By Love Undone (14 page)

“I thought perhaps you intended a hunger strike,” Quin said mildly, watching Maddie take her seat at the
dining table. He seated himself and gestured to the footmen to begin serving dinner.

“
I
thought perhaps I’d be dining alone again,” she said demurely, folding her hands in her lap. “Is your mother going to join us, my lord?” She smiled at one of the servants as he offered her a selection from the platter of roast chicken.

“Uh-oh. What’ve I done this time?” Quin asked, noting that the pretty smile she gave the footman vanished as she met his gaze.

“Nothing, my lord. Why do you ask?”

“I’m being ‘my lord’ed again. In your vocabulary I believe that to be an insult.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Or do I err?”

“It is the proper way to address you, Quin,” the duchess said from the doorway. “Don’t fault her for it.”

He stood again as Lady Highbarrow entered the dining room. Her customary place to the right of the duke’s chair had been set, but disregarding that, she took the seat beside Maddie. As the head footman scurried to move her utensils, alarm bells began going off in Quin’s head. Victoria Bancroft, though she was far more levelheaded than her husband, had as deep a sense of pride about the Bancroft line and standing as did the duke. Perhaps she wasn’t as volatile as Maddie, but he’d seen her scar more than one upstart with her sharp tongue.

She’d made it fairly obvious that she had strong reservations about Maddie, and she rarely amended her opinion once it had been given. Quin was surprised to realize that he wanted his mother to like their reluctant houseguest—now eyeing him from beyond the duchess with accusing fury in her eyes—and that he didn’t want to see Maddie turned away by his family, as she had been by her own.

“I’m not faulting Miss Willits for anything,” he cor
rected innocently. “I am merely curious as to whether she is enjoying being at Highbarrow.”

“How could I not enjoy it, my lord?” Maddie asked sweetly, her teeth clenched.

Quin stifled a grin as he locked eyes with her, abruptly deciding he’d best begin checking his bed sheets for poisonous spiders again. “My thought exactly.”

The duchess leaned forward for her glass of wine, blocking Maddie from his view. Quin blinked.

“I meant to ask you, Quin,” she said. “Do you have any word from Eloise?”

Eloise
. Damnation, he’d forgotten to write her again. She thought him still at Langley. He shook his head. “I doubt her correspondence has had time to catch up to me,” he hedged. “The last I heard from her, she was doing well and was looking forward to seeing you in London.”

“Do you still plan to wait until autumn for the wedding? As I’ve said before, you’ll have a much better turnout if you marry in June or July.”

“Oh, I agree, Your Grace,” Maddie said brightly, as Victoria sipped her wine.

The duchess lifted an eyebrow. “You do?”

“Most definitely. Once hunting season has begun, bringing everyone back together, even for such a prestigious event as the Marquis of Warefield’s wedding, will be a monstrous headache.”

Quin looked at her suspiciously. Maddie at her most solicitous was invariably Maddie at her most devious. “Why so helpful now?”

“
Now
, my lord?” she repeated, gazing at him quizzically. “Have I been unhelpful to you previously? I can’t recall.”

“No,” he returned slowly, his deep suspicion growing. “I don’t suppose you have been.”

Lady Highbarrow continued to regard Maddie with
cool green eyes. “You are in favor of this marriage, then?”

Maddie smiled engagingly. “I could hardly oppose it, even were it my place to do so. I barely know one of the participants, and I am not acquainted with the other at all.”

The duchess looked at her for another moment. “Do you often kiss men with whom you are barely acquainted, then?”

Maddie compressed her lips, the only outward sign she gave of being angry. “I suppose that would depend on whose gossip you listen to, Your Grace.”

“But you did kiss him,” Lady Highbarrow pursued.

“It was a morning Byron would have admired,” Quin interrupted. “Quite overwhelmingly romantic. And as it gives me the opportunity to repay Miss Willits for her kindness to Malcolm, I can’t help but look upon the kiss as a fortunate…accident.”

Behind his mother, Maddie glared at Quin. He returned her gaze coolly, wondering that this clever, witty woman had ever fooled him for even one second with her dim sycophantic veneer.

Maddie lifted her fork. “I have to admit,” she said smoothly, “I have wondered why it is my poor character everyone is concerned with, when Lord Warefield keeps insisting he was the one at fault.”

