Mad About the Marquess (Highland Brides Book 2) (9 page)

Three days later, Quince wasn’t so sure—it was harder than she had thought to stop stealing. For a number of reasons she had not anticipated.
 

The first was now that she was on the straight and narrow, time weighed heavily on her hands. The jangle of excitement and anticipation that had speeded her days and spiced her evenings was now replaced by an unbearable dragging tension that could not be relieved—Strathcairn had disappeared.

Three long days had gone by without her seeing or hearing from him. And she really, really wanted to be kissed. She
needed
to be kissed.

To mitigate her itchy, idle discomfort, she took to long, athletic walks, and bruising hell-for-leather rides into the Pentland Hills surrounding Edinburgh. But nothing worked. It was annoying and nearly painful—like trying not to scratch a particularly venomous midge bite.

Oh, by jimble. Perhaps the dratted man was right. Perhaps the stealing was a compulsion she could not control. It certainly had been a thrill to take the snuffbox despite the risk, and a double thrill to know she had defied him.

But maybe, just maybe, this prickly feeling that she was coming out of her skin was because she simply wanted to see Strathcairn. Maybe his kisses
had
been so thrilling that she was indeed itching for more. But there was no way for her to test out her hypotheses.

Dratted, inconvenient, nowhere-to-be-found man.

“Who are you looking for?” Plum pulled Quince out of her contemplation of all things itchy and inconvenient as the three of them—Quince, Plum and Mama, followed by Mama’s maid and a footman—walked the short distance up the narrow close from their home at the foot of Calton Hill to the Canongate, which ran like a granite spine along the cobbled ridge of the old town.

“Whom, Plum,” Mama corrected. “For whom are you looking?” But Mama in her way already seemed to know the answer. “So you have renewed your acquaintance with the Marquess of Cairn, Quince. How did you find him?” Her tone was everything casual, conversational and disinterested, but Quince was not fooled.

She settled immediately upon the truth as the surest way to deflect any further interest. “I found him opinionated.”

Mama laughed, just as Quince had hoped she would. “And who do you not find opinionated, my dear?”
 

“Everyone and anyone who has an opinion contrary to hers,” Plum was quick to criticize. “How on earth did
you
meet Lord Cairn?”

By not making mad cow eyes at him
. But Quince was saved from actually uttering the remark by Mama’s quick censure.
 

“Plum.” Mama kept her third daughter in check with a word and a look, much as she had with the fourth, youngest and most wayward. To whom she now looked. “After I spoke with Lord Cairn at the Inverness Ball, I thought you and he had another, very long conversation.”

Oh, no fool Mama.
 

What could Quince say that would hold as much as possible to the truth, without giving anything else away? Lying was much like stealing—the best defense was to take offense. Or evasive action. “We spoke of politics, as I said. Or rather, he spoke of politics, while I pretended to listen.”

“How interesting.” Mama’s tone was as spotless as her lace kerchief and cuffs. “Such a long time for you to pretend to listen. I would not think your patience was up to such a task.”

Oh, by jimble. Quince was all appreciation for her mother’s subtle wit—it kept her on her own toes. “I fear Strathcairn’s conversation did about wear my patience out. And we did not even speak of the new government’s proposed Poor Law.”

“Ah. I begin to see how he might engage you in argument instead of conversation. But what, I wonder, persuaded Lord Cairn that he needed to closet you away to talk politics in the first place?”

“So she couldn’t escape,” was Plum’s answer.

Plum might have been happy to poke fun, but Mama was not—she was too clever by half. As was Quince. “He did closet me away, didn’t he? Oh, holy lemon tarts!” Quince pretended to gasp. “You don’t think he has”—she paused for dramatic, and hopefully horrified effect—“any designs upon me?”

Mama raised an acute eyebrow, but did not stop walking, taking care to keep the full skirts of her
robe à la française
well above the dirty cobbles. “His lordship does not strike me as the type of man who has ‘designs.’ But other than that, I cannot yet tell where his interest in you lies,” her mother admitted.

