Page 85 of Ne'er Duke Well
One corner of his mouth turned up, but it wasn’t right. No flash of white teeth, no warm brown eyes capturing hers. Selina cast about for what could be bothering him. “Lu,” she said awkwardly, “may call them whatever she likes. I—we—Will and I always called her Thomasin, though she was in so many ways our mother. She’s—so good at that. Thomasin. Making a family.”
Now he met her eyes. “I’m so glad that the children have you all.” His forearm tensed beneath her hand. “I am so damnedglad they have you, and Miss Dandridge, and Lady Judith. Your family.”
Yourfamily.
She recalled, suddenly and forcefully, the way that Peter had stolen eighteen barrels of French brandy for his grandfather. A man he had never met before coming to England two years past.
“Did you know your grandparents on your mother’s side?” she asked. “In Louisiana?”
“They’d died. Long before I was born. When she was a girl.”
His tone was not encouraging, but Selina was not easily put off. “What was she like, your mother?”
His dark lashes came down over his eyes for a moment, then lifted. “Brave. Fragile.” His voice was steady. “I was raised, mostly, by the mother of my half brother.”
“Morgan?” Selina remembered the brother he had mentioned to Lady Eldon at the dinner party, the little boy who had died.
“Yes. My mother struggled with our life in New Orleans, but Morgan’s mother”—his lips curved, a fond smile—“she was so good. Sturdy and steadfast and patient with me. It won’t surprise you to hear I needed a lot of patience, as a boy. I haven’t changed in that regard.”
She didn’t like the way he said it. “All children require patience. Did you not hear the story of how I made Will write my persuasive essay aboutles chiens?” That more or less exhausted her recollection of the words in the essay.
He huffed a little laugh. “I would have liked to have seen you then.”
“You wouldn’t. I would have made you fence with me. Or tried to punch you in the nose.”
He looked at her then, truly looked, all the force of his gazetrained upon her face. She felt heat rise in her cheeks at the intensity of his regard. “I have always wanted to look at you.”
She swallowed. “You… may.”
She gave herself a little mental shake. Honestly, nearly one hundred salacious volumes in the Venus catalog at Belvoir’s and she couldn’t come up with anything better thanyou may?
“I’m glad,” Peter said, “that Freddie and Lu have your family. I’m glad they will grow up with your family to be patient with them. I—” He broke off.
“You love them,” she said.
“Of course.”
It was so sweet and sharp in her chest the way he said it, immediate, as if there could be no doubt.
“I do too,” she said. “I love them.” Her gaze was caught on his. The tilt of his lips, the way the sun glanced off his cheekbones. Her heart kicked up, and she was suddenly terrified because she wanted—she wanted to say—
“And Aunt Judith,” she said instead. “And Thomasin—and Nicholas and Daphne, and Will—when he gets home. He will love them.” She was babbling. She did not typically babble, but her blood was loud in her ears, because she loved Peter, shelovedhim, and she had almost told him so.
She could not tell him that. Fear gripped her, and not just fear that he might not return her feelings. She was as afraid—perhapsmoreafraid—that he did.
If she spoke the words aloud, it would be real—to him, to her. It would be so much harder to leave him, if she had to.
She could not say it now. Not before the hearing. Not before her secrets were revealed and she judged just how disastrous her effect had been upon his life.
There was a sudden commotion up ahead of them, whereFreddie had been leading his horse by the halter, and Selina broke away from Peter almost desperately, needing distance from the warm pull of his body.
“Lu’s probably taken off for the docks,” said Peter wryly.
But as they drew closer, Selina saw that it was not Lu and Aunt Judith at all, but rather Thomasin, seated on the ground, her pink skirts crumpled around her.
She darted forward, Peter just behind her. “What’s happened?”
In Thomasin’s lap, half-curled, lay Freddie.
