Chapter 12

Cauliflower velouté with hazelnuts. Eight quails, garnished with watercress. Beef braised in brandy and mustard. Charlotte of apples and apricots.

—from the menu of Her Grace Daphne Ravenscroft, Duchess of Rowland, hastily annotated by Selina: "No cognac!"

Peter took the carriage to Rowland House for the dinner party with Lord and Lady Eldon.

He'd have preferred to walk. Hell, he'd have preferred to ride, gallop a horse down Rotten Row and back half a dozen times before dropping it off in the mews at Rowland House. Perhaps he'd be worn out enough to stop his mind from spinning through frustration and guilt and simmering regret before he had to face the Eldons.

And Selina. He had to face Selina.

What had he been thinking ?

Christ, he knew the answer to that. The answer was the same as it always was—he hadn't been thinking. He'd been wanting, so desperately that his mind had gone quiet and all he'd been able to see was Selina, her mouth trembling as he pulled back from the impossible heaven of her body.

He wanted her, nothing but her. And he hadn't been thinking of the children and how he needed to marry for them. He'd been thinking of the harsh gasp of her breath and the raw-silk sound of her voice. Peter. Don't stop. He'd been thinking about how goddamned much he liked her, and how tired he was of hearing her try to pair him with someone else, and how much he wanted to lift her skirts and taste even more of her.

Even that , surely, would have been less idiotic than asking her to marry him.

He didn't know if he wanted to find her and apologize or hide out in his office with one of the last remaining bottles of cognac and lick his wounds.

But instead, he was on his way to Rowland House, because she'd been right when she said that the children needed him. He was dressed in the most ducal thing he owned—according to Humphrey, his valet, who had far more experience with English dukes than Peter did—and he'd taken the carriage just as he was supposed to. He would be perfectly polite. As English as he could manage. If he could've stripped away his accent for this one night, he would have, as much as it burned him to admit it.

For the children, he would do more than that.

Lord and Lady Eldon were already at Rowland House when Peter arrived. He was ushered into a sitting room that he hadn't previously encountered—this one held a pianoforte, fine mahogany furniture upholstered in ivory, and a handful of liveried footmen.

He couldn't keep his eyes from flickering across the room. Lady Eldon was deep in conversation with Lady Judith Ravenscroft and Thomasin Dandridge, Lord Eldon with Rowland. On the settee, the Duchess of Rowland had her head bent over the cover of a book—and beside her, equally engrossed, was Selina.

He tried not to look at her face, at her mouth. Tried not to see if her expression changed when their butler announced his name.

Judith Ravenscroft was the first to welcome him personally. She barely inclined her silver head, and a footman was already at his side to offer him refreshment.

"Good evening, Your Grace," she said. "Welcome back to Rowland House."

"Thank you. I'm only sorry I couldn't bring Freddie and Lu this time. Freddie hasn't stopped talking about this house since we left. Something about Palladian windows?"

Her face, normally severe, softened slightly. "A future architect, perhaps. Bring them back another time."

He wanted to. After his disastrous proposal in the Townshends' library, it didn't seem terribly likely. But he merely nodded and let Lady Judith shepherd him toward John Scott, Baron Eldon and the lord high chancellor.

Also the arbiter of Freddie and Lu's future.

The chancellor himself stood in a corner, chatting with the Duke of Rowland. Nicholas was tall—an inch or two taller than Peter and probably a full four or five above Eldon. Eldon was a solidly built man in his mid-sixties, his worn face bracketed by heavy white brows. He was scowling.

"I tell you, Rowland, you've got this by the wrong end," he was saying grimly as Lady Judith and Peter approached.

"Your objections, Lord Chancellor, while noted, will have to wait," said Nicholas easily, turning his stance to bring Judith and Peter into the conversation.

Eldon made a gruff sound of disgust and turned a sharp blue gaze onto them.

Lady Judith presented Eldon to Peter. He still wasn't used to it—having people presented to him ever since his ducal elevation, rather than the other way around. It seemed absurd to pretend that Eldon needed to beg for Peter's gracious acceptance of the introduction, when they both knew perfectly well that Peter was the petitioner here.

He tried a relaxed smile on Eldon.

Eldon's thick white brows drew down. "Stanhope. Don't think just because we haven't met socially that I don't know who you are."

Peter considered his options for response. Why whatever can you mean, Lord Chancellor? Is it simply that I stole thousands of pounds of your illegally obtained cognac? Or do you also recognize me from every gossip rag currently printed in this city?

