Chapter Two
“‘Jacqueline, I fear that if you do not come to London soon, you’ll miss your opportunity to be married this season. This year’s crop of debutantes is ambitious and more than a little bit pushy.
It’s impossible to get a mere minute’s conversation with a gentleman before he’s whisked away by some ingenue, and their tactics are working.
With fewer men on the marriage mart this year, the competition is fierce.
Speaking of which, how is your brother? Is it true he’s come to London to find a wife? ’”
Peter shook his head as he set aside the letter. “Your friends aren’t subtle.”
Jac sniffed in their defense. “As far as London knows, you were betrothed last season. Given it didn’t work out, it’s not unreasonable for society to speculate about your plans.
” Jac’s head was turned in his direction, but she couldn’t see him grimace through the thick bandages that were wrapped across her eyes.
“My intentions are none of anyone’s business.” His tone was curt but necessary. Maintaining firm boundaries with his sisters was like maintaining a sea wall in a constant tempest—without expert engineering, it would collapse under the constant battering. It often did.
“You are a young and handsome duke. You are every unmarried woman and her mama’s business.”
This was why he hated London. He was a puppet made of meat on display, except the women of London weren’t satisfied watching his every move. They wanted to devour him.
As a rule, he left his estates only when the House of Lords was in session, so he could execute that facet of his responsibilities.
He avoided balls whenever he could and attended only small dinner parties with like-minded peers where he could be sure that no young girls would be thrust in his direction.
Still, despite all his efforts, he’d been forced to endure more ingratiating conversations with want-to-be duchesses than he could tolerate.
But there was no avoiding balls this year.
It was Winnie’s first season. Lord help him.
Not joining the whirl would reflect badly on her, and Lord only knew what mischief she would get up to in his absence.
Their older sister, Meg, was carrying her first child, and while it was too early for people to notice, she’d been tired and ill for weeks.
She was in no state to play chaperone. So he would put on the dress coat his valet had ordered and endure it, just as he had to endure Jac’s correspondence.
She needed constant care following the surgery to correct her vision.
Her lady’s maid had been given the month off to visit family, he wouldn’t burden Meg with the task in her condition, and Winnie could not be trusted to care for her blind sister without pulling some kind of prank.
Which left him, her guardian since he was thirteen and she was just a toddler.
“You should tell your friends that you’re in London,” he said, picking up the next letter in the pile.
“Then they would want to see me.”
“Yes, and then they could read your correspondence to you.”
Jac shook her head. “No. Absolutely not. You’re the only one I trust to keep any gossip you might hear to yourself. Besides, I don’t want them to know about the surgery, because then they would know that I couldn’t see a darned thing this entire time.”
Jac was intelligent, kind, well-read, politically aware, and civic-minded.
She’d grown into a woman whom Peter was proud of.
Her one Achilles’ heel was that she refused to show weakness.
She’d hang at the edge of a ballroom unable to see more than rough shapes and colors before she’d stoop to wearing her spectacles in public, and she’d chosen a risky surgery that had terrified Peter to his core rather than having less-than-perfect sight.
So, each afternoon once the House of Lords rose, he would come home to keep her company and feed her as one might feed a child, doing his best not to drip food down her chin, because she would not allow the staff to see her wearing a bib.
Then he would read aloud her mail, which had traveled from London to Strafford Abbey in Berwick, and then back to London, because she would not admit to her friends that she was in town.
So, there he was, becoming intimately aware of the goings-on of the ton from the point of view of a gaggle of young ladies.
“You could do worse than Philippa,” Jac said of the current letter writer. “She’s a viscount’s daughter and very accomplished. She’s well-liked and would provide a foil for your rough edges.”
The trouble with his sisters’ friends, while they seemed pleasant enough, was that they were just so young.
But then, most marriageable women were. Finding one who wasn’t would require sifting through dozens more.
While it made sense to find a duchess this season, the thought of putting himself on the marriage mart to be pored over, speculated about, and lied to made him shudder.
Jac’s first season—the only time he’d braved a London whirl over the past five years—had been hellish.
