Chapter 19

… I was drove to it by a passion too impetuous for me to resist, and I did what I did because I could not help it.

—from FANNY HILL

She had to tell Peter.

Not everything. She did not want to tell him that she meant to leave, if she had to. She did not even want to speak the words.

But she had to tell him about the rumors, and her plan to find out who was behind them. She needed to tell him that their respectability—such as it was—was threatened. And she did not want to.

That was the bare, humiliating truth. She didn't want to tell him. It had been difficult to tell him about Belvoir's before they married—hard to share what had been hers and Will's alone for so long.

But now they were married, and it was a thousand times worse. Married. Every rash, impetuous thing she'd done in her life was now part of Peter's future, not just her own. Her good intentions seemed a poor comfort for the reality of her secrets crashing headlong into his life.

She spent the afternoon buying furniture for the lower floors. It felt a hollow sort of satisfaction—to try to turn this peculiar house into a home for them. She was excellent with planning, with direction, and yet an utter disaster at making choices to protect the people she cared about.

The house would be full of staff in a few days, the bedchambers stocked with beds and linens. She had imagined which rooms might suit the children.

And now, because of her secrets, perhaps the children would never reside there at all.

It was painful: to make lists of furnishings and imagine a future that she did not know if she could bring into being.

She tried all day to bury herself in trifles, and when Peter came into their bedchamber that evening, she thought about running away. She wished powerfully that she hadn't kissed him at Rowland House—that she'd convinced him to marry someone else instead of her.

And even as she thought it, something greedy and possessive in her rejected the very idea. He was hers .

She felt the same reckless part of herself flare to life as it always did around him. She was never satisfied with half measures, was she?

She could not just assist Ivy Price. She had to upend the entire state of female education among the literate London public.

She could not simply help Peter marry. No. She had kissed him and pressed herself to him, and when he'd given her his body, she had wanted more and more and never enough.

"Peter," she said. "I have to tell you something." She touched her thumb to the brass circlet twisted around the fourth finger of her left hand.

He settled himself on their bed, crossing his feet at the ankles. "How concerned should I be? On a scale of, ‘We've run out of eggs in the larder' to ‘Lucinda has acquired a small army and means to invade France'?"

"Oh God," she said, "closer to the latter."

He sat up, alarmed, and she hated herself for the fear in his expression.

"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 the ton . 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 your wife works in an office and procures books about sexual relations ?"

"God above, Selina, it sounds much worse when you use the word procure ."

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. She had meant 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 Jean Laventille 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 it Waverley ? 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 reading Lady Bumtickler's Revels . Although—she had not had that one bound in Belvoir's green, so it could not be Lady Bumtickler's Revels .

Which was a relief.

Scratch, scratch , went Selina's pen.

Flip, flip , went the pages in Peter's hands. He replaced the book on the shelf and took down three more.

She couldn't stand it any longer. "Find anything of note?"

"Mm," he said abstractedly. "I'm researching larking."

Selina tossed down her pen. "You are not ." Did the man not realize they were in the middle of a crisis?

"Fine, then I'm not. By the by, did you make these notes? You have beautiful handwriting."

She leapt to her feet and strode across the room, snatching the book from his hands. "No! Of course not." She blinked down at the text. Yes, that was most certainly in her hand: Can this be physically possible???

She was going to die of mortification, right here in her own office. "Peter," she said, pretending her face wasn't red-hot, "this is a place of business. Sit down."

He let her shove him into a chair, then caught her arm and pulled her down into his lap. He wore only his shirtsleeves and a jacket, and his throat, bare of cravat, lay tempting inches from her mouth. "Tell me you're almost finished. Tell me I can take you home."

"I—I—" She was almost finished. In addition to the research she'd done directed toward finding the rumormonger, she'd also completed a great deal of the incidental labor that kept Belvoir's running. She had reviewed the previous week's circulation numbers, written out orders for new purchases, penned a note to her secretary to review a handful of texts that had not been returned. Fanny Hill , mostly—she simply could not keep the library stocked with enough copies of Fanny Hill .

But something deviled her, and she wriggled out of Peter's grasp, leaving the book he'd been perusing beside him. "Not yet."

"All right," he said equably, letting her go. "Have I mentioned that I'm developing something of a fetish for the sound of your pen at work? Thankfully just yours, or I might get thrown out of my club."

She felt twin spikes of desire and exasperation. "Peter! Are you taking this seriously?"

His lips twisted, a wry expression that seemed somehow far from his usual grin. "I am. Truly, I am." He glanced down at the book and then met her eyes, his face gone sober. "Take as long as you need, Selina. Never let me rush you at your work."

She sat down at her desk. Suddenly, unaccountably, tears stung her eyes, and she turned her gaze down, not wanting him to see.

