Page 89 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

Selina felt Nathaniel beside her and did not look towards him.

“My father’s crime is known to every person in this room,” she said. “I have never denied it. Nor have I denied who I am. You are not exposing Lady Selina Calvert tonight, Giles. She has been standing before you all along.”

A fan closed somewhere behind him.

“You have accused me of a crime of my own. That is another matter.”

“I have asked you to account for money.”

“And I shall.”

Giles’s confidence faltered by a degree.

Selina continued.

“But before I do, I should like this room to understand the accusation precisely. You say my mother’s garnets belonged to the Merrow estate. You say I had no right to sell them.”

“I do.”

“And you suggest that the money I sent through Mr Dunmore in later years came from property concealed during the administration of that estate.”

“I suggest that a woman who professed herself destitute might reasonably be asked how she continued to command it.”

“That was not my question.”

His mouth tightened.

Selina waited.

“Yes,” he said. “That is what I suggest.”

“Good.”

The word unsettled him more than denial would have done.

At Giles’s shoulder, Felix Rowland shifted. Nathaniel noticed. So did Selina.

Rowland had been admitted that evening only because Lady Marwood had instructed her servants to permit it. Since his humiliation in her garden he had disappeared from the houses which once tolerated him. Tonight he stood beside Giles openly, the connection between them no longer disguised.

His attention moved towards Georgiana.

“There is another matter which perhaps ought not be forgotten,” he said. His voice was quieter than Giles’s, but the room was silent enough to carry it. “Lady Georgiana and I conducted a correspondence earlier this Season. I had understood that certain discretion regarding it was in everyone’s interest.”

Georgiana went pale. She did not move.

Selina’s fingers remained against Nathaniel’s sleeve for one second longer, then fell away.

Rowland smiled faintly.

Nathaniel understood then why Georgiana had needed to be here. Not because Selina required another weapon. Because Georgiana had chosen not to let the threat be spoken around her again as though she were absent.

Selina looked at Rowland.

“If you intend to accuse Lady Georgiana of something, Mr Rowland, you may wait your turn.”

A few people laughed before remembering that the occasion was serious.

Colour rose along Rowland’s collar.