by Shana Galen
“Oh, no you’re not,” he said, reaching for her valise, but she drew it away.
“Catie, do you want me to pack this robe?” Her cousin, Lady Madeleine, walked into the room through the open dressing-room door. As soon as she spotted him, she halted and began to frown. “Oh, it’s him.”
“What the hell does that mean?” he barked. Of course it was him. He lived here. “What are you doing here?”
She glanced at Catie. “Didn’t you tell him?”
“Of course,” Catie answered, still keeping her gaze on him. “But he’s not taking it well.”
“I’m standing right here,” Quint said. “You don’t have to speak as though I’m not home.”
“But that’s exactly the problem,” Lady Madeleine said, narrowing her eyes at him. “You never are home. That’s why Catie’s leaving you.”
“The hell she is. She’s my wife. She can’t leave.”
Catherine raised her brows at him. “Watch me.” She turned to her cousin. “We can send a servant for the rest of it. Let’s just take this and go.”
Lady Madeleine nodded, and the women stepped forward, but Quint blocked their exit. “You’re not leaving.” His heart was racing now, panic galloping through his blood. “You’re my wife.”
“You’d hardly know it the way you treat her,” Lady Madeleine spat.
“The way I treat her? What have I done?”
“Nothing at all except practically desert the poor girl. She’s lonely here by herself all the time.”
Quint opened his mouth to defend himself, but Lady Madeleine waved him silent.
“Not to mention, you’re making her host that ball. You know how social events frighten her. How could you?”
Quint felt his panic being quickly replaced by anger. “I do not have to defend myself to you, but be assured, Lady Madeleine,” he directed his words to her cousin, but looked at Catherine, “I would not ask her to host this ball if I did not think she would rise to the challenge. The experience will be good for her.”
“Of course, it will be good for her,” Lady Madeleine said, “but that is not the point.”
“Now you are speaking as though I am not here,” Catie said with a scowl at both of them. “I have heard quite enough. I am leaving.”
“Don’t even think of it.” Quint stepped closer, but Madeleine jumped between them. He spoke over her head. “Your place is here with me.”
Catie gave a bitter laugh. “There’s nothing for me here.”
Quint wanted to reach out, grab her, and shake her until she saw sense. “What are you blathering about? I’m here.”
“No you’re not.” She thrust her hands on her hips. “You’re never home. Why, it’s taken you two days to realize that I’m leaving you!”
Quint opened his mouth to protest, but he was speechless. She’d been planning this for two days? As he watched, she pushed past her cousin to stand nose to nose with him. She was proud and strong and brave, no trace of the fearful Catherine he had first known.
“And now you’ve come home.” She poked his chest. “And you expect me to jump to do your bidding. Well, I won’t. I’m leaving.”
Quint narrowed his eyes and restrained himself from gripping the finger she poked at him and hauling her away with it. “Are you saying you want a divorce?”
“I don’t care. I’m leaving. I’m going to—” She glanced at her cousin.
“The Americas,” Lady Madeleine provided.
“That’s right. I’ll leave for the Americas and start over.”
Quint leaned close to her, not touching her, but his face only inches away. “You are not going to the Americas. You’re staying here with me.”
She glared at him. “Make me.”
He growled, prepared to do just that.
“If I go, you can have your divorce and then marry Elizabeth. It’s what you’ve wanted all along anyway.”
Quint’s brain felt twisted and hazy. “What the devil are you talking about?” Why didn’t women ever argue logically?
Suddenly Lady Madeleine was pushing them apart. “Now, just a moment.” She put her hands up. “Let’s not say or do anything we’ll regret later.”
“It’s a bit late for that,” Quint said, and Lady Madeleine rounded on him. Quint took a surprised step back.
“That’s right, sir. Keep stepping back.”
“I think it’s time for you to go home, Lady Madeleine.”
“Not until Catie is happy. No one does anything until everyone is happy. We have to fix this mess.”
“But I don’t want anything fixed,” Catherine protested. “I have a long trip ahead of me. I want to get some sleep.”
“Then you’ll go to sleep in my bed,” Quint said. “You’re my wife.”
“Not for long,” she shot back.
“Goddamn it!” Quint started for her, but Madeleine was between them again.
“Why don’t we all sit down and talk this through,” Madeleine suggested. “Catie, you sit there at the dressing table. Lord Valentine, you take that blue armchair.”
Quint watched as Catherine took a seat at her dressing table, and he grudgingly moved toward the armchair. He sat slowly, and then Madeleine said, “Good. Now, the most important thing is finding a way to bring the two of you back together.”
Catherine glared at her. “Why would we want to do that?”
Maddie glared back. “Because it’s obvious you’re miserable without one another.”
Quint straightened. “I am not miserable.”
“Oh, hush,” Madeleine said. “You are miserable, and Catie is too. She hasn’t slept for crying so much.”
“Traitor,” Catie said.
Quint glanced at his wife. She did look tired, and her eyes were swollen.
“What we have to do is to find a way to make both parties happy.”
