Maggie MacKeever (3 page)

“Ah yes, I am all indulgence,” Quin said sardonically. “Therefore, I will tell you that even if you drop your neckline to your navel, you’ll catch no more than a cold.”

He thought so, did he? Mam thought otherwise. Liliane thought she’d like to be shut of the pair of them. This behaving like a hen-hearted little ninny without a ha’porth of spirit went against the grain.

Delicately, she shuddered. “You mistake, milord. Me, I am much afraid. What if the Coffey lurks in ambush, waiting to revenge himself? I beg you permit me to remain tonight beneath your roof.”

Quin did not immediately answer. Liliane crossed his fingers behind her back. Would he, or would he not?

He beckoned the attendant. “I might as well be running a blasted hotel.”

Chapter Five

Lord Quinton was preparing to break his fast — the morning newspapers spread out on the mahogany table in front of him, alongside a pot of coffee and a plate piled high with boiled eggs and cold roast beef, although he had no appetite, and was wondering why anyone would choose to be awake at this ungodly hour — when his ruminations were interrupted by the arrival of Beau Loversall. Beau was dressed for riding in dark blue coat and buckskin breeches and tall top boots, buff waistcoat with black stripes wide asunder, cravat tied in the Trone d’Amour. His golden curls were tousled, his expression reminiscent of the cat that had got into the cream.

“An early rendezvous?” Quin ventured. “With Miss Fletcher, I presume?”

“Miss Fletcher is holding me at arm’s length. Mrs. Thwaite, however, enjoys a brisk morning ride.” Beau examined the sideboard where food had been set out in chafing dishes. There were no servants in attendance, Quin preferring (result of his usually fragile condition) to greet the day in solitude. “What are you doing up so early? I was sure I’d find you still abed.”

And so Quin would have been, had not sleep proved damned elusive. “In that case, why are you in my house?”

“May I remind you Moxley’s previously belonged to a member of my family? It is practically a second home, and in some ways even better than my own.” Beau settled himself on an upholstered chair. “While Mrs. Ormsby rubs along well enough with Mrs. Thwaite, she dislikes Miss Fletcher’s manner. I suggested she might be more tolerant of a damsel half her age.”

“Ah. Yet here you sit. Apparently unscathed.”

Beau reached for the coffee urn, which was decorated with a rustic landscape populated by shepherdesses and sheep. “Appearances are deceptive. The lady has exceedingly sharp fingernails.”

A brief silence descended on the chamber, while its occupants reflected upon the damage done their respective persons by their various amours. It was a pretty room, tinted pale blue with cornices a slightly darker shade, the ceiling embellished with relief mouldings in papier-mâché, the wallpaper lush with foliate scrolls and a small-scale repeating pattern of flowers and leaves.

Quin raised a hand to shield his eyes from the bright morning light. He fancied he was sober, and didn’t fancy it at all.

The door opened. Liliane was wearing her own clothes this morning, a day dress of figured calico, doves’ breast with black flowers, the sleeves puffed at the top and fitted to the wrist. She was not, Quin noted with displeasure, wearing a cloak or a bonnet or any other item of clothing that might suggest her imminent departure. He inquired, “Why haven’t you left?”

“More to the point,” said Beau, “why is she here at all? I distinctly recall you telling me the women who work at Moxley’s are not to be enjoyed. But you own the place, do you not, and ownership has privileges.” He rose. “Do join us,
chérie.
”

Privileges, had he? Quin wished someone would tell him what they were.

Liliane approached the table and seated herself as close as possible to him while remaining out of reach. “You mistake, monsieur,” she explained to Beau
.
“I am not here because his lordship and I have the intimate connection, but because of the
cochon
Coffey, who will desire to revenge himself because I damaged his manly apparatus. It was no more than he deserved, for misusing me.”

 “The cad misused you?” echoed Beau, enjoying himself far more than Quin found seemly. “You must tell me all. But first— Am I
de trop?
Do you wish to be private with Quin?”

Liliane glanced at Quin. He scowled, lest she mistake his dislike of the notion, and she said, “
Mais
non!
I came for the coffee. Unless milord desires I leave before I break my fast?”

“Don’t be a goose!” Beau scolded, before Quin could express his regret that Liliane had not departed at the break of dawn. “Of course you must stay.” Liliane reached for the sugar bowl, a maneuver that invited her companions to gaze down the neckline of her dress.

