Page 13 of Ne'er Duke Well
Purple, if Selina remembered correctly. Lydia had informed her that aubergine would beà la modein late 1812, which was why she had been holding purple ribbons when they’d discovered that Selina’s suitor, the Marquess of Queensbury, was in the millinery shop not to pay his attentions to her, but to set an assignation with his mistress.
Good heavens, Selina had been such a fool then.Whyever could he have come into the shop?she’d asked.He didn’t even make a purchase.
As though a marquess might come in to purchase a hat for his mother or buttons for his own coat.
She’d heard the termmistress, of course, but only at a distance. Whispered beneath discreetly cupped hands. Not as the name for real women whom real men of her acquaintance engaged for the purpose of carnal conversation.
But she’d learned quickly. First an illusion-puncturing explanation from Lydia—Your older brother has kept you sheltered from the real world, Selina—and then a book.Thebook. The book that Lydia had brought over to Rowland House and told Selina to keep out of sight if she had any sense.
The Courtesan’s Revenge: The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, Written by Herself.
Selina recalled the cheap cloth binding, the way the roughnavy starched cotton had felt under her hands, so different from the smooth leather of the books in the library at Broadmayne, their country estate.
She remembered curling up beneath her counterpane, squinting in the moonlight at the words on the page.
I shall not say, the book began,why and how I became, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven.
Selina had learned quite a bit from Harriette Wilson’s book. She’d learned a great deal more in the three years since 1812, and all of it came back to Belvoir’s and its expansive catalog of emerald-green books.
She had also learned—between her brothers’ marriages and her growing understanding of the lifestyles of male peers of the realm—that the regular kind of aristocratic marriage was not good enough for her. She had no need to marry for security or social position.
She was endlessly grateful for that privilege, because she had discovered, in her heart of hearts, that she wantedmore. She wanted something better than a political and economic match based on an appropriate lineage and a desire for heirs.
She wanted love. She wanted someone who wouldn’t be afraid of her connection to Belvoir’s. She wanted someone to look at her and see more than just the sister of a duke or the recipient of a substantial dowry. More than difficult and prickly and too opinionated and toomuch.
So far, no such candidate had presented himself. It was extremely lowering.
“All right,” said Lydia. “My curiosity is piqued. If we’re not here to discussyourincipient marriage, whose are we planning?”
“What do you know,” Selina said carefully, “about the Duke of Stanhope?”
Lydia’s brows arched. “Stanhope? Why, practically everything, I think.”
Selina permitted herself a snort, because it was Lydia. “Of course you do.”
Lydia gave a small ironic smile. “Did you expect anything else?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“His father was a third son,” Lydia said, “who was sent to the colonies to marry the daughter of an absurdly wealthy French hotelier. The Stanhope coffers were not at their best at the time, but as I understand it, the marriage—and the work of the rather savvy eighth duke—shored up the Stanhope fortune well enough. Given his father, his uncles, and his two male cousins, there was no reason to think that he would ever inherit, so Mr. Peter Kent was raised in blissful American splendor in New Orleans. But thanks to Napoleon, among other misfortunes, the younger Kent men did not outlive the old duke, and so, two years ago, Peter Kent became the heir presumptive to an ancient dukedom.”
“Precisely,” said Selina. “The American Duke.”
Lydia inclined her head. “The Earl of Clermont retrieved Kent from Louisiana when he became the heir—to meet his elderly grandfather and the rest of theton—and he’s lived a figure of some, er, notoriety ever since.”
“You know that he’s spoken against slavery in the Lords?”
“Of course I do,” Lydia said. “He’s a radical abolitionist. I’m surprised thatyoudo.”
“He was here yesterday,” Selina said by way of explanation. “He wanted Nicholas’s help in his efforts to secure guardianship of his half siblings.”
“Intriguing. I take it they are natural children?”
Selina nodded. Goodness, she adored Lydia, who knew everything and was shocked by nothing. “As I understand it, they’re concerned that the Court of Chancery is unlikely to grant Stanhope’s petition for guardianship.”
Lydia took this in, and Selina knew she was mentally reviewing her knowledge of Lord John Scott, first Baron Eldon and the lord high chancellor.
“Nicholas says he’s not sure what he can do to help.”
