By Love Undone

by Suzanne Enoch

  Ah, victory. Of a son, anyway. “So I no longer need to check my bed sheets every evening for thorns or poisonous spiders?”

  Unexpectedly, she chuckled. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  He liked her laugh. “Thank God.”

  By the time the evening ended, Quin felt as tired as Malcolm looked. Maddie stayed quiet during the carriage ride back to Langley, and even when he intentionally left her several good openings for an insult, she didn’t take the bait. Apparently she meant to honor the truce. He glanced at Malcolm. Honor had little to do with any of this: he was supposed to be aiding his uncle, and all he could think about was how he would go about maneuvering Maddie into his bed. It was pure madness—and he had never thought he’d enjoy madness quite so much.

  It just didn’t make sense that the one titled gentleman she’d spoken to in four years would be the one man able to look beyond his title, the one noble who could simply be…nice. Even so, Maddie was willing to concede that perhaps she’d been a little hard on Quinlan. If Charles Dunfrey had fallen into some stream, he probably would have drowned rather than surface to face ridicule.

  Maddie paused in mid-snip and regarded the white rose before her. It had been a long time since she’d thought about Charles Dunfrey without either flinching or wanting to hit something badly. Good. As a fiancé he had been handsome enough, but he’d been severely lacking in the qualities of trust and loyalty. He’d also lacked the vision to see beyond the obvious, as had her own supposed friends and acquaintances. She’d assumed that every other person of his station was therefore the same. Apparently, she hadn’t been entirely correct.

  “Maddie?”

  She jumped and turned around. Quinlan strolled through the garden toward her, his coat missing and his shirtsleeves rolled halfway up to his elbows. He looked like a Grecian statue of a mythical hero. “Yes, my lord?”

  “Blasted hot this morning, isn’t it?” he said, stopping before her. “I just returned from Harthgrove. It looks as though the last load of lumber may be in by this afternoon.” He stepped closer, leaning down to lift one of the roses out of her arm basket. “Exquisite,” he murmured, running a finger along the delicate edge of the white petals.

  Maddie swallowed and continued choosing her bouquet. “That’s good news. You’ll be finished here by the end of the week.” And that, to her surprise, didn’t please her very much at all.

  Quinlan grinned. “So now that you’re bound to a truce, you only want me gone, hm?”

  She met his gaze, hoping she looked more composed than she felt. But however amusing he might think himself, however handsome he might be, she’d agreed to the truce because what he’d said last evening had made sense. Not because he’d convinced her to surrender. Just one hint that he intended to act like—well, like a noble, and she would renew her attack. “I only wanted you gone before.” She snipped another bloom.

  “And you weren’t exactly subtle about it.” For a moment he was quiet, and then sun-warmed petals brushed against her cheek.

  Unsettled, she stepped over to the next bush, crimson buds waving in the warm breeze. “Have you told Mr. Bancroft the news?”

  He followed her. “Not yet.”

  “You should let him know. He’s been anxious about it.”

  The rose and then his fingertips brushed across the back of her neck. “I will.”

  She shivered. “Stop it.”

  “How is it that a lady as lovely and intelligent as you is still unmarried?” he asked softly, ignoring her demand.

  Maddie shut her eyes for a moment and tried to slow her breathing. “Because I choose to be,” she lied.

  “You know,” he continued in the same quiet voice, “I think you never really disliked me at all.” His fingers trailed down her arm to her wrist, and slowly he pulled her around to face him.

  “Yes, I did.”

  Jade eyes caught and held hers. “Oh, I think you wanted to,” he conceded, only his soft murmur separating his mouth from hers.

  Quinlan was right. He was right, and this was wrong—and Maddie leaned up toward him and closed her eyes. His lips ever so gently touched hers. He tasted of tea and honey, and warm spring mornings and everything that had ever made her smile.

  In helpless response she lifted her arms around his neck and pressed herself closer against him. Quinlan made a sound in his throat as he deepened the embrace of their mouths, and she trembled in answer. She hadn’t been kissed in so long, and the last time….

