“They can’t cut me without cutting you and the duchess,” she muttered back, through teeth clenched in a determinedly amused smile.
“It was five years ago, Maddie. Probably no one so much as remembers the specifics. If you comport yourself well, they’ll have no reason to cut you.”
She had her doubts about that. Even so, as she stepped through the curtains at the back of the Bancroft box and took the forward seat beside the duchess, as she’d been instructed, she couldn’t help a moment of optimism. So far, the nightmare she’d imagined hadn’t materialized. Perhaps Quin was right, and no one remembered her at all.
A few pairs of opera glasses, then more, turned in her direction at the beginning of the first act, but she thought they might just as easily have been aimed at the illustrious Bancrofts. She hadn’t been to the opera in a long time, and once everyone settled down to watch, she allowed herself to be absorbed in the comedy unfolding on the stage below.
She hardly realized intermission had arrived until the massive curtains swung shut and the house lights brightened. A wave of uneasiness ran through her again, even stronger than before. Everyone mingled at intermission.
“Shall we?” Quin said, rising and stretching.
“Polite nods and one- or two-word answers. For anything more, defer to me—is that clear, Maddie?” the duchess said, motioning her toward the back of the box.
She nodded, hoping no one could hear her knees knocking together. “Don’t worry about that.”
It was like remembering, like something she had done before, but not exactly in the same way. The French phrase for it—déjà vu—that was what it felt like, to emerge from a theater box into a crowd of glittering nobility, but at the same time to know with absolute certainty that she did not belong.
“Your Grace. How splendid to see you back in London.” A short, very broad woman whose neck sparkled with diamonds appeared from one side of the wide hallway. She clasped the duchess’s hand.
“Lady Hatton,” the duchess returned. “I was so sorry to hear of your cousin’s death. My condolences to you and your family.”
“Oh, thank you, Your Grace. One would have thought India more civilized by now.” The white-haired woman looked at Quin and curtsied, then turned her attention to Maddie. “I don’t believe I’ve met your companion, Your Grace.”
“Ah, of course. Lady Hatton, I should like to introduce Miss Willits, an old family friend. Madeleine, Lady Hatton of Staffordshire.”
Maddie nodded politely, self-consciously taking Quin’s arm again. “Pleased to meet you.” It was actually four words, but she couldn’t think how to limit it to less and not sound like a halfwit.
“And you as well, my dear.” Lady Hatton smiled. “What a lovely girl you are.”
“Thank you, my lady.”
A moment later three other grand ladies had approached, all of them thankfully more interested in learning the state of the duke’s health and wealth than in being introduced to Maddie. Relieved, she turned away—only to find herself being stared at intently by a very beautiful, tall woman with a profusion of short blond ringlets framing her face.
She looked familiar, and as she parted from her companions and came forward, Maddie remembered who she was. Her heart and her courage sank.
“Eloise,” Quin said warmly, and Maddie belatedly released her grip on his arm. She’d likely left bruises, but he didn’t give any indication of being in dire pain. Instead, he smiled again. “Why didn’t you say you would be attending this evening?”
“It was something of a last minute decision,” Lady Stokesley answered, and stopped before Maddie. “You must be Miss Willits. Your face is somewhat familiar, but I don’t think we’ve ever been formally introduced.”
“Then allow me,” Quin said. “Eloise, Miss Willits. Maddie, Lady Stokesley.”
“How do you do?” Maddie said, trying not to stare. This was the woman who held Quin’s heart, and she wasn’t certain she was ready to like her at all.
“Quin’s told me all about you,” Eloise replied. “I do hope we can be friends.”
Maddie forced a smile. “So do I.”
Lady Stokesley wrapped her arm around Quin’s. “May I borrow Lord Warefield for just a moment?”
“Of course.”
They stepped away, and Maddie abruptly realized that she was alone. Very alone. She turned to find the duchess, but Her Grace was nowhere in sight. And then neither was Quin, nor Lady Stokesley.
“Miss Willits?”
