Page 51 of Ne'er Duke Well
… Here may they learn to shun the dreadful quicksands of pain and mortification, and land safe on theterra firmaof delight and love…
—fromHARRIS’S GUIDE TO COVENT GARDEN LADIES
“We’re… what?” He couldn’t have heard her correctly.
“We’re locked in here. That’s why I told you to wait. When you close the door to this room, it can only be reopened from the outside. Sometimes it requires a crowbar to sort of prise the—”
Somehow it seemed he had. “Why the devil were you in here in the first place?”
“I?” She stared up at him, amber eyes dark in the half light. “I live here! Why areyouin here?”
He stalked over to a looming dark shape that he was fairly confident was a settee. Maybe a chaise. Something he could sit on, at least. He dropped himself down. “I needed a minute awayfrom that bleeding circus. And that’s saying something, because I’m typically fond of a circus.”
Selina made her way back from the door and perched on another low shape across from him. They were closer to the window now, and the starlight silvered her hair. “Well, you’ll have a minute. Or ten, or maybe thirty before someone thinks to come look for us in here.” She sighed. “I could pound on the door, I suppose. Seems a bit dramatic.”
“Maybe,” he offered, “I can climb out the—”
Her head snapped up and her fierce gaze caught him. “Peter, I swear to you, if you say that you will climb out the window, I will never speak to you again.”
He stopped talking and considered her expression. He wasn’t quite sure if she meant it. “I just meant that I could—”
She fixed him with a terrifying glare. “Do not say climb. That window opens to the street, and truly, if there is an engraving of you in the papers climbing out the window of the Duke of Rowland’s house, I will buy Lucinda a dozen rapiers and let her loose on the streets of London.”
He felt his lips twitch. God, he liked her much too much.
“Listen,” he found himself saying. “I wanted to apologize. I should’ve—I’ve been wanting to apologize.”
She stiffened. “I’d really rather that you did not.”
For God’s sake. Now he was an ass if he didn’t apologize and an ass if hedid, because she’d asked him not to.
“All right. I won’t apologize. But I need to tell you that I can’t follow your advice. I know you’re not wrong. This evening made it even clearer to me than it already was. But I can’t do it, Selina. And I know you don’t want me to say it, but Iamsorry about that.”
Her dark brows drew together. “You’re sorry that you can’t follow my advice?”
He gave a little shrug and didn’t speak.
“About marriage, you mean? You’re sorry that you can’t propose to someone else?”
Her voice had shifted slightly. It had been guarded before, tense like the set of her shoulders. And suddenly it was vibrating with… something.
He looked back up and found her intoxicating eyes.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because you told me to.” His mouth was talking away, talking, talking, and his senses had fixed on the one bright point in the dark room that was Selina. “You told me it was a good idea, and you’re right. Eldon would’ve loved it. I’d be halfway to the guardianship by now. You’re clever, and right, and I’m sorry I can’t stick to the plan.”
“I didn’t mean why are you sorry,” she said when he wound down. “I meant—why can’t you marry someone else?”
Christ. He rose to his feet and took a step toward her. Another. When he spoke, his voice was thick and deep, almost hoarse. “You know why.”
Her lips had parted. They looked like the heart of a fig, soft and ripe and impossibly sweet. He wanted to taste her. He couldn’t keep breathing and not taste her again.
He reached out and took her shoulders almost roughly, tugging her up to her feet. She stood tall and slim and lovely before him, her skin not ivory now but something else in the silvery light, something shimmering and unreal.
She looked down between them at her own hands, her fingers twisted together in a gesture he’d seen her make before. Andthen, quickly, as though she couldn’t give herself too much time to think, she uncurled her fingers and peeled off her white satin gloves.
