By Love Undone (13 page)

“You haven’t been known for dallying before, Quin. At least you’ve never felt the need to inform your father or me about it if you have.” She turned back to the garden view. “Though I’d assume if you’d dallied, the ladies would have been of more solid standing in society than Miss Willits—or of no standing at all.”

That had occurred to him as well. “I know.” He started back for the drawing room. “At any rate, I gave my word. And as I said, I couldn’t very well take her to Warefield and still expect her to have any chance of returning to society. So I thought you…might be persuaded to assist me.”

“Your father doesn’t want anything to do with it.”

“Yes, but he won’t be here.” He strolled back to her side and took her hand in his. “Will you help me redeem myself, Mother?”

Her eyes twinkled. “She called Lewis arrogant and self-centered.”

“And pompous.”

She chuckled. “If you feel it’s that important, of course I’ll help.” The duchess’s smile faded. “But only to a point, Quin. I won’t allow the Bancroft name to be sullied any more than your father would. If society continues to frown on her when she returns, she must be sent away. Agreed?”

He took a deep breath, far more relieved than he expected. He had Maddie for another few weeks, anyway. “Agreed.”

“I
do not need a dressmaker. I can sew my own clothes.”

Maddie glared at Quinlan, who stood in the doorway of her borrowed bedchamber and glared back at her. The maid standing just inside the door looked as though she desperately wanted to flee, but she couldn’t do so without going past the marquis.

“Making you presentable to London society is part of my promise to Uncle Malcolm,” Quin returned sternly. “In two weeks’ time you will not be able to sew enough clothes to last you more than a day or two in London. The dressmaker will be here this afternoon.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

She wanted to throw something at him, but instead plunked herself down on the soft bed. “I refuse to end up owing you anything.” She’d decided that from the beginning: being in his debt would be worse than being ruined in the first place. That’s why she’d left home. She, and no one else, would be responsible for her welfare and her well-being. And if she was being stubborn and impractical, it was her right.

“Is that why you insisted on paying for you own
room at the inns on the way here?” he asked. Far from becoming angry, he looked only curious. Apparently he was almost constantly curious about her, for he was always asking questions she’d rather not answer. And he had an oddly compelling way of making her want to answer at the same time.

After a moment he seemed to notice the maid, and absently gestured her to leave. The girl scurried out so fast, her apron might have been on fire.

“Yes. That is exactly why I paid my own way.”

He strolled over to lean against the bed’s tall footboard. “Maddie, I am
extremely
wealthy. When I become Duke of Highbarrow, I will be obscenely so. You can’t match me.”

“I’m very aware of that, my lord,” she said stiffly. “You don’t need to point it out.”

Quin shook his head. “No, no, no. What I mean is, my uncle’s idea was for you to be reintroduced in such a manner that no one could gainsay you.
I
can afford to do that without even noticing the loss. You’ve worked hard for what you’ve earned. Save it for something…for yourself.”

She looked up at him, trying to summon the anger at him that had been absent since the night of the Fowler ball. Without the anger there, she kept noticing the slight, amused smiles that touched his mouth, and the lean line of his jaw, and the way the sunlight turned his honey-colored hair to gold. “If you cared about what I wanted,” she answered finally, “you would never have dragged me away from Langley.”

“Uncle Malcolm cares about what you want. And despite having nearly been drowned and shot in your presence, I do as well.”

Maddie looked down at her hands. “I gave my word to go with you only for your uncle’s sake. So please
don’t expect me to go to the gallows with a smile on my face.”

To her surprise, he sat on the bed beside her. “The gallows? I can’t say I’ve ever heard London referred to in quite that way before.”

She smiled briefly, trying not to smell his light cologne or notice that a lock of hair had fallen across his forehead. “It was certainly the scene of my social execution.”

“Don’t you miss it, even a little?”

She shook her head vehemently. “No.”

He fiddled with the edge of her skirt, the cheap muslin rustling against her legs and making her nerves tingle pleasantly. Good Lord, now she was thinking about kissing him again.

“But—”

“You have no idea what it’s like, do you?” she interrupted, trying to rally her indignation again. “No one would dare cut you, whatever you did. Both you and your father are too wealthy and too powerful for anyone even to consider it. I’m only the daughter of a second generation viscount.” She stopped, but he continued looking at her with his intense jade eyes, and she found herself continuing when she had meant not to.

“I was invited everywhere, especially once I became engaged. And after that…stupid, stupid night, not even my so-called friends would visit me, or even look at me. My parents locked me in my room for three days. I think they intended to send me to a convent. Ha! Can you imagine? Me, in a convent?”