With a start, Maddie turned again. The stocky gentleman gazing at her looked somewhat familiar, but so did half of the London nobility, and she couldn’t place him.
“I say, it is you. Maddie, isn’t it?”
He came closer and took her hand, bringing it to his lips.
“Have we met?” she asked stiffly, trying to free her hand while he kissed her knuckles again.
“We have mutual friends, I think. I’m Edward Lumley.”
“I’m afraid I don’t—”
“By gum, the time away from London hasn’t damaged you a spot,” he said admiringly, taking in her gown, and particularly its low neckline.
“Thank you. If you’ll excuse—”
“I’d wager you’re a real goer,” he continued, stepping still closer. “What’d it take to steal you away from Warefield?” He grinned, running his fingers up her arm. “He makes a bit of a stodgy ride, no doubt. I’ve been to the Spice Islands, you know. Learned all sorts of techniques.”
For a moment Maddie stared at him, hardly following what he was saying, and even less able to believe that he would dare say it to her face. “I believe,” she said coldly, narrowing her eyes as his gaze dropped to her bosom again, “you are mistaken about me.”
“What, you don’t belong to the duke, do you?”
Maddie belted him.
Chapter 10
Quin looked up as Edward Lumley hit the polished floor.
“My goodness!” Eloise exclaimed.
Lumley scrambled back to his feet. Red-faced, he strode up to the young woman eyeing him with wounded fury, her fists clenched before her.
Quin swiftly reached out to grab Lumley’s arm and wrenched him around. “Terribly sorry there, Lumley,” he said, brushing at the idiot’s coat with his free hand. “Didn’t see you standing there. Not a pleasant thing, to get an elbow in the eye like that.”
Lumley glared at him, the scarlet of his face deepening to crimson. He jutted a finger at Maddie. “She—”
“Yes, she is lovely, but I think you’d best recover yourself a little before I introduce you to my mother’s companion, Lumley. Perhaps a breath of fresh air is what you need.”
The iron grip on his arm and the angry glint in Quin’s eyes was apparently enough to convince Mr. Lumley to make himself scarce, and with a parting sneer at Maddie, he collected his dented hat and wounded pride and departed.
Quin shrugged as he looked after the gentleman, and a polite round of chuckles answered the motion. Silently he counted to five, then turned back to Maddie, who stood staring at him, white-faced.
“I believe Her Grace is looking for you, Miss Willits.” He smiled, forcibly unbending her clenched fingers and tucking them over his arm.
“Thank you, Lord Warefield,” she returned gamely, smiling despite the hurt and anger still in her eyes.
They walked to the fringes of the crowd, with Maddie clinging ferociously to his forearm. When they finally reached the top of the stairs, he stopped and made a show of checking the elbow of his coat for damage. “What in damnation happened?” he murmured, looking at her sideways.
“He—that—that Edward Lumley person wanted me to be his mistress!” she sputtered, clearly still furious.
“Calm down,” he said, glancing back at the noisy crowd.
“Calm down?” she repeated. “Calm down? He said you were too dull, and that he’d learned all sorts of things in the Spice Islands!”
“I’m too dull, am I?” Quin narrowed his
eyes, abruptly liking Lumley even less now. “Maddie, whatever he said, you can’t go about hitting people when they insult you. It’s not at all comme il faut.”
“No?” she replied indignantly, her color beginning to return. “This was your fault, Warefield.”
“And why is that, pray tell?”
“You’re a Bancroft: the great, grand Marquis of Warefield. Your name would protect me from all insult and innuendo, remember? Wasn’t that what you said?”
“Maddie, I—”
“No one’s forgotten what happened,” she cut in. “They all think I’m some sort of whore. What am I supposed…supposed to do when someone says that to me?” Her defiance melted and tears began to form in her eyes.
“Give them a set-down,” he returned more quietly, wanting to kiss the tears from her eyes. “Just don’t set them down on the floor.”
“That’s easy for you to say. No one would dare utter something like that in your presence. You don’t have to deal with it.”