It had confirmed what he’d always known—he could not trust a single word out of anyone’s mouth.
Apparently, the Duke of Strafford was such a catch that independent thought went out the window.
Debutantes and their mamas had said the most asinine things.
One had literally agreed with him when he’d said, in a moment of frustration, that the sky was green.
He could remember it clearly. The chit put a finger to her chin and murmured, It does have that hue to it this evening.
The marriage mart was the stuff of nightmares. But then, he had a responsibility to carry on his line. If he had to expose himself to society for Winnie’s sake, he might as well find a wife at the same time. Which led his thoughts back to the message in his pocket.
For the past fortnight, he’d barely recognized himself.
Instead of giving parliament his full and deserving attention, a corner of his mind had fixed on a woman whose name he didn’t even know.
He’d turned over her words in his mind, each iteration adding depth and color to his vision of her.
When he wasn’t immersing himself in her words, he was finessing his own.
For the first time since his father had died, Peter could be himself without the impediments of his title and the suffocating assumptions that went with it, and he wanted to do so fully.
Captain of the Nautilus might be an alias, but it was proving to be his most authentic self.
If he could find a wife with whom he could be half as honest, perhaps marriage wouldn’t be so bad.
“I promise to dance with Philippa at least once this week,” he said, dragging his mind back to cold reality. “But I make no promises other than that.”
Jac clapped her hands. “Splendid. Next letter.”
Peter sighed and reached for the next in the pile of envelopes that had arrived that day.
The first thing he’d done was scan through the names, looking for the mysterious Booklover.
With her, there was no need for Jac to pretend to be out of London, so letters arrived daily, sometimes twice a day.
Without fail, his heart would give an odd little kick when he recognized her sharp, slanted hand.
He would slide a letter knife under the wax, breaking the seal, and impatiently riffle through the pages of Booklover’s letter to his sister until a small, folded note slipped into his lap.
Dear Captain,
I cannot believe that you have not visited the zoo since you were a child. How large is this “extended family” that keeps you from exploring the city? I highly recommend that you put aside your many responsibilities for one afternoon and once again experience its joys…
Large. The “extended family” he’d spoken of comprised thousands and thousands of people, once all of his tenants, staff, and their families were included. Putting their needs aside was not as simple as Booklover was suggesting. Peter’s time was not his own. It hadn’t been for seventeen years.
Still… what if he took an hour? Just one. When was the last time he’d indulged himself for no reason other than pleasure?
“Brother, have you been struck mute again? We are a fine pair, if that is the case.”
With an air of resignation, he picked up an envelope covered with flowery script and an equally flowery scent. “Not mute, Jac, merely taking a moment for myself.”
“Well, take your moment another time. I need to know what else has been happening.”
Peter sighed. “‘My dear Jacqueline,’” he read aloud.
“‘How distressed I was to read about your broken finger, though I do not feel you should delay your trip to London as a result. The season has only been in swing for a handful of weeks and already there are some highly questionable liaisons brewing.’”
Jac leaned forward, hand to heart. “Do tell.”
“Do I have a choice?”
She poked out her tongue. Thankfully, Peter was given a reprieve from the scuttlebutt by a knock at the door. It opened, and Peter’s man of business stuck his head in.
“Andrew, your timing is perfect,” Jac said. “Peter was just about to read some salacious gossip.”
Andrew furrowed his brows. “It is creepy that you knew it was me before I’d said anything.”
“I always know when it’s you,” she replied with a smile.
“I know, and it’s creepy.” Andrew sniffed at his shirt. “Do I smell? I swear, I have my shirts laundered daily.” He looked at Peter. “Can you smell me?”
Peter rolled his eyes. “No, I cannot smell you from this distance, and neither can she.”
“It’s just magic,” Jac said. “I have powers.”
Andrew frowned. “Am I interrupting anything?”
“No,” Peter said, more forcefully than he intended. “Just London gossip that I do not care to know.”
Andrew broke out in a wide grin. “Good. Because it’s here.”