Page 76 of Ne'er Duke Well
Flip, flip, went the pages in Peter’s hands. He replaced the book on the shelf and took down three more.
She couldn’t stand it any longer. “Find anything of note?”
“Mm,” he said abstractedly. “I’m researching larking.”
Selina tossed down her pen. “You arenot.” Did the man not realize they were in the middle of a crisis?
“Fine, then I’m not. By the by, didyoumake these notes? You have beautiful handwriting.”
She leapt to her feet and strode across the room, snatching the book from his hands. “No! Of course not.” She blinked down at the text. Yes, that was most certainly in her hand:Can this be physically possible???
She was going to die of mortification, right here in her own office. “Peter,” she said, pretending her face wasn’t red-hot, “this is a place of business. Sit down.”
He let her shove him into a chair, then caught her arm and pulled her down into his lap. He wore only his shirtsleeves and a jacket, and his throat, bare of cravat, lay tempting inches from her mouth. “Tell me you’re almost finished. Tell me I can take you home.”
“I—I—” Shewasalmost finished. In addition to the research she’d done directed toward finding the rumormonger, she’d also completed a great deal of the incidental labor that kept Belvoir’s running. She had reviewed the previous week’s circulation numbers, written out orders for new purchases, penned a note to her secretary to review a handful of texts that had not been returned.Fanny Hill, mostly—she simply could not keep the library stocked with enough copies ofFanny Hill.
But something deviled her, and she wriggled out of Peter’s grasp, leaving the book he’d been perusing beside him. “Not yet.”
“All right,” he said equably, letting her go. “Have I mentioned that I’m developing something of a fetish for the sound of your pen at work? Thankfully just yours, or I might get thrown out of my club.”
She felt twin spikes of desire and exasperation. “Peter! Are you taking this seriously?”
His lips twisted, a wry expression that seemed somehow far from his usual grin. “I am. Truly, I am.” He glanced down at the book and then met her eyes, his face gone sober. “Take as long as you need, Selina. Never let me rush you at your work.”
She sat down at her desk. Suddenly, unaccountably, tears stung her eyes, and she turned her gaze down, not wanting him to see.
She couldn’t understand him. She was worried—so bloody worried that Belvoir’s would ruin his life, that her reckless choices—well intentioned as they were—would come between Peter and everything he wanted.
But he didn’t seem to feel the same. She wanted to believe him—that he understood the risks. That he saw in Belvoir’s something that was worth the cost.
That he saw that in her.
She didn’t know what to believe. She felt tangled in her emotions. Why had he sat here, cooling his heels in her office for hours?
Was he waiting for her to make a plan? Had he some blind confidence that she could sort out the mess she’d made of their lives?
She hoped he trusted her. She wanted to be worthy of his trust, and she was not sure she was up to the task.
It seemed to her, here in her office, surrounded by the library of her heart and the evidence of her commitment to Belvoir’s, that she wanted too much.
She wanted, she realized now, to keep Belvoir’s. She did not want to give up her involvement with the Venus catalog, not even when her secret came out. ShelovedBelvoir’s. In some strangecontrary part of her soul, she was proud of what she had done, and the thought of abandoning it all—of leaving London in a hushed flight of shame—almost made her angry. She had made a difference for women, and she did not want to give that up.
And even as she thought it, she felt guilty and greedy and stubborn. She wanted Belvoir’s, and she wanted her husband too. She wanted a thousand nights like this: books and conversation, quiet work and Peter. Timeless days and nights of learning him, learning how he teased and played and laughed. Learning who they could be together.
Perhaps it was foolishness, or blind stubborn recklessness, that made her flip closed the account book on her desk and look up at him.
Perhaps it was a mistake to allow herself to grow closer to him. To crave him this way. But he was here at her side, patient and confident, and she wanted him too much to let herself dwell on how everything might fall apart.
She let the world go out of focus as she looked at him, his dark head bent over a book.
“Chapter eleven,” she said.
He lifted his head. “Sorry?”
“Chapter eleven. In the book with my marginalia. I made quite a lot of notes in chapter eleven.”
He plucked the book up from where it lay beside his chair and turned the pages. Not quickly—no, that wasn’t his way, he never rushed. But easily, as though he had all night.
