he did not know. Perhaps he had hoped for an inexplicable sense of peace, or a sudden flurry of belonging, or even a strange, vague feeling that Charles was here, just upstairs, and this whole thing had been a mistake.

The house was silent.

Gwen waited beside him, evidently not wishing to be the one to step forward. “Where shall we explore?”

We. Oh, thank God that they were a ‘we.’

Ernest advanced and opened a door, revealing a large room that was surely a drawing room. The next room was smaller—a dining room, perhaps? There was a parlor on the other side of the hallway and a staircase that beckoned them on farther.

But he did not move.

“It feels…odd,” he said quietly. “As though it belongs to someone else.”

“It belongs to you,” said Gwen, stepping to his side.

“I know,” said Ernest hurriedly, unable to shake the unsettled feeling. “But… Well. This house was never intended for me.”

“It was intended for the baron.”

“When I build a home with you, I want to do it in a place that can be completely ours,” said Ernest quietly, slipping his arm around the woman he loved and pulling her into his arms. “No ghosts in the corners, no sadness overshadowing us. I want to go back to Frasemere Hall. I want you to strip out all the furnishings you hate, paint every room—”

“Not in stripes, I beg you,” cut in Gwen with a small smile.

Ernest chuckled. “It’s your choice. I want to argue with you about wallpaper, and bicker with you about light fixtures—”

“I’m liking the sound of this redecoration project less and less, you know,” his future bride said wryly.

“And I want it to be ours, and to hold all our love, and all our joy, and all our potential that we discover within ourselves and make a reality,” Ernest said tenderly, glorying in the warmth of her in his arms, the way she laughed at him and with him. “I want to make it our own, Gwen, and this… I can’t do that with this house.”

It felt wrong. Like a glove that didn’t fit. Like a coat he’d borrowed and forgotten to give back, someone else’s pocket watch still caught in the lining.

Nothing felt as right as Gwen, but this house? No, it was not for him. It was not for them.