Willowby exchanged a grin with his wife and then saluted Selina. “Yes, ma’am. We’ll see you later this afternoon, Lady Lovell.”
They all departed then, talking as a group, making whatever secondary plans they had. And for the first time since Imogen had disappeared, Aurora didn’t feel helpless. When it came to Nicholas it was different, but at least with Imogen, she might finally resolve this and help the woman she loved as a sister.
If she could do that, perhaps she would ultimately feel that the future could be positive. That everything could work out. Perhaps she could finally see how she could be with Nicholas in the end, even if it meant waiting a little longer.
Nicholas was at his desk in his study looking at his schedule for the next week. Several missives had arrived that afternoon, invitations for meetings with influential people and men connected to the Prince. The next step in moving toward becoming a marquess.
Even as he tried to manage all the correspondence, all he could think about was the conversation the previous day with his father. All he could think about were the questions in his mind when it came to taking this path that had once seemed so clear.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, pushing the lot of them aside just as there was a knock on his door. “Enter.”
The door opened to reveal his butler, Evans. The two had served in the war together and the man was not a typical butler. His shock of red hair, the patch over one eye and the scar that crisscrossed his face made him look more pirate than proper.
At the moment he looked vexed, but as he drew a breath to speak, Selina elbowed her way past him into the room. “Might as well not even give him the option to pretend he isn’t in residence,” she said.
Nicholas laughed and shook his head as he rose. “It’s all right, Evans. She is an unstoppable force.”
Evans gave her a look. “Hate to see what will happen if she comes upon an immovable object.” With that, he backed from the room and shut the door behind himself.
Selina laughed. “I always like his impertinence,” she said. “And of course the answer is that I married the immovable object.” She moved forward and pressed a kiss to Nicholas’s cheek. “You look tired.”
“Thank you?” Nicholas said. “I assume you don’t want tea, but something stronger.”
“It’s one in the afternoon,” she said. “But yes, a little stronger. But not much, I need my head. And so will you very shortly.”
He wrinkled his brow as he poured her a drink. “Why is that? And where is Derrick?”
“Normally hewouldaccompany me when I called on you,” Selina admitted as she slugged back half her drink without so much as a cough. “But he doesn’t know I came. You know him. He would tell me not to meddle and what fun would that be?”
The good humor Nicholas had felt when she entered bled away in an instant. “Not to meddle. What exactly are you not meddling in?”
“Do you know that Aurora called us all to her house an hour or so ago?” she asked, arching one of those fine brows.
He stared at her. “All ofwho?”
“Derrick, me, Barber, the Willowbys. Everyone involved in this investigation into her friend…except you. And I suppose Robert and Katherine, though I think they were really only involved insofar as the introductions.” Selina quickly explained everything that had happened at the meeting, including the revelation that their half-brother Oscar Fitzhugh was the man who had been sheltering Imogen.
“God, I haven’t heard that name in a long time,” Nicholas mused. “Years.”
Selina flinched. “Yes, he has always made it patently clear he wants nothing to do with any of us. I suppose he won’t be able to avoid it now because we’re coming.”
Pushing his complicated feelings about his distant brother away, Nicholas paced away from Selina. There was a more pressing question eating at him now. His tone wavered as he voiced it. “Why wouldn’t Aurora involve me?”
“She’s cutting you out, dearest,” she said. “Normally I would scratch her pretty eyes right out of her gorgeous face for it. But she’s doing it for a very good reason, you see. She wants to protect you. And she’s willing to sacrifice herself to do it.”
“Protect me?” he repeated.
“Don’t act like you don’t know why,” Selina said with a purse of her lips. “Youknow.”
“The marquess matter,” he said softly.
Selina nodded. “Nicholas, she recognizes that her presence in your life could bring you to your knees. If you are seen involving yourself in her troubles, that could do the same. She’s cutting you out because…” She smiled sadly. “She loves you, Nicholas. I doubted her from the moment I met her. Protective instinct, you know, because you almost died and I couldn’t bear to think of you ever being hurt again. But she cares enough that she would bring herself pain rather than taking even a fraction of what you want away from you.”
Nicholas bent his head. His fingers clenched at his sides. “She said the same to me the last time we were—” He cut himself off. “I know she wants to protect me. She apparently thinks she knows how.”
“Is she wrong?” Selina asked. “After all, what she is doing truly is the best thing for you if your ultimate goal in life is to be Marquess of Shithouse.”
“Songstrum,” Nicholas corrected with a smile. “And I think you know that.”
