His Grace’s face reddened. “You are not—”
“Do whatever the hell you want with your titles and your land and your heirs,” Quin interrupted, and turned on his heel. “Tell mother we’ll see her in London next week.”
“Quin,” Maddie said, “you’ve gone mad! Put me down!”
“Want company?” Rafe asked, hopping down from the table where he’d been perched.
“No.”
“Do you realize what a scandal there’ll be?” the duke bellowed, striding after them. “Your wedding to Eloise has already been announced. King George is going to attend!”
Quin stopped and turned around. “Father, I leave it to you to do what you will. In case I haven’t made it clear, I don’t care. I’ve been respectable my entire life, and I’ve discovered something about it.”
“And what might that be?” the duke asked, his skeptical expression melting into concern as he realized his son wasn’t bluffing.
“It’s very dull. I’m tired of it.” With a last glance at Rafael, Quin turned and headed them out the door again. “I’ll see you in a week,” he called over his shoulder.
For once, Maddie didn’t know what to say. Quin Bancroft had always been a good-humored, reasonable man—but at the moment, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had decided to travel to Gretna Green on foot, carrying her the entire way. “Quin?” she said quietly.
“Hush. No more arguments. You’re far too stubborn, so I’m simply not going to listen to you.” He lifted her into Charles’s coach. A moment later her valise followed her. A moment after that, Quin himself stepped in, and closed the door.
“Might I ask if anyone is going to drive us, or are we to sit here in the yard all night?” she ventured.
He sat beside her, tugging her close against him so she could rest her aching head on his shoulder. “I recruited Franklin. It seems he’s rather fond of you.”
“Yes, he’s very nice,” she agreed, closing her eyes as he wrapped a warm arm about her shoulders. “Remind me to check his bandages tomorrow.”
“Yes, love.” The coach jolted into motion, and Quin cursed. “You came all this way in this hell-sprung hack?”
“My bottom is sore,” she confessed drowsily.
“I’ll take care of it at the next town,” he murmured into her hair.
“My bottom?”
Quin chuckled. “The coach. And your bottom, if I have anything to say about it.”
With a supreme effort, Maddie managed to open one eye. “You can’t marry me, Quin.”
“I told you that I am not discussing that subject with you,” he retorted. “Go to sleep.”
“But I’ll be an embarrassment,” she protested. “You’re going to be the Duke of Highbarrow, for heaven’s sake.”
“I wouldn’t wager money on that,” he returned, his voice amused. “Maddie, you are more precious to me than anything on this earth, including my title. If I have to be Quin Bancroft to marry you, then I will happily become him. We could raise pigs.”
“You can’t do that. Everything is planned out for you. You have everything.”
“I want only you.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her, a feather-light touch of his lips to hers. “Madeleine,” he murmured. “Will you marry me?”
“I suppose I have to now,” she answered, closing her eyes again, and unable to keep a smile from touching her lips. “This is the third time you’ve ruined me. Or the fourth. I can’t remember.”
For a long moment he was silent. “Are you certain it’s not Rate you would rather have here?” he finally asked quietly.
“Rafe?” she asked, surprised, and lifted her head to look up at him. “Why Rafe?”
He shrugged, looking away from her out the window into the darkness. “You seem to get along well.”
Maddie relaxed again, comforted by his jealous tone. “We get along too well. I could never argue with him. It would be very dull.”
Quin made a sound in his chest that exploded into laughter. “You think,” he managed finally, “that Rafe is dull?”
They purchased a new, considerably better-sprung carriage in Nottingham, and from there arrived in Gretna Green two days later. Quin kept a close eye on Maddie, worried that once her head cleared she would take to the hills and vanish, but when they entered the quaint little chapel and stood before the extremely surprised priest, she was still beside him.
And five days later, as the coach turned onto King Street in Mayfair, she was seated next to him, though she looked considerably less happy. “You saw the London Times yesterday, the same as I did,” she said, eyeing him.
“Yes, and I told you not to look at it.” Quin grinned and took her hand, stroking her fingers.
