Duncan had spent most of his adulthood looking back, second-guessing himself, and apologizing to a woman long dead. As he crossed the parlor to join Matilda by the chess set, he was focused on the future for once, and glad of it.
“I suspect marriage to me would solve many of your problems,” he said.
“While it would compound yours.”
How much trouble could she be in, if no legal authority sought to find her? “On the contrary, Matilda, marriage would simplify my life considerably. For example, this house is a mystery to me. I’ve never lived in so grand an edifice and have no idea how one goes about managing such an establishment. Relations with the neighbors loom as equally daunting. Except for a short stint as a curate, my situation has never called for socializing in any regard. In the country, one must socialize.”
“You haven’t a cousin or sister who could be your hostess?”
Duncan sought much more than a hostess. “My lady cousins bide in the north like a pair of Valkyries. They fly down for the social Season and leave the ballrooms littered with fallen men—half the fellows smitten, half of them reeling from the worst setdowns of their pampered, arrogant lives—and half the shops in Mayfair reeling with orders.”
Matilda finished lining up the chess pieces. “These would be Lord Stephen’s sisters?”
She had the black king and the white queen paired, as they’d been on the chessboard before the game had concluded in a stalemate.
“And that brings us to another reason why I’d be well advised to marry.” He took her hand, curling her fingers in his. “My ducal cousin chose for his duchess a woman of unassailably Christian inclinations. Jane would like to see me wed.”
“I’m no saint,” Matilda said, studying their joined hands. “On the Continent, in France especially, women are permitted much more freedom than they have in England. Even here, a widow has some latitude.”
Color rose to suffuse her cheeks and even her ears. How un-saintly had Matilda been, and had she enjoyed those encounters? The unhappy curate from Duncan’s past scolded him for having such impure thoughts. The man holding Matilda Wakefield’s hand mentally told the curate to sod the hell off.
“My sense of French women,” Duncan said, “is that nobody permits them anything. They do as they please and all of French society is happier for it.”
Matilda smoothed a hand over Duncan’s lapel, and the resulting sensation somehow managed to register behind his falls.
“I did like France,” she said. “I liked a few fellows there too. French men aren’t possessive, in the usual case, unless you marry them. Then they can be a bit ridiculous. My husband was affectionate when he recalled he had a wife, but we were married less than a year. The English are ridiculous about controlling unwed females, and then English husbands seem to forget they have wives at all.”
She did it again, brushed her hand over the wool of Duncan’s jacket. Perhaps touching him pleased her the way touching her pleased him.
“If your current difficulties did not beset you,” Duncan said, “would you allow me to court you?”
The fragrance of roses beset him, bringing to mind blooming gardens, honey-drunk bees, and cats curled contently on sun-warmed walkways.
She moved closer, not quite a lean. “I believe I would. I haven’t thought in terms of courtship for some time. I saved my husband the bother of managing his servants, while he provided me a fixed address. With the colonel—with Alphonse—he didn’t court me so much as he decided that I would suit him, or so I thought.”
More small admissions. The late husband had had a large enough household that the servants required management, meaning he’d been wealthy or even titled. The dunderheaded suitor who’d let her slip away had been or was in the military. A colonel, meaning he was a well-connected dunderhead.
“He decided you’d suit,” Duncan said. “What did you decide?”
“That I would suit him. I was wrong.” She closed the distance remaining between them, mere inches, wrapping her arms around Duncan’s waist and giving him her weight. He was thus half enfolded in her shawl with her, a warm place to be.
He embraced her, carefully, as he would have embraced someone frail from long deprivation. Matilda was not frail—slender, certainly, but she was gaining flesh, and she was in good health.
Duncan, however, was suffering from deprivation, from years of being a proper escort to his cousins, a proper dance partner to the wallflowers, a proper influence on Stephen. Propriety slid from his grasp and set free all manner of strange and wonderful yearnings.
Arousal—good old male desire—joined surprise and a difficult tenderness.
Matilda Wakefield could hurt him, even more deeply than he’d been hurt by the loss of his young wife. The harm would be unintentional, and by taking Matilda in his arms, Duncan was making a rash, Wentworth-style dare that he could either weather that pain or—he was a Wentworth—slay the dragons who pursued her.
“I won’t suit you either,” Matilda said, resting her cheek against Duncan’s chest. “In my present circumstances, I can’t suit anybody.”
Lord God, she felt wonderfully female. Whoever that husband had been, whoever the amorous Frenchmen were, they’d given her an appreciation for a lover’s embrace, because Matilda had bundled in close and fitted herself to Duncan’s body curve by curve.
“I can’t offer you anything,” Matilda said. “Nothing lasting, nothing permanent.”
Duncan’s wife had vowed to love, honor, and obey him until death did them part. She’d survived mere months, and love had never come into it.
“Matilda, you needn’t be concerned with suiting me. In this, at least, I must suit you, and you must suit yourself.”
She peered up at him, all lovely brown eyes and feminine mystery. “I fear you are correct, Mr. Wentworth.”
“Duncan.”
Her smile was mischievous and a little sad. “Duncan.” Then she kissed him.
Chapter Nine
Jane, Duchess of Walden, had taken to duchessing like a mare to spring grass, much to her own astonishment. Raised as a preacher’s daughter, widowed early in her first marriage, and then wed to Quinn Wentworth out of necessity rather than romance, she’d never expected to end up with a title.
Or to fall top over tiara in love with her duke.
A title was a great responsibility. Jane had charities to oversee, entertainments to plan, and a duke