Chapter 29

… I will meet you at your house at nine of the clock tomorrow. Look ducal! Ask your wife for assistance if you need to.

—from Mohan Tagore, barrister, to Peter Kent, the Duke of Stanhope

The morning of the hearing, Peter thought rather grimly that they had done all they could do. It had been four days since the confrontation with Lord Alverthorpe at Belvoir's, and the countess and Georgiana were safely ensconced at the Ravenscroft estate in Gloucestershire. He and Selina had made their social rounds. Lydia and her maid had identified any potential sources of opposition and then Lady Judith and Mrs. Khan had moved to quash them. The Dugglebys had thrown quite possibly the least exclusive ball of the Season, so that everyone might see the general support for the Duke and Duchess of Stanhope.

Her family, all their friends—everyone had done their best to utilize their positions and associations.

Everyone knew about Selina's connection to Belvoir's, including the Eldons, who were not , as it turned out, members of the library. Their daughter, however, was.

Peter hoped it would be enough.

Selina sat in the Court of Chancery beside him, looking calm and formal, a duchess to her satin-slippered toes. While he, the so-called duke, sat with his hands digging into his knees, his heart in his throat.

Tagore had taken the carriage from their house up to Westminster with them, waited beside them all morning before their hearing was to begin. He was robed and bewigged, looking like the Bengali version of one of the portraits in the Stanhope gallery.

Freddie and Lu had stayed at the house, attended by their tutor and several Ravenscrofts. Children weren't allowed at court and—God help him—even if they had been permitted to attend, Peter didn't want them to be there in case it went wrong.

It could not go wrong. Hell, if the force of his determination could will the guardianship into being, it would have happened already.

Selina reached out with her pinkie finger to touch his own, which was locked in a painful grip on his leg. Her gloved finger stroked his, and he felt the steady strength of her there beside him. Perhaps she was only pretending it, that calm, that patience, but it soothed him anyway.

At Lord Eldon's brusque command, Tagore rose to his feet.

He looked every inch the estimable barrister in the great wood-paneled space. He spoke at some length of Peter and Selina's commitment to the children. He managed to highlight Selina's connection to the Duke of Rowland without ever alluding to the Belvoir's scandal, and Peter almost wanted to laugh. Tagore explained in tedious legal detail why juridical precedent for denying guardianship to elder brothers based on inheritance claims did not apply to Freddie and Lu.

"Enough," Lord Eldon cut in. His white brows dove sternly over his eyes as he considered Tagore, Peter, and Selina.

"My lord?" Tagore's tone was cautious.

"I've heard enough of the law. As though I don't know it."

"Yes, of course," said Tagore weakly. "My lord."

Eldon looked penetratingly at Peter. "I want to hear from you."

Tagore coughed and sat down. He looked over at Peter, and Peter felt, more than saw, the thread of anxiety that ran through his barrister. His friend. Don't cock this up , Peter supposed Tagore was saying, and goddamn it, he would try not to.

Peter looked up at Eldon, seated and imposingly wigged, and rose to his feet.

"Stanhope," Eldon said, "tell me why these children are better off with you than with another."

Peter felt words rise easily to his mouth, as they always did. "While I did not anticipate inheriting this dukedom, Lord Chancellor, it has come to me anyway. I have the material funds to care for Freddie and Lu, to keep them in comfort. To give them an education and bring them out in society. I have—"

"Fine," said Eldon curtly. "You have plenty. What of what you are ?"

Peter felt Selina stiffen at his side.

What he was. God, there was nothing about what he was that made him fit guardian for the children. It was money he had, and a title, and a clever and competent wife he did not deserve.

"Why should I place them with you?" Eldon asked. "Why do you want them?"

Oh, words—he needed words, he needed easy sentences and convincing lies. Eldon's question hung in the air.

"They are my brother and sister," he said hoarsely. "I would want them even if I did not know them. I have a duty to do right by them."

It wasn't enough. It wasn't the right thing to say. Peter didn't know the right thing to say.

He had feared this, somehow feared exactly this. That it would come down to him at the end—to who he was and what he lacked, to the boy in New Orleans who could not make his father happy no matter how hard he tried.

It was his, now, to succeed or fail. There was nowhere else to turn but inward, and all that seemed to live inside him was terror.

But there was Selina at his side, her body vibrating with nervous energy. He thought of her bravery at Belvoir's. He thought of what she'd said—that he could turn a flaw into a strength. That he could imagine the world he wanted and drag it into being.

Selina , he thought. My family. And somehow the words were there, steady and true.

"I love them," he said. "I'm proud of them. I may not always know how best to protect them, how to make things go right. But I won't hurt them. I won't break their spirits. I won't leave them. No matter what, I won't leave them."

Selina came to her feet at his side. "My Lord Chancellor," she said. "I wonder if I might say—"

Behind them, people in the gallery—mostly wigged barristers, but some newspapermen and interested visitors—started to stir. A hushed whisper rose. Lord Eldon looked up sharply. His eyes widened, his heavy brows darting upward.

Peter started to get the uneasy feeling that something was going wrong.

It was, unfortunately, a feeling with which he was hideously familiar.