“No,” Quince and Plum said at the same time.
 

“He can’t be interested in her,” Plum carried on before Quince spoke over her.
 

“You cannot think that he means to
court
me?”

“Again, I cannot tell what the marquess means to do,” Mama said. “It is a strange man who makes love by talking politics. But I would caution you now to be wary of him, Quince. He has…” Mama searched for the right word. “…History. You would be wise to be leery of him.”

“Mama!” Plum and Quince chorused for entirely different reasons.

But Mama had her own ideas about what Quince ought to do with Strathcairn. “The Marquess of Cairn is hugely influential. And handsome to boot. Not to mention quite attractively rich, and apparently attracted to you. As are you attracted to him, though you try to hide it—you never would have talked to him at all if you were not. But there is an old scandal still attached to his name.”

“What scandal?”

Mama pursed her lips closed, and didn’t answer the question. “I know you well enough to know that warning you off will only increase his attraction for you, so I will only caution—be very careful how you take anything the man has to offer.”

And Mama didn’t even know what the man had actually offered.
 

“Yes, Mama.” She would be very careful how she conducted her improper acquaintance with the most proper man in all of Edinburgh.

Perhaps this little time away from thievery was going to be
fun
after all
.

And speaking of fun—out of the corner of her eye, Quince spied a penny that had wedged itself between the cobbles. She quickly bent to pick it up—waste not, want not. She was such a magpie that she couldn’t pass up even a single penny for the poor box.

“Good morning, Lady Winthrop.”

Quince whirled upright, and there he was, as if they had conjured him up with their talk, looking as polished and urbane as a gem in a jeweler’s shop. Strathcairn was again magnificently turned out in an impeccably tailored suit of the darkest forest green silk, not a hair out of place, nor so much as a fleck of powder marring his sleeve.

She felt her cheeks grow warm with embarrassment—an emotion she rarely felt—from having him catch her grubbing for pennies in the dirt. She hid her clarty, soiled fingers behind her quilted skirts. It wouldn’t do to have him wondering if she were as hard up for money as an old lady’s companion.

The marquess was doffing his tricorn hat to her mother before he turned the focus of that acute green gaze toward her. “Lady Plum. Wee Lady Quince.”

Pleasure swirled into her veins like warm cream into her morning chocolate cup.
 

“Strathcairn.” Quince took care to let nothing of over-friendliness or intimacy warm her voice, because not even that off-putting “wee Quince” could curtail Mama’s interest, or Plum’s competitive instincts.

Her sister’s greeting was everything effusive that Quince’s was not. “Why, good morning, my Lord
Cairn
.” Plum emphasized Quince’s mistake in calling him by his former title, before she swanned into a graceful curtsey, spreading her immaculate, embroidered lawn skirts like a fan. “We were just talking about you. So very nice to see you.”

“Likewise, I am sure, Lady Plum.” Strathcairn touched his hat, but wisely ignored Plum’s invitation to appease his curiosity. Instead he addressed them all impartially. “And where are the lovely Winthrop ladies headed this morning?”

“We are shopping,” Mama answered in a politely neutral tone. “Costumes for the Marchioness of Queensbury’s Midsummer Masquerade Ball. Do you plan to attend the masquerade, Lord Cairn?”

“I do plan on attending, Lady Winthrop.” His glance shied toward Quince—she felt his attention like a physical touch. “And you, Lady Quince? Will you also be attending the Marchioness of Queensbury’s masquerade ball?”

“Perhaps.” Quince tried her best to be equivocal, while she slid her eyes obediently toward Mama. At just nineteen, her attendance at something as potentially risqué as a masquerade could not be taken for granted. And Mama had just warned her away from the marquess. One must pick one’s battles, Mama always said. “If my mother approves.”

Mama’s tone was as careful as the look she passed from Quince to Strathcairn and back. “As the ball is a private, and not a public masquerade, I have no real objection. The Marchioness of Queensbury will see that her revels don’t fall into the debauchery and licentious behavior so common during the ticketed masquerades at the Theatre Royale.”