He rested his chin on his hand and regarded her. “Because you liked it?” he suggested.

Immediately he regretted the jibe, for, clearly embarrassed, Maddie paled and slammed her fork back down onto the table. “You big, arrogant—”

“Quin!” his mother snapped, even as he sought an apology. “Whatever feelings were involved, if you insist on reminding Miss Willits of her indiscretion, she will have no chance of redeeming her character.”

“
My
indiscretion,” Maddie repeated. “His lips, but
my indiscretion.” She looked at Quin. “I see now why you prize your nobility so highly. Apparently it automatically absolves you from any hint of wrongdoing, at the expense of the nearest social inferior.” She stood. “Excuse me. I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Maddie,” Quin muttered, scowling.

Lady Highbarrow caught her hand before she could escape. “Miss Willits, at the risk of being blunt, Quin is the future Duke of Highbarrow. In comparison, you
are
a social inferior.”

“My lady, I have never been more proud to be called so.”

The duchess’s patronizing smile froze in place.

Quin realized his jaw had dropped, and he snapped it shut before the surprised chuckle that began deep in his chest could make itself heard. He cleared his throat and shot to his feet.

“Mother, if you’ll excuse me for just a moment,” he said hurriedly, striding around the table to grab Maddie’s hand away. “Apparently there are several things I did not make clear to our guest.” He yanked Maddie toward the door. “Miss Willits, if you please,” he continued sternly.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Maddie pulled her hand free from his. “I will not be dragged about like a mewling infant,” she hissed, her gray eyes snapping with fury. “Next you’ll be trying to take me over your knee!”

The image her words instantly conjured likely had little in common with what she was describing. This woman had just soundly insulted his mother, and he had no business daydreaming about having her seated naked on his lap, her long auburn hair tumbling down her shoulders past her bare breasts—

“Lord Warefield!” Maddie was growling, “I said, I am leaving!”

Quin grabbed hold of her arm again and spun her back around to face him. “No, you’re not!” The sudden anger blazing through his veins surprised him—not because she hadn’t said enough to make him angry, but because he absolutely did not want her to go.

“No one but you wants me here!” she snapped, coiling her delicate hand into a fist. “You pompous ass!”

He ducked backward as she swung at him. “Don’t think I’m so refined that I wouldn’t set you on your pretty ass if you hit me,” he snarled, shaking her by the arm. “You’re not making me break my word to Uncle Malcolm, and you are keeping your promise as well. Is that clear?”

For a long moment she glared at him, her bosom heaving with her fast, furious breathing. “I hate you, you bully,” she muttered, wrenching her arm free again.

“Is that clear?” he repeated.

“Yes. Very clear.”

Quin watched her stomp upstairs to her bedchamber. When her door finally slammed, he let out the breath he’d been holding and leaned back against the wall. Whatever it was he felt toward Madeleine Willits, it damned well wasn’t hatred. And that scared him more than the blackest fit of anger ever could.

By the time Quin declared their absurd little group ready for London, Maddie possessed more gowns in more fabrics and colors than she’d ever owned in her life. She’d learned every waltz, country dance, and quadrille invented over the past five years, and been tested on all the ones in style before that time and since the beginning of history. Most painful of all, she’d been forced to read back issues of the
London Times
to re-familiarize herself with who had been married, buried, and welcomed into society’s highest circles.

After her argument with the marquis, she had made
every possible attempt to avoid him, and except for the annoying lessons and instructions, he had seemed to do the same. In a house as huge as Highbarrow Castle, it wasn’t all that difficult. From time to time she actually felt bad about saying she hated him, but he’d deserved it, shaking her and ordering her about like that when she’d begun to think of him as an ally—and as a friend, if one could call a man one thought about kissing and touching and holding all the time as merely a friend.

She desperately wanted to avoid going to London, but she didn’t want to prolong her stay at Highbarrow, either. She hadn’t felt so trapped since her parents had locked her in her bedchamber five years ago, and she endured it only because she would be able to leave it all behind her again after Almack’s.

They’d even hired a maid for her, and Maddie watched, her arms crossed, as poor Mary finished stuffing another portmanteau full of ballgowns. “We could always leave one behind by accident,” she suggested with a smile.