There was a cough. A faint feminine shriek.

And then the door to the courtroom exploded open, and into the room barreled Freddie and Lu. Freddie, looking white-faced and terrified and brave, rode his shaggy bay pony. Lu held hard onto the horse's bridle, half dragging it, brandishing her rapier forward like a small, frock-wearing squire.

Beside him, Selina let out a very soft groan.

Tagore sat frozen. He appeared to have lost the power of speech. He lifted one hand, as though to gesture at the children decisively, and then managed only a half-hearted sort of wave.

"What," said Lord Eldon, "is the meaning of this?"

Peter heard himself talking. "Lord Chancellor. May I present Miss Lucinda Nash and Master Frederick Nash?"

He wasn't certain whether he'd got the order of the presentation right, but at this unfortunate juncture, the finer points of social etiquette seemed a bit beside the point.

Eldon opened his mouth to answer, but Freddie and Lu charged wildly toward him through the center of the room, and Eldon appeared to think the better of trying to make himself heard amid the din of screeching and overturned chairs.

"We can't let you do this!" shouted Lu, her voice pitched high to be heard in the chaos. She, Freddie, and the pony stopped directly in between Peter and Eldon.

Peter realized he had no idea to whom she was speaking. Had they stormed the room to try to stop the proceeding? To try to prevent him from becoming their guardian? He'd thought they were past that—but he knew, he knew how hard it was for Lu to trust him.

Alarm crept up the back of his neck. He wondered if he should go to her, try to grab the bridle of Freddie's horse. He must have tensed, poised to spring forward, because Selina caught his arm.

"It's our lives you're deciding," said Lu, her voice carrying. "It was our lives that were at stake when we went to Aunt Edith, and when we went to Great-great-aunt Rosamund. It'll be our lives. We want to say our piece."

Peter's heart felt frozen in his chest.

Lord Eldon gazed impassively at the pony, which had lowered its head and appeared to be trying to eat a wig that one of the barristers had lost as he'd darted out of the way. "Do go on."

For the first time, Freddie spoke. His voice was quiet, and Peter had to lean forward to hear him. If the boy hadn't been atop the pony, Peter wasn't sure he'd have heard him at all. He wondered if that had been what got Freddie up onto the pony's saddle—the desire to be heard.

"We want to live with our brother."

"And his wife," Lu put in. "We want to live with the Duke and Duchess of Stanhope."

"And our cat," Freddie added.

"It's our home, " said Lu, her voice fierce.

Peter had the abrupt sensation that he was going to unman himself utterly and start to cry.

"It's our family, " Lu went on. "You can't take us away because of some… stupid law." She bit down on her lower lip. "If you try it, we shall run away. We'll run back to Stanhope house. You can't keep us prisoner at some stranger's home, you simply can't do it—"

"That's enough," said Lord Eldon, his firm voice cutting off Lu's impassioned rhetoric. "For heaven's sake, girl. There's no need for such dramatics."

"But—" Lu's rapier had fallen down by her side, and Peter could see that her other hand was in a fist. "But—sir— please ."

"Master Nash. Miss Nash." Eldon's voice was crisp. "I hereby appoint your brother, Peter Kent, the ninth Duke of Stanhope, along with his wife, Selina Kent, the Duchess of Stanhope, as your legal guardians. As I decree, so shall it be done, now and forevermore." He gestured shortly to a clerk at his side, who was staring, openmouthed, at Freddie and Lu, the pony and the rapier. At Eldon's flick of the fingers, the man started, took up his quill, and began to write very busily on the paper in front of him.

"You—do?" said Lu faintly.

"Yes," said Eldon drily. "I was going to do so anyway."

"You were ?"

Eldon closed his eyes, then reopened them, his gaze directed heavenward. "Yes. Do not make me regret my decision."

"You won't!" said Freddie eagerly, and somehow his pony took his words as encouragement, and it meandered forward toward where Eldon sat just above them.

"I doubt that," said Eldon. He looked toward Selina. "My wife likes you a great deal, Duchess. I don't like to disappoint her."

"Thank you," said Selina. Her voice, though clear and audible, shook slightly. "Thank you."

Eldon raised one white eyebrow and then looked at Peter. "I am glad you will not break their spirits. However—you might see fit to remove them from this chamber before this animal despoils it."

Happiness was spreading through Peter like a slow tide, seeping into his chest and his limbs and his fingers.

Selina caught his hand in both of hers and squeezed hard. He looked at her. Her amber eyes were bright and wet, and her fingers were warm.

"They're ours," he said stupidly.

"Yes."

"There's a horse in Westminster."

She laughed damply. "Yes."

"I think we are responsible for removing it, and I hope you have some clever ideas about how to manage that, because I'm not entirely certain that horses can descend stairs—"

Then Freddie slid out of the saddle and took Lu's hand in his. Then they were moving toward him, stumbling, almost running. And then Peter was hugging them, holding them all. Selina's hair tickled his nose; Lu's rapier thumped the back of his leg. Freddie's chest hitched as he cried.

Good God , Peter thought. And then: God. Ours. Now and forevermore.