Quint raised his eyes to the ceiling. His wife’s cousin was obviously a politician in training, but if Lady Madeleine’s efforts would make Catherine stay, then he’d play along.
“Very well,” Quint said, trying to sound magnanimous, “what do you suggest?”
“A compromise,” Madeleine said. “Catie will agree to host your ball.”
Quint glanced at his wife. She nodded. “But that’s only provided you agree to a few conditions.”
“That’s right,” Lady Madeleine said. “Catie would like—”
“There are conditions?” Quint spat out. “This is a marriage, not a treaty negotiation.”
“It won’t be either if you keep interrupting,” his wife said. “I will leave.”
He refrained from rolling his eyes, and finally ground out, “Go on.”
“First of all, you have to be home for dinner every night.”
“Don’t be ridiculous—”
“Good night, Lord Valentine.” She rose and motioned for her cousin to follow.
Quint clenched his fists. Goddamn it! What the hell kind of negotiation was this?
“Catie,” he said, though his jaw was locked. She paused and looked over her shoulder. “Every night is a bit steep. Perhaps—”
She turned back and started for the door again. Quint closed his eyes. “Fine. I’ll be home for dinner every night. What else?”
She turned back to him, smiling. The smile almost made his concession worth it.
“You must help with the preparations for the ball. Your job is to deal with the invitations.”
“Fine. No problem.”
“Not one of your assistants. You. Personally,” Catherine said.
Quint frowned. “What difference does it make if I do it or Meeps?”
She shook her head. “If you’re going to argue, I’m going to call for the carriage.”
“I’m not going to argue,” Quint said, clutching the arms of his chair. “I agree. Put your things away. You’re staying.”
She smiled again. “Right away.”
To Quint’s relief, his wife picked up her valise and headed into the dressing room
to unpack. He smiled. Finally.
“Obviously, you think you received the better end of the bargain.” Lady Madeleine was standing before him, hands on her hips. Quint’s smile faded.
“Two things,” she said. She gave him a look Quint supposed was meant to strike fear in his heart. “You had better fulfill your end of this bargain. Catie wants you home, and you can stop giving speeches and fawning over the prime minister long enough to be there for her.”
Quint did not so much as blink. “I do not fawn.”
Lady Madeleine shook her head. “One of these days, you are going to realize that there’s more to life than bills and debates. Cabinet posts and undersecretary positions are all well and good, but they won’t ease the loneliness. They won’t warm your bed, and they won’t comfort you when you’re old and sick. You will lose Catie if you take her for granted.”
Quint rose. “I know what I’m doing, Lady Madeleine. I don’t need your advice.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s what men always say. You do realize that you almost lost her tonight?”
He inclined his head civilly, but inside, his stomach pitched and roiled. “I won’t lose her,” he said. “You can be certain of that.”
Later that night Quint rose from where he lay beside Catie’s warm, naked body. He paced the room and eventually went to sit at his desk. He had more work to do tonight, and the new rules his wife had forced him to agree to would not lighten his load.
He looked at his sleeping wife. Her goddamn cousin was right; he’d almost lost her. She’d almost slipped right through his fingers while his mind was on political matters. The thought terrified him, even now. He would have probably said or done anything she’d asked to get her back.
He didn’t know what terrified him more—that he was completely at his wife’s mercy or that he no longer seemed to mind that he’d lost control of their relationship.
She had all the power now. She all but had him in the palm of her hand. If he were not careful, he would soon find himself in love with her.
Quint swallowed and glanced back at his wife.
Did she feel anything for him? Did she love him?
Damn! He rose and paced the room. He didn’t need her to love him. Her needed her to trust him, to obey him, to host his friends.
He didn’t need her to love him.
And yet he wanted her to, he wanted to hear her say those words.
He’d made love to her tonight with a possessiveness he did not know was in him. He would never let her go. Never. But he would not abandon his dream of the Cabinet position either.
Quint looked at the papers on his desk. The two desires—his wife and his career—should not be mutually exclusive, but increasingly Quint feared that’s exactly what they were.
Chapter 20
“No, that one is too white,” Madeleine told Josie. She held up another sheet of vellum from the sheets spread over Valentine’s dining-room table and admired it. “What about this one?”
Josie huffed. “There’s absolutely no difference. Those two papers are exactly the same shade.”
“Ridiculous,” Maddie scoffed, holding the first up again. “This one is bright white. This is ivory. What do you think, Mr. Meeps?”
Catie looked up from the menu she was trying to perfect and watched the poor, overworked Mr. Meeps look from one of her cousins to the other. The small man pushed his glasses back on his nose. “I think—”
“This one, right?” Josie said, holding her choice out.
“Don’t influence him!” Maddie broke in. She waved her choice at him. “This is better, is it not?”
Catherine shook her head. “Leave poor Mr. Meeps alone, girls. The invitations are Valentine’s responsibility, and I told him he had to do it himself.”
“But, Lady Valentine, his lordship has given me leave to make decisions in his stead,” Meeps told her.
“I don’t care. He is going to keep to his end of our bargain. Either he does the invitations or there are none.”
“Good for you, Catie!” Josie said, applauding.