  “Quinlan!”

  White-hot mortification shot through her at the sound of Mr. Bancroft’s furious bellow. Gasping in horror, Maddie tore her mouth from the marquis’s, and without looking at him or at her employer, she bolted around the back of the house.

  “Oh, my God, oh, my God,” she sobbed, holding her hands over her face and weeping as she slammed open the door to the servants’ stairs and hurried up to her bedchamber.

  She’d done it again. Even worse, this time she had known perfectly well what Quinlan’s intention was, and she’d let him kiss her anyway. She’d even encouraged it! Everyone in London was right. She was stupid, fast, and loose.

  Yelling began in the office downstairs, the words muffled, but the emotion behind them clear. First came Mr. Bancroft’s low, angry rumble, and then Quinlan’s sharper-voiced response. Maddie wiped her eyes and returned to the door. Everything had slipped out of control without anyone realizing it until it was too late. It had been an accident.

  She took a deep breath and opened the door. An accident. Mr. Bancroft needed his nephew right now more than he needed her, and she would just explain that she’d been the stupid one and was completely at fault. She was ruined anyway, so it didn’t really matter.

  Quin paced angrily before the window of his uncle’s office. “Look,” he snapped, “I’ll apologize for overstepping my bounds, if you want, but I won’t have you bellowing at me as if I were some idiotic schoolboy!”

  Malcolm kept the wheelchair moving to face his nephew. “I’ll bellow at you in whatever manner I damned well please,” he growled. “By God, Quinlan, I thought better of you than that!”

  Attempting to rein in his temper, Quin took a deep breath. “It was just a bloody kiss,” he grated, not mentioning that he’d been wanting to kiss her for days, or that he had hoped the kiss would be a prelude to something much more intimate. “And she didn’t exactly try to rum me away.”

  “Quinlan—”

  The marquis flung out his arm, furious and frustrated, half his thoughts still on how very good it had felt to have her in his arms, until his damned uncle had appeared and ruined everything. “You’re no good to her now, anyway. Why not let someone else have a go at her?”

  “What? You has—”

  “Excuse me.”

  Quin whipped around to face the doorway. Maddie stood there, white-faced, tears trailing down her cheeks. He blanched, hoping she hadn’t heard what he’d just said. God, he was an idiot. “Maddie, I didn’t—”

  “I just wanted to say that it was a misunderstanding and an accident,” she said in a subdued voice, avoiding Quin’s gaze. “Lord Warefield is not to blame. I’m sorry, Mr. Bancroft. You deserve better.”

  Malcolm, his face paling, wheeled forward. “Maddie, don’t—”

  She turned around and disappeared.

  “Damnation! Now you’ve done it, boy!” The resemblance between Malcolm and the Duke of Highbarrow suddenly became more obvious.

  “I have not done anything. It was a kiss, Uncle.”

  Malcolm glared at him for a long moment. “Close the door,” he finally commanded, in a more controlled voice.

  Quinlan complied, but refused to take the seat his uncle indicated. “Now what?” he demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Just who do you think she is?”

  “What do you mean, who do I think she—”

  “You think she’s my bedamned mistress, don’t you, Quinlan?”

  Quin narrowed his eyes. Something was
going on. “Well, what else was I supposed to think? A beautiful, intelligent woman, out here in the middle of Somerset, tending…you?”

  “Tending an old cripple, you mean?”

  “No.”

  “Madeleine Willits is the oldest daughter of Viscount Halverston,” Malcolm said, obviously reluctant to utter the words, “and she is not my mistress. Nor is she anyone else’s.”

  Quin sat down. All the questions, all the intriguing hints he’d picked up about Maddie, and he’d never suspected she might be nobility. “What in Lucifer’s name is she doing here with you?”

  “She was engaged, five years ago. Apparently one of her betrothed’s friends got drunk and kissed her, among other things. The wrong person saw it, and she was ruined.”

  “Over a….” Quin sat back. “Over a kiss,” he said, half to himself. No wonder she’d looked so horrified.