Beau’s gaze drifted to her bosom. Liliane leaned forward to afford him a better view. Quin raised his coffee cup. Trial enough that he had forgone his morning whiskey. Watching flirtation enacted at his breakfast table was more than a man should have to bear.

“May I bring you some toast?” asked Beau.

“Yes, please.
Merci!”
Liliane glanced again at Quin. “Are you angry with me, milord? I am sorry I slept so late. I lay awake almost all the night, tossing and turning and fretting myself to flinders about what the pig person may do.”

Although he suspected she had ulterior motives — in Quin’s experience, females almost always had ulterior motives — Liliane also had a valid point. Coffey was of a vindictive bent.

He pushed away his untouched plate. “You have misplaced your accent, mademoiselle.” Liliane had rested her elbows on the table. She flushed and snatched them back.

Beau returned from the sideboard, carrying a plate of cheese and toast. He set the food in front of Liliane. She thanked him prettily. He resumed his seat.

The door again swung open. Kate hesitated on the threshold. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I didn’t realize you weren’t alone.”

“It’s a marvel to me how seldom I
am
alone.” Quin stood.

Liliane stared at the newcomer. “Who is that? What is she wearing? Someone should recommend to her the so-clever Mme Dubois.”

Lord Quinton felt like recommending Liliane take herself to Hades. “Do join us, Kate. You must pay no heed to Liliane, who has no manners. Furthermore, she was just leaving. Weren’t you, Liliane?”

“But I have not—”

“You have overstayed your welcome. Go, before I call Samson to render you assistance.” Cheese and toast in hand, Liliane pushed back her chair. Kate limped toward the table, her gait more awkward than the night before.

“By God! The rumor’s true,” said Beau. “You
do
prefer rigidly virtuous females.” Halfway to the doorway, Liliane turned to gape.

Quin crossed the room and opened the door; pushed Liliane through the portal, and closed it in her face. “Kate, this reprobate is Beau Loversall. Beau, you will not be rude to Miss Manvers.”

“Rude?” Beau echoed, wounded. “I was merely pointing out—”

“I don’t think I am rigidly virtuous.” Kate looked reflective. “Though I daresay I once was.”

Beau poured coffee into another cup. “Before you met Quin, you mean. Witness me proven correct.”

“Witness you an idiot.” Quin reclaimed his seat. “Kate and I were betrothed.”

Beau widened his blue eyes. “The most wicked of all the wicked had a fiancée?”

“I was a mere eighteen. And I didn’t have her long.”

Kate sipped her coffee. “That would be because he also got himself betrothed to Verena Wickersham.”

Beau tsk’d. “Miss Wickersham was an heiress, I suppose? Immense dowry, lands marched apace, that sort of thing? Did she additionally have spots? A hairlip? A squint?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Kate. “We were never introduced.”

Sobriety, decided Quin, was highly overrated. All in all, he’d rather be nursing a sore head.

Chapter Six

Moxley House was busy. Countless people were flitting about, whispering behind their hands, casting curious looks at Kate as Quin hustled her down the hallway and through the door.

They were puzzling over who she was, of course, and why she’d been allowed to stay. The latter, Kate was puzzling over herself. Quin could only be inconvenienced by her presence in his house.

Once outside, he released her. Kate surveyed the garden, or what remained of the garden, as she rubbed her abused wrist. Naked honeysuckle bushes, the ruins of morning glory and camellias and various shrubs, trees stripped of vegetation to the height of a man’s head—

Wisteria drooped forlornly. The remnants of an orange tree protruded from a neoclassical urn. “Good Lord. What happened here?” she said.

Quin motioned her toward a shell-shaped bench. “The previous owner kept a goat. I brought you outdoors not to enjoy the scenery but because this is the only place I can be relatively certain we won’t be overheard.”

Kate conceded that it would be difficult for anyone to hide in the sparse shrubbery. “Precisely what
is
Moxley’s?” she inquired.

“You don’t know?”

“Brothel, bedlam, bachelor establishment — I can’t make up my mind. Mademoiselle Liliane gives every appearance of being bachelor’s fare.”

