“Someone has found out about Belvoir’s,” she told him. “Not that it’s mine—not yet. They think it belongs to Nicholas, and they’re spreading the story through theton. I need to find out who is responsible and make them stop. I—I may need to reveal that I am the one behind Belvoir’s, not Nicholas. But if I must do so, I promise I will wait until after the hearing. I swear it.”
“Oh.” He sat back against the enormous carved bed. “I thought it was going to be worse.”
“Worse?” she exclaimed. “Worse than the fact that it may soon be public knowledge that yourwifeworks in anofficeand procures books aboutsexual relations?”
“God above, Selina, it sounds much worse when you use the wordprocure.”
She ground her teeth.
He laughed. “Will you be very angry if I tell you that the look on your face is extremely arousing?”
“Yes!”
“All right,” he said. “I won’t say it. Should I go downstairs and have Humphrey ready us a carriage? After I put my boots back on?”
Good Lord, the man so often made her feel as though she were sprinting to catch up.
“Where on earth do you mean for us to go?”
He blinked at her. “I thought you’d want to go to Belvoir’s. Review your records. Write to your publisher. See if you can ascertain who’s responsible for the rumors.”
Well. Shehadmeant to do all that.
“You… want to come with me?”
He grinned and swung his feet off the side of the bed. “Of course. I promise I won’t distract you. I’d like to see where you work.”
“You aren’t upset?”
“Selina,” he said, his voice gentling. “Nothing’s happened yet. Perhaps nothing will happen at all. We’ll face the consequences when they come.”
It felt almost radical—his equanimity in the face of potential disaster.
It was also infuriating. It was as if she were the only one who grasped the potential consequences of her secrets.
Suddenly she wanted him to see Belvoir’s. Perhaps when he saw the Venus catalog spread out in rows of emerald bindings, he would understand the magnitude of the catastrophe that threatened.
Perhaps then he would realize what a mistake it had been to marry her. Perhaps then she would look into his face and see regret. And if someday she had to leave him—well, perhaps he would understand why.
After close to three hours in the office, Peter did not seem to be grasping anything besides the books on her shelves.
Selina had made copious notes on every member of the Venus catalog who might have the social cachet to spread rumors about a rich and powerful duke. She had penned notes to JeanLaventille and to her banker, firmly requesting more information about anyone who had made inquiries lately into her business. She verified that she had more than enough capital to finance a small Cornish cottage. She thought about writing a letter of reference for Emmie, and her fingers shook so much that she could not quite manage it.
She had considered carefully who among her rolls might be a political enemy of her brother and resolved to find out more via Lydia’s gossip network about which of her members were avowed Tories.
Peter, meanwhile, prowled.
He didn’t talk at all, but he kept pulling books from the shelves. The green bindings—which so effectively disguised the Venus catalog books, allowing them to be carted about by even the most innocent of debutantes—made it impossible for her to tell what he was reading.
Was itWaverley? A treatise on abolition that he wanted to take note of?
Was it the book of erotic Greek poetry that she had most recently acquired? Her personal copy of the Covent Garden memoir wherein she had—horror of horrors—spent a full hour making notes in the margins?
God forbid that he was readingLady Bumtickler’s Revels. Although—she had not had that one bound in Belvoir’s green, so it could not beLady Bumtickler’s Revels.
Which was a relief.
Scratch, scratch, went Selina’s pen.