Catherine smiled, but it was short-lived. Valentine’s housekeeper bustled in and said breathlessly, “The table covers you ordered are here, milady. Where should I put them?”
Catie pressed her lips together and thought for a moment. “The drawing room, I suppose.”
“But milady, we can hardly open the door for all the items crammed inside. You told Webster to store the extra tables in there yesterday.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Catherine glanced at Josie and Maddie for help. They blinked back at her. “Um, I suppose we have no choice but to put them in Lord Valentine’s study.”
Mr. Meeps shook her head. “Oh, no, Lady Valentine. I do not suggest—”
“You absolutely must taste this cake!” Ashley said, rushing into the dining room, a slice of white cake balanced on a fork before her. “It’s divine. We should order at least three for the ball.”
She shoved the treat at Catherine, so that Catherine had little choice but to take a small bite. Ashley then scampered over to Josie and Maddie and offered the cake. Josie leaned forward to taste, and shook her head. “It’s good, but it’s lemon. I liked the vanilla we tasted yesterday. It works better with our theme.”
“Theme? What theme?” Maddie said. “Ah-ha! That’s why you want that awful bright white vellum.”
“It goes with the white theme,” Josie protested.
“If you are going to start with the white theme again, then I will have to hit you.”
“Madam,” the housekeeper said.
Catherine tore her gaze from her arguing cousins and tried to swallow the dry cake.
“What about the table linens?”
“In his lordship’s study,” Catherine mumbled around the food.
“Madam,” Webster, Quint’s butler, strolled regally into the room. “The extra china has arrived.”
“Oh, Lord,” Catherine said, dropping her head in her hands. She’d been working nonstop to organize Valentine’s ball and had been fortunate to catch three or four hours’ sleep a night. Her cousins had been immensely helpful, and she didn’t know what she would have done without them. Hosting an unplanned ball in the midst of the Season was no small feat, especially when one considered that Valentine’s house and staff were not prepared for such an undertaking.
Not only was Valentine’s town house too small for the event, he did not own enough of the accoutrements one needed. His solution had been to have the ball at an assembly hall and rent everything. He wanted only the best. The problem was that the best china and linens had already been spoken for by hostesses who had planned far earlier than she. But with help from her cousins, Catherine had managed to secure items she hoped would be acceptable.
Now she just had to figure out what to do with them, and that was not easy. She was too tired to think clearly at this point. The ball was in less than a week, and she still had so much to do.
She looked up at Webster. “The china is here? Are you certain? I thought that was not to arrive for two more days.”
“It is here, madam,” he said.
“Catherine, where are you?”
She turned at the sound of Quint’s voice and the tap of his boots on the marble in the foyer. A moment later, he poked his head into the dining-room door. He was wearing evening attire, very rumpled, as though he had not changed from the night before. Catherine vaguely remembered that he had mentioned dining at his club after the parliamentary session, but she had not seen him since. Thinking back, Catherine realized that she should have made him promise not only to be home for dinner but also to stay home.
“Webster,” Quint said, swiping his hair back from his face. He had obviously lost the thong he had been using to hold it back, and now it hung free about his neck and forehead. “Who are all those people outside?”
Webster looked at Catherine. “Ask your wife, my lord.” And Webster turned and walked away.
Quint glanced at her, eyebrow
raised. Lord, every time she saw him it was like the first. Her heart still sped up, her stomach did quick somersaults, and her hands trembled. How could someone like her have married such a kind, handsome man?
She wondered if he still thought of Elizabeth, and if he regretted the exchange of one sister for the other. As for herself, Catherine would never have told her cousins, but she rather liked being married to this man. Especially at night. Try as she might during the days, she could not forget the nights they spent together. She could not forget the possessive, urgent way that he came to her, taking her into his arms and making love to her.
She was still trying to accustom herself to sleeping with a man. She liked the pleasurable sensations he made her feel, especially when he used his tongue—
She felt her face heat and looked away. She caught Josie staring at her, a knowing look on her face. Obviously, Madeleine had not kept quiet about the events of the night she’d almost left Valentine. Maddie was certain that Valentine’s actions, his easy capitulation and insistence he would never give her up, was a sign that he was in love with Catherine. Catherine begged to differ. As usual, Valentine had his career in mind. If Catherine left him, his career would be ruined.
And yet there had been something about him that night that spoke to her. She would never have defended him, have agreed to host this ball, if something in Valentine’s face had not touched her. It had almost looked as though he needed her.
Catherine shook her head. How silly of her.
Valentine welcomed Catherine’s cousins and then looked at her. “How are the preparations coming?”
Catherine frowned, all good feeling for him fading. Did he care about anything but this ball? He did not even take a moment to ask how she was.
She cleared her throat. “For my part, the preparations are fine. How are yours, my lord? Mr. Meeps says you have not yet chosen the paper for the invitations.”
Valentine turned to his assistant and gave him a dark look. Meeps looked away. Obviously, Meeps was not to have spoken.
“I am finalizing the wording and the paper choice,” Quint said.
“Oh, good. Have you spoken with the stationer yet?”
