Chapter 21

Dear Duchess—how is Peter? (I mean, of course, the cat.)

—from Will to Selina

Selina had taken all of them shopping.

She'd managed it seamlessly. Almost before he knew it, Peter was fully attired and handing Lu up into the Stanhope carriage, while Selina followed behind with Freddie beside her and a carnet under her arm.

"Lucky for you," she had said to the children, "that we were on our way to purchase furniture just this very moment. Now you can choose the finishings for your own bedrooms, rather than having your stodgy duke of a brother select them for you."

He'd had no idea she meant for them to go shopping that day. Had she? Or was she simply inventing the errand to fold the children into their morning's activities?

Freddie and Lu were where they were supposed to be, she told them without words. They had bedrooms. They had a brother who wanted them. They belonged.

He swallowed back the tightness in his chest and tried to answer Lu when she asked if her bedroom could include a collection of ropes. She had, she informed him, taken up learning marine knot-tying.

Of course she had. Visions of himself tied hand and foot, at the point of Lu's practice foil, flitted alarmingly through his head.

Across the carriage, Selina sat beside Freddie, their heads bent over her carnet. She seemed to be showing him a list of furnishings she and her lady's maid had drawn up.

"For the sitting room," she said, "I had thought to have the walls re-covered in dark green."

Freddie nodded eagerly. "You'll need draperies."

"Chairs. Sofas."

"Ottomans." Freddie was warming to the theme. "Books. Candelabra. A pianoforte!"

Next to him, Lu sniffed disgustedly.

Selina looked up. "And for your bedroom, Lu? Is there a particular color you have in mind?"

Lu scowled. "I cannot imagine why I would care."

"Lu!" said Freddie, his voice a whispered reproach.

Lu's eyes were bright, her tone brittle. "My apologies. I cannot imagine why I would care, Your Grace ."

Christ. He wanted to ask Selina to be patient with them. He wanted to shake his sister, and he wanted to hug her and tell her it was safe. No one would make her leave ever again.

But of course, that wasn't precisely true. If he did not get the guardianship, Lu and Freddie would have to leave. Any promises he made would be lies.

He had tried not to show his worry to Selina last night in her office. Yet he could not help but think on what would happen if he did not succeed in Chancery. They would lose Freddie and Lu, and he—

He would have failed them all. It would be one more way that he had not lived up to Selina's expectations, one more black mark against him. A disaster even she could not solve. And as he sat in the carriage with his wife and his siblings, he realized how desperately he wanted to be something more than a disappointment. For all of them.

"Selina," said his wife. She sounded unflustered, even gentle. "Please call me Selina."

Lu sniffed again but didn't reply.

When they reached Bond Street, Selina made for the registry office and gestured for him to take the children on ahead. "First, staff. I'm going to arrange for interviews this week." She eyed him. "You need quite a lot of staff. And a tutor for the children."

He made himself smile. "And a fencing master?"

Her eyes softened. "I will try my best. Can you take them down to R. S. Barrett's? The Ravenscrofts have patronized Barrett for many years. Perhaps we can purchase his whole showroom. I'll follow on shortly."

Barrett's turned out to be not one shop but a whole building, a rabbit's warren of room after room, each stuffed nearly to the eaves with furniture, rugs, fabrics, and artworks. Lacking Selina's list, Peter decided to let Freddie and Lu wander at will.

For Freddie, that meant speechless amazement as he took in his surroundings.

"Inform the shopkeeper if you see anything you like," Peter told him. "Tell them to send the bill to the residence."

Freddie nodded, wide-eyed and eager.

Lu, meanwhile, surveyed the furnishings before her coolly.

"You may as well choose something," Peter said. "For your bedchamber. Hell, you can make up a bedchamber for the cat, if you like." He refused to refer to the feline by its apparent moniker.

Lu, he was certain, was behind that one.

Even she could not fail to be overcome by the offerings at hand. When Selina arrived a quarter of an hour later, Lu was engrossed in a stack of maritime maps.

"Piracy," he said to Selina with a nod at his sister.

Selina blinked at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"Lu. She's plotting out routes around the Atlantic as we speak. First fencing, then the knots, now the maps—piracy is the only explanation for it."

Selina tipped her head, considering. "Perhaps you ought to encourage privateering instead."

He wanted to laugh, but instead he nodded seriously. "A government contract, you mean?"