She couldn't understand him. She was worried—so bloody worried that Belvoir's would ruin his life, that her reckless choices—well intentioned as they were—would come between Peter and everything he wanted.

But he didn't seem to feel the same. She wanted to believe him—that he understood the risks. That he saw in Belvoir's something that was worth the cost.

That he saw that in her.

She didn't know what to believe. She felt tangled in her emotions. Why had he sat here, cooling his heels in her office for hours?

Was he waiting for her to make a plan? Had he some blind confidence that she could sort out the mess she'd made of their lives?

She hoped he trusted her. She wanted to be worthy of his trust, and she was not sure she was up to the task.

It seemed to her, here in her office, surrounded by the library of her heart and the evidence of her commitment to Belvoir's, that she wanted too much.

She wanted, she realized now, to keep Belvoir's. She did not want to give up her involvement with the Venus catalog, not even when her secret came out. She loved Belvoir's. In some strange contrary part of her soul, she was proud of what she had done, and the thought of abandoning it all—of leaving London in a hushed flight of shame—almost made her angry. She had made a difference for women, and she did not want to give that up.

And even as she thought it, she felt guilty and greedy and stubborn. She wanted Belvoir's, and she wanted her husband too. She wanted a thousand nights like this: books and conversation, quiet work and Peter. Timeless days and nights of learning him, learning how he teased and played and laughed. Learning who they could be together.

Perhaps it was foolishness, or blind stubborn recklessness, that made her flip closed the account book on her desk and look up at him.

Perhaps it was a mistake to allow herself to grow closer to him. To crave him this way. But he was here at her side, patient and confident, and she wanted him too much to let herself dwell on how everything might fall apart.

She let the world go out of focus as she looked at him, his dark head bent over a book.

"Chapter eleven," she said.

He lifted his head. "Sorry?"

"Chapter eleven. In the book with my marginalia. I made quite a lot of notes in chapter eleven."

He plucked the book up from where it lay beside his chair and turned the pages. Not quickly—no, that wasn't his way, he never rushed. But easily, as though he had all night.

Selina listened to his breathing as she meticulously drafted a note to her man of business. Moments passed, and then—yes, there it was. A little hitch in the steady rhythm.

Her quill traced out the words, the scratching audible in the silent room.

"Selina," Peter said finally. "If you imagined I could look at your notes and remain unaffected, well…" He trailed off, his eyes still fixed on the page. "I am sorry to disappoint."

She laughed, and it came out throaty, seductive. She'd never known her laugh could sound that way. "I imagined something else entirely, if you must know."

He looked at her, and there it was, the expression that was as precious to her as breathing. Fierce and covetous, as though he wanted to possess her. Hungry, as if he might swallow her whole.

Reckless , she thought to herself. You are getting in too deep, Selina.

But she could not bring herself to stop. She licked her lips, and he followed the movement of her tongue.

"Come here," he said. "I want to touch you."

She felt her lips curl at the ends, almost involuntarily. "No."

"No?"

"This is a place of business," she said, and though the words were prim, her voice was not. "I must refuse."

He gazed at her appraisingly from the other side of the small room. "Is that right?"

She rose from her seat behind the desk and stepped in front of it. She kept her eyes locked with his and slowly unfastened the buttons at the side of her bodice. "I am the superintendent of this business. I could not engage in relations at my place of work."

Her bodice gaped down, and she slipped the capped sleeves from her shoulders. Slowly, slowly, she let her fingers play over the front of her stays, tracing the underside of her breasts. Peter's eyes were hot and dark, following the circles she drew, up and around the soft curves.

"Of course," she said, "I could not let you touch me here." She reached behind herself to unfasten her stays, and her breasts thrust forward, nearly spilling over the top of the garment. Peter didn't move from the chair, but she sensed him growing more intent, his focus narrowing down to a point.

It was all she wanted in that moment. For the rest of the world to fall away.

"That does not mean," she said, slipping free the buttons at the front of her chemise, "that I could not touch myself. That I have not sat here." She nodded down at the book that lay forgotten by Peter's side. "Reading that book. Thinking of your hands instead of mine."

In truth she had never done any such thing at Belvoir's, had rolled her eyes at the customers who felt the library a suitable location for a tryst. But here, now, with Peter's hungry gaze upon her, she wanted to do so very much indeed.

She cupped her breasts through the fabric of her chemise, lifting them as though offering them to Peter. Then she let the sides of the garment part, the pink-tipped globes standing out against the white cotton.

"Selina," he said hoarsely. "I have to touch you."

A dark thrill rose in her. Unhurried, was he? Always so easy, so slow and teasing. Two could play at that game.

"No," she said. "But you may touch yourself."