  “Yes. Maddie’s a bit…spirited, and according to her, she left London and her family rather than listen to their stupid accusations when she hadn’t done anything wrong.”

  Quin gazed at his uncle for a moment. “And so, five years later, she’s become self-sufficient and found employment completely without references or assistance from her family or friends.”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “Bloody remarkable.”

  Malcolm sighed. “She is a remarkable young woman.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It wasn’t my story to tell. I thought I knew who she was, but it still took her three years to tell me. And I’m not titled. Thank God.”

  “So. What would you have me do, Uncle?”

  The door opened. Maddie entered again, this time looking much more composed. And laden with two large valises.

  Quin stood quickly, dismay tightening his chest. “Miss Willits.”

  “Excuse me again. I only wanted to say good-bye to Mr. Bancroft.”

  “I’d have you do what’s right,” Malcolm snapped, glaring at Quin.

  “Do what’s….” Quin closed his mouth, stunned out of any remaining composure. “You mean, marry her?”

  “Absolutely not!” Maddie dumped her bags onto the floor, her face a mask of hurt and wounded fury. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “Now, Maddie, that’s—”

  “I’m already ruined, Mr. Bancroft,” she interrupted hotly. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Then why are you leaving?” he barked at her.

  She faltered, looking at her employer. Quin studied her face, fascinated at the play of emotions across her sensitive features. There was more to her than he’d begun to imagine. If not for Eloise—or his father—the idea of marrying Madeleine Willits wouldn’t have been all that preposterous. Or, surprisingly, all that unwelcome.

  “Maddie,” he said softly, and her eyes darted in his direction, “it was my fault. Not yours.” He hesitated, holding her gaze. “And I’m engaged already. Or just about. Otherwise….”

  “I can take responsibility for my own stupidity, thank you very much,” she said stiffly. “And you’re a noble already. You don’t need to pretend to be possessed of the quality.”

  Quin narrowed his eyes. Marriage to the spitfire might not have been preposterous, but it would have been dangerous. “I don’t believe you have the right to question my nobil—”

  “Please!” Malcolm bellowed.

  Quin started and looked in his uncle’s direction. He’d forgotten the older man’s presence. From Maddie’s reaction, she had as well.

  “Thank you,” Malcolm resumed, in a more even tone. “I am quite aware of your…arrangement with Eloise, Quinlan. I had something else in mind.”

  “Something else? What?” Maddie asked suspiciously.

  “I’ve actually been considering this for several days now.” Malcolm faced his nephew. “If you and the rest of the titled Bancrofts were to reintroduce Maddie to society, it could—”

  “No!” Maddie gasped, paling.

  “—It could undo the harm done to her reputation and enable her to secure a husband,” he continued, undaunted. He looked over at her again. “It would set your life back the way it was before the scandal, my dear.”

  “Absolutely not!” she returned at high volume. “I am never going back to London. And certainly not with him!”

  Quin smiled wryly. Apparently he’d broken the truce. “You liked me for a moment, I believe.”

  “You agree, then, Quinlan? Your ill behavior could turn this into something positive.”

  “It was my ill behavior, blast it!” Maddie argued. “Don’t try to solve my problems. Please! Just let me leave in peace.”

  Quin frowned. His Grace would be beyond furious, but Malcolm was correct. Whatever Maddie might think, and whatever insanity had overcome him in the garden—and since he’d set eyes on her—he considered himself to be a man of honor. “I agree.”

  She turned on him. “It is not your decision.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “I believe it is.”

  Maddie stomped her foot. “This is absurd! I am leaving!”

  Quin strode forward and lifted her luggage before she could. “Yes, you are. I’ll have to inform my father. We need to leave for Highbarrow Castle immediately.” He turned to his uncle, plans and strategy already forming in his mind, and surprising elation running through him. Apparently, he and Maddie Willits weren’t quite finished with one another yet, after all. “I’ll go see John Ramsey and arrange to have him supervise the remainder of the irrigation work. The planting will be finished today.”

  Maddie grabbed for the bags, but he evaded her easily. “Give those to me at once!” she shouted.

