Chapter 25

… I am so glad— so glad —to hear that everything's come right. I know I have not met Freddie yet, but I've been sleepless with worry over the child. You understand why.

—from Will to Selina, upon receiving word of Freddie's recovery

In the tepid light of predawn, Selina dressed without waking Peter. She peeked in on the children as she passed Freddie's bedchamber. Both of them slept: Freddie in the bed and Lu upon the mattress on the floor, the gray kitten locked in her arms.

Selina's half boots made a rhythmic click as she descended to the lower level. She didn't need a candle, though it was dark in the staircase. She burned with purpose—practically blazed with it.

She was going to Belvoir's. Now, before Regent Street was crowded with shoppers and people-watchers. She was going to call Laventille in, and all his secretaries, and everyone she'd ever worked with, if necessary.

She would find out who was responsible for the rumors about Nicholas and Belvoir's. And she would stop them.

She would not let anything wreck their chances of securing the guardianship. Not now, when they were finally together.

This was how she could solve everything. She would arrange it all—she knew how to fix things. She had to keep the rumors at bay until after the hearing, at the very least. This was the only way to keep hold of what she wanted: the soft beloved contentedness she'd felt in Peter's arms the night before, their new and cautious family.

It was the only way to make sure that she would not hurt Peter. That he would—

That he would still want her.

She directed Emmie (who was emerging from a bedroom that was decidedly not her own) to inform Peter where she had gone when he arose, and silently resolved to ensure that Emmie knew where she might acquire a French letter.

The carriage ride to Regent Street was brief, and before long she was hurrying into the alley behind her beloved library. She hadn't disguised herself this time—no servant's garb or even a decorative bonnet. It was reckless, perhaps, but she felt a little reckless. It was time to see this done.

To her surprise, there was a figure waiting at the back entrance to Belvoir's. At this hour, she had not anticipated anyone else, and she wondered for a moment if she ought to turn around and run away.

But no. It was a deliveryman, she supposed, or a coal-cutter, and she was tired of being so afraid. She strode forward to take her place alongside the shadowed form.

It wasn't a coal-cutter. It was a woman, cloaked and hooded, and when Selina looked into her shadowed face, two cornflower-blue eyes peeped out from beneath curling lashes the color of moonbeams.

It was, undeniably, Lady Georgiana Cleeve.

Selina opened her mouth, then closed it again. Fancy meeting you here , she thought, with a hint of hysteria. Do you prefer erotic poetry or explicit memoir?

Georgiana, it seemed, did not find it similarly difficult to summon the spoken word. When she spoke, her voice was devoid of its usual charming bafflement.

"I'm glad you're here," she said. "I had written to Laventille to ask him to meet me here, but I would rather speak to you in any case."

Selina paused briefly to take that in.

To Laventille ? How did Georgiana even know Laventille? And where were the teeth and the blinking and the non sequiturs?

Something peculiar was going on, and Selina did not enjoy the feeling of being the last to know what.

"I am here to apologize," Georgiana said, "and to warn you. I know about you. I know you run Belvoir's and the Venus catalog."

"You—" Selina couldn't find the words. Georgiana Cleeve knew? Lord Alverthorpe's daughter? It made some kind of sense, she supposed—Alverthorpe was one of Nicholas's political enemies, one of the people she'd suspected of starting the rumors in the first place. But she never would have imagined that Georgiana—sweet, lamb-like, ringleted Georgiana—might side with her father in opposition to Belvoir's and what it stood for.

"I discovered your connection to Belvoir's in my financial inquiries," Georgiana continued, "because I wanted to know who was paying for my novels."

Selina could not make sense of the words.

"You—" She could not apprehend it. "You write novels?"

"I've written six in the last two years. The Venus catalog has stocked them all. Three different noms de plume ." She provided the names, and Selina gaped.

"But those—but those are—"

"Scandalous?" said Georgiana. Her curls bobbed as she tilted her head to the side. "Then I suppose I am in fit company."

"I was going to say excellent!"

For a moment, Georgiana's eyes widened. Her face took on a cast of puzzled bemusement. "I'm sure I do not understand," she said, her voice sweet, her hands clasped together in front of her.

And then the expression fell away. "I'm not sorry," she said, "for lying to the ton . But I am sorry for what I'm about to tell you."

It had been a ruse. This whole time. The wide blank blue eyes and the ludicrous comments and—

And Peter had known, or at least suspected. He'd said there was more to Georgiana than met the eye. He'd stopped courting her, suddenly and without explanation.

"Lady Georgiana, I do not mean to offend, but what the devil are you trying to say?"

"For the last several months, I have attempted to uncover who owns Belvoir's because my father has taken it into his head to bring down the library. He found—" Georgiana winced, looking pained. "He found three of my novels in my bedchamber. He did not know they were mine, but once he saw the contents and the Belvoir's bindings, that was more than enough."

"Why—"

"He's searched our rooms since we were children, all three of us. He has a very particular idea of how the Cleeves should behave. My brothers… he beat them into the very model of English peers, hunting and riding and fucking."

Selina blinked, taken aback despite herself at the word emerging from behind Georgiana's perfect teeth.

"And I," Georgiana continued, "was to be the ideal wife. Silent. Beautiful. Uncomplaining, no matter what my husband said or did, because he held the purse strings, and I held nothing at all." Her expression was set in tense, furious lines. "To hell with that. I wrote my novels. My mother helped me play the fool so no one—most especially not my father—would ever suspect I was more than an empty-headed doll. And I was going to get out. I was going to run away, and make a home for myself, with my money and my novels, and I was never going to see him again."