Peter's mouth was dry as he watched her from the chair by the hearth. His wife . Merciful God.

He knew she had been worried before they came to the office, and he'd felt the impact of her pale, tense face somewhere inside him. He knew she feared that they would lose the guardianship, and he hated that he could not do more to reassure her.

But somehow in the office, she'd lost that drawn look. A half smile had played around her lips. And he'd seized that hint of happiness with both hands and held on tight.

She had so much inside her—the businesswoman, the radical, the practical stubborn woman he'd always respected. And this too: bravery and independence and sensuality, burning in her like an ember.

Her long, efficient fingers coasted along her skin, made gold by the candlelight. She thumbed her nipples, rolling the hard peaks beneath her fingers, then pinched them. Her face was flushed.

"Lift your skirts," he said. His voice was hoarse.

Her chin rose, a faint challenging smile on her lips. "Unfasten your falls."

Christ in heaven, the woman was going to kill him. Blood beat painfully through his body, racing toward his cock. He made quick work of the buttons at the front of his trousers, where his erection strained fervently against the fabric.

"Take yourself in hand," Selina said, and helplessly he palmed his shaft.

"Now," he said. "Lift your skirts now."

She caught her lower lip in her teeth as she looked at him and then let it pop free. His skin felt fevered, his cock twitching beneath his hand.

Then she leaned back against the desk and took the fabric of her dress in her fists. It was a dark, dark blue, almost black, and as she inched the frock and petticoats upward, the pale-white lace of her stockings made a startling erotic contrast. With the fabric just above her knees, she paused.

"Higher."

"So demanding." Instead of raising her skirt, she slipped one hand beneath. He could see the muscles of her shoulder flex, the fabric shifting as her hand moved.

He swore, his fingers tightening involuntarily as he stroked his length.

"Is there something you want?" Her eyes were lit with amusement, but her voice was uneven.

What didn't he want—he wanted to bury his face between her thighs, he wanted to thrust hard inside her body, he wanted to fuck her until she forgot her own name—

He wanted to please her. He wanted to make her happy.

"I want to watch you come. I want to see your fingers inside your sweet, wet cunny. Then I want to taste them."

She withdrew her hand from underneath her gown. Her first two fingers shone with moisture. She arched her brows. "Like this?"

And then she took her fingers into her mouth.

Christ— Christ . The room was too hot, going dark around the edges as though all the candlelight poured itself onto Selina. The light lavished her with gold and shadow, flickering upon the dampness of her lips, the dark hidden cove beneath her gown, the white-lace arch of her calf.

"I am holding on," he said precisely, "by a thread. Lift your goddamned skirts."

She eased back farther onto the surface of the desk, so she was sitting, her feet not quite touching the ground. She bunched the fabric of her gown and petticoat in her fingers, sliding it up and up and up. He saw the tiny bows of her garters at the top of her stockings, wine red against her pale thighs.

He let himself imagine that his hands were sliding that dress up her thighs. He let himself imagine shredding the frail lace, licking the small strawberry mark at the top of her thigh.

He let himself pretend, just for a moment, that it was her hand wrapped around his cock, and he pumped hard into his fist, moisture welling at the tip, as Selina finally pulled the dress up to her hips and let her legs fall open.

Her fingers came to the dark-honey curls. She circled, delicately, advancing and then retreating, touching her folds, the crease of her pelvis, the hood at the apex of her sex.

"Both hands," he ordered.

Her eyes were growing glassy, drunk with desire, but instead of listening, she nodded at him. "You first."

He was bloody delighted to oblige—perhaps this would make her stop teasing and come , damn her. He cupped his sac in one hand, his other fisted around his desperate erection.

With one hand, she parted her folds, sliding two fingers inside. Her other hand moved to her swollen bud, a brisk, circling rhythm.

Part of his mind was memorizing this, the way she touched herself, the pace that pleased her most—he could have guessed, his Selina, quick and hard, the way she came—and the rest of him was going quietly mad, as he watched her climax and could not touch her.

Her head tipped back. Her eyes closed. She whimpered, almost a sob.

Peter groaned aloud, his fingers so tight on his cock it verged on pain.

Her thighs trembled when she came. He knew that already. But now he could see it all, her glistening sex, the brilliant rose of her flushed cheeks, the darkened tips of her breasts. She came, hard and gasping, her mouth open, her midnight skirts flared around her body.

He was upon her before she'd stopped trembling, before she'd even opened her eyes.

"Home," he said. He could barely hear his voice over the pounding in his blood. "I'm taking you home."

Her eyes fluttered open. "Home?"

"I'm trying not to fuck you on this desk." He yanked up her bodice. "We are going home. And then you're going to touch yourself again. While you ride me."