"Indeed. A pirate with papers. The Royal Navy can only be improved by Lucinda's collusion with its efforts."

"I'll take it up in the Lords."

Selina laughed, a warm sparkling sound in the musty dimness of Barrett's. His heart did a strange slow roll as he looked at her, flushed and happy.

She was happy , here in this dusty shop, buying furniture for his awful empty house.

It felt as fragile as the calm surface of a pond. As easily shattered. If they did not get the children, would she look at him this way again?

"Come," she said, tugging him into the next room, away from Freddie and Lu. "I want to show you something."

But once they crossed the threshold, she maneuvered him around a series of dark mahogany sideboards and enameled end tables into a shadowed corner.

He tried for a grin. "You wanted to show me dusty plaster?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. We've enough of that at home."

Home. There went his stupid heart, thudding against his chest to the rhythm of the word. Solid and steadfast and terrifying. Home. Home. Home.

"I wanted to talk about the children," she continued, as if his vital organs weren't splayed open in front of him for her to trample upon. "Peter, this is brilliant. They've come to you of their own accord. Surely Eldon will take that into account at the hearing."

"Yes," he said, trying to focus on her words. "Yes. I hope you're right."

"I am certain I'm right. We've less than two weeks until the hearing, but that's plenty of time to discreetly ensure Eldon knows the children are living with us. We might invite the Eldons over for dinner—or, no, perhaps that's too obvious. We can endeavor to run into Lady Eldon in the park. Make mention of the children's new residence with us. Or"—her eyes lit up—"even better, I can ask Lady Eldon for a recommendation for a tutor and governess." She bit her lower lip as she thought. "I can call upon her tomorrow."

She was so damned certain , his wife, and the confidence in her tall golden form drew him like a magnet.

"We cannot let them go," he said, surprised to hear the rasp in his voice.

Selina blinked up at him. "The children, you mean? But they're here now. Where would they go? And why ?"

"Lu, she…" He hesitated. "She doesn't trust me. My father… our father. He wasn't a trustworthy sort. He left no provisions for them." Shocking, how it still blazed up, the fury and resentment toward Silas Kent. "Freddie wants to believe, I think. That we can all be together. But Lu is poised to bolt."

One corner of Selina's mouth quirked up. "Then we shall have to make everything too tempting for her to depart. And, given enough time, she'll realize there's nowhere she'd rather be."

It was painful, how much he wanted it all. Wanted the world she imagined so easily, where the children came home to rooms of their own, to dinner and kittens and adults who kept them safe. Wanted her —so much he was afraid to touch her for fear he might hurt her by grasping too tightly.

"Peter?" Her wolf's eyes had caught on him, clear and penetrating. "Are you quite all right?"

He wasn't. He wasn't all right. He felt too much, too hard, and it terrified him.

Two days later, Selina ladled coddled eggs onto plates for Freddie and Lu.

"And a kipper?" said Freddie. His hazel eyes were wide and guileless, his cheeks flushed.

Selina pretended not to notice the gray kitten twining about his ankles and added a kipper to his plate.

She crossed to the dining table—a great polished thing from Barrett's that would serve excellently for hosting Peter's political allies—and laid the plates before the children. Rolls and butter and fruit decorated a sideboard, and a newly hired footman had poured them both cups of frothed chocolate.

"Tomorrow," Selina said, "your tutors will attend you. And your governess arrives, Lu."

Lu snorted.

"Do not forget our bargain. You refrain from scaring off the governess for three weeks, and I shall take you to a private boxing exhibition."

Lu didn't respond but dug into the eggs with relish. Evidently the food at Great-great-aunt Rosamund's had been less salubrious than one might have hoped.

Peter came into the dining room then, and at the grim look upon his face, Selina rose to her feet. "What's happened?"

He looked at her, then at the children, who'd paused mid-bite in alarm. One corner of his mouth turned up, a ghost of his grin. "All's well. The guardianship hearing has been postponed. Backlog in Chancery, it seems."

"Postponed?" Freddie's voice was thin, and he had not touched his eggs. "Does that mean we have to leave?"

"No," said Selina hurriedly. "No, of course not, Freddie."

"You never need to leave," Peter told him.

Lu said nothing, picking up her fork and mechanically eating again, her gaze fixed in the middle distance.