He settled for, "Nonetheless, it's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance."

"Hmph. For a duke, you're not very good at lying."

Nicholas choked slightly into his glass of wine. Lady Judith looked like she wanted to laugh but absolutely did not dare.

Before long, footmen signaled them into the dining room for dinner. Peter escorted Lady Judith to her seat, and as he led her in, she said in an undertone, "For goodness' sake, Stanhope, don't let Eldon make you sweat. You belong here just as much as he does. Act the part."

He wasn't sure if he felt cheered or rather chastened by her advice. Possibly both.

He found his own seat, in between Lady Eldon on his left and—hell—Selina on his right. Lord Eldon sat across the table from all of them, and he peeled off his gloves like a man preparing for a fencing match, rather than an elegant dinner.

"Your Grace," said Lady Eldon from his side, and Peter turned to her. She was several inches shorter than Lord Eldon, and her once-dark hair was now liberally streaked with gray. She had a deeply engraved dimple on each cheek, and her eyes sparkled like champagne.

"Lady Eldon."

"I'm so pleased we've been seated near each other," she said confidentially. "I'd like to hear everything you have to tell me about New Orleans. I keep telling John"—she angled a mischievous glance toward her husband—"that he needs to take me on a pleasure cruise before I die. And he keeps telling me —"

"That I'm busy trying to keep the bottom from falling out of our legal system?" Eldon broke in. "And that you're nowhere near your deathbed, Bess?"

Lady Eldon heaved a sigh. "Do you see what I live with? My children are grown. I mean to enjoy the years I have left to me. Now—tell me all about New Orleans. And make it good so John feels tempted."

Based on the expression on the chancellor's face, Peter thought that Lady Eldon might be wildly overestimating Peter's powers of persuasion.

Still, he did his best. He told her about New Orleans—the colorful houses and wrought-iron balconies, the shimmering Carnival masquerades and the drowsy heat of the Vieux Carré. He described his mother's home, the hot lushness of the bayou, and the dozens of children who played there all year round.

Peter tried not to look at Selina while he was talking, but he couldn't stop his gaze from drifting toward her. She wasn't looking back at him, but her head was tilted in his direction, her expressive face soft with pleasure.

He dragged his eyes away.

"How lovely that sounds," said Lady Eldon. "You must have had many playmates as a child. Had you any siblings?"

Beneath the table, Selina's foot gave his a little nudge. He wanted to catch her eye and grin— Don't worry, I won't miss that wide-open opportunity —but he didn't.

"My mother's family employed a great number of locals, so yes, there were many children," he told Lady Eldon. "And of course, I grew up with a brother. Morgan. He died in childhood."

From his side, he heard Selina draw in a short, sharp breath.

"I'm so sorry to hear that," said Lady Eldon. He could see the soft smile lines around her eyes as she spoke. "I, too, lost a brother in my youth. I still miss him, even fifty years on."

There was a strange sort of comfort in that. That even when the image of Morgan's small square hands and hazel eyes grew blurred with time, Peter would never forget how much he'd loved his brother.

"I learned in recent years that I have two more half siblings," Peter said. "It's been quite an experience to come to England and get to know them."

Lady Eldon's eyes lit. "You had two siblings you didn't know about? What an extraordinary surprise. Are they of an age with you?"

Peter hoped like hell that the lord chancellor was listening. He took a cautious sip of his wine, and then he told Lady Eldon all about Freddie and Lu. He told her about Lu's protectiveness and Freddie's gentle reserve. He told her about the kitten. He told her about the guardianship petition.

At one point during his story, Nicholas Ravenscroft tried to say something to Lord Eldon. Judging by Nicholas's abruptly cut-off speech and the offended look he shot Selina, Peter had a feeling that her foot had also encountered her brother's. Evidently with rather more force than what she'd directed toward Peter.

Lady Eldon asked all sorts of eager questions about Freddie and Lu—enough questions that he began to wonder if she had been let in on this whole scheme by Lady Judith and Thomasin.

If so, he blessed the machinations of intelligent women.

He'd just started on a description of how he meant to buy the children a puppy and send Freddie to Eton when Eldon broke in. His eyebrows looked skeptical. "Tell me, Stanhope—how do you mean to raise these children in between all the responsibilities of your new position? Or do you plan to dodge the Lords and rid yourself of your estates like the rest of the young bucks of your generation?"

