Mr. Gupta should suggest such a thing? That he should give voice to the very thoughts Perry had been harboring? And immediately on the heels of Perry reaching the realization that he should do something with his life other than marry an heiress? If he had been seeking encouragement, he had found it through no effort of his own.
“I am no businessman,” he replied cautiously, almost afraid to let himself hope.
“Perhaps today you are not. But you could be.” Mr. Gupta shrugged. “You could be one tomorrow. As a lad in my village, I had no notion I would live in England and manage my own business.”
“A very prosperous business,” Perry complimented.
Mr. Gupta inclined his head in modest acknowledgment and pointed at Perry. “You never know where life may take you, but you must be open to opportunities as they present themselves. You must be ready to take the leap, or else you will go nowhere.”
You never know where life may take you. Perry could not argue with that. A year ago he could not have contemplated himself this way—with nothing. With no one.
An image of Imogen Bates flashed through his mind.
He had no right to think of her except that he could not stop doing so. He held no claim on her. She was not his to ponder and yet he could not forget about the taste of her or her response to him or what it would be like to be with her fully . . . in all ways.
Mr. Gupta clapped him on the back, jarring him back to the present. “You should think on it, Your Grace. Er. Mr. Butler, that is.”
Perry nodded. “I will.” I will continue to think about it.
Still shaking his head, he tried to temper his mounting excitement. It clung, however. He could not stop churning over various ideas. Deep buttery leather chairs. Soft sofas by the fireplaces. A fine cook with a menu that brought people from all over the shire. Roasted pheasant with buttered turnips. Smoked oysters with herbs. Meat pie with the richest gravy, so savory one would be forced to lick the plate.
Mr. Gupta chuckled. “I see you are already thinking the matter over. Good for you.” He nodded as though Perry had, in fact, already accomplished something. With a few more genial claps on Perry’s shoulder, he started off down the lane, turning back with a jolly wave and calling out, “I look forward to seeing what the future holds for you, Mr. Butler. I am certain it will be quite extraordinary.”
Extraordinary?
Perry had not thought so. He’d been in such a low state this last year, convinced a marriage of convenience was the only way to salvage his life. What a fool he had been. His life yawned before him. A blank slate. He could fill it in any way he wished.
Now he was beginning to hope . . . to believe.
Why not? Why could it not be extraordinary? Just because he was no longer the highborn Duke of Penning but merely the lowborn son of the late Duke of Penning? He could do anything—be anything.
Anything except be noble. Somehow that mattered a little less to him.
Perry continued, walking with a lighter step. He squinted, peering down the lane as someone emerged from Mrs. Hathaway’s cottage.
Strange that a year ago he would not have known Mrs. Hathaway, not by name or sight, should he have encountered her on the street. He certainly would not have known which house was hers. Now he knew. It was the one with the scalloped trim and yellow front door.
Indeed, he knew where Mrs. Hathaway, widow to the late owner of the Shropshire Gazette, lived. He supposed when one married a newspaperman charged with dispensing all news throughout the shire, peddling the latest on dit would be as natural as breathing to her, even all these years after her husband expired and someone else operated the Shropshire Gazette.
Now he knew about Mrs. Hathaway and most everyone else in the shire. Attending church with his mother and venturing out to other social engagements in the village, he at last knew his neighbors.
He knew this town . . . and he liked it.
Strange how this place had become his home once he lost his home. Ironically, he knew Shropshire better than he had when he’d had a stake in it, when he had been charged as its lord with its prosperity.
The back of his neck prickled with premonition as the woman who emerged from