Her belly was protesting the coach travel, or the lack of sustenance, or the shock of finding her husband hale and whole.
Or possibly the mixed blessing of leaving the home where she’d dwelled for most of the past five years. Leaving without Papa’s blessing.
“My life is complicated, not by my choice.” Mr. Wentworth lowered the shades on both sides of the vehicle. He’d leaned across Jane to pull down the shade on her side, giving her a whiff of his shaving soap.
Lovely, lovely stuff, that shaving soap. Jane spent the next three streets parsing the scent: clove, cinnamon, ginger, a dash of allspice, and possibly pepper, along with something more masculine. Sandalwood, cedar…a scent with enough sylvan substance to anchor the whole.
“Wake up, Jane. We’re almost there.”
She opened her eyes. “I’m not asleep.” Yet.
The neighborhood had changed; the houses here were larger, the street wider. Not a grand neighborhood, but a fine neighborhood. She was again assisted to alight from the coach, and her husband escorted her to a mews that included a carriage house.
Like most structures of its kind, the building Mr. Wentworth led Jane to had an upper floor over the carriage bays. He took her to a harness room, then down a set of steps.
“I need a moment,” Jane said, as the closer air below street level aggravated her digestion. She breathed through her mouth while Mr. Wentworth waited. His patience was absolute, giving away nothing of restlessness or annoyance.
Jane was annoyed. What manner of bride arrives to her new home through a tunnel?
Mr. Wentworth had taken a lamp from a sconce on the whitewashed brick wall and held it up to illuminate a cobbled passageway.
“That way. Only a short distance.”
Jane set aside her hunger, nausea, and fatigue, and let Mr. Wentworth lead her through the passage. Entire London streets covered underground passageways, and Roman walls and drains were forever making new construction difficult.
She was soon ascending another set of steps and emerging into a well-stocked wine cellar. Mr. Wentworth hung the lamp on a hook, illuminating thousands of bottles all laid on their sides and stacked in open bins. Coaches and matched teams were for show. An enormous and abundantly stocked wine cellar was evidence of real wealth.
“We’re home,” Mr. Wentworth said. “Your trunk will take some time to arrive, but I’m sure my sisters will see you made comfortable.”
What manner of man had a secret entrance to his Mayfair dwelling? What manner of man planned this much subterfuge about a simple trip across Town? What sort of husband…
A wave of unsteadiness cut short Jane’s growing consternation. “If your sisters can see to providing me some bread and butter, I’ll be most appreciative.”
He paused with her at the top of yet another flight of stairs. “I don’t want your gratitude, Jane, though I understand it. You’ve saved me the trouble of locating a woman willing to marry a convicted killer from the lowest orders of society. I’d rather you find some reason other than gratitude to remain married to me.”
In the shadows of this subterranean space, Quinn Wentworth looked of a piece with the darkness. He’d come home this way often, had probably chosen this property for the secrecy it afforded. Jane stirred the sludge of exhaustion and bewilderment that was her mind, for his observation wanted a reply.
“You could give me some other reasons to be your wife.” Friendship, affection, partnership. She’d settle for cordial strangers.
He reached toward her, and she flinched back.
“Sorry. I’m nervous.”
Mr. Wentworth unfasted the frogs of her cloak so deftly his fingers never touched her. “I’m not about to start taking liberties with your person now, when a gantlet of family awaits us. The only sane one is Duncan, who endeavors to be boring on his good days, though I’m not fooled by his pretensions. My sisters and brother had an irregular upbringing and the effects yet linger.”
“I have trouble with my balance lately,” Jane said, as he folded her cloak over his arm. “I am exhausted, peckish, and adjusting to a marriage that requires secret passages and clandestine changes of coaches. If I’m less than the wife you bargained for, then I ask for your patience. I do not deal well with upheaval.”
He smiled, his teeth a flash of white in the gloom. “That’s better. We’ll get some food into you soon.”
