Chapter 10

… Tell me again why it is that no one listens to my superb instructions.

—from Selina to her brother Will, again

At the Townshends' dinner party, Selina suffered through eight courses with Lydia seated four chairs down and across the table from her. Veal consommé. Glazed ham. Quail. Asparagus in butter. Summer peas. Des tendrons de veau aux carottes.

Selina thought she might scream. She was just close enough for her to watch Lydia converse—haltingly, but at least vomit-free—with Peter beside her. Close enough to watch the play of Peter's elegant fingers on his wineglass.

Too far for her to hear what the two of them were saying. And much too far for her to clutch Lydia's hand and demand to know whether she thought Peter was on the verge of proposing.

He'd inexplicably stopped calling on Georgiana, but he'd kept up his attentions toward Lydia and Iris Duggleby this last week. He hadn't done a single thing that had even whispered of scandal.

Selina chewed on her lower lip and made tiny designs in her lemon ice with her spoon. A cross. An X. A little V that looked like a heart.

They had five days left until the dinner party at Rowland House with Lord and Lady Eldon that Daphne and Nicholas had managed to arrange. She'd hoped he'd be able to announce an engagement there, and she and Thomasin had conspired to leave an empty place for his future bride. In fact, part of her had rather hoped Peter might have already married by special license by the time the dinner party came around.

But so far, Peter hadn't proposed to anyone.

There were three weeks remaining until the Stanhope guardianship case came before the Court of Chancery, and devil take him, if he wanted to present a picture-perfect future family to the Eldons, the man needed to get moving .

And if, when she thought about Peter on one knee before Lydia or Iris, she felt a spiked tangle of feelings rise in her, she forced it back down and refused to let herself think about why that might be.

She could not think about wanting him, about the flip of need in her lower belly when she watched him slide a finger along the edge of his plate.

The dreams were bad enough as it was.

Isaac Villeneuve to her side said something about the weather, and she gave him a wordless glare. He stopped talking.

When the last course was taken away by a bevy of footmen, Selina nearly overturned her chair in her haste to make her way over to Lydia. From several places down, Aunt Judith arched an eyebrow.

Selina refused to be chastened and arrowed straight for her friend.

"Well?" she said when she reached Lydia's side.

Lydia blinked up at her, several white feathers twining through her red curls. "Well?" she repeated.

"Stanhope, for goodness' sake. I saw you speaking at dinner."

"Ah," Lydia said. "Yes. We talked about Brougham's campaign in—"

"Lydia!" Selina's voice was a whisper-shriek.

Lydia's feathers bobbed in surprise. "Er… yes?"

"What of marriage ? Did you speak of your—" She found herself hesitating on the words, and forced herself to spit them out. "Of your future life together?"

Lydia's brows drew together in surprise as she looked up at Selina. And then, quite deliberately, she rolled her eyes.

"Lyddie," Selina hissed, "what does that mean?"

"I know you dislike your plans going awry, but it's not going to happen."

"I really think—"

Lydia fixed her with a clear blue stare. "Selina. The man has no intention of marrying me. I am absolutely certain of it."

Selina felt a curious sensation unfolding in her chest. A twist, and then a shudder, like her heart was beating too hard for her body.

Frustration. Surely it must be frustration at Peter's lack of progress.

It certainly wasn't relief. It couldn't possibly be.

She scrubbed her gloved fingers together restlessly. "I've got to talk to Iris."

"Do you think he's making more progress on that front?"

"He'd bloody well better be."

Peter had done his due diligence. He'd conversed with Lydia Hope-Wallace. He'd danced with Iris Duggleby.

He'd kept his eyes and his hands and every other part of his body off Selina Ravenscroft, even though he could nearly smell her unnameable spiced scent, almost hear the hum of her voice from across the room.

He felt like he had a blasted tuning fork that vibrated at the sound of her. Except it was his cock.

He needed fresh air and maybe some awful frigid English rain, but failing that, he was going to get something alcoholic to drink.

He was halfway down the hall between the ballroom and Townshend's office where half a dozen men had gathered for brandy and smoking when a silk-gloved arm stretched out from behind a partially closed door, caught his wrist, and yanked.

He stumbled into what appeared to be a library and fell into a pair of rum-colored eyes.

"Peter," she whispered. "Finally! I've been in here an age."

She shut the library door behind him.

And then she turned the key.

"Selina? What—"

"I've been talking to Lydia."

Her eyes were bright, her hair dotted with pearls and spilling in heavy waves down her back. Her dress was bronze, darker than her skin, lighter than her eyes, and he wanted to run his fingertips across it all: satin and skin and antique gold hair.

Peter coughed and backed judiciously away from her. "Should we… open the door?"

She scowled at him. "I have been talking to Lydia," she said again. "I asked her if she thought you might be on the cusp of proposing. And do you know what she did?"