Selina felt a cold weight in her belly. She wanted to believe Peter's promise to Freddie, but the delay felt ominous.

She wanted this to be over. She wanted the children secure and immutably theirs . Never before had Belvoir's felt so much like Damocles's sword, dangling above her and liable to fall at any moment.

Despite her efforts, she had not yet found out who had started the rumors about Nicholas. She'd dropped her pride and written a half-frantic note to Lydia asking if she could put her domestic spies to work to find out more.

She felt sick, though, as she stared at the children, at Peter's almost-frown. How could she do this? How could she welcome them home without knowing whether they would truly be able to stay?

Her reputation simply could not be destroyed until after the hearing. She would not permit it. She set her jaw, forcing the fear out of her expression.

"Don't forget to save some room for sweetmeats," she said. "Especially now that Miss Dandridge has learned your favorites."

They had an outing planned for after breakfast with Aunt Judith and Thomasin again. Aunt Judith had suggested they meet in Hyde Park; Selina suspected some subterfuge involving Lady Eldon but was uncertain of the details.

Even Lu was eager to see Thomasin. Selina felt her lips curve as she watched Lu scrape the plate of eggs clean and then bound up the stairs, Freddie and the kitten trailing her.

Peter laid his hand along her back, and she tilted her head into the solidity of his chest.

"It'll be well," he said. "You'll see."

She almost believed him.

In the park, Aunt Judith and Thomasin arrived not with Lady Eldon, but with grooms, footmen, and two ponies, a black and a shaggy bay.

Selina laughed aloud when she saw them. Peter's aspect suggested alarm.

"You," Selina said to her aunt, "are a menace as a grandmother. Ponies! Merciful heavens, Aunt Judith, I had to marshal an extended essay—in French!—when I wanted a dog at Broadmayne. And Freddie and Lu get ponies four days after they join the family?"

Aunt Judith gave Selina an arch look beneath her silver brows. "These children are considerably less spoiled."

Thomasin patted Selina's shoulder. "If you are still feeling bitter, my darling, allow me to remind you that you made Will write most of your essay for you anyway."

Selina felt herself blush as the interested gazes of her spouse, aunt, and two tousle-headed children swung her way. "I most certainly did not."

She had. Her French was execrable.

"Hmph," said Aunt Judith. "That explains why you forbore to read it aloud."

Peter made a muffled sound of laughter, which Selina pointedly ignored. She ushered the children toward the ponies. Lu leapt forward enthusiastically, demanding to know the black pony's name and asking whether she might try to mount it. She stroked its velvety nose, crooning over the white star beneath its forelock.

Freddie hung back.

"Have you ridden before?" Thomasin asked him, her sandy ringlets bobbing beneath a white lace cap.

He nodded, his face flushed. "I am—not sure I was fond of it."

Thomasin's lips quirked. "Let me tell you a secret. Do you remember Selina's brother, the duke? Tall, black hair, rather grave?"

Freddie nodded.

"He was terrified of horses as a boy. Not that you are terrified, of course."

Selina cocked her head, listening. She had never heard this story before.

"I am a little terrified," admitted Freddie.

Thomasin laughed softly. "And how very courageous of you to admit it. Well, Nicholas was quite, quite frightened, and his papa—who loved him very much, but was very stern himself—was determined to teach him not to be afraid."

Selina remembered their father, but only fuzzily—his dark hair, the signet ring he'd worn, the smile line carved on the left side of his mouth. The way he'd let her ride on his shoulders.

"His papa hired a riding instructor, and then a handful of grooms, and no one could convince young Nicholas to mount the horse. But Nicholas was frustrated too—he hated being afraid and wanted to please his papa. So one night, he snuck down to the kitchen and stole a bag of apples, then carried them out to the stable. One by one he fed every single horse there, befriending each in turn. And every night after that, he brought his pony an apple. He fed it while he stroked its nose, then while he brushed its coat and saddled it, and finally when he mounted for the first time. And soon enough he rode his pony, proud as any duke ever was—and do you know? The bedeviled pony had grown so accustomed to the apples that he would not permit a rider other than Nicholas ever again!"

Selina grinned at Thomasin. "I remember that pony! So fat, it was, and the poor thing followed Nicholas around like a dog every time he came home from school."

Thomasin's eyes danced. "Precisely." She fished in a hidden pocket of her pink ruffled gown. "And do you know what I've brought for you, Freddie?"