“Mistress Liliane,” corrected Quin. “The lady — and yes, I use the term loosely — is no more French than you and I. In answer to your question, you’ve taken refuge in a gaming hell.”

A gaming hell? It needed only that.

Kate wondered, though she surely shouldn’t, how many mistresses Quin had.

She wanted Quin herself, if the truth be told, which was shocking in her, because if anyone should know better, it was Kate.

Harsh unforgiving daylight deepened the lines in his face, revealed threads of silver in his dark hair.

The skeleton of a rambling rose spread over the old stone walls. Quin snapped off a withered branch. “Cat got your tongue? Or have your delicate sensibilities been overcome?”

Kate refrained from remarking that her delicate sensibilities had not survived the occasion when he’d spread his jacket on a bed of fragrant straw. “It is beneath you to amuse yourself by baiting me,” she said.

Gravel crunched beneath Quin’s boots as he moved toward the bench. “If anything is beneath me, I have not yet discovered what it might be.”

He was angry with her. But why? Surely she was the one with a right to bear a grudge? Kate longed to ask him, and at the same time was reluctant to venture down that particular conversational path.

Still holding the rose branch, Quin sat down beside her. Kate had not realized the bench was so small.

She took a sudden intense interest in her hands, which were folded in her lap. Beside her sat a philanderer who had corrupted countless women and fought numerous duels, a man of libertine propensities who had engaged in every vice not once but many times, who had driven at least one lover to suicide; the sort of scoundrel damsels were warned against, lest they find themselves with their skirts around their ears and minus a maidenhead. But he was also Quin, who long ago had held her heart in his hand, and she glimpsed traces of the boy he had been at eighteen in the tilt of his head, the twist of his mouth, a fleeting expression in his dark eyes.

Kate didn’t think she could bear that Quin should touch her now.

And yet she wished him to, intensely.

She was the worst kind of fool.

Quin turned his head to study her. “You are quiet,” he remarked.

Kate felt her cheeks redden. “I was remembering.”

“Memory frequently eludes me,” said Quin. “I am more often grateful for it than not.”

Kate supposed she should be grateful he no longer shared this physical attraction. “You do not mind that you cannot recall portions of your life?”

He shrugged. “Why should I? The past is dead. Liliane is right about one thing: that is a dreadful dress. Have you nothing else?”

“I— No. If you are determined to insult me, I will take my leave.”

“You are insulted by the truth? In that case, I declare a truce. Now perhaps you will explain why you are here.”

Kate hesitated. How best to proceed? “I’ve been residing with my Aunt Dorothea in Yorkshire.”

Quin stretched out his long legs. “Dotty Aunt Dorothea, mother to the odious Edmund — I have not forgot quite everything, you see. Why aren’t you with your aunt now?”

So small was the stone bench that his thigh brushed against hers. Kate refused to give him the satisfaction of edging away.

Nor would she crawl onto his lap, no matter how strong the temptation. “Aunt Dorothea fell down the hall stair. Her heart wasn’t strong.”

“My condolences on your loss.” Quin began stripping the thorns off his rose branch. “Even though it’s obvious the damned woman didn’t feed you half enough.”

In contrast to the voluptuous Liliane, Kate must seem as dry and brittle as the stick he held. “Aunt Dorothea was kind, in her way.”

“But not kind enough to provide for you,” Quin murmured.

Kate considered the various violent uses to which one might put a denuded rose branch. She inhaled a deep, calming breath. “Edmund was jealous of her fondness for me. My cousin in his tantrums was something we both were eager to avoid. We went on well enough, until Edmund debauched the vicar’s wife.”

Quin looked contemplative. Kate wondered if he had ever debauched a vicar’s wife. “It made a dreadful scandal,” she hastily continued. “Aunt Dorothea had hysterics, and threatened to cut Edmund out of her will. Not long after, she had her mishap on the steps. There was an inquiry, of course. Her death was deemed an accident.”

Quin turned sideways on the bench. “You don’t believe it was?”

 Kate met his gaze. “Aunt Dorothea had a new will drawn up and witnessed during one of Edmund’s absences. Once he learns of its existence, I’d not lay odds on my continued good health.”

Chapter Seven

Quin strolled through the gaming rooms. Moxley’s might be located in the raffish Haymarket, but these chambers were as elegantly fitted out as the finest gentleman’s club.