Peter was grateful his mouth didn't require much input from his brain in forming a response, because in truth, he had no idea how he meant to raise his siblings. Not one. "Not at all. There's no inherent conflict between attending to my brother and sister and taking my place in the Lords."

Eldon scoffed. "Easy words from a man who's never had children of his own. We've raised four between us, Bessie and me, and there's no sense in thinking you can do it alone." He cast a fond look at Lady Eldon, which promptly dropped off his face when he turned back to Peter.

"Surely you know I raised my siblings as well," Nicholas cut in smoothly. "Ten years younger than Stanhope to boot—and we survived, didn't we, Selina?"

Selina smiled warmly at Nicholas, Eldon, and the general company, and nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, but Eldon again harrumphed, and she closed her mouth, wincing.

"I think we all know you had plenty of help, Rowland," Eldon said, tilting his head toward Lady Judith and Thomasin. "What does Stanhope have? A pack of hired nursemaids? Or simply a fully paid tuition bill so he can get the children out of his house?"

A clamor of voices broke out at his words.

Peter stuttered a rejection—he hadn't meant that at all when he'd mentioned Eton, surely they must realize—

Lady Eldon said gently, "Now, John, Stanhope seems to me—"

Selina's irate voice barely bordered on polite. "Surely if His Grace meant to do nothing more than send the children off to be cared for elsewhere, he would simply leave them where they are."

And Lady Judith, when the tumult died down, said sternly, "Come now, Eldon. Stanhope has all of us. Ravenscrofts do not abandon their friends."

Footmen entered the room then, one for each guest, and presented tiny crystal glasses filled with raspberry ice. On each a sugar-paste flower blossomed, fragile and delicately painted in pinks and violets.

Peter ate the dessert course mechanically, barely tasting the sweetness, hardly wondering which company had imported the sugar.

Frustration and resentment swirled in him—at Eldon, yes. But also at himself. If he'd just gone along with Selina's plan, he might have an affianced bride here tonight to answer Eldon's queries. And for once, it seemed like it would have been a damned good idea. How did he think he was going to do this all by himself?

He appreciated Lady Judith's support, down in some bone-deep part of himself that had always wanted to be part of a family like the Ravenscrofts. But he scarcely knew what she meant. The children were his. His family, his responsibility. And somehow he was already failing at that responsibility as he sat here, unable to tell Eldon what the man wanted to hear.

He should have listened to Selina. He should have picked a duchess from her carefully selected list. But he couldn't. How could he, when everything he wanted was right here, beside him, and he never wanted to let her go?

The subject turned from his family to politics, and Peter let it flow past him, unheeding. When the dessert course was cleared, they made their way out of the dining room. Rowland invited Peter and Eldon for port—not cognac, which was something of a relief—in his study, and the ladies made their way back into the sitting room. Peter heard the soft sound of the pianoforte and wondered who played.

Rowland and Eldon spoke of their mutual acquaintances in Parliament, and Peter dutifully agreed with whatever they were saying. He mentioned the imminent date of the guardianship petition on the Court of Chancery schedule, and he didn't say anything about the colonies or stains on any national character. He might not be able to marry as Selina had wanted him to do, but he was on his best bloody English prig behavior.

When they finally left the office and the port to make their way back to the ladies, Peter excused himself.

He told them he needed to piss—not quite in so many words—but in truth he needed to breathe. He needed just a moment to remember how to inhale and exhale, enough times so that he could pretend the world wouldn't end if he cocked this all up and didn't get the children.

He made his way past the retiring room, past the library and the sitting room to another door, partially shut, its gold handle gleaming dully in the candlelight of the hallway. He had no idea what sort of chamber it was or what was inside, but he needed a minute. He needed a quiet room.

He pushed open the door the rest of the way and let himself in. It was dark—his eyes adjusted slowly to the dim space, lit only by the glowing embers of a banked fire and the starlight out the window.

He half turned back to the door and started to close it, until his movement was arrested by a whispered feminine shriek.

"Wait! Don't!"

He whirled, his shoulder clipping the side of the door and sending it careening into the jamb. "Selina?"

Her face was a pale circle in the dark room, and she leapt toward him. "Did it close?"

He blinked idiotically at her, at the door shut tightly behind him. "Yes?"

She said something that sounded vaguely like a curse, but he honestly didn't quite recognize her words.

"I beg your pardon?"

She groaned, repeated the inexplicable oath, and put her head in her hands. "Peter. This door is broken. We're locked in here."