“I like the ‘soon’ part.” Jane was glad to be free of the heavy, unfragrant cloak. Better she meet her in-laws in this lovely, soft dress, one free of stains and strained seams. “Could you come near for a moment?”
The smile disappeared. “I am near.”
“Nearer,” Jane said, putting her arms around him.
He held the cloak, which meant he couldn’t effectively shove her away. She leaned on him shamelessly and breathed through her nose.
“Your scent calms my belly, or my nerves. Something. I need to breathe you in for a moment.”
He draped the cloak over the railing and cautiously wrapped his arms about her. “Take your time. We’re in no rush, Jane.”
No roosh. A hint of Yorkshire in the vowel, and in the high contours of the consonants. Perhaps he was tired as well.
Jane allowed herself five deep breaths, and the magic of his scent worked wonders for her internal upheaval. She liked that her husband could hold her without his hands wandering, without pushing unmentionable parts of himself against her.
“I’m ready now.”
“You aren’t, but you’re as ready as you can be to meet the rest of the Wentworth family.”
He left the cloak in the passage and led Jane by the hand through a warren of pantries. A startled scullery maid rose from her stool near a great hearth, her plump features wreathed in joy. Mr. Wentworth put a finger to his lips and winked, and the girl subsided back onto her stool.
“The servants are all in the hall,” she said. “Miss Althea said half holiday, but it’s a double holiday according to Mrs. Riley. Is that your duchess, sir?”
“I’m not a duchess,” Jane said, “but I’m very interested in getting off my feet.” Desperately interested.
“This is my wife,” Mr. Wentworth said, “whom you will be formally introduced to at a later time.”
The maid bobbed a curtsy. “Welcome to Wentworth House, Your Grace.”
I’m not Your Grace. Jane had no time to offer that protest, for her husband was towing her toward yet another set of steps.
“Mr. Wentworth.”
“Almost there.”
“Mr. Wentworth.”
“I can carry you,” he said without stopping. “I believe there’s some tradition to that effect.”
Jane was about to faint, about to heave up two cups of tea and some ginger biscuits, and about to raise her voice. This was not a moment to silently count to three and pray for patience. She couldn’t pit her strength against her husband’s, so she knocked his hat off his head.
“I am not a load of coal to be hauled about at your whim,” she said, as he slowly turned to face her. “Why did that girl address me as Your Grace? I have no title, and neither, as far as you’ve told me, have you.”
He looked guilty. Chagrinned. Bashful.
Imprisoned and facing a death warrant, Quinn Wentworth had been self-possessed, even mocking. Now, in his London finery, in his own home, he looked like a small boy caught with his hand in the governess’s personal tin of biscuits.
“I have inherited a title,” he said, “which is the primary reason I was pardoned. We’ll discuss it later.” He made a production out of retrieving his hat from the carpet and brushing nonexistent dust from the brim.
He was leaving something significant unsaid—something else that was significant—or Jane’s mind was going the way of her balance and her figure.
“You regard this title as the price of your freedom?”
He tugged on his collar with his right index finger. “The title is sunk deeply in debt. Old George wanted no part of such a li
ability, and I and my fortune were in a position to aid his interests. I also happen to be the legal heir, which is ironic given that my father assured me my paternity was irregular. I had planned to tell you, though a title honestly didn’t signify compared to being able to walk out of that prison.”
A dukedom did not signify?
As it happened, Jane agreed with him. “I cannot tell if you thought I’d leap at the title or away from it, when in truth I can’t see that it makes any difference.” She stepped closer and removed Mr. Wentworth’s cravat pin, a plain gold sword in miniature. “I married you, not your title, not your fortune. We shall discuss our circumstances in greater detail when we are assured of privacy. Do your siblings know?”
“They do. Penrose told them, the rotter.”
Jane retied the neckcloth in the same elegant Mathematical, but looser than it had been. “Mr. Wentworth, might I offer a suggestion?”
He brushed a glance at the small golden sword Jane held near his throat. “You’re angry.”
