By Love Undone (16 page)

“Come, my dear,” the duchess said, in the warm tone she seemed able to adopt the instant they were in public. “I wish to sit by the fire, where it’s warmer.”

She offered her arm, and Maddie hurriedly took it. “Of course, Your Grace.”

Even before they’d settled themselves in, they were surrounded by a dozen other ladies, all inquiring after Lady Highbarrow’s health, and that of her husband and two sons. No one inquired about Malcolm Bancroft’s health, or about Maddie’s, but at least it meant she didn’t have to answer any questions. Instead, Maddie smiled and nodded agreement to the duchess’s conversation at all the proper times, and offered no independent opinion
or commentary—much as some of the ladies’ silly gossip deserved it.

The duchess had warned her that while everyone would be looking at her and judging her comportment, no one was likely to speak to her at her first formal gathering. According to Her Grace, no one would approach her until she’d been deemed harmless. Maddie thought it more likely that no one wanted to be the first to acknowledge her.

“Mother, Miss Willits, may I fetch you a glass of Madeira?” Quin asked, stopping before them.

“Yes, thank you,” the duchess answered, and nudged Maddie in the ribs.

“If you please, my lord,” she blurted, glancing up at him and then away.

He vanished, then reappeared shortly with their drinks. As he handed Maddie hers, he leaned closer. “How are you doing?”

“I very much wish to spit at you, but I’m attempting to behave,” she whispered back. “Go away.”

He bowed, a smile tugging at his lips. “Yes, my lady.”

“Quin, go away,” the duchess repeated, glaring at him imperiously.

“I am, I am,” he chuckled and wandered off.

“Miss Willits?”

Startled, Maddie looked up at the small, white-haired lady standing beside the fireplace. “Yes?” she said hesitantly, uncertain whether she should be ready to fight or to flee.

“Anne,” the duchess said warmly, as she turned to look as well. “I didn’t expect you in London yet.”

“Neither did I.” The lady smiled. “Ashton insisted.”

“Anne, may I present Miss Willits? Maddie, Lady Ashton.”

Then Maddie remembered her. “You were at the Tewksbury ball,” she stated.

“Yes, I—”

“You called Spenser a drunken lout.”

Lady Ashton nodded. “I should have said it louder. Would you and Her Grace join me for tea on Thursday?”

“We’d be delighted,” the duchess answered.

“Oh, yes,” Maddie seconded, smiling. Perhaps Quin was right, after all—some warmth and decency did survive in London.

Finally the duchess declared that they might depart, and Maddie practically bolted for the door and the coach. Quin joined them a moment later.

“That went quite well, don’t you think?” he asked, leaning back in the seat opposite her.

“The soiree isn’t what counts,” Maddie said succinctly, gazing out the window until they passed Curzon Street—where Willits House stood. The conversation inside the coach suddenly became much more interesting.

“It’s not? Then what, pray tell, were we doing there? And why did I spend twenty minutes conversing with that rattlebrain Lord Avery?”

She eyed him, amused by his pretend exasperation—though of course she’d never let him know it. “It’s what everyone will say about me now that we’re gone that counts. People rarely insult you to your face, as you have just demonstrated regarding Lord Avery.”

“Now, Maddie—”

“She’s correct, Quin,” the duchess interrupted. “And you weren’t helping things, hovering about like a footman.”

“I was
not
hovering,” he protested indignantly. “I was being a dutiful son and host.”

“Well, do it less obtrusively next time, won’t you, dear?”

Quin folded his arms. “I’ll certainly try. Do I still accompany you to the opera tomorrow, or have you managed to recruit Father?”

“The opera?” Maddie gasped, her heart pounding in dismay. “Oh, no. Not yet.”

“Yes, you will escort us,” the duchess answered, ignoring their guest’s protest. Unexpectedly, she reached over and took Maddie’s hand. “Whatever they may mutter among themselves, they would do it whether you were there or not. Whatever they would say to you in my presence, they had best be polite about it.”

“If I’m accepted only in your company, Your Grace, there seems little point in any of this,” Maddie said shakily, thankful nevertheless for the duchess’s unexpected support.
Everyone
went to the opera at the beginning of the Season, with no grand balls or soirees organized yet. Everyone who was in town would be there, not just the select acquaintances of the duchess.