"An apple?" he said hopefully, and Thomasin laughed.

"Indeed."

Freddie took the proffered apple and approached the shaggy brown pony. It eyed him rather mournfully as the apple bobbed up and down in Freddie's nervous grasp.

Peter came forward and murmured something in Freddie's ear. Selina was reminded with a little whisper of amusement of the first time she had met Peter. He'd thought her horse abandoned in the woods at Broadmayne, their country estate, and the gelding—a great beast of an animal that she adored—had dumped him flat on his arse when he'd tried to mount.

She wondered if he was telling that story to Freddie.

He showed Freddie how to hold the apple out to the horse, his long fingers cupped beneath Freddie's smaller hand. They made a pair, two heads of dark curls bent together, Peter's hat clutched under his other arm. The sun glinted red on their hair.

Freddie finished feeding the apple to the pony. Aunt Judith and Lu had abandoned their little party—Selina suspected Aunt Judith was giving Lu a lesson in horsemanship she wouldn't soon forget. Thomasin spoke in an undervoice to the groom who held the bridle of Freddie's pony.

Peter fell back beside Selina, and she smiled to look at him. His curls fell over his brow, and she reached up to brush them back. She could almost pretend that their marriage did not threaten his future. Here in the sunshine, she could almost believe that he would not come to regret it.

"Did you ride often in New Orleans?"

He turned from where he'd been staring after Lu in the distance and looked distractedly down at her. "Often enough."

"Is something wrong?"

"No," he said, but his voice was strained. "No."

"Is it the hearing? The postponement?" Her stomach clenched. Part of her wanted to cry—she'd known he would understand the consequences of Belvoir's eventually. She'd known it.

What had she thought? That she was worth the cost?

"We must think of it as an opportunity, Peter," she said and cursed herself for the words.

She had secured a cottage in Cornwall to go to, if the worst happened. She had the note from her man of business tucked into her desk at Belvoir's. She ought to be preparing Peter for her potential departure, not trying to reassure him that all would be well.

It would be better for him if she left. She couldn't make herself say the words.

"An extra week means more time to show the Eldons how perfectly content the children are with us," she said instead. "The tutors, the ponies—all of it will help."

He clasped her hand in his own, the soft leather of her glove thin enough that she could feel his warmth. "It's not the hearing."

He didn't go on. Did he think she did not notice his abruptness? It was not like him—he was always so easy with his words, his charm. She wanted to demand to know what was wrong, but she fought back the urge. She was too much, too insistent. She knew that about herself.

He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and he didn't look at her when he said, "Freddie asks if he might call Thomasin Grandmother."

She blinked at the non sequitur, but her chest loosened a trifle. "Oh—but of course! Well, no, in fact. Aunt Judith is Grandmother. Thomasin is Grandmama." She smiled at the retreating back of her aunt, tall and straight beside Lu on the pony. "Aunt Judith wanted to be Grandmother Ravenscroft for my nephews—heaven knows why—but they can't manage all of those syllables. Grandmother alone is asking quite a lot of wee Teddy." She glanced again at Peter, who was still looking away. "You must tell him to call her Grandmama. Thomasin will be ecstatic."

One corner of his mouth turned up, but it wasn't right. No flash of white teeth, no warm brown eyes capturing hers. Selina cast about for what could be bothering him. "Lu," she said awkwardly, "may call them whatever she likes. I—we—Will and I always called her Thomasin, though she was in so many ways our mother. She's—so good at that. Thomasin. Making a family."

Now he met her eyes. "I'm so glad that the children have you all." His forearm tensed beneath her hand. "I am so damned glad they have you, and Miss Dandridge, and Lady Judith. Your family."

Your family.

She recalled, suddenly and forcefully, the way that Peter had stolen eighteen barrels of French brandy for his grandfather. A man he had never met before coming to England two years past.

"Did you know your grandparents on your mother's side?" she asked. "In Louisiana?"

"They'd died. Long before I was born. When she was a girl."

His tone was not encouraging, but Selina was not easily put off. "What was she like, your mother?"

His dark lashes came down over his eyes for a moment, then lifted. "Brave. Fragile." His voice was steady. "I was raised, mostly, by the mother of my half brother."

"Morgan?" Selina remembered the brother he had mentioned to Lady Eldon at the dinner party, the little boy who had died.