Selina's heart was in her throat. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Georgiana. Tell me how I can help."

Georgiana gave a brisk shake of her head. "I don't need any help. I am doing fine on my own. But after my father found the novels, I set myself upon the path of finding the owner of Belvoir's, so that I could warn her. I thought"—she looked at Selina, her blue eyes piercing—"I thought it must be a woman. You cannot imagine how afraid I was for you. For what my father will do to you now that he knows."

Selina felt cold and sick. "He knows about me?"

"He does. It's—it's my fault. I went to the bank—I pretended I had no idea why the Belvoir's promissory note had come to me and convinced them to send it back to the person who had signed it. That was how I found your man of business and then—well, then I traced him back to you.

"I was a coward." Georgiana's face looked almost pleading. "I wrote you a letter, warning you that you were on the point of discovery and that my father was behind the rumors. I should have come to you in person, I know I should have—but I was too afraid to reveal myself. I wrote you an anonymous note and put it out for the post, and I did not know my father had set a servant to intercept any letters that my mother and I tried to send."

Selina's hand was at her throat. "Are you all right? He has not—"

Georgiana shook her head. "He does not know I am the author of the novels. I did not reveal that much of myself, not even in an anonymous letter. But he knows about you , Selina. He knows you are behind Belvoir's and he means to take down the library and you with it. Last night, he boasted to my brothers that he'd learned something new. He told them he had information that was going to destroy Belvoir's and its owner so completely, they'd be the laughingstock of London."

Selina felt dizzy. Belvoir's—her library—Peter and the children—

But she could not think of that, not yet. "Let me help you get away," she said. "Come up with me to the office. I can check the accounts—I'm sure we can arrange for an advance—"

"No. I came here to warn you, and now I have." Georgiana winced. "The guardianship hearing, for Stanhope's siblings—that's soon?"

"Two weeks from now."

Georgiana's face was drawn and pale. "I can try to hold my father off. I can—distract him, perhaps. Cause some other kind of scandal to take his attention off you until after the hearing is over. Perhaps one of my brothers—"

"No," Selina said. The word burst from her, panicked and angry. "No. Keep his attention on me."

Georgiana's lips pinched in. "You don't know him. You don't want him to perceive you any more than he already does."

"No," Selina said again. "Perhaps I don't want that. But it must be that way nonetheless . "

It was worse than she'd feared. Just from knowing Selina, Georgiana's fragile independence was threatened. Nicholas's political reputation was marred. Peter might not get the children.

She could not accept that. Her choices had brought them to this point, her decisions and actions. There was only one way to ensure that the consequences were restricted to her alone. She had to keep the Earl of Alverthorpe's attention directed only at herself.

"You must stop associating with me."

Georgiana looked at her, a familiar glance of confusion.

"You need to leave here. Right away. You must protect yourself first of all. You must give me the cut direct if you see me on the street."

"Selina," Georgiana said gently, "this isn't your fault."

"It is. It is ."

She had started this whole chain of events, and she'd thought it was because she wanted to help Ivy Price, but part of it had been pride. She was clever enough to pull the wool over the eyes of the whole ton . She knew better than everyone else.

No more.

The cottage in Cornwall. The lease her man of business had signed on her behalf.

"I have already done it once," she said.

"Selina, what on earth—"

She grabbed Georgiana's gloved hand. "I will not let harm come to you. Or Nicholas. Or Peter, or the children." Her voice was shaking, but she pretended it was not. "I will not have it ."

"How can I help?"

She felt as though her heart were being torn from her chest. "You can help by leaving. Leave this alley. Do not come back. Send a letter to Lydia Hope-Wallace if you need to contact Belvoir's."

"Selina—"

"No!" Her voice was too high, too loud. She tried again. "No. I have thought of a path out of this tangle, and I am going to take it. I will not discuss it with you further."

"You do not need to be alone in this, Selina," Georgiana said in a low voice.

Selina's throat worked as she tried to swallow. "I am already alone in it."

Will had gone. And Peter—

She had failed. He had come to her weeks ago, so certain that she could handle everything, fix everything—but she could not fix this.

She thought of the exhausted lines of his body, slumped over Freddie's bed. She would not permit the children to be taken from him. She simply would not allow it. Somehow, Peter and the children had come to mean more to her than she could ever have imagined. More than Belvoir's. More than her reputation or her very life.

Georgiana gave a short nod of assent. "I'll stay away from you, if that's what you need."

"Yes," Selina said, "do that."

She watched Georgiana walk away and felt a cold splintering agony go through her. She could not do it. She was not strong enough.

She could pack her things and write a character for Emmie and tell her family—it would crush her, but she could do those things. But she could not leave Peter. She could not abandon him and the children. It would hurt them. She would hurt them.

But nor could she stay. It would be worse for them if she stayed. There was no way out—no way to put things right.

She was sobbing, she realized dazedly, breathless heaving sobs in the alley behind Belvoir's. Someone was going to hear her.

She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes ruthlessly, fighting back her tears, forcing herself to calm down.

And when she was able to breathe again, she made herself stand up straight. She made herself go back to her carriage and when she sat down inside, she imagined herself inside a brittle shell of ice.

She could not think about herself now. She had to do what was right for them , for Peter and the children. And the right thing—the only thing—was for her to take herself as far from their lives as she could. They might be angry with her. They might be hurt. But they would survive it because they would be together, as a family.

She took the carriage home and prayed she would not break.