“No, I can’t.” He lifted his hand and tucked a straying strand of hair behind her ear. “How did you get away?”

An unexpected shiver ran down Maddie’s spine at his gentle touch. “I waited for bad weather, then packed a valise, threw it out my window, and climbed down the
rose trellis. I walked to Charing Cross Road, and then took the stage to Brighton. I intended to set sail for America, but I didn’t have enough money.”

“By damn,” he murmured, studying her face closely.

His scrutiny unsettled her, but he didn’t seem to be laughing at her, so she shrugged. “So I hired on as a governess in Brighton. I lasted a fortnight, until the news over the scandal broke there, and my employer figured out who I must be. He gave me four shillings and set me out onto the street.” She scowled. “
After
he offered to keep my tale quiet in exchange for certain…favors.” Maddie flushed. Spenser pawing at her had been bad enough.

“Who was it?” Quin asked.

“It doesn’t matter. They’re all the same.”

“No, we’re not.”

No, they didn’t seem to be, and that was somehow hard to accept. “You kissed me,” she pointed out, more to remind herself than him. “Was that just because you thought I was Mr. Bancroft’s mistress, and of no account?”

He shot to his feet. “No! Absolutely not.” Agitated, he strode to her window and then turned around again. “That kiss was…something else entirely.”

“What, then?” She wanted to know. And not simply to confirm that it hadn’t meant anything to him.

“A mistake. Of sorts.”

She lowered her eyes, hurt. “Of what sort?”

“Of the sort that I really can’t regret, but wouldn’t dare to repeat.”

“No?”

He held her gaze for a moment. “No,” he said softly, then took a quick breath, as though he had only just realized they were alone in her bedchamber. “Mrs…. the dressmaker will be here at two. Don’t—”

“You don’t remember the poor woman’s name?” she teased.

“Damnation. It rhymes with sunflower.” His lips quirked.

“Hm. That’s something, anyway.”

“She’s my mother’s dressmaker. Not mine.”

Before she could summon an insulting response to that, he was gone, whistling down the hallway. Maddie gazed after him for a long time.

She felt at a distinct disadvantage at Highbarrow. At Langley she’d been comfortable, on good terms with all the servants and the neighbors, and familiar with the routines and minute details.

Except for a few hours spent in the Marquis of Tewksbury’s ballroom five years before, she’d never experienced such pomp and circumstance and wealth as she saw at Highbarrow Castle. It was unnerving—yet still nothing compared to what she would be going through the moment she set foot in London.

The duke thankfully departed with his two coaches and a retinue of servants before noon. She wouldn’t have minded arguing with him some more, but as she was woefully short of allies, she didn’t want to risk angering the duchess over something as foolish as His Grace.

Maddie took luncheon alone, sitting at a huge, polished oak dining table that could easily have seated the entire household staff at Langley. Quinlan had ridden off to visit some neighbors, and apparently the duchess, despite her earlier support, wasn’t ready actually to socialize with the interloper.

Mrs. Neubauer arrived at two in the afternoon. The dressmaker was tall and thin, with an impossibly pointed chin that Maddie couldn’t help staring at—especially after the woman spent a full minute walking around her, fingering her muslin gown and sniffing.

“No wonder the duchess wanted new clothes for
you,” she muttered, examining the hem of Maddie’s sleeve. “Well below
my
standards, that’s for certain. But then, my standards are why Her Grace sent for me.”

“How fortunate for me.” Maddie tried to decide whether she was annoyed or amused.

“Hm.” Mrs. Neubauer finally stopped her circling and crossed her arms over her chest. “What am I to measure you for, then?”

Maddie folded her own arms, leaning decidedly toward annoyance. “I have no idea, I’m sure.”

“Gowns, for morning, afternoon, and evening.” The Duchess of Highbarrow glided into Maddie’s bedchamber, one of her maids in tow. “Suitable for London society.”

The maid pulled out the dressing table chair, and the duchess seated herself. Maddie looked at her for a moment, more uncomfortable than she had ever been in Quin’s presence, then belatedly curtsied. “Your Grace.”

“Quin says you have no manners. I see you do remember something of your upbringing.”

Maddie clenched her jaw. “More than I care to, my lady,” she answered as politely as she could.

The duchess looked at her for a moment, then sat back and waved her hand at the dressmaker. “Get on with it, Mrs. Neubauer.”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

After a thorough measuring session, Maddie had to stand and watch as Her Grace and the dressmaker decided on color and fabric and style. Neither of them asked her opinion, though they did spend some moments debating how best to showcase her bosom.