"Yes. My mother struggled with our life in New Orleans, but Morgan's mother"—his lips curved, a fond smile—"she was so good. Sturdy and steadfast and patient with me. It won't surprise you to hear I needed a lot of patience, as a boy. I haven't changed in that regard."

She didn't like the way he said it. "All children require patience. Did you not hear the story of how I made Will write my persuasive essay about les chiens ?" That more or less exhausted her recollection of the words in the essay.

He huffed a little laugh. "I would have liked to have seen you then."

"You wouldn't. I would have made you fence with me. Or tried to punch you in the nose."

He looked at her then, truly looked, all the force of his gaze trained upon her face. She felt heat rise in her cheeks at the intensity of his regard. "I have always wanted to look at you."

She swallowed. "You… may."

She gave herself a little mental shake. Honestly, nearly one hundred salacious volumes in the Venus catalog at Belvoir's and she couldn't come up with anything better than you may ?

"I'm glad," Peter said, "that Freddie and Lu have your family. I'm glad they will grow up with your family to be patient with them. I—" He broke off.

"You love them," she said.

"Of course."

It was so sweet and sharp in her chest the way he said it, immediate, as if there could be no doubt.

"I do too," she said. "I love them." Her gaze was caught on his. The tilt of his lips, the way the sun glanced off his cheekbones. Her heart kicked up, and she was suddenly terrified because she wanted—she wanted to say—

"And Aunt Judith," she said instead. "And Thomasin—and Nicholas and Daphne, and Will—when he gets home. He will love them." She was babbling. She did not typically babble, but her blood was loud in her ears, because she loved Peter, she loved him, and she had almost told him so.

She could not tell him that. Fear gripped her, and not just fear that he might not return her feelings. She was as afraid—perhaps more afraid—that he did.

If she spoke the words aloud, it would be real—to him, to her. It would be so much harder to leave him, if she had to.

She could not say it now. Not before the hearing. Not before her secrets were revealed and she judged just how disastrous her effect had been upon his life.

There was a sudden commotion up ahead of them, where Freddie had been leading his horse by the halter, and Selina broke away from Peter almost desperately, needing distance from the warm pull of his body.

"Lu's probably taken off for the docks," said Peter wryly.

But as they drew closer, Selina saw that it was not Lu and Aunt Judith at all, but rather Thomasin, seated on the ground, her pink skirts crumpled around her.

She darted forward, Peter just behind her. "What's happened?"

In Thomasin's lap, half-curled, lay Freddie.

"Selina," Thomasin said, and the tone of her voice sent ice crawling down the back of Selina's neck. So calm. So perfectly even. "Freddie has taken ill. I've sent a footman around for the carriage."

Selina dropped to her knees beside the older woman. "Taken ill? Why—he seemed—"

She thought of Freddie—his cheeks flushed pink, his hand trembling as he held the apple. His face still burned with hectic color as he lay in Thomasin's lap, his eyes barely open.

"I'm all right," he said, his voice thready.

Selina brushed a hand over his hair, and she felt his fever—so hot —straight through her gloves.

"What do we do?" she asked Thomasin. Her own voice was somehow unaffected as well, though she felt dizzy with sudden fright.

"Take him home," said Thomasin. "Put him to bed. Cool cloths for his forehead. I always liked to use lavender essence when you and Will were small."

The crisp, calm instructions steadied her, and she rose, turning to Peter. "Shall we go to the—"

Her words died in her throat.

Peter's face was stricken. His brown eyes were unfocused, almost dazed, and his skin had taken on a strange, unhealthy pallor. He looked through her, through Freddie, into some distant place she could not follow.

"Are you well?" she demanded. "Peter?"

"He was warm." He sounded puzzled. "I thought he felt warm. When I helped him feed the apple to the pony. I thought… his coat. I thought he might need new clothes."

Selina licked her lips, her mouth dry, her throat tight. "All right. Can you go 'round and wait for the carriage? I'll get Lu."

"Lu," he breathed. He looked at Selina, abruptly intent. "Don't frighten her. I don't—want her to be frightened. Tell her… tell her everything will be well."

"Everything will be well." She said it as much for herself as for him. "In a day or two. Children take ill often." Nicholas and Daphne's boys certainly did—earaches and coughs and small head colds.

"Yes," said Peter bleakly. "They do."