Quin sighed. She was right—and he had been too arrogant in his assumption about the protection his name would provide her. “That’s still no excuse.”
“I don’t care. I want to leave.”
“We can’t leave after that little show of yours. We have to stay and act as if nothing happened. Come on, we’d better find my mother.”
She put her hands on her hips and he tensed, ready for another of her uniquely spectacular scenes. “What about my honor?”
“What do you mean, ‘your honor’?”
“That man insulted me, and all you’re worried about is whether anyone noticed. You’re exactly what I thought you were.”
Quin didn’t know exactly what that was, but he didn’t like the implication. Especially since she was probably right. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I should not have left you alone. I won’t abandon you again, Maddie. I promise.”
If he hadn’t been so relieved that her first meeting with Eloise had gone so smoothly, he would have realized how idiotic it had been to leave her side. Quin touched her chin, tilting her face up, then hurriedly lowered his hand as Lady Granville passed by. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.
She held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded.
“All right?”
She nodded again, and then abruptly grasped his arm again, holding him tightly.
He headed them back toward the box. “My, my, Maddie Willits, speechless,” he teased softly. Something he’d said had finally been the right thing, though he had no idea which something it had been.
The duchess was already seated and waiting expectantly for them, but when he shook his head she refrained from inquiring about what had happened. As the opera began again, Quin sat back and studied Maddie’s profile. Obviously she was nowhere near ready to be set loose into society, if she allowed herself to be so hurt by any comment about her past. And volatile and emotional as she was, convincing her to ignore the insults would be next to impossible.
He needed to come up with some other way to help her get past the innuendos and propositions of the less-principled members of society—though he could hardly blame them for desiring her companionship. The sooner he and Eloise could find her some nice, quiet, unassuming gentleman, the better off he’d be. Quin frowned. The better off Maddie would be.
Eloise Stokesley sat beside her mother, Lady Stafford, and looked down at the opera glasses in her lap. She and Quin Bancroft had been promised to one another since her birth. The idea had never bothered her. Quite the contrary, actually—the Marquis of Warefield was highly esteemed, very wealthy, and handsome as a Greek sun god. Her friends all knew she was to marry him, and they envied and admired her for it.
So when he’d asked last year if she would mind one year’s delay before he made an official declaration, she had agreed. The Bancroft properties were so vast, a few months would be necessary just for his father and their horde of solicitors to decide which additional lands and funds should come to him upon his marriage. And it gave her another Season to flirt with her myriad male admirers and gloat about her coming nuptials.
She looked up, across the orchestra and the throng of the less wealthy below. The Bancroft box was nearly opposite the Stokesleys’, and in the near darkness she could just make out the three of them sitting there. The duchess, Quin, and her. Eloise lifted the opera glasses.
Madeleine Willits. Eloise remembered her as a determined flirt with a smile for anyone who amused her, no matter how base they might have been. No wonder she’d earned such a fast reputation. And pretty as she was, no wonder she had snared Quin’s attention. Eloise turned the glasses to view her nearly betrothed. She narrowed her eyes.
He sat in the shadows, his attention not on the stage, but on the woman seated in front of him. His expression as he studied her was amused, but it was also keenly interested. The moment Quin had approached her to ask her assistance in introducing Miss Willits back into society, she’d suspected his motive was more than simple compassion. Now she had no doubt of it.
But women had been unsuccessfully throwing themselves at the Marquis of Warefield for years. She knew he’d taken several mistresses in the past, but they hadn’t been of any quality to threaten her own status, and he’d certainly never been overly attached to any of them. This one was different. He’d never taken any of the others to the opera, or bothered having them chaperoned by his mother.
Eloise lowered the glasses again before anyone could notice her discomfiture. Something would have to be done to set things back into their proper order. As the future Duchess of Highbarrow, she had a stake in the doings of the Bancroft family. And Maddie Willits did not belong there.
