Formidable Lord Quentin (17 page)

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Syd insisted as the
carriage rattled down the road toward town. “We only did what Lady Camilla
intended to do, except we got there first.”

Bell thought she might climb out of her skin and run away.
She glanced out the window to be certain Kit hadn’t set fire to the baggage
carriage carrying the servants. She’d been amazed that Quent had still been
willing to lend his equipment.

“Lady Camilla is
desperate.
I thought I made that clear. Proper ladies do not trap husbands. It’s not only
very bad
ton
, it’s hare-brained. Men
resent wives who force marriage on them. You are not desperate.”

“Yes, we are!” Tess stood up for her sister. “We don’t want
to go to Scotland to some stranger or to a horrid school. We want to stay here,
together. Lord Quentin said he might have our guardianship if he married, so
why shouldn’t he marry me?”

“We didn’t know you were having an affair!” Syd cried. “How
could we know? You act as if you dislike him.”

“I do not,” Bell answered crossly. “We are the oldest of
friends. And we were not having an affair. I just wanted to protect him from
your foolishness.”

“Then marry him,” Tess said in the same peevish tone. “Then
we needn’t worry about going to Scotland. We thought to save you from having to
marry for our sakes, but if you’re friends anyway, why not?”

Excellent question, one too difficult to answer. How could a
woman of her years claim to be holding out for love? She was well past the age
of romantic silliness.

“We have different interests,” Bell answered, sounding
petulant even to herself. “I spend money. He saves it. Marriage would destroy
our friendship.”

That settled the argument for the time being. Her sisters
knew all about men who
spent
money.
Men who didn’t want to spend it were beyond their ken.

Which made Bell the reckless spendthrift like her father.
Fine. So, she was the villain here. A villain valiantly attempting to do what
was right for her family, she tried to tell herself.

But she had to admit that she was lying. She was running
away from the way Quent caused her to lose control and indulge in the reckless,
dangerous urges of her youth.

Running away was a coward’s way out, and she really was too
old and wise in the ways of the world to believe in love and romance. Requiring
love was simply another means of running away, she supposed.

With a sigh, Bell mentally composed a business letter that
would link her fortune with Quent’s. The letter wasn’t pretty. How could she
turn the perfect night they’d shared into a negotiation? It went against the
grain.

She’d have to have Summerby write it.

***

Back in London a few days later, Quent crumpled Summerby’s
damned letter and paced his study. “Why am I doing this?” he asked. “I’m
perfectly fine as I am. She’s the one who needs
me.
”

Penrose dropped a stack of documents on the desk and
imitated Quent’s inelegant snort. “Right you are. You pace like a testy stallion.
You haven’t gone after the steamboat deal since I presented it to you. You
nearly snapped off your housekeeper’s head when she merely asked if you wanted
to call in a window cleaner. I think the lady has you by the bollocks.”

Worse, the lady had hit him where it hurt—in his pride. He’d
been so damned certain he could prove that she wouldn’t want to leave his bed
that he’d never given any other result a consideration.

He certainly wanted back in
her
bed again. Bell in the height of passion—was more glorious than
racing yachts on the high seas. He wanted to paint her naked and hang the image
over his bed, if only he could paint.

He couldn’t believe she didn’t feel the same. Pride goeth
before a fall, indeed. He’d spent years imagining how he’d teach her the
pleasures her old goat of a husband hadn’t. He didn’t see how he could be so
wrong. Bell wasn’t the cold conniver this letter said she was—unless he really
was thinking with his cock and not with the brain that had conquered London. He
glared at the legal letter and flung it at the painting of his yacht on the
wall.

He should be out generating cash for the family fortress,
not fretting over feckless females. Alliteration. Maybe he should take up
poetry.

He was losing his mind. And his focus. He couldn’t afford to
lose his focus.