  “Maddie, listen to Quinlan. It’s for the best.”

  “Do you always solve your problems by running away?” Quin said, taunting her. “I hadn’t thought you a coward.”

  “I am not a coward!”

  Malcolm lifted a hand to his forehead and sank back in his chair. Concerned, Quin dropped the valises and came forward. “Uncle?”

  Maddie pushed him out of the way and knelt in front of her employer. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, putting her hands on his knee and looking earnestly at Malcolm’s face. “It’s all right. Just take a deep breath.”

  “Stop arguing. Please,” Malcolm muttered, rubbing at his temple.

  “We have. Shh. You must be calm.”

  Maddie lowered her head, and Malcolm caught Quin’s eye. Then he winked. Quin gaped at him for a moment, torn between astonishment and amusement at the old man’s duplicity, and then he bent to take Maddie’s shoulders. “We’ll do as he says,” he murmured. “It will be all right.”

  His uncle put his fingers under Maddie’s chin so she had to look up at him. “Make me a promise, my dear. Do as Quinlan and his family say, just until you can be presented again at Almack’s. If they accept you there, you will have no troubles anywhere in London.”

  “Mr. Bancroft,” she pleaded, tears welling again in her gray eyes.

  “After that, if you still don’t wish to remain with your family and your friends, you may return to Langley.”

  She looked over her shoulder at Quin. Attempting to ignore the queer mix of anticipation and compassion she seemed to be stirring in him, he kept a solemn expression on his face and nodded. “I would like the chance to redeem myself. And to help you, if I may.”

  Maddie shut her eyes for a long moment. “All right. Just until Almack’s.”

  “I just don’t understand how you could simply hire someone from Harthgrove and expect them to be able to care for your uncle,” Maddie snapped.

  “I did not ‘just hire’ someone. Both Malcolm and your squire highly recommended him.”

  “John Ramsey is not my squire. And I don’t care who recommended that man. It’s my duty to care for Mr. Bancroft.”

  Maddie sat back in the carriage, attempting to ignore both the pretty wooded country outside and the handsome, annoying man seated opposite her. She should never have given in—and in any case, she should ne
ver have agreed to travel to Highbarrow Castle alone with him. Well, alone except for a second coach carrying their luggage, two drivers, his valet, and two footmen.

  He’d called her a coward again, though, and then he’d flung her argument back in her face when she’d protested. If she was already ruined, what did it matter how she got to Highbarrow? Now, three days later, she could answer that it mattered a great deal, because she couldn’t stop thinking about the stupid kiss, and how it had melted like fire along her veins.

  “Miss Willits, for the eight thousand, nine hundred and thirty-second time, Uncle Malcolm will do quite well without you. He said so himself. Please, let it be. Whining about it will certainly not make me turn the coach around and take you back, or believe me, I would have done it already.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “I am not whining.”

  He glanced out the window, the fourth time he’d done so over the last ten minutes, and then looked at her again. “You know, if I wasn’t in dire fear of the consequences, I’d say I liked it better when you were fawning.”

  Maddie sniffed. “No doubt you did. I’m surprised you even noticed anything was out of the ordinary.”

  “You are hardly of the ordinary,” he returned.

  He’d been doing that to her for the past three days, giving her offhand compliments that could just as easily be taken as insults. He hadn’t tried to kiss her again, and in fact had made it clear that he was doing what he saw as his duty, to compensate her for an unfortunate mistake. She tried to see it the same way, but dismissing the embrace—and her reaction to it—as a simple mistaken moment of madness took more effort than she expected.

  When he glanced outside yet again, the butterflies which had begun dancing in her stomach turned into very large crows. Quinlan cleared his throat. “Well, have a look.”

  Taking a steadying breath, Maddie leaned forward. Immediately she saw why Highbarrow Castle was always referred to by its full title. She’d grown up at Halverston Hall, but it was nothing like this. Gray spires rose into the blue sky from an immense estate sprawled in the center of a vast clearing. A birch and oak forest bordered the grounds on three sides, with a glassy lake behind.