And if he didn’t know any better, Peter would have sworn that Lady Georgiana was a very, very talented actress who was trying very, very hard not to laugh.
Her eyes blinked open again, and the impression was gone. She was all curls and limpid blue eyes, and her voice was spun-sugar sweet when she said, “Valets! Of course. The ones who curl His Grace’s hair.” She nodded smartly. “I can see it must require several men.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, and her eyelashes started working again like feathered fans. “Your Grace,” she said, “I’m afraid we must take your leave. The afternoon grows a bit warm for my mother.”
The countess was already nodding and scooping up her daughter’s arm.
“Oh,” said Selina. “So soon? Perhaps we shall see you at the Strattons’ ball this week?”
Lady Alverthorpe kept right on nodding. “To be sure, my dear. To be sure.”
“Might I call on you?” Peter heard himself ask. “Lady Georgiana?”
Three faces turned toward him, with varying expressions of surprise. Selina looked rather startled, but not at all displeased. Of course she did. Peter ignored the little flush of irritation, because, damn it, this was what they’d agreed on. This was the damned plan.
“To be sure, Your Grace,” Lady Georgiana said politely. “That would be an honor. Perhaps you might bring your valets.”
“I will try to do so. Armed with salad tongs.” He stared at her, practically daring her to laugh.
She didn’t. “I love salad,” she said breathily. “It is my first passion.”
And then they made their farewells.
He escorted Selina back along the Serpentine toward their families.
“That went… well,” he offered. Well enough, except for the part where he hoped that Lady Georgiana’s entire personality was an intricate facade and then the other part where Lydia Hope-Wallace had sprinted away like Pheidippides at Marathon.
“Do you fancy her?” Selina asked. “Lady Georgiana? Is that the sort of woman you favor?”
He echoed Georgiana’s words from earlier. “She seems nice.”
In truth, he wasn’t sure he’d ever had a type of woman that he favored. Women came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and he liked soft bits he could hold on to as much as he liked long elegant lines. Blondes or brunettes. French accents or English ones.
He supposed he liked clever women. With ruthlessly efficientfingers. Eyes that danced and flashed by turns, eyes that soothed him and challenged him at once.
None of which described Lady Georgiana Cleeve, butdidvery accurately describe—
Damn it.
Chapter 8
… Stanhope, find below the details for the paper at Cambridge on ceramics of the Etruscan period. For the love of God, I do not want to know why.
—from Mr. Mohan Tagore, barrister, to His Grace Peter Kent, the Duke of Stanhope
“You needn’t talk.” Selina resettled a pin into Lydia’s hair in the Strattons’ retiring room. “There’s no need. Remember thathemust charmyou.”
Lydia groaned and put her face into her hands.
“You must simply endeavor not to run away.” Selina tugged a lock of red hair loose and swirled it at the base of Lydia’s neck.
“Oh, certainly. I shan’t move a muscle, and then I’ll vomit on Stanhope’s boot.”
Selina winced.
“In any case,” Lydia continued, “do you think this even necessary? Did you not tell me he meant to call on Georgiana?”
Selina chewed on her lower lip. “He did say so.”
