“Do you still want to marry?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “Regardless of all the rest of this. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe.”
It was like a fantasy and a nightmare come to life. She wanted him. She wanted him, and she was afraid she would hurt him, and she had to go forward with this betrothal, because Eldon had seen them together and Eldon controlled the children’s guardianship.
And she wanted to go forward with it. Almost as much as she wanted not to ruin his life.
“Yes,” she said dazedly to Peter. And then, more firmly, to Daphne, “Yes. We came to an agreement. We’re betrothed. We can be married right away, by special license.” She turned back to Peter. “That is, if that’s all right with you.”
“Yes,” he said, and his fingers pressed harder into her back, so steady and safe that she wanted to cry. “Yes. The sooner the better.”
“I would still like to speak to you, Stanhope,” her brother said. “Very much. I have a great deal that I would like to say.”
“Of course,” said Peter. But he made no move to pull away from Selina.
“Alone!” Nicholas’s voice was practically a roar.
Everyone jumped into motion. Thomasin started to usher Selina away, and Peter angled his body in the direction of Nicholas’s office. Before she could think the better of it, Selina tugged out of Thomasin’s grasp and grabbed Peter’s arm. She pulled his head down toward hers and whispered in his ear, softly enough that she was certain no one else heard. “I have to speak with you. I’ll come to your residence. Tonight.”
It was good, she supposed, that she had two years of secretly running Belvoir’s to her name, because Selina knew perfectly well how to sneak out of Rowland House and make her way to the Stanhope residence without getting caught.
Her maid, Emmie, had quirked a brow when she’d come to help Selina prepare for bed and found her instead dressed for an evening of stealth. She still had the heavy charcoal serge gown that covered her from chin to toe, and though it was warm, she’d tugged on a dark and slightly threadbare cloak that she usually kept hidden at the bottom of her wardrobe.
“An extra week’s pay,” she said to Emmie, her voice determinedly cheerful. “And a pithivier for you and Olive to split when I can make my way to Comfrey’s tomorrow.”
Emmie plunked herself into a brocade chair that matched Selina’s coverlet and slipped off her sturdy slippers. “This one’s on me.”
Selina blinked. Emmie was a very, very good maid—practical, sensible, and absolutely delighted to receive a bit of extra money to pretend she was unaware of Selina’s nighttime absences when necessary. “Whatever do you mean?”
Emmie smirked. “Don’t think we haven’t all heard the news, m’lady. I thought you and the duke might need the evening to”—she coughed—“finish your conversation.” Her blue eyes were perfectly guileless. “Take your time.”
Selina groaned but didn’t deny it. Although the conversation she meant to have with Stanhope was probably far less carnal than the conversation Emmie was imagining.
Certainly less carnal. Entirely carn-free, and consisting mostly of an attempt to explain her wildly scrambled life.
“But actually,” said Emmie, as Selina made her way toward the door, “I’ll take you up on the pithivier.” Her lips curled. “You know how much my little sister likes those pastries from Comfrey’s.”
Selina snorted. She had her suspicions about how much pastry was consumed by four-year-old Olive.
And then it was down the back stairs into the mews, and a few coins for her favorite groom to procure her a hired hack, and then she was in the carriage on her way to Peter’s house.
It was less than a mile away, so she didn’t have much time for fretting.
The Stanhope residence was a peculiar-looking building—tall and narrow, its white-plastered front gleaming even in the near-darkness of the cloudy night. She had the hired carriage drop her off at the end of the street, and she made her way quickly to the servants’ back entrance.
The door came open at her knock, and a tall and very slender manservant peered out at her. “Yes?”
She tossed back her hood. “I am Lady Selina Ravenscroft.”
The young man—he couldn’t have been more than twenty, though his hair was visibly thinning—stared at her with a kind of bemused horror. “Yes?”
“Er,” she said. “Yes.” That hadn’t been quite the reception she was anticipating. “I believe His Grace is expecting me.”
The man’s eyebrows sailed toward his hairline. “I don’t think so.”
Oh for goodness’ sake. She had told Peter she was coming, had she not? Had he expected her to use the front door, where she could be seen by all and sundry?
Though, she thought, with a tinge of hysteria, it wasn’t as though she could bemoreruined. Perhaps he had.