“I am hungry, queasy, tired, and”—Jane slid the pin through the lace and linen—“in need of a retiring room, if you must know, but I am not angry. We can rejoice in our good fortune, and still admit we face unusual circumstances. Might we face them as man and wife? As people who regard one another as allies if not friends?”
The looser cravat revealed the edge of a bright red weal on his neck. His expression was stoic, though the neckwear had to have been paining him.
“Mine is not a confiding nature,” he said, “but you have no reason to regard me as an enemy. As for the rest of it…I will try to be the best husband I can be to you.”
“Fair enough. I shall try as well.” She kissed his cheek, mostly to take in a solid dose of his shaving soap, then ascended the steps with him, arm in arm.
Chapter Ten
Constance was tipsy and hiding it well, Althea was furious—she went through life in a perpetual state of annoyance—and Stephen had been fascinated with Jane on sight. Duncan, as always, was lending a veneer of sanity to the family interactions.
Quinn had endured thirty minutes of interrogation about everything from prison conditions, to the estates conveying with the title, to who benefitted from his death—dangerous ground, that—when Duncan sent him a look: Constance will soon reach the end of her tether.
As would Quinn, and yet, his family was owed this time with him.
“I must excuse myself,” Jane said, shifting to the edge of her chair. “I am easily fatigued these days. Mr. Wentworth, if you’d see me to my quarters?”
Quinn shamelessly took his cue, drawing Jane to her feet.
But where to take her? “The bedrooms are upstairs,” he said when they’d left the family murmuring among themselves in the parlor. “Stephen uses a lift, if you can’t manage the steps.”
“Now, you ask me about steps. I shall contrive, Mr. Wentworth.”
He’d spent years earning the right to be addressed as Mr. Wentworth rather than “boy,” “ye little bastard,” or “the Wentworth whelp.” Jane’s form of address was familiar, but not comfortable, and yet, the idea of becoming His Grace of Walden to her chafed like the abrasion on Quinn’s neck.
Jane took the steps slowly, her hand wrapped around his arm. He’d had the kitchen send up beef sandwiches, which Jane had nibbled between sips of tea. He wasn’t imagining her pallor, nor the lavender half circles beneath her eyes.
“You don’t know where to put me,” Jane said, as Quinn paused at the top of the steps. “I’m not particular. Clean sheets and some privacy will suffice.”
He’d have to do something about her habit of guessing his thoughts. “I was giving you a moment to catch your breath. My quarters are this way.” She was his wife. Where else could he stash her but in his own rooms?
His apartment had been kept clean, as if he’d simply been at the bank for the day, not rotting away in Newgate for a month. The window in the parlor was open, as he preferred if the temperature was above freezing, and the fire in the hearth had recently been built up.
“A bed,” Jane said, marching straight through the doorway to Quinn’s bedroom. “Ye gods, a bed. My kingdom for a bed, and such a magnificent bed it is too. If you’d unhook me, please.” She swept her hair off her nape and gave him her back.
The gesture was disconcertingly married, but then, Quinn was not her first husband, and hooks were hooks. He undid the first half dozen, and still Jane stood before him, hand on the back of her head, holding her hair away.
He undid another half dozen. “That should do.”
“If you could assist with my boots, I’d appreciate it.”
Her boots. “Of course.” He knelt before her when she sat on the hassock. “You have difficulty getting them on?”
“Some days, I manage quite well. Other days, bending to any degree upsets my digestion and leaves me light-headed.”
He eased off one battered boot, then the other. “Your garters?”
“Please.”
Quinn had not touched a woman beneath her skirts for years. What allowed him to exercise that familiarity now was Jane’s utter indifference to the intimacy. She was exhausted, uncomfortable, and desperate for rest.
“If we have a daughter,” she said, as Quinn untied the first garter, “I’ll not tell her the fairy tales.”
Quinn’s mind tripped over the first part—if we have a daughter. As a father, he expected to write out bank drafts and pay bills, though Jane’s ideas about parenting apparently involved something more.