He picked up his father’s most recent letter.
I’ll buy my
own roof
, the bold handwriting declared.
I
already
have two offers for Tess’s hand
—
Angus
—one of Quent’s nephews who was
still in school—
and Mackie
—a widower
cousin with half a dozen children to raise.
A
dower of the same two thousand pounds a year the dowager gave her protégées
should save a fortune once I have Mackie off my hands! I have someone looking
into the boy’s lands. Between them, that will buy the roof. Send them to
me—now!

Quent had a notion that the Boyles would shoot his father
and cousin before they married either of them. How far would he have to run to
avoid the war?

He’d originally thought of Bell as the perfect wife because
she was independent and he needn’t spend time worrying about her. Now the
damned woman was flaunting her independence with this wretched settlement
letter, and it was damned well interfering with his ability to negotiate with
his infuriating father.

“Write a counter offer,” Penrose suggested, jarring Quent
from his reverie.

Quent didn’t want to
negotiate
anymore. He wanted nothing short of complete capitulation. Immediately.

The study was suffocating. He loosened his neckcloth and
continued pacing.

“My father will be hiring a new representative to enforce
his guardianship if I don’t act soon.” Quent tried to make this strategy work
in his head, but threats never worked with Bell.

“I’d start figuring out a counteroffer for that
marital duty only once a week
clause,”
Penrose said, not bothering to hide his amusement.

His aide had hit the sorest point of all. Quent picked up
Summerby’s crumpled settlement letter and flung it on the empty grate. “Send my
father a reply telling him Bell will not dower her sisters if he won’t
surrender his guardianship, but she’ll dower Sally and Elizabeth if I control
the guardianship. And there will be no roof forthcoming until such time as the
matter is settled.”

“I can hear his roar now,” Penrose said with a wince.

Quent grabbed his hat off the stand. “I’m taking the yacht
to Essex. If you want to join us, take the Friesian and your mount by road.”

He stalked out, leaving Penrose still protesting.

He damned well didn’t need to be negotiating with both Bell
and
his father. This had to stop or he’d
never earn another farthing.

Quent debated taking his own lawyer with him to hammer home
his
demands, but he didn’t have the
patience for arguing. Besides, marriage was between a man and a woman, not a
couple of solicitors. He just needed to remind the lady of that.

Racing his sailboat down the Thames to the Channel returned
his perspective. With the wind in his hair and the sun on his face, he was
almost the boy he’d been long ago, in a faraway place. He hoped he was smarter
than that boy had been, because he was about to make a rare fool of himself
otherwise.

***

“Bell, Bell, there’s a cart coming up the drive,” Syd
cried, racing down the corridor of the rambling manse.

Bell scowled at a bird’s nest on top of the china cabinet in
the butler’s pantry. “I haven’t ordered any deliveries. The footmen can handle
it.”

“The same strapping footmen who are afraid to remove that
nest?” Syd asked cynically. “I think you should have left them in London.”

Bell hated it when her sisters were right. “They know how to
answer doors. As soon as I can hire a few country lads, we’ll straighten this
place out.” She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that they’d be here long enough to
hire more people.

She hadn’t wanted to admit that she wouldn’t be returning to
her civilized city home any time soon.

Syd flitted around the enormous pantry, lifting silver
platters and candelabra and ornaments even Bell couldn’t name. “I love it here!
I can only remember a little of our home in Wexford, but I imagined it just like
this—with endless chambers and room to run and no one looking disapprovingly
down their noses at me.”

“I’ll look disapprovingly down my nose if you run and break
your silly neck. Make yourself useful and examine the linen closet. Anything
with holes goes to the church. Tell me how many good linens are left.”

“Not enough,” Syd said cheerfully. “We used them all on our
beds. But I’ll fetch a basket to load the others in.”

She danced off. Bell was thrilled to see her happy. She was
less than thrilled to be returned to filth and decay. As a child, she’d
practically lived in the stable and never tended the house. She had never dealt
with bird and wasp nests, pumps that didn’t pump, drains that didn’t drain, and
holes in the roof.

