“She is a pill. I would sooner marry an actual wolf than shackle myself to a person so backward in their thinking.”
Meg and Winnie exchanged a look.
“What was that?” Jac asked, turning to her sisters. “I know that you’re saying things without saying things. That is most unfair when I cannot see you.”
“We said nothing,” Winnie replied.
“You said nothingout loud. Don’t tell me you’re not saying plenty without speaking. At least Meg speaks volumes without making a sound. You just speak volumes.”
Winnie narrowed her eyes. “It is not our fault you cannot see our facial expressions.”
Jac’s lips pursed. The longer the blindfold had been on, the crankier she’d become. “Good sisters would say their facial expressions out loud under the circumstances.”
“Good sisters would understand that the world cannot bend to their whims because they chose to have a fully unnecessary surgery.”
Peter sighed. He’d hoped that Jac’s current impediment would have triggered a ceasefire in his sisters’ constant bickering, but it had only intensified it. He considered begging Meg to take Winnie home with her when she left, if only to halve thenoise for a little while, but there were shadows under Meg’s eyes and she looked drawn and thin. He couldn’t subject her to Winnie’s constant prattle.
Besides, as aggravating as his youngest sister might be, he would never ask her to leave. It had been difficult for the girls to grow up without a mother or father. He wouldn’t let her think she couldn’t count on him, too.
Meg cleared her throat. “Winnie and I merely shared a look of skepticism. Peter’s vocal repudiation of Miss Wright seems too strong to be genuine dislike.”
“We think he doth protest too much,” Winnie added. “Especially since he waltzed with her when he would waltz with no one else.”
Peter drew in a deep breath. “I told you, I waltzed with her only to escape Lady Cecilia.”
“After having an assignation with her in the hallway at the Duchess of Wakefield’s ball.”
“And another assignation at the zoo, of all places.”
Last night’s inquisition had begun the moment he’d returned to the ballroom, and within ten minutes they’d extracted the details of every interaction he’d had with the wretched woman.
“It is a shame that Britain is at peace,” he said. “You three would be exceptional interrogators.”
Winnie pounced, her finger pointed at him like a claw ready to slash an artery. “So, you admit it. You like Miss Wright.”
“I said nothing of the kind.”
“But you did! We said you have a tendre for Miss Wright and you said we had ferreted the truth from you.”
Peter pinched the bridge of his nose. “Neither of us said anything of the sort. I merely suggested that you have the tenacity of Sir Walsingham’s most dogged interrogators, but thatis neither a compliment nor an acknowledgment of veracity. Walsingham was known for drawing out questionable confessions through unpleasant means.”
Her brows furrowed, and tears welled. Tears that he’d fallen for many times before he’d realized she could cry on command. Meg had never tried it, to his knowledge, and Jac had needed raw onion to fool him. Winnie had used tears to tunnel under his boundaries before she’d reached five years of age. “Are you calling us unpleasant?”
“This conversation is certainly not enjoyable,” he replied.
“This conversation has certainly gotten off track.” Meg waved a hand that Jac couldn’t see but caused Winnie to settle back in her chair with a mutinous look. “You say the only conversations of note that you’ve had during your entire time in London have been with this Miss Wright, and that she’s well read, interesting, and beautiful.”
He had said that she seemed properly educated compared to the debutantes society had thrown at him, that she possessed unusual curiosities about mass casualty events, and that, yes, she was tolerably pretty. But fine. She was well read, interesting, and beautiful. Under other circumstances, he would agree.
“She is also a companion,” he said. “She works in a printing house. I am a duke.”
“Pffft. Exactly,” Jac replied. “You’re a duke. You can do what you like. Even if society disapproves of the match, they won’t do so to your face.”
She would have made a good lawyer. All three would have made good lawyers. What had he done to deserve that? “Society might disapprove to her face, though.”
“Aha!” Winnie jumped from her chair. “So, you do careabout her—ack!” She yelped as Meg yanked her girdle and she hit the chaise longue with a sharpoof.
Peter cleared his throat. “Society would be unkind to any bride who is not one of them. I said nothing of Eleanor.” In fact, his thoughts were with someone else entirely. He had never broached the topic of class with Booklover because he had no desire to reveal his rank. But that meant he did not know where in the social stratashefit.