“I thought children liked fairy tales.” Quinn wouldn’t know, having had no one to tell him pretty stories when he’d been a child.
“Some children do. I’m referring to the pernicious falsehoods told among women: When you hold that new baby, you’ll forget the misery you endured for nine months, and the hours or even days of travail that brought the child into the world. That fairy tale. Our daughters will know that conceiving a child opens the door to indignities without number, and they go on forever.”
Quinn draped two worn, mended stockings over the battered boots. “Let’s get you into bed.”
He hauled Jane to her feet, and watched while she wiggled, twisted, and muttered her way out of the aubergine dress. Something like panic rose inside him as she handed him the frock.
She wore neither stays nor jumps, but stood in only her shift, the slight protuberance of her belly obvious beneath the worn linen.
“We must have an awkward discussion, Mr. Wentworth,” she said, climbing the step to the bed, “about conjugal intimacies.”
They were up to three awkward discussions in less than a day, doubtless a record for newlyweds. “Must we have that conversation now? I was under the impression your sole objective at the moment was sleep.”
She threw back the covers on Quinn’s side of the bed—he always slept closest to the window—and scooted beneath the sheets, then snuggled down into his pillow with a great sigh.
“We are man and wife,” she said. “I will accommodate you if you insist on consummating our vows now, though I will be fast asleep all the while. I don’t require awkward professions or pretty words, which we both know you cannot sincerely offer. I love this bed.”
She looked small amid the pillows and covers, like a hedgehog burrowing in for the winter.
“I will not trouble you now in the manner you refer to.”
She regarded Quinn from amid a sea of pillows, snowy linen, and soft quilts. “You’ve had a trying day. Your neck has to be sore. Why not take a nap? This sumptuous abundance of a bed has room for half a regiment.”
She was in love with his bed—or his shaving soap—while mention of Quinn’s neck reminded him of a constant, burning ache.
“I typically sleep on the side of the bed you’re occupying.”
She thrashed to the other side of the mattress, a beached fish determined to reach the waterline.
“Now will you come to bed? Your siblings won’t intrude or I’ll swoon on them—or
worse—and you probably haven’t had a good night’s sleep for weeks. We’ll face your family again at dinner.”
And at breakfast, and again tomorrow evening. Abruptly, Quinn was ready to drop. Mentally, physically, and in every other regard, he’d hit the limit of his reserves, the end of his tether.
“You won’t mind if I grab a nap?”
“I’ll be asleep. I promise you, Mr. Wentworth. I’m asleep now, in fact.”
Jane might be comfortable with marital familiarity, but Quinn needed the modesty afforded by the privacy screen. Because Jane had said the scent of his soap soothed her digestion, he gave himself an extra wash in a few obvious locations, and got a wretchedly stinging neck for his troubles.
Better a stinging neck than a broken one.
Jane lay on her side, her breathing slow and regular, as if she’d settled in until the next change of season.
Quinn locked the parlor door and the bedroom door, opened the bedroom window, and climbed beneath the covers. He was aware of Jane, but she was so still that her company was more of an idea than a presence.
He hadn’t shared a bed with a woman in years. Hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t seen the need. He was married, though, had spoken vows and taken a wife. They could sort out the details later. For now, Quinn gave himself up to the miracle of sleeping once again in his own bed.
His and Jane’s.
* * *
“She’s pretty,” Stephen said. “Leave it to Quinn to find a wife in prison who’s not only proper but pretty.”
“I don’t care how pretty or proper she is,” Constance retorted, “Jane’s on the nest. How does a preacher’s daughter conceive a child then cadge an offer of marriage from one of the wealthiest men in England?”
Duncan Wentworth called these people family, but they were as much a tribulation as they were an entertainment. Most days, they were very entertaining.
“Jane is a widow,” he said. “Conception likely occurred in the usual fashion, and this is not a fit topic for a lady.”
“You’ve taken tea with many ladies to know their conversational habits?” Constance replied, reaching for the decanter.
My One and Only Duke--Includes a bonus novella Page 10
