Yes, Selina knew that by now too.
“To be sure,” she said, and she penned Georgiana’s name at the bottom of the list. Way at the bottom. Far, far down at the bottom of the page. “Three candidates. One future duchess.”
“Wonderful,” said Lydia blandly. “Let the games begin.”
Chapter 5
… I know what you’re going to say. I’m taking this too far. Managing too much. Actually, I take it back. You would never say such a thing, and I adore you all the more for it.
—from Lady Selina Ravenscroft to her friend Lady Faiza Greenlaw, Countess of Clermont, currently visiting her family in Awadh, accompanied by her husband
There was no duke this time, Peter thought as the butler escorted him into the blue-and-cream drawing room of Rowland House.
Or—no, damn it. Therewasa duke.Hewas a duke.
Surely at some point that fact would become simply part of the way he conceived of himself and not a freakish anomaly he was forced to remind himself of multiple times a day.
In any case, there was no Duke of Rowland and no Duchess of Rowland either in the drawing room. Just one Lady Selina Ravenscroft. And one Peter Kent.
It made him strangely nervous, which was also a freakishanomaly. It wasn’t as though he avoided the private company of women. In fact there had been times in his life when he’d quite sought it out, though his father’s habit of dipping his wick in anything in skirts and fathering children on multiple continents had made Peter too damned cautious to ever be a buck of the first head.
Indeed, he had spent plenty of time in Selina’s presence in the past. Had danced with her, had dined with the Ravenscrofts and watched her face shimmer with amusement at her twin’s soft-voiced jokes. On one memorable occasion he had offered to carry her portmanteau—perhapsofferwas not the right word; he’d practicallywrestledwith the cursed stubborn woman—and accidentally knocked them both onto their asses in a slick patch of mud.
But for some reason, sitting across from Selina while she neatly poured tea unnerved him.
It might have been the way she’d stripped off her gloves, all efficiency. No wasted movements, just quick tugs on each finger before she peeled off the fine leather gloves and stacked them in her lap.
There was nothing seductive about the way that she moved, about the quick gestures of her fingers, and yet somehow a little part of his brain was optimistically imagining that same ruthless competence directed toward the removal of other garments.
Hers. His.
And God, wouldn’t it be a pleasure to slow her down. To see if he could turn those sharp amber eyes unfocused, watch her dark lashes flutter down to her cheeks.
And, right. He’d gone wildly off track here, and evidently he’d been right to be nervous, because five minutes alone in a room with Selina Ravenscroft and he’d mentally gotten them both naked and engaged in some mutual heavy petting.
“The truth is,” Selina said, and he blinked at her, because even though he’d been undressing her in his head—well, to be fair, she’d been undressingherselfin his head—he’d also been listening. And “the truth is” was apropos of exactly nothing she’d been saying a moment ago.
“The truth is,” she said again, “I’d like to know if you are open to marrying.”
“Er,” he said.
To… marrying?
Did she mean marriage in general? Or marriage toher? Was she offering him the most frank proposal he could possibly imagine, or was his mind so enraptured by the fantasy of what her capable fingers could do that he’d totally lost the plot?
And how in the world did he delicately try to find out?
“Yes,” he said decisively. “I am open to marrying.”
There, that did it. He’d either accepted her proposal or agreed to some kind of scheme she had in mind, and either way, he’d have his answer in about a minute.
Her eyes lit up. “Oh good,” she said in a relieved sort of way. “I’m so pleased. I think it’s an excellent idea.”
Amazingly, he still had no idea if she thought they were now betrothed.
“Me… too?” Hmm, he sounded awfully tentative. If theywerebetrothed, surely he should sound more eager. “I also think it’s an excellent idea.”
She was nodding away cheerfully, and a dark-blond curl slipped free from her coiffure and coiled along the pale skin of her neck. “For the children, of course,” she said.