Since her marriage, she’d hired excellent servants to handle
the city household. But Edward had let the entailed country manse deteriorate.
He’d never visited here, so neither had she. After his death, she’d taken a
look at the place, shuddered, and left it alone. It had seemed a waste of funds
if she couldn’t leave the estate to charity or her sisters’ offspring.

Quent’s family now owned the land entailed to Belden Hall.
She possessed only a life estate. The house was their problem—unless she wanted
to live here.

Until now, she hadn’t been so inclined. She would rather
invest her funds in people than things. But she would need green pastures for
Little Dream. The pastures might as well be her own, since it was obvious she
couldn’t inflict her sisters on society, or vice versa, until they had a little
more polish. She’d had Fitz deliver their horses here.

Bell hoped Edward’s Aunt Griselda could help with polishing
her sisters’ behavior while lending propriety to the household, but Boyles
would always be Boyles. Perhaps she should send them back to Wexford.

Not without wealthy husbands.

Kit’s war whoop warned he’d escaped the classroom again.
Tess arrived in the pantry wearing a worried expression, a certain sign that
trouble loomed on the horizon.

“It’s Lord Quentin,” Tess whispered. “He arrived in a cart.
I can’t tell him to go away, can I?”

Oh, devil take it, why couldn’t that interfering man let her
think
?

Remembering the letter that Summerby had sent him, Bell
quailed and abandoned the pantry. “The footmen have forgotten how to answer the
door?” she asked, striding briskly toward the foyer, trying to hide her
nervousness. “And why a cart? We sent his carriage back to him.”

Even as she said it, Bell knew—Quent had arrived on his
yacht. Which meant he’d needed to race off his fury and arrive here faster than
horseback. That wasn’t promising.

In trepidation, Bell approached the front door. She had no
elegant visitor’s parlor to greet him in. Belden’s medieval hall was worse than
Fitz’s rambling shambles.

“You weren’t invited,” she caustically told Quent when she
reached the foyer to see him doffing his hat and handing his walking stick to her
sturdy footman.

He looked marvelously windblown and sunburned, and her heart
nearly tripped over itself in its eagerness to leap from her chest. What would
it feel like to be clasped in his embrace, as if this were truly a homecoming?

She had to rid herself of these romantic notions. He was
probably here to kill her.

“That’s odd,” he replied cheerfully, leaning over to peck
her cheek as if he had that right. “I thought certain the letter from your
solicitor was an open invitation. You are looking beautifully harassed, my
dear.”

Bell knew better than anyone how civilized behavior could
hide a multitude of sins. At least he didn’t throttle her in front of family. “I’m
not your dear anything. We have no extra linen. The beds are full of mice. And
my cook refused to leave town. She says she can only cook in a real kitchen,
not a country hovel. You’ll just have to turn around and go home.”

“I’ll have to take you to Scotland someday. We mend our
threadbare linen and just spit and roast whatever died that day.” He bowed to
Tess. “How do you do, little sister? Are the grooms keeping you from racing
your new mare?”

Tess glanced uncertainly from him to Bell, then dipped a
quick curtsy. “We are still learning the land. It would be dangerous to race
without knowing the course. I’ll help Syd with the linen.”

She hastened off, leaving Bell and Quent to stare at each
other. Bell felt awkward.
He
seemed
his usual over-confident self.

“Words to live by?” he asked with a quizzical lift of his
eyebrow. “Should we learn the lay of the land before racing the course?”

“We know the lay of the land,” Bell said irritably. “And if
you have some notion of staying, then you’ll have to work with the rest of us.”
She stalked back to the pantry.

“The apron is quite a domestic touch. I like it,” he said,
striding along beside her, reminding her of how much larger and broader he was.

Manly, masculine, physically capable—all those things she
wasn’t and the reason she’d hired strapping young footmen, who were apparently useless
out of the city. “Don’t let the apron fool you. I still wield a horsewhip
better than a duster. But men have their uses.”

She pointed at the broom she’d abandoned when she’d answered
the door, then pointed out the bird’s nest and cobwebs well above her reach.

He dragged a massive walnut chair from the dining room and
climbed up on it to swat the filth to the floor.