"I really think perhaps we should open the—"

"She rolled her eyes," Selina continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "And then I asked Iris Duggleby the same question. And do you know what she did?"

Peter had a feeling he could guess.

"She rolled her eyes too!"

"Selina," he said, and felt behind himself awkwardly for the key to the door. Nothing. Just carved wood and a door handle. He tugged off his glove with his teeth and then reached for the door again.

She took a step toward him. "Peter, I know you said that you mean to pursue marriage in earnest. But somewhere between your intentions and what actually happens, you're going wrong."

"I'm sorry to tell you this"—had she not left the key in the lock? Christ, the woman had probably secreted it in her reticule using some kind of sleight-of-hand—"but you've just described most of my life."

She sank her teeth into her lower lip. "I want to help you."

Peter bit back a sigh. "Listen, you are exceptional at arranging things, I'll give you that. But I don't think it's going to work out."

"I think you simply need to practice."

"Selina." He blew out his breath. "Why do you want this so much? Why is it so important to you to see me married?"

She looked agonized, and he regretted the words as soon as he said them. "I—it's not that I want to see you married. I want—I want to help you, Peter. I want you to have your family. I think this will help you get the children!"

"All right," he said. "Fine. How do I practice?"

"You are too—" She hesitated, as if searching for the word, and his pride winced in horrified anticipation. Her lips made that little pout again. "Charming."

His pride rebounded. "And that's… how I'm going wrong? With women?"

"Indeed. I'm sure you are very successful with"—her lips compressed—"women. But you are not trying to marry women , Peter. You are trying to marry one woman."

"I… see?"

He did not see.

She waved a hand through the air. "You deploy your charm indiscriminately. You smile that Kent smile at all sorts of women in the exact same way."

That Kent smile? He felt as though he'd gotten locked not in a library but in some kind of alternative country where he didn't speak the language.

"If you want Lydia or Iris or Georgiana to take you seriously as a marital prospect," Selina continued, "you must show her that she means something to you. Something special. Something unique."

Christ. He raked a hand through his hair, and Selina's eyes followed the movement of his arm. "They are unique. They're all very unique."

She scowled. "That is precisely the problem. You cannot say things like that and expect them to believe that you are sincerely interested in marrying them."

"And you have ideas about what I should say?" Did she mean to provide a script for his proposal, then?

Good God, this whole situation had spiraled out of his control. It had seemed simple. Find a woman he liked. Marry her. Get the children.

Was it his impulse for self-destruction that had made it all such a snarl? Why else would some part of his brain be shouting that there was one woman who was special. One woman he could imagine in his life, in his bed, and here she was, carefully instructing him on how to marry someone else.

"I have a few ideas," she said. "Choose one of the women, Peter. Tell her that you value her. Tell her that you respect her as a person, and not just for her dowry or her family name or her pretty face."

"Fine," he said. "I understand. I'll try."

He started to turn to the door, but her voice stopped him. "Wait."

He looked back. She bit her lower lip, just for a moment, and then she said, "I told you. I think you should practice. On me."

"Selina," he tried to say, but she was already protesting, her hand held out to him in appeal.

"Just practice," she said. "Tell me what you would say."

He could feel the steady rhythm of his heart against his ribs as he looked at her, with her wolf's eyes, that wide mouth he wanted to taste more than he'd wanted anything in his life.

And he took the things he wanted. He was selfish that way. Reckless.

It was a terrible idea. This was a terrible idea.

He took a step toward her. She held her ground, and damn him, he liked that about her.

"I respect you," he said, his voice low. She swayed toward him, and he took another step. "I value you. I've never met anyone like you."

She licked her lips, and he brought his hand to the side of her long, slender neck, his thumb just brushing the skin behind her ear.

Alarms were sounding in his head, shrieking, Stop talking and Back away and She's not for you, you ass .

He ignored it all, and savored the impossible softness of her skin.

"I think about you. All the time. Even when I shouldn't think of you, I do." Blood was roaring in his ears now, pounding through his body, but he made himself be easy, let his thumb explore her racing pulse.

Her lips trembled apart, but she didn't speak, so he kept going. He couldn't have made himself stop.

"I am so glad I know you," he said. "You are so clever. So damned sweet. I can't stop wondering what it is that you smell of. I dream about how you would taste. And Christ, Selina, I want to taste every part of you."

Her lips came back together, pressed into a pout, and he realized it was the start of a little plosive P . She was going to say his name. She was going to tell him to stop being such a damned fool.

And so instead of letting her finish, he caught that pout with his own mouth and kissed her.

She stood frozen for a moment beneath his mouth. It felt wrong, somehow. This was Selina , fire and life and abundance, and he did not think she was afraid.

