Page 113 of Ne'er Duke Well
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. “Youhaveplenty. What of what youare?”
Peter felt Selina stiffen at his side.
What he was. God, there was nothing about what hewasthat 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.