“It’s a beginning, Maddie,” Quin said. “One step at a time.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Lord Warefield. You’re not the one on the edge of the abyss.”

“Neither are you.”

“And what am I to do if I come across Charles Dunfrey?” She swallowed. “Or my parents?”

“Your parents are not in town yet,” Quin answered calmly. “I already inquired. As for Dunfrey, my friend Danson tells me he sold his box last Season. I very much doubt he’ll be at the opera tomorrow night.”

“Yes, but what about—”

“Maddie,” he interrupted. “Don’t worry. I will keep my word to you. Whatever else happens, you’ll end the Season well.”

The duchess looked from one to the other, and settled back in her seat. Quin had told her the two of them fought every time they saw each other. To her, it didn’t
look nearly as much like fighting as it did flirting. And she wondered what would happen when they realized that as well.

The duke claimed a meeting, while the duchess and Maddie, not quite so unwilling as yesterday, undertook another preliminary shopping excursion. If Napoleon had planned his campaign as well as the Duchess of Highbarrow had planned Maddie’s, he wouldn’t be rotting on Saint Helena.

Quin, grateful for a few hours’ reprieve, spent most of the morning pacing about the Bancroft library. Eloise would be in London by the afternoon, and what he hadn’t been able to disclose in his correspondence he felt even less able to tell her in person—at least without making it sound as though he had some ulterior motive for bringing Maddie Willits to London. Which he didn’t, of course.

“Like hell I don’t,” he muttered aloud, dropping the book he carried onto a chair. “Well, Eloise,” he began, “I felt sorry for the girl, stuck rusticating in Somerset with my stodgy old uncle.” He paused by the library window, then shook his head and began circling the room again, feeling rather like a bird searching for a safe roost before two very lovely nightingales could peck his eyes out.

He cleared his throat and tried again. “You see, my dear, Uncle Malcolm pleaded with me to assist Miss Willits, and sickly as he was, I could hardly refuse.” Quin rubbed at his temples. “Ahem.” He dropped into a chair. “Good God, I’m a dreadful liar.”

“Might I suggest ‘I tried tumbling the chit, and she threatened to cry rape unless I took her to London and foisted her off on my parents’?”

Quin looked up, scowling, as his father stopped in the doorway. “I did not try to tumble her,” he snapped,
wishing he’d remembered to close the door. For God’s sake, Maddie might have heard him. He’d never have lived it down.

Lord Highbarrow scowled and folded his arms. “Oh, really?” he said, cynicism dripping from his voice.

“Yes, really. And I practically had to drag her by her hair to get her to come to London. And please keep your voice down, Your Grace. Someone might hear you.”

“No one who matters. I always thought Rafael was my idiot son. She’s abusing your generosity. You don’t actually think she intends to storm back to Malcolm if she can drag the future Duke of Highbarrow before the archbishop, do you? Sweet Lucifer, boy, stop using your balls for brains!”

Quin shot to his feet, anger tearing through him. “I am marrying Eloise, as
you
require. I—”

“I didn’t ask for a recital of the obvious, Quinlan. That’s what my accountants are for. You’d best not forget that you
are
marrying Eloise,
if
you want to remain the Marquis of Warefield. It’s my damned title, yours to use by my leave only!”

“I know that. I haven’t done anything except feel pity for a—”

“That isn’t pity I see in your eyes when you look at her, boy,” the duke cut in. “If you want to rut with her, that’s fine. But get your damned whore out from under my roof!”

His face flushing, Quin clenched his fist. “Maddie Willits is not a damned—”

“Bah!”

His Grace stomped out the door and down the hall, bellowing at the butler for a glass of port as he went. Incensed both at the accusation and at how close some of it was to the truth, Quin grabbed the brandy decanter and hurled it into the fireplace. It shattered against the
hot bricks, the brandy exploding in a satisfying hiss of blue flames. “Bloody, pompous—”

“Should I pack, then?” Maddie’s voice came from the doorway.

Quin whipped around, paling. “Damn…I didn’t know you’d returned. Excuse my language, Maddie.”

Shaking her head, she backed up into the hallway. “No need, my lord. And you don’t have to be so polite, you know.” She brushed at her eyes as a single tear ran down her cheek. “It’s what they’re all saying, I’m certain.”