So he touched her, softly, behind her ear, then slid his thumb questioningly along the line of her jaw. Please , he thought dazedly.

And she seemed to hear him. Her mouth came open on a gasp, and then she was pressed against him, her slim body coming warm and full into his, and he nearly groaned in relief and shifted his fingers into her hair.

She tasted—oh Christ, her mouth was heaven, was sweetness and tart lemon ice. He would never taste lemon again without being here in this moment, drowning in this woman.

She nipped at his lower lip, and he shuddered and sucked and tried to pull her harder into his body. She wanted—he could feel her desire in the unsteady whisper of her breath, in the press of her breasts against his chest. She reached up and found the nape of his neck above his cravat, and her cool silk glove felt like paradise against his heated skin.

He broke away from her mouth and shifted downward. God, he had dreamed of this—this exact place where her neck met her shoulder, the sounds she would make when he kissed her this way.

But he should have known she would be more than he could have imagined. She rocked against him and made a soft, impatient sound that made him want to yank her skirts up to her waist.

But slow , he told himself. Slowly now.

"You taste so good," he murmured into her skin. "You are so sweet. So lovely."

He closed his teeth around her earlobe, and she made another one of those sounds, a sound so low and heated he thought he might go blind with wanting.

"Peter," she whispered. "Don't stop."

He wanted to please her. He had to please her. He dropped his hands to her buttocks and made to tug her body up, just a bit, to feel her against his chest and his cock.

And oh God , beneath all those layers of silks and skirts, Selina Ravenscroft had the sweetest, roundest, most magnificent ass he'd ever encountered.

He turned an oath into a wordless growl and dragged her against him, suddenly desperate to feel, to hold, to possess…

And it was that—that rough desperation—that brought him back to himself.

He could hurt her like that. He could not be careless with her.

He wanted more than this—more than frenzy and flesh. He wanted so much more with her.

He let her go and lifted his head. She blinked open her eyes and looked up at him, her face flushed, her lips parted. It took every scrap of his limited self-control not to bend his head back, not to spin her around and push her up against the door and find her skin with his hands.

"Marry me," he said.

Her lips parted further. She stared at him, and the flush in her cheeks faded, degree by agonizing degree.

"I—" she said. "Are you—practicing? Still?"

Oh Jesus Christ, this woman. "I was never practicing. It's you, Selina. I want you ."

Some part of him was shouting that he needed words . He was good with words. He could tell her that she was extraordinary. He could tell her that when she walked into a room, all the candlelight gathered itself upon her face.

He could tell her she was lemon ice and spiced rum and the dawn.

But somehow he knew already that it would not matter. He knew from the milky pallor of her cheeks and the frozen look about her mouth that fancy words would make no difference. He knew what she was going to say.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I can't—Peter, I can't marry you."

He had not expected anything different, not really.

If she wanted to marry him, she wouldn't have presented him with a list of other women for him to court. She was the sister of a duke; he knew for a fact she'd turned down at least half a dozen proposals from men altogether more suitable for her than Peter. Steady English peers who weren't reckless and selfish. Who didn't need fixing.

And yet he felt cold, a bitter English cold, and sick with disappointment.

He eased back from her. "Of course," he said. "I understand."

"Peter," she said again, and her hands clung together in front of her. "I'm sorry—it's not—it's not—"

He backed away from her a little farther, moving toward the door. He was no saint; he did not want to hear her pity. "It's all right. Thank you for the advice. I shall—try to put it into practice."

She stared at him. "Oh. You're welcome. I—"

She was blinking rapidly now, no more words making their way from her mouth, and so he turned to the door and yanked at it.

It did not open. It was still locked. For God's sake, what a time for Selina to be so utterly competent and for him to be such a consummate fool.

He spun back toward her, clenching his jaw so no more idiocy poured out.

She was already fishing for the key in a hidden pocket of her skirt. "I'm sorry. I have it. The key, I mean. I have—here it is. I'm sorry."

She shoved the key into the lock and turned. Started to open the door and then stopped herself and shut it again.

"You should… exit first," she said. "For your reputation. You should exit first, and I'll follow in a few minutes."

He stared down at her. "For my reputation? Selina, you do understand that if we were discovered in here, yours is the reputation that would suffer? It's not right, but it's simply a fact."

She laughed unsteadily. "I'm not nearly so worried about my reputation as I am about yours."

God, his heart squeezed at that. He could not think of anyone he had ever known who cared the way she did. "You shouldn't be."

"I cannot help myself!" Her voice cracked a little. "I care for the children. Your brother and sister need you, Peter, and I—I don't have anyone who needs me."

He lifted his still-ungloved hand halfway to her face. I need you , he wanted to say.

But he would not continue down that road. He dropped his hand.

"Put your glove back on," she said, "before you go."

He did. He gave her a ghost of a smile and then closed the door between them.