“Not looking at it doesn’t change anything. And I know you have to care, at least a little bit. Highbarrow Heir Elopes to Scotland with Unknown Femme.’ Really, Quin. I know you’re proud, and I know you didn’t like seeing it.”
“I am happy,” he stated, tugging her across the coach to sit on his lap. “No one can take you away from me now.” He touched his lips to hers, thrilling in her quick, passionate response.
She sighed, running her fingers along the line of his jaw. “You may come to regret that. And very soon.”
Quin narrowed his eyes. Grabbing her hands in his, he yanked her around to look at him. “Don’t say that, Maddie. Ever. You are my life. Without you, I am incomplete. Do you understand?”
Maddie nodded, tears gathering in her eyes. “You say very nice things, you know.”
“I mean them,” he whispered, kissing her again.
It had been that way since their marriage. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her and holding her and kissing her, as though, even with his ring on her finger, he wasn’t certain she was real. And in bed, she matched him passion for passion. He’d never delighted in making love as much as he delighted in making love to Maddie. His wild wood sprite would not vanish again.
“Quin?”
“Yes, my sweet?”
“I love you.”
Quin kissed each of her fingers, while she smiled happily at him. “I love you, too.”
“My lord, my lady, Bancroft House,” Franklin called.
“Oh, blast,” she grumbled, scooting off his lap. “Are you certain we couldn’t just sail off to Spain or something?”
The carriage rolled to a stop. “Actually, that idea had occurred to me,” he confessed. “But I would at least like to say good-bye.”
She wrinkled her nose, obviously attempting to put on a brave front. “You’re just trying to make me look bad.”
He chuckled as Franklin pulled open the door. “As if I could.”
Seeks stood at the top of the stairs, waiting for them. “My Lord and Lady Warefield,” he nodded. “Welcome.”
“Thank you, Beeks.”
Maddie smiled at him, and the butler took a step closer. “They’ve a gauntlet set up for you, I’m afraid,” he said in a low voice.
She looked up at Quin. “I told you that we should have arrived a day early,” she whispered. “But no, you still insist on being punctual.”
“It’s good manners. Who’s here, Beeks?”
“The duke and duchess, Miss Maddie’s parents, Mr. Bancroft, and Mr. Rafael. They’ve been in the drawing room since breakfast, waiting for you to arrive.”
For the moment Quin refrained from pointing out that Maddie was no longer a miss, by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, he held out his hand to the butler. After a startled moment, Beeks smiled and shook it. “My thanks, Beeks.”
“Good luck to both of you, my lord.”
Quin looked down at Maddie, and took her hand in his. “Ready, my love?”
“May I bring a sword?”
A brief grin touched his lips. “No, you may not.”
She sighed. “Then I suppose I’m ready.”
The butler preceded them upstairs to the drawing room. He stepped inside the half open door. “Lord and Lady Warefield have ar
rived,” he announced in a very stout voice.
Quin leaned forward. “If you ever lack for employment, Beeks,” he murmured, “please see me.”
“Yes, my lord.”
With Maddie clutching his hand tightly, they stepped past the butler and into the drawing room. Even if he hadn’t already known, it was easy to tell the enemies from the allies. Particularly when there seemed to be only one enemy. He’d rehearsed a hundred speeches, but none of them appealed to him as they all stood eyeing one another like dogs trying to decide whether to attack or join together in a pack.
Typically, it was Rafe who moved first.
“You look wonderful, Maddie.” He grinned, and strolled forward to kiss her on the cheek. “Even with this old sod. Congratulations to both of you.” To Quin’s surprise, his younger brother kissed him on the cheek as well.
The Duke of Highbarrow sat by the window and hadn’t even glanced in their direction. Rafe shrugged at Quin’s look and captured Maddie’s hand to drag her over to the room’s other occupants. Quin glanced after her, but once Lady Halverston threw her arms around her daughter’s neck and began sobbing joyfully, Maddie seemed to recover herself.
“Your Grace,” he said quietly, walking over to stand by the window, “shall I begin moving my things out of Warefield?”
“So you did it?” die duke responded, glancing up at his son. “You went and married her?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Eloise and her parents went home to Stafford Green. She hasn’t been seen in public since you ruined everything. I’ll be lucky if Stafford ever speaks to me again.”
