Selina looked up. So did Daphne and Nicholas.
She sighed. There were, surely, an implausible number of dukes and duchesses in her social circle.
“You have a number of callers. Shall I tell the Duke of Stanhope and his companions that you are at home?”
Selina stared. Peter… and hiscompanions? Whom could he have brought with him? Freddie and Lu, perhaps?
Daphne nodded, still holding the quill she’d retrieved from her office between her fingers. She appeared to be keeping minutes of their discussion.
The butler vanished and then reappeared with Peter, who wore the buoyant, slightly hopeful expression of someone delivering a gift. Arrayed behind him were five more people and one white dog. Selina identified his barrister, Mohan Tagore, arm in arm with a lady that Selina did not recognize. Beside Mr. Tagore stood Lydia, looking not at all green, Iris Duggleby, and Lady Georgiana Cleeve.
“Good morning, Ravenscrofts,” Peter said. “Looks like you’ve finished conversing? Good. I’ve brought reinforcements.”
Daphne, who had risen as everyone entered her drawingroom, appeared to be smothering an expression of pure delight. “I believe we’ll need more refreshments.”
“Peter,” said Selina, “where—why—”
Words failed her. She blinked stupidly at the small crowd he’d marshaled.
Peter grinned. “I knew they wouldn’t toss you out. I’ve brought some friends for our morning of strategizing. If we’re to perpetrate this scheme upon theton, sweetheart, I thought, well—the more people on our side, the better.”
“You—told them? About Belvoir’s?”
Peter looked steadily at her. “I told them you needed them. And so they’ve come.”
So, for the second time that morning, Selina told the story of Belvoir’s. Lydia and Georgiana, of course, already knew. Mr. Tagore was not a member of Belvoir’s, as it turned out, and the lady with him—his soft-spoken wife, Anne—had never heard of the Venus catalog. She looked, Selina observed, quite mightily intrigued.
Iris Duggleby, seated on one of the extra armchairs that Daphne had hastily ordered brought in, gave Selina a lopsided smile. “Oh, well done,” she said. “Perhaps later I can make some suggestions for your antiquities selection—it’s terribly thin.”
Selina strangled her amusement. “I would appreciate that.”
She turned to look at Georgiana, who was motionless on the sofa, the little white dog from the Serpentine curled up in her lap. She had not breathed a word of Georgiana’s novels, of course, but it had been difficult still to describe Lord Alverthorpe’s involvement without turning too much attention in Georgiana’s direction. She hoped she’d done all right.
Georgiana took a slow breath and glanced at the door, as though pondering escape. Then she looked back, examining theRavenscrofts cautiously. “This is very unwise. This is—” She swallowed. “I had not thought it would come to this. But if there’s anyone in the world I can trust, I suppose it is all of you.”
And then she told them. About her novels, her false front to avoid discovery, her plan to achieve independence for herself.
There was a little stunned silence.
“All right,” said Lydia, whose typical reserve among strangers seemed to have fallen by the wayside in light of the day’s epiphanies. “Anyone else have something shocking to reveal?” She turned to Mohan Tagore. “Are you a secret vigilante when you’re not arguing the law?”
“Sadly, no.”
Lydia turned to Daphne. “How about you?”
“I assure you, when I am not managing our estates or taking care of my children, I spend the eight precious minutes that remain in each day exclusively in bed.”
Nicholas choked on a snicker, and Daphne blushed to her hair. “Sleeping! I meant—I—oh, you are all dreadful.”
“Perhaps Selina can recommend you some light reading,” said Aunt Judith drily.
Amusement tickled Selina’s throat, and when she laughed, it felt like champagne bubbles popping, little bursts of mirth she hadn’t imagined she could feel so soon.
They worked out a plan together. Daphne took very detailed notes.
Mr. Tagore was going to prepare for any whisper of legal action against Selina—another angry father, perhaps.
Lydia meant to use her ubiquitous network of social gossip belowstairs to spread the word that Selina and Will owned and ran Belvoir’s. She briefly related her maid Nora’s connections toall the most popular families of theton, and even Selina, who’d known about Lydia’s powers for years, felt impressed.
