He clasped his hands together, pressing the knuckles against his lips, funneling his frustration and anger back into himself rather than directing it toward them. “I have not been fantasizing about smooching Miss Eleanor Wright.” His attraction to the blasted woman had been an annoyance, not a fantasy, and now it was a thing of the past.
“But youhavebeen thinking of kissing your mysterious pen pal, who just happens tobeMiss Wright.”
A muscle along his jaw twitched. “For heaven’s sake, Edwina. Your imagination has gotten away with you.”
“Oh.” Her face fell, and he cursed himself for taking his ill feeling out on her.
“I apologize. That was uncalled for.”
“It did not go well, then?” Meg asked. Her sympathy snaked painfully around his ribs.
“It went about as well as one can expect when dealing with such a harridan.” They didn’t need to know the details. What if his sisters also thought he had no empathy? That he was barely a person? What if he told them what Eleanor had said and they brushed it aside because they could not imagine he had feelings to hurt?
Meg patted the seat beside her. “Brother, come sit.”
“No thank you.”
“Sit.”
Every instinct refused. A month ago, he’d have left the room. Yet he gritted his teeth, plunked himself next to her, and submitted as she stroked his hair. “I do not need tending to.” He hated how his voice sounded strained.
“Of course you don’t,” she replied. “You’re a big tough duke with no feelings to hurt.” But her actions did not match her words. She wrapped an arm around him and nestled her head on his shoulder.
Jac clucked softly, and Winnie gave his hand a squeeze.
They sat like that in awkward silence for a full minute before he could bear it no more. “Are we done?”
“Are you done, brother?” Meg asked.
He took a breath to reset himself, so that he could move pasthis sisters’ pity and return to the reason he’d braved their company in the first place. “I am done. I have nothing that needs grieving. In fact, I came here with another purpose entirely.”
They looked at one another skeptically, and Jac pursed her lips. “Do tell.”
He reached into his pocket and retrieved the paper he’d folded neatly an hour ago, before he’d worked up the courage to face them. “Here are the qualities I require in a duchess. Since the three of you are more familiar with the ladies out there, I ask that you make a list of suitable brides.”
Meg raised an eyebrow. “You’re entrusting your marriage to us, then?”
Winnie scowled. “What of your agreement to dance with women? You still have two weeks left.”
“I stand by my commitments. I’ll dance with the women you put on that list.”
Jac snorted. “That makes it easy. We’ll put everyone on the list.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. Could they make nothing easy? “I will cross-check your list with the proposals I’ve had from my peers and dance with the overlap.”
Winnie blew a raspberry. “That is no fun at all.”
“Shush, sister,” Meg said, wagging her finger. “Clearly, Peter has put a lot of time and thought into this strategy. No doubt he has been weighing the merits of it for weeks now.”
By the arch of her brow, Peter could tell his sister knew exactly when the idea had come to him—in the middle of the night, while Eleanor’s words rattled through his skull. But he wasn’t being rash. This was the most sensible thing he’d done in weeks. His preoccupation with Eleanor—with Booklover, witheither of them, with both of them—had been out of character. Look at where it had landed him.
“So, you’ll do it then?” he asked. “Quickly?”
“Give me the list.” Meg scanned it and looked to the ceiling.
Winnie reached across the coffee table for the list and then rolled her eyes. “Brother, you cannot be serious.”
“What does it say?” Jac asked. “How many times do I have to remind you to say thingsout loud?”
