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,” M
addie 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.
“I thought perhaps you intended a hunger strike,” Quin said mildly, watching Maddie take her seat at the dining table. He seated himself and gestured to the footmen to begin serving dinner.
“I thought perhaps I’d be dining alone again,” she said demurely, folding her hands in her lap. “Is your mother going to join us, my lord?” She smiled at one of the servants as he offered her a selection from the platter of roast chicken.
“Uh-oh. What’ve I done this time?” Quin asked, noting that the pretty smile she gave the footman vanished as she met his gaze.
“Nothing, my lord. Why do you ask?”
“I’m being ‘my lord’ed again. In your vocabulary I believe that to be an insult.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Or do I err?”
“It is the proper way to address you, Quin,” the duchess said from the doorway. “Don’t fault her for it.”
He stood again as Lady Highbarrow entered the dining room. Her customary place to the right of the duke’s chair had been set, but disregarding that, she took the seat beside Maddie. As the head footman scurried to move her utensils, alarm bells began going off in Quin’s head. Victoria Bancroft, though she was far more levelheaded than her husband, had as deep a sense of pride about the Bancroft line and standing as did the duke. Perhaps she wasn’t as volatile as Maddie, but he’d seen her scar more than one upstart with her sharp tongue.
She’d made it fairly obvious that she had strong reservations about Maddie, and she rarely amended her opinion once it had been given. Quin was surprised to realize that he wanted his mother to like their reluctant houseguest—now eyeing him from beyond the duchess with accusing fury in her eyes—and that he didn’t want to see Maddie turned away by his family, as she had been by her own.
“I’m not faulting Miss Willits for anything,” he corrected innocently. “I am merely curious as to whether she is enjoying being at Highbarrow.”
“How could I not enjoy it, my lord?” Maddie asked sweetly, her teeth clenched.
Quin stifled a grin as he locked eyes with her, abruptly deciding he’d best begin checking his bed sheets for poisonous spiders again. “My thought exactly.”
The duchess leaned forward for her glass of wine, blocking Maddie from his view. Quin blinked.
“I meant to ask you, Quin,” she said. “Do you have any word from Eloise?”
Eloise. Damnation, he’d forgotten to write her again. She thought him still at Langley. He shook his head. “I doubt her correspondence has had time to catch up to me,” he hedged. “The last I heard from her, she was doing well and was looking forward to seeing you in London.”
“Do you still plan to wait until autumn for the wedding? As I’ve said before, you’ll have a much better turnout if you marry in June or July.”
“Oh, I agree, Your Grace,” Maddie said brightly, as Victoria sipped her wine.
The duchess lifted an eyebrow. “You do?”
“Most definitely. O
nce hunting season has begun, bringing everyone back together, even for such a prestigious event as the Marquis of Warefield’s wedding, will be a monstrous headache.”
Quin looked at her suspiciously. Maddie at her most solicitous was invariably Maddie at her most devious. “Why so helpful now?”
“Now, my lord?” she repeated, gazing at him quizzically. “Have I been unhelpful to you previously? I can’t recall.”
“No,” he returned slowly, his deep suspicion growing. “I don’t suppose you have been.”
Lady Highbarrow continued to regard Maddie with cool green eyes. “You are in favor of this marriage, then?”
Maddie smiled engagingly. “I could hardly oppose it, even were it my place to do so. I barely know one of the participants, and I am not acquainted with the other at all.”
The duchess looked at her for another moment. “Do you often kiss men with whom you are barely acquainted, then?”
Maddie compressed her lips, the only outward sign she gave of being angry. “I suppose that would depend on whose gossip you listen to, Your Grace.”
“But you did kiss him,” Lady Highbarrow pursued.
“It was a morning Byron would have admired,” Quin interrupted. “Quite overwhelmingly romantic. And as it gives me the opportunity to repay Miss Willits for her kindness to Malcolm, I can’t help but look upon the kiss as a fortunate…accident.”
Behind his mother, Maddie glared at Quin. He returned her gaze coolly, wondering that this clever, witty woman had ever fooled him for even one second with her dim sycophantic veneer.
Maddie lifted her fork. “I have to admit,” she said smoothly, “I have wondered why it is my poor character everyone is concerned with, when Lord Warefield keeps insisting he was the one at fault.”
He rested his chin on his hand and regarded her. “Because you liked it?” he suggested.
By Love Undone Page 13
