Page 26 of Ne'er Duke Well
“That’s right. The revolution was led by former slaves, and the freed men now run the government there.”
“Isn’t that interesting, Lyddie?” Selina said, giving her friend a little nudge.
“Yes,” muttered Lydia. “Haiti…” She trailed off.
Peter waited to see if Lydia was going to continue.
She didn’t.
“Lady Selina tells me you are familiar with my political work on abolition,” Peter said to Lydia—though to call his handful of weeks in the Lords “political work” seemed a bit of stretch. But he meant to do real work, damn him. He had stumbled into this position of immense power and privilege, and he meant to use it, if he could. He intended to learn, to try to help tear down the world of plantations and brutality he’d grown up in and build a new one.
“Yes,” said Lydia, and now she looked absolutely wretched, her face growing even paler, her lips almost white.
“Are you quite all right?”
Lydia stopped walking and clamped her jaw together, and Peter had no idea if he was meant to continue to walk with Lady Georgiana or stop to keep pace with Lydia. He attempted to do both and thrust the arm with Lady Georgiana forward while twisting his body to continue to look at Lydia. His hat fell off.
Sweet Jesus, he was a disaster. This was a disaster.
“Have you lost something?” asked Lady Georgiana, peering up at him in concern and drawing to a halt. “You seem different.”
“Oh dear God,” mumbled Selina, and she leapt forward to grab his hat.
Lydia Hope-Wallace turned on her heel and took off away from their group at a pace that might have been termed a sprint.
Peter looked longingly after her.
He could run. He could disentangle Lady Georgiana’s fingersfrom his forearm and run back to Freddie and Lu. He could scoop one up under each arm and carry them to the Stanhope townhouse and lock them in the nursery and never let them leave.
He could be the Kidnapper Duke. The Abducting Aristocrat.
He turned his gaze back to Selina and Georgiana. Selina stuffed his hat into his hands. Lady Georgiana blinked down at it.
“That’s it!” she said in amazement.
“That’s… what?” He was almost afraid to ask.
“A hat,” she said, and there went the teeth again. White and even and surely too numerous for one aristocrat’s daughter. “That’s a hat.”
He could not introduce this woman to his sister. Lucinda would gnaw on her bones.
Peter turned to Selina and mouthed,Help.
The expression of tooth-grinding misery on her face shifted suddenly as she looked at him. One corner of her mouth twitched up, and she blinked desperately, and, thank God, now she too was about to laugh.
“Lady Georgiana,” she said on a smothered gasp, “are you fond of hats?”
“Oh, exceptionally.” Georgiana grinned blissfully at them both. “I have fourteen hats.”
Peter felt the muscles of his abdomen clench as he tried to contain himself. Oh, to hell with it. “Do you know,” he said, grinning back at her, “so do I.”
“Truly?” Her blue eyes widened in amazement. “For your head?”
Damn it, the girl could not be serious. This had to be some kind of elaborate ruse. “Several for my head. Others for my…” He trailed off.
Selina gave a sort of strangled sound.
“For my valet,” he said, giving her a chastening look.