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” Quin admitted, sitting in the deep sill. “But I’m not sorry for marrying the woman I love.”
“I didn’t expect you would apologize.”
“So what’s it to be, Father?”
Finally the duke turned to look at Maddie, who was standing beside the duchess and watching them. “Bah.”
Malcolm released Maddie’s hand and hobbled over to his older brother. “Lewis, don’t be an ass,” he said. “She’s ten times the lady Eloise could ever be, and you know it.”
“The marriage to Eloise was arranged.”
“Because you wanted Stafford’s vote in the House. I told you to let it go years ago.”
“And I told you to go to hell.”
“Well, Langley was as far as I got,” Malcolm said calmly.
Quin looked from one to the other. “Just a moment. Do you mean that this not speaking to one another nonsense was because of Eloise and me?”
Malcolm shrugged, a slight grin touching his face. “More or less.”
“Good God. You devious bastard,” Quin stared at his uncle. “I should—”
“I didn’t lie to you, Quin,” Malcolm interrupted. “I didn’t drink of you and Maddie until Lewis’s letter.”
A warm hand touched Quin’s shoulder and slid down his arm to grasp his fingers. “You should have said something, Mr. Bancroft,” Maddie chided. “I would have been sure to kill him, then.”
His Grace finally stood. “So you think you’ve won, do you?” he snapped at Maddie.
She looked at him coolly, then released Quin’s hand and stepped directly in front of the duke. Quin thought she meant to hit him, and he tensed, ready to leap forward and prevent bloodshed. Instead, though, she raised up on her tiptoes, put a hand on the duke’s shoulder, and kissed him on the cheek.
“We began badly, Your Grace. If you wish to continue that way, believe me, I love a good argument. But I would like us to be friends, and I would like my children to know their grandfather.”
Maddie was brilliant. She’d hit on Highbarrow’s one weakness, and she knew it. Quin slid his arms about her waist and pulled her back against him. “All of your grandchildren,” he seconded, kissing Maddie’s ear, and fire burning through him at her nearness. “Scores of them.”
The duke eyed her for a long moment, then nodded grudgingly. “There’d better be…Madeleine.”
She nodded. “I shall make a gallant attempt, Your Grace.”
“Hurrah!” Rafael shouted, and slapped Quin soundly on the back. “Justice triumphs. May I have my horse back, now, Warefield?”
Quin turned Maddie around and leaned down to kiss her softly. “I love you,” he murmured.
“I love you, too,” she whispered back, returning his kiss with one of her own. “Now, give Rafe his horse back.”
“Anything you wish, my love.” He grinned at her. “Stubborn chit.”
About the Author
SUZANNE ENOCH once dreamed of becoming a zoologist and writing books about her adventures in Africa. But those dreams were crushed after she viewed a National Geographic special on the world’s most poisonous snakes—of which 99% seemed to be native to Africa. She decided to turn to the much less dangerous activity of writing fiction.
Now a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of historical and contemporary romance, the most hazardous wildlife Suzanne encounters are dust bunnies under the sofa.
To see pictures of those dust bunnies, please visit www.suzanneenoch.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Avon Books by
Suzanne Enoch
Historical Titles
BEFORE THE SCANDAL
AFTER THE KISS • TWICE THE TEMPTATION
SINS OF A DUKE • SOMETHING SINFUL
AN INVITATION TO SIN • SIN AND SENSIBILITY
ENGLAND’S PERFECT HERO
LONDON’S PERFECT SCOUNDREL
THE RAKE • A MATTER OF SCANDAL
MEET ME AT MIDNIGHT • REFORMING A RAKE
TAMING RAFE • BY LOVE UNDONE
STOLEN KISSES • LADY ROGUE
Contemporary Titles
A TOUCH OF MINX • BILLIONAIRES PREFER BLONDES
DON’T LOOK DOWN • FLIRTING WITH DANGER
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BY LOVE UNDONE. Copyright © 1998 by Suzanne Enoch. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition NOVEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061979354
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By Love Undone Page 34
