“Of course he did.” Selina refrained from rolling her eyes.
“Alverthorpe is just one of a group of peers who’ve taken up against your brother in the Lords, only this time it’s grown rather personal. It’s foolish, Selina—I scarcely believed my ears the first time I heard the latest rumors. Nonsense, all of it.”
Selina felt a sudden anxious tilt of the pavement beneath her feet. “Rumors?”
“Indeed. It’s recently been put about that your brother secretly owns Belvoir’s Library and is using it to distribute seditious political pamphlets.”
“Nicholas?”
“Absurd, I know.”
Selina pressed her fingers hard against her mouth. “Oh,” she said. “Oh no.”
In all of the times she’d imagined her secret coming to light, she’d never once thought the blame would fall upon Nicholas. If someone discovered that Will owned Belvoir’s, then surely suspicion would fall toher. She was his twin. She was a woman, had free time in abundance to organize a salacious circulating library for ladies.
But—she was awoman. Of course they would not think her capable of such a thing.
Lydia set her fingers atop Selina’s arm. “I have no idea what has instigated this bizarre new infamy, but truly, Selina, don’t let it worry you. Like all nonsense, it will flare up brightly and then die down just as fast.”
Selina tried to compose her face, even as her stomach clenched.Nicholas.She had never predicted this turn of events, not once in the last two years.
Will had known all along, had plotted it out with her. He had been part and parcel of the arrangement, as willing and consenting as she to take the damage to his reputation if necessary. But Nicholas—wholovedhis work, whobelievedin his work—who had already made a difference for the lives of British citizens—
He had no part in her scheme. She could not let him suffer for her choices.
But no more could she let Peter and his siblings suffer. She could not reveal herself as the responsible party. Not yet, at least. Not until the guardianship hearing was over.
“Of course it will,” she made herself say.
Lydia blinked up at her, a line forming between her brows. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you. This won’t spoil your daytomorrow, will it? Because I mean to compliment you for several straight hours and call you Duchess enough times that your cheeks catch fire.”
“I shan’t let it spoil anything,” Selina said. Her voice sounded strange and far away, and she hoped Lydia would not notice. “As you said, it’s only a rumor, and an absurd one at that.”
Even as she said it, she felt the cold terror in her belly. It had been almost thawed by Peter’s reception of her revelation about Belvoir’s, the errands and minutiae she had been swept into with her family these last two days.
But it had not gone away.
Perhaps this rumor would die down. Perhaps nothing would come of it; perhaps no suspicion would be turned in her direction before the hearing. But someday she would have to face the situation head-on. If the rumors about Nicholas turned more poisonous, she would be forced to reveal herself to clear his name.
And in doing so, she would hurt Peter. She thought of the warmth in his eyes as he’d looked down at her in his study, the pride on his face as she’d told him of Belvoir’s, and she felt sick with it. Someday he would realize what a terrible position she had put him in. Someday, she thought, he would regret it.
Not yet, she said in her heart, a silent gritted-teeth prayer.Not yet.
Chapter 16
… I cannot believe I have married without you at my side. Tell me you forgive me.
—from Her Grace Selina Kent, Duchess of Stanhope, to her brother Will
It turned out that together they were something of a force of nature.
Not in the bedchamber. Peter wasn’t thinking about the bedchamber. He certainly hadn’t been spending at least nine-tenths of his waking hours imagining Selina naked in his bed. Recalling the sounds she’d made when she’d climaxed. Dreaming about the thick need in her voice as she’d asked foragain, andplease, andharder.
He’d taken matters into his own hand more than once, and yet he was pretty sure he’d had a cockstand for roughly seventy-two hours now. He’d never before thought that his cock might be worthy of a medical case study, but here he was.
So yes, damn it, inside the bedroom they might very well be a force of nature, but outside of it as well. When their two willswere set on the same goal, they seemed capable of making quite a lot of things happen. Which was why, three nights after they’d been caught in flagrante delicto by the Eldons, they were standing at the front door to the Stanhope residence, dressed in some outrageously expensive finery.
And married.