 
Plum had not yet given up on attracting Strathcairn’s attention. “Of course,
wee
Quince will only have an unimaginative costume sewn up, made from some old, pulled-apart gown—she’s so thrifty she picks up pennies. The only reason she’s even remotely fashionable is that I give her my cast-offs. If I didn’t, I daresay she’d be an embarrassment to us all.”

“Plum.” Mama’s tone was like water dousing the flame of Plum’s malice before it could singe anyone else.

“It’s quite all right, Mama,” Quince put in swiftly before anyone could remark any further upon her thriftiness, nor any potential reasons for it. Let them all think she was too tight with her purse, or too disinterested in fashion to spend her allowance on new clothing. Anything to keep them all from the truth—that she dressed not to impress, but to blend into the scenery. “It’s too true that Plum is all that stands between me and fashion ignominy. Without her, I wouldn’t know the difference between a
polonaise
and a round gown. Alas, if I only cared a whit about it. But I don’t. Wit and not wardrobe, is my motto.”

Plum made a huffy sound of derision. “What you think passes for wit—“
 

“—is really just sarcasm. Yes, thank you, Plum.” If Plum thought that calling attention to Quince’s admittedly myriad faults would bring her Strathcairn’s attention, good luck and Godspeed to her. “I’ll leave you and Mama to the fashionable dressmaker of your choice, while I go on to the unfashionable one of mine, though you ken full well her needlework is exquisite.” She gestured meaningfully to Plum’s elegantly embroidered skirts. Quince might not care overmuch for fashion, but she cared about Jeannie. But she also had to be careful not to call too much attention to her friend, either.

Quince decided more discretion was the better part of valor, nodded to both Plum and Mama, and made Strathcairn the shallowest of curtseys. “My lord.”

“Look at her, going on her own without so much escort as a maid. Really, Mama, it’s too bad of her.”

But her sister’s protestations had the opposite effect of her intentions. “With your permission, Lady Winthrop,” Strathcairn broke in, “I’ll leave you ladies to the accompaniment of your maid and footman, and give wee Lady Quince the safety of my escort to wherever it is she is going.”

Poor Plum, hoisted on the petard of her own complaint. She’d never learn.

“Thank you, my Lord Cairn,” Mama answered carefully. “That will be acceptable. Although I can easily see your progress up the High Street to Menleith’s Close.”

“And so you have been warned,” Quince said under her breath as Strathcairn touched his hat to her mother, and they turned westward up the pavement, “that we are watched.”

“Not for the first time, I’ll wager.” He fell into step beside her, far enough apart that not even the hem of his fine coat brushed her skirts, but not so far she could not smell the subtle hint of warm vanilla and citrus spice that wafted off him like an evening breeze.

The scent slid under her skin like an opiate. It was a sort of exquisite torture to be this close to him, and not touch him. Not fist her hands in his lapel, and pull his lips to hers. Not knock his hat to the ground, and muss that perfectly powdered hair. “Nay, not for the first time. My mother has warned me away from you.”

“Just as she has warned me away from you.”

As there was nothing she could say to that, they walked on in silence, until they came to the narrowing of the street at Nether Bow. There, she stopped on the pavement. “I thank you for the courtesy, my lord, but I had much better go on alone. My dressmaker’s shop is just down the close.” She indicated the long alleyway reaching north off the High Street. “And her shop is so tiny, you’d be entirely in the way. So I’ll thank you”—she gave him a perfunctory curtsey—“and bid you good day.” She waved back to Mama, who gathered her full skirts in one hand, as if she were making ready to go.

Strathcairn, smart fellow that he was, understood what Quince hoped had been polite caution in her voice, and without being obvious, positioned himself around the corner, where he could not be seen. And he did not dally, but came straight to his point. “I have thought much about our last conversation, wee Quince. And the bargain we struck.”

She couldn’t decide if she liked or loathed his continual reference to her as “wee Quince.” It made her feel small in a way that had nothing to do with age, or height. Mostly. Because he also said it so nicely that it felt almost…intimate.