Maddie looked up the Bancroft House drive, and with a curse, ducked behind the duchess’s roses. Quin and Aristotle rode by, returning to the stable from their morning ride in Hyde Park. Quin had barely spoken to her after the opera, but from the way he’d kept looking at her, he had something in mind. She just didn’t want to hear it. They’d tried and failed.
She’d been away from this nonsense for too long, and she couldn’t adapt to it again. She didn’t want to adapt to it again. Only now, even the idea of returning to Langley Hall had its drawbacks: Quin wouldn’t be there. Last night, when he’d promised not to abandon her, she had wanted so much to throw her arms around him and kiss him, even though he couldn’t possibly have known how much those words meant to her.
She bent down to yank another weed out of the ground, shredding the offending plant into the bucket hanging off her arm, and grateful that the duchess had let her putter about in the garden. At least it kept her from feeling completely useless.
A terrible commotion erupted from the direction of the stables, and she whipped around, wondering with some alarm whether Quin had been trampled by his independent-minded mount.
Hefting the heavy bucket, she hurried down the carriage path toward the noise. As she rounded the hedge, a man all in black flashed out of the stable doors, mounted on Aristotle. Quin emerged right behind them, covered in straw and with a pitchfork in one hand.
“Stop him!” he bellowed.
The rider dodged around one of the stable hands and thundered down the path toward Maddie and the street beyond. Reacting instinctively, she swung the wooden bucket up as hard as she could. It caught the rider in the shoulder, and with a grunt he canted sideways out of the saddle and tumbled to the ground.
He rolled a short distance, then immediately returned to his feet to shake himself and stride angrily in her direction. Alarmed, Maddie backed away and raised the bucket menacingly.
“Blast it, that hurt!” he said, rubbing his left shoulder.
“Don’t come any closer unless you want worse,” she warned. She heard Quin coming up behind her and shifted sideways, hoping he was still armed.
“Where’s my damned horse?” the marquis asked with surprising composure, leaning on the pitchfork and breathing hard.
“My damned horse, you mean,” the other replied, and put two fi
ngers to his mouth. The sharp two-toned whistle surprised Maddie. Even more surprising was the sight of Aristotle trotting back up the drive and coming to a stop beside his abductor.
“Show-off,” Quin muttered.
The lean, sandy-haired man patted the gelding’s neck and received a nuzzle in the shoulder in return. “Who’s your trained assassin, Warefield?” he asked, looking at Maddie and grinning. A long, narrow white scar ran from high on his left cheekbone almost to his jaw, giving him a vaguely piratical air.
“You’re Rafael,” Maddie whispered, blanching. Now she’d nearly killed the marquis’s brother. Good Lord, the Bancrofts would be lucky if she didn’t do them all in.
He swept a bow, his light green eyes dancing. “I see my reputation as a horse thief precedes me. But it is my animal.”
“Rafe, Miss Willits.” Quin supplied with a reluctant grin. “Maddie, my idiot brother Rafael.”
Rafael Bancroft did look a great deal like his older brother, though his face was thinner than Quin’s, and darkened by much time spent out-of-doors. He lacked an inch or so of the marquis’s height, but they shared the appearance of lean, contained strength.
She set down the bucket and stuck out her hand. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
He shook her hand, his grip firm and friendly. “You’re lethal, you know,” he chuckled, rubbing at his shoulder again.
“I’m sorry. I heard Quin yell, and—”
“No need to explain,” he said, glancing at his brother. “And where did you meet Quin?”
She heard his emphasis on the name and blushed. “It’s a very long story,” she offered, hesitating to explain her presence to another of the unpredictable Bancrofts.
“She was staying at Langley as Malcolm’s companion,” Quin said, reaching around his brother to grab Aristotle’s bridle. “Help me put my damned horse up, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
“My damned horse, Warefield.”
Maddie watched the two of them stroll back to the stable, knowing she was being excluded, and wondering what sort of tale the marquis intended to spin about her presence. He’d best fill her in later if there was a lie involved, so she wouldn’t trip over it by accident.
By Love Undone Page 17