Mary wiped her hand across her forehead. “It would be the one that Her Grace was especially counting on your wearing, Miss Maddie.”

“No doubt. Are you certain you don’t want my help?” At least Mary had a sense of humor, and she wondered fleetingly whether Quin had hired her, or whether he or the duchess had assigned the task of finding a maid to the head housekeeper.

“Oh, no, ma’am. It wouldn’t be seemly, you know.”

Maddie sighed. “Yes, I know.”

A throat cleared from the open doorway. Immediately recognizing the sound, Maddie stiffened and turned around. “My lord,” she acknowledged, echoing Mary’s curtsey.

“Nearly packed?” Quin asked smoothly.

“Yes, thank you,” she answered politely. He’d
avoided speaking to her for almost a fortnight, so his seeking her out now couldn’t bode well.

“Splendid. We’re all set to leave in the morning, then.”

“Splendid,” she echoed unenthusiastically. He stayed in the doorway, and after a moment Maddie looked over at him again. “Was there something else, my lord?”

“Yes. Do you have a minute?”

Immediately Mary ducked her head and scurried for the doorway. Maddie put out a hand to stop the maid’s retreat. “It’s quite all right, Mary. My legs work as well as yours.”

“Yes, Miss Maddie.”

Quin straightened and opened his mouth. “Miss Wil—”

“My lord, shall we?” Maddie interrupted, and stepped past him into the hallway.

He followed her. “Why do you insist on the servants calling you Miss Maddie?”

She lifted her chin. “I don’t. I ask them to call me Maddie, and then we compromise.”

“It’s not your proper address. You’re a viscount’s eldest daughter. Once we get to London, you will be addressed as Miss Willits.”

Talking about her family still had the ability to upset Maddie. She shook her head and started back to her bedchamber. “You may wish to consult with my parents about that. I believe I may have been disowned.”

He stood behind her, silent, for a long moment. “Maddie?”

She whirled back around. “Oh, my apologies, my lord. I’m supposed to face you when I speak to you. I’d forgotten.” The words sounded brittle to her, but she tucked her arms behind her back defiantly, daring him to comment.

“Why didn’t you tell me about your parents?” he asked instead.

“Does this change your mind? Should I leave now?”

He frowned. “No, of course not. It would have been helpful to know, though. I might have written Lord Halverston and—”

“No!” She strode back to him, dismay and dread tightening her throat. “You will
not
write my family about anything!”

“What do you suggest I do, then? We can’t very well pretend you’re someone else. You will be recognized, you know.” He stepped closer, his jade eyes serious. “And it’s
you
I promised to restore to society—not some mystery lady with no past.”

Maddie turned away. “As I’ve told you all along, my lord, none of this is necessary. Nor is it going to be as simple and easy as you seem to think.”

“Do you have any idea what I think, Maddie?”

She had no intention of being intimidated by his supreme kindness, or whatever it was he thought he’d bestowed upon her, and she looked up at him again. “I think that you kissed me to see what I would do, and once you discovered I wasn’t a whore and wouldn’t be your mistress, you were so embarrassed that you trapped yourself into going to ridiculous lengths to ease your own mind. Or do I err, my lord?”

Eyes glinting, he glared at her for a long moment. Slowly, though, and to her growing consternation, his expression eased. “Don’t let your anger at a few idiots color the way you see the rest of the world, Miss Willits.” He reached out and softly ran his ringer along her cheek. “Perhaps I kissed you because I was attracted to you. And perhaps you kissed me back because you were attracted to me.”

Her pulse skittering at his caress, Maddie pulled away before he could realize he’d scored a hit. Only a con
ceited buffoon would throw her own unfortunate weakness back in her face. “You are in error, my lord,” she said stiffly. “The only thing I’ve enjoyed where you are concerned was seeing you face down in the mud.” Before he could reply, she hurried back to her bedchamber and slammed the door.

“That arrogant, pompous….” she muttered.

“Excuse me, Miss Maddie?” Mary straightened from stuffing a mountain of undergarments into a trunk.

“Oh, nothing.” Scowling, Maddie sat at her dressing table and wrote Mr. Bancroft another very nice letter about how well everything was going and how well she and the titled Bancrofts were getting along, and how much she was looking forward to seeing London again. She wondered if he’d believe a word of it.