Page 17 of Ne'er Duke Well
“It’s not that,” said Selina. She picked up the quill again and nervously flattened the feathered end.
Lydia had no idea that in 1812, Selina had convinced her brother Will to buy Belvoir’s. And that since January 1813, Selina had been almost single-handedly running the most popular circulating library in London.
Lydia didn’t know. Selina’s dear friend Faiza did not know, and neither did her brother Nicholas.
No one but Will knew. Because behind the pristine surface of Belvoir’s Library on Regent Street, where patrons could have their books bound or order volumes for their home libraries, Belvoir’s provided salacious literature to any literate woman in London.
No more, she’d thought to herself as she’d built the Venus catalog. Never again would she be the sheltered fool she’d been that first Season, flabbergasted by the discovery of mistresses and bastard children.
There was such power in knowledge. She knew that now. And she meant to make that knowledge as broadly available as she could.
Selina had two rules for Belvoir’s:
Anyone could purchase a membership for one guinea per year.
Only women were permitted to check out books from the Venus catalog.
There was a third rule, but it was for Selina alone: No one could ever, ever see Selina enter or leave the bookshop, and she could never have a Belvoir’s book on her person.
And somehow, quite miraculously, it had worked. Selina had been running Belvoir’s without a hint of scandal for well over two years now. The young women of thetonwere vastly more educated in matters of the sexes than Selina had been, thanks to the combination of radical philosophy, erotic memoirs, and titillating novels that made up the Venus catalog.
She was proud of what she’d accomplished with Belvoir’s. Word of mouth had brought hundreds of women to the Venus catalog; Selina had seen more and more debutantes and housemaids and even venerable matrons clustered together around green-bound Belvoir’s books each passing month. When Lydia’s maid had reported a sudden and complete departure of female staff from the Marquess of Queensbury’s household, Selina had felt a heady combination of satisfaction and relief.
But nothing could last forever. As the knowledge of the Venus catalog spread through thebeau monde, people who opposed female education were sure to discover it. Just last week, Jean Laventille had reported to Selina that he had fielded two separate inquiries into the ownership of the Belvoir’s property.
When Selina’s connection to Belvoir’s got out—and it would get out, Selina had no doubt of it—the scandal would be cataclysmic. If Selina were ever to select a husband, he would need to be someone who could weather the scandal with equanimity.
Peter—who required a wife entirely above reproach—was not that man.
No. She could not put him at risk with her secret. She felt too much for him: his half-concealed vulnerability, his earnest desire to take care of his siblings. She wanted to help him. Andexposing him to the scandal of the decade would decidedlynotbe helpful.
“Well,” she said to Lydia, trying not to seem like she was hedging, “for one thing, I plan to deliver this list to Stanhope personally. I can’t exactly present myself as one of the three most eligible women in London.”
“Fair point,” said Lydia. “I can tell him myself.”
Selina almost wanted to agree, just to see if Lydia could manage to utter such a thing in a strange man’s presence, but…
No. She could not let Lydia entertain the possibility.
“Also, I… I simply do not think of him that way. As a… potential spouse.”
“Oh, please,” said Lydia. “Try it. You’ll manage. He’s not exactly difficult to look at.”
Hang the man, he most certainly was not. His eyes had been so bright and intense on hers the day before, and then there were those irritating curls that made her want to lift her fingers to his brow and…
Blast, she was losing this argument with Lydia.
What could she say? Her affections lay elsewhere? Lyddie would know that wasn’t true. Perhaps she could tell Lydia that she preferred the company of women to men—but somehow she felt she’d deceived her best friends enough these past years.
“I can’t,” she said. “Lyddie, I can’t explain it. I just… can’t marry him.”
Lydia sighed. “All right, fine. I trust you to know your own mind.”
Well. Selina had all the moral rectitude of a ham sandwich.
“Here it is then,” she said, looking with some misery back down at the sheet of foolscap. “My grand plan to save Stanhope’s siblings. You and Iris Duggleby.”
“And you might as well add Georgiana Cleeve,” Lydia said. “Some men like women with feathers between their ears.”