“I don’t wish to be showcased,” Maddie said stiffly. She’d been stared at enough the night of the disaster. Just the idea of going through something like that again left her feeling queasy. “And I won’t wear blue, for heaven’s sake. It makes me look tallow-faced.”

The duchess glanced at her, then continued conversing with her dressmaker. “Substitute a gray and green silk for the blue. With gray slippers.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Maddie said, offering a slight smile.

“We certainly don’t want you to look tallow-faced,” the duchess said dryly.

Finally Mrs. Neubauer gathered her things together and left. Her Grace, though, remained seated in Maddie’s chair.

“Do you have anything nicer than what you’re wearing now, so you may dress for dinner?”

Again Maddie kept a rein on her flashing temper. If it had been Quinlan asking the question, she would have given him a sound set-down for it. But this haughty woman had stood up for her. She would take an insult or two in return. “A little nicer,” she admitted. “We are—were—less formal at Langley.”

“No doubt.” The duchess stood with an elegant swirl of lavender. “We are more formal here. I expect you to comply with that.” She headed out the door.

“If you didn’t want me here, then why did you speak up for me?” Maddie said to her back.

The duchess stopped and turned around. “I spoke up for my son. We have all learned that the best way to maintain peace in the family is to concede to my husband’s wishes. This time Quin chose not to do so.” Lady Highbarrow spent another moment looking at Maddie, her expression the speculative one Maddie had seen Quinlan wear. “And I really can’t think of a good reason why he should risk his father’s temper over a foul-tempered flirt of inconsequential family.” She shrugged and walked away down the hall. “We shall see.”

Victoria Bancroft paused at the downstairs landing to listen. The girl’s door had closed quietly, without any
of the outburst or angry hysterics she’d half expected to hear. She waited a moment longer, then continued down to the first floor.

The whole affair was extremely odd. Quin chasing another female so close to his own engagement was not all that surprising, poorly as it must be regarded. Given his general levelheadedness and keen measure of common sense, his bringing that same woman to his parents’ home and practically demanding that she be taken in and cared for was surprising in the extreme.

His Grace had, of course, chosen to view the entire incident as an affront to his dignity and stomped off to London, leaving her to sort out the absurd mess before the Bancrofts became the topic of the new Season’s gossip. Just a whisper that the Marquis of Warefield had taken up with his estranged uncle’s castoff would be enough to set the town ablaze.

Quin unexpectedly came in the front door as she started down the hallway. Since he rarely got the chance to amuse himself, when he went fishing with Jack Dunsmoore he always stayed out until well after nightfall. And it was barely past teatime. Victoria stopped and waited for him to catch up. “How was Lord Dunsmoore?”

“Quite well. I left him fishing. Not a damned thing biting this afternoon. How did the fitting go?” He slapped at the thin layer of dust covering his buckskin breeches.

“Miss Willits will have suitable attire beginning the day after tomorrow.”

“She didn’t try to throw anyone out a window, or go about stabbing old what’s-her-name with pins?” The marquis chuckled.

Victoria stopped and faced her elder son. “Do you find it amusing that a supposedly well-bred young lady would throw a tantrum every few moments?”

Quin leaned back against the wall. “She’s not some rabid wolf, Mother. She’s merely been on her own for quite a—”

“She’s merely been living off the good graces of your uncle, you mean,” she interrupted.

Quin’s smile faded. “I wasn’t joking when I said she’d been tending to Langley, you know. And as well as any estate manager I’ve come across. Better than some.”

“And?”

“And as for living off Malcolm’s good graces, she purchased him a wheeled chair so he could begin to get about. I looked through the ledgers, and there was no notation of it. She finally admitted yesterday that the blunt had come out of her own salary—and she hadn’t told Malcolm. She wanted it to be a gift.”

“So she bought him a chair. It wasn’t a diamond watch fob. You’re being ridiculous, and it’s not like you.”

The marquis gave her another look and then straightened. “
We
didn’t get him anything,” he said quietly, and turned down the hallway. “Father even decided not to notice Malcolm was ill until there became a danger that Langley’s crop wouldn’t get put down in time.”

“We sent
you
,” she reminded him, but he’d already turned the corner. Victoria looked after him until the sound of his boots against the marble floor faded away, and then she continued on to the west drawing room. Two things were becoming clear. This kiss apparently hadn’t been as much of an accident as Quin had claimed—and Lewis should never have sent him to Somerset in the first place.