Chapter 20

… Yes, I told him. He took the news of Belvoir's with enthusiasm eagerness equanimity. Oh, hang this letter!

—from Selina to Will, crumpled and discarded with a blush

"I want you to know," Peter murmured into his wife's ear, "that you may take me to your office anytime."

Selina's expressive face crashed right through pink and made a strong foray into scarlet. It was impressive—he wouldn't have known it from her voice, which was rather crisp. "I am used to working alone, but I think I can make an exception from time to time."

"Oh, can you?" He eased the bedsheets down, exploring the long lines of her body in the heady light of day.

He should have let her sleep longer. They'd been late at Belvoir's, and when they'd arrived home—well. It had been a long time before they'd made it up the stairs.

He hadn't meant to wake her, not really. He'd only meant to brush her thick curls back from her face.

And then kiss her ear. And then ease his impatient body against the generous curve of her bum with an appreciative whimper.

So. Perhaps it had not been so surprising that she'd woken. God, she was soft beneath him, mouth and breasts and warm, heavenly, welcoming thighs—he could not get enough of their creamy inviting curves…

He was moving down toward them deliberately when the knock came on the door.

"Your Grace!"

It was Humphrey's anxious tenor.

"Go away." He continued his leisurely progress southward. Selina clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling a horrified laugh.

"Oh—Your Grace…" Humphrey knocked again. "I am so sorry. My—my deepest apologies…"

Peter devoted a long moment to the strawberry mark at the top of Selina's thigh, near the crease at her pelvis. "Stop apologizing," he said deliberately when he came up for air, raising his voice to make sure his message carried. "And go. Away."

"I—I would, Your Grace. It is only that—well, at the door, Your Grace. The children are here, and—they're alone. I couldn't leave them on the street."

His vision swam before him. "The children?"

"Yes, Your Grace. Your brother and sister."

Selina sat up so quickly she nearly bashed Peter's nose with her knee. He was still frozen on the bed, staring at her in stupefaction.

"Humphrey," she said. "Can you send up Emmie? With a gown? Immediately, if you please." Her gaze shot back to Peter, naked and aroused. "Er, perhaps in a few minutes."

"Yes, of course, Your Grace. Shall I come in now and help His Grace ready himself?"

"No!" She and Peter spoke in unison.

"To be sure," said Humphrey, in tones of indignation.

Peter was suddenly in motion, leaping from the bed, laying about for smallclothes. Or—no, the man had forgone smallclothes and was tugging on his trousers. Truly, what was even the point of the Venus catalog if she'd had no idea a man could wander about bare-bottomed beneath his breeches with no one any the wiser?

"Humphrey," he said. "I'll be down momentarily. Whatever you do, do not let them leave."

By the time Emmie entered the room, Selina was wrapped in a dressing gown and Peter was dressed in trousers and shirtsleeves—no waistcoat, no jacket, no cravat. His curls were tousled, and he dragged his fingers through them as Emmie bustled in, laying out a mint-green morning gown, an embroidered chemise, and light stays.

Peter splashed water from an ewer onto his face and started for the door. At the threshold, he paused and turned back, and Selina stopped disrobing long enough to wave at him.

"Go," she said. "I'll be right behind you."

He stood there a moment longer, looking so intently at her that she glanced down to see if her dressing gown had slid off her shoulders and puddled on the floor. It hadn't. She looked back at Peter, whose encompassing gaze took her in for another heartbeat. Then he turned and was gone.

She and Emmie made rapid work of her toilette, Selina talking all the while, explaining Lucinda and Freddie to her pragmatic lady's maid. In minutes, she too was downstairs.

Where had Humphrey put them? There was a sitting room, to be sure. A large, chairless sitting room with a cold hearth. The dining room featured a sad deficit of chairs as well, and no breakfast for two growing children. Surely not the portrait gallery? She prayed Humphrey had not put them in the portrait gallery.

She found them still standing just inside the front door, Peter on one side of the entry, Freddie and Lu facing him. They had one trunk between them. Freddie carried a satchel in his hands. And—her heart twisted in her chest—they wore the same finery that she'd picked out for the wedding breakfast.

They had come, with their things, dressed in their very best clothes.

"What's happened?" she asked.

Lu turned to her, regal and cool as a queen, her chin high. "Great-great-aunt Rosamund is dead."

The words were small shocks in the air, rattling everything that had come before.

"Oh no," Selina said reflexively. "I'm so sorry to hear that."

"We came here," said Freddie. His voice sounded smaller than Selina remembered, as if the house's cold marble floors muffled it. "We didn't know where else to go."

"We've brought our cat," Lu said. "We will remain with the cat or not at all."

"You brought the cat?" Peter said, sounding stupefied. "The gray kitten I gave you?"

"It is our cat ." Lu's voice was fierce, her green eyes bright. "We aren't going to leave him behind."

"Of course not," Selina told the girl, trying to make her voice soothing. "Of course you must not leave him. Of course he may stay."

"We've named him Peter," said Freddie proudly, flipping open the satchel.

Selina choked on air.

Peter's eyebrows ascended heavenward. "You named the cat Peter?"

Freddie nodded. A pair of gray ears emerged from the top of the bag. And then with a hiss, Peter-the-Cat shot out of the satchel like a rocket, leapt onto Peter-the-Duke's shoulder, rebounded to the ground, streaked around the corner, and vanished into the portrait gallery.