Quin followed her into the hall and grabbed her hand. “Wait,” he said, pulling her back into the library and closing the door. “None of that was meant for you to hear.”

She looked away, her lower lip trembling. Her slim wrist, clenched tightly in his fingers, shook a little. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does. His Grace just likes to roar and intimidate the rest of the pack. He’s nothing but wind.”

“That was…quite rude of him,” she said unsteadily, obviously very hurt and making a heroic effort to stop crying. “No wonder Mr. Bancroft doesn’t like him. I don’t, either.”

“Neither do I, at the moment,” he said. “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying. I’m very angry.”

Slowly Quin drew her closer. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, wanting to hold her in his arms. “And don’t think you need to leave. I’ll speak to him again—in a more civil tone. I promise.”

He was rather surprised he’d made the offer: begging to His Grace on bended knee was not something he did on a frequent basis. In fact, he couldn’t recall either one of them ever backing down after an argument. But if he
didn’t apologize, Maddie would leave. And he didn’t want her to leave.

“This is ridiculous, anyway. If my parents or…or Charles—if they should see me, everything would be ruined. Especially me.”

Quin reached down and lifted her chin with his fingers. “And what makes you think I don’t enjoy a little bit of the ridiculous every now and then?”

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to feel her lips against his—he wanted to feel her body against his.

Maddie met his gaze. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Not again.”

“Should I not?”

“Yes. No. Oh, blast.” She lifted up on her toes, and twined her arms about his neck. As she pulled herself up against him, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. The touch was electric. Unable to help himself, he kissed her again, more roughly, sliding his hands down her hips and pulling her against him.

“Quin?” the duchess called. “Quin, I need to talk to you.”

With a strangled sound, Maddie wrenched away from him. “Stop it,” she said sharply, shoving at his chest. “Stop it!”

He stared at her for a moment, stunned at his own reaction to her, and exceedingly frustrated at having been interrupted. “You started it. And don’t go anywhere,” he ordered, taking a last look at her and then slipping through the library door.

Maddie sighed and plunked herself down in one of the chairs. “I started it? Oh, I suppose I did. Drat.” Slowly she reached up and traced her lips with her fingertips. Only a kiss, and it had gone through her like lightning—worse than before, and it left her with a raw, aching yearning for him.

A few moments later Quin came back into the room.
His face was somber, and her heart began pounding again, this time with dread. “I have to leave, don’t I?” And the duke would probably see to it that she couldn’t go back to Langley now. Which narrowed down her choices to none. “Don’t I?”

“No, you don’t.” He cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, though, there has been a complication.”

She rallied enough to lift an eyebrow. “Only one?”

“So to speak. His Grace has forbidden my mother to assist you. Her compromise was that you be allowed to remain here until arrangements can be made to send you back to Langley. And she will still accompany us to the opera tonight, as she gave her word. My family is very big on honoring their word.”

“I’ve noticed.” She wondered for a wrenching moment what would have happened between them if she’d been able to stay. “It’s over, then.”

“No, it’s not. Tonight will go a long way toward repairing the damage. And I have a few ideas.”

“Just let me go back, my lord. You’ve done more than your part.”

He tilted his head at her. “Call me Quin.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why not? We’ve kissed twice now.”

She couldn’t tell him that it meant there was some sort of connection between them, that she had a difficult enough time with distancing herself from him already, that over the past few weeks she had begun to regard him with a great deal more affection than she thought possible. “It’s not proper.”

The marquis actually laughed. “Call me Quin,” he repeated.

Maddie took a deep breath. “Just let me leave, Quin.”

“No.”

She didn’t know precisely why he was continuing to argue, for he was nearly engaged. Still, for a bare, ex
hilarating moment she was relieved that he insisted on pursuing this stubborn course of action. For whatever reason, he wanted her there.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go change.”

Maddie blinked, reluctantly floating down from her daydream. “Why?”

Quin grimaced, edging for the door. “I’m meeting someone this afternoon.”

At the sight of his sheepish expression, she immediately realized to whom he was referring. “Of course. Lady Stokesley arrives in London today.” The remains of her fantasy sank with a thud into a very deep mud puddle.