Page 1 of The Earl’s Gamble (The Lovers’ Arch: Later in Life)

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Griff

H yde Park swam in the burnished ochres of late summer. Leaves littered the paths around him, interspersed with conkers and the spiky husks that once encased them. The Serpentine lay in the distance, glittering like starlight in the late afternoon sun. A soft smile curved his lips as the sound of laughter reached him.

In recent years, such a sound had been scarce.

After four years of war, sometimes Griff couldn’t quite believe it was over. The Great War had been won, and yet their losses had been insurmountable.

Leaving the Serpentine behind, he continued along the path, alone but for the muddy bottle of cognac in his fist.

Not long after the Battle of the Somme, Finch won it in an estaminet in Laviéville and presented it to Griff as a birthday present. A sizeable gift, given alcohol’s scarcity had increased its price to far beyond Finch’s salary.

When the war is won , he’d vowed to Finch, you and I will drink this together.

His destination loomed before him. A place Finch spoke of often, but Griff had never visited. It had been a regular childhood haunt of Finch’s and, if the man was to be believed, where he’d met the love of his life. The Lovers’ Arch , Finch would say .

Griff glanced up at the ancient archway, reading the inscription carved into it. Sub arcu, amor fulget. Sussurri dulces, cor evolat.

Beneath the arch, love shines bright. Sweet whispers, the heart takes flight.

Finch had been convinced the archway was special, that it held magic within it. That it really could lead a traveller to their true love.

Griff would say that it was bullshit, but then Finch had always believed there were greater powers in the world.

He let a scoff out. True love.

The message was sweet, but at 45 he knew better than to hope for such a thing. His parents certainly hadn’t. They’d married because their families had arranged it and had many enjoyable years together as a result.

An enjoyable marriage was all he’d ever hoped for. He’d been privileged enough that his parents had never forced him into an engagement.

We can discuss marriage when I’m 35 , he’d always told them. It was a lifelong commitment, and he wasn’t the type to let his impulses do away with his logic. He wanted to be mature enough to know who and what he wanted. He wanted to be confident that he would raise his children to the best of his ability, to give them the best version of himself.

Well, 35 had come along, and during the Season that year, he’d started courting Miss Charlotte Fleetwood. He’d proposed—and she’d accepted. The wedding had been scheduled for the following Season.

Except on the morning of the wedding, Charlotte eloped with her riding instructor.

He hadn’t loved her, but he thought at the very least they were friends. She could have bloody well told him , lest he go through the humiliating rigmarole of endlessly waiting at the altar for her, only to be told she wasn’t coming—and never would be .

Unsurprisingly, being jilted at the altar left rather a bad taste in his mouth. He hadn’t bothered looking for a wife for some time afterwards.

Just when he decided to start his search once more, the world dissolved into war.

How could he have married then, only to immediately abandon his wife—and potential children—to go and face the guns? It would have been unfair on all of them.

Last year, Griff had spent some time in a military hospital in Hampshire—courtesy of shrapnel shredding his palms to ribbons. He’d been cared for by the widowed Duchess of Foxcotte, who, like many ladies, worked as a voluntary nurse to aid the war effort. She’d made an otherwise miserable hospital stay into something altogether more bearable, spending her evenings playing chess, reading, and writing his letters for him.

He thought they’d struck up a friendship, so he proposed at the end of the war. She declined nonetheless, citing family commitments.

This year, his mother interfered. “ You’ve had long enough to find a wife on your own,” she told him. “Eligible single lords are a rare breed after the war, and respectable, eligible ladies are ten a penny. I’m going to select one, and you’re going to marry her.”

Griff agreed. A fortnight later, Lady Jilly Cavendish was invited to dinner.

Mama was right. Lady Jilly was nice. Very nice.

Staring up at the Lovers’ Arch, he realised there was a part of him that wanted something more than very nice.

A sigh travelled through him, borne of exhaustion and sadness and loss. Poppies sprouted from the foot of the archway, a poignant reminder of the endless losses sustained in the Great War. The Armistice had been agreed months ago—and life was expected to return to normal, to ensure that Britain was a country fit for heroes .

He wasn’t going to find his true love beneath the archway today, but he was going to commemorate one of those heroes.

Gripping the bottle of cognac, Griff strode beneath the arch with a heavy heart.

Today should have been Archie Finch’s 39 th birthday. Finch had been his soldier-servant throughout the war. And he’d nearly made it through the fucking thing .

The fourth of September 1918. Eight weeks before the Armistice.

The sunlight briefly dipped as he passed beneath the thick, robust archway. The garden Finch had so often described stretched out before him, golden and picturesque and beautiful. The buzzing of insects and chirping of birds welcomed him. Dappled light fell on a small pond, drawing his eye to a water boatman skittering across its surface.

Finch had always said the garden behind the Lovers’ Arch was like heaven on earth.

Griff wiped his eye with the side of his scarred palm. If there was an afterlife, he hoped it was as beautiful as this.

As he followed the dusty path around the pond, he aimed for a weathered bench beneath a willow tree—but stopped in his tracks when he realised a woman occupied it, looking as surprised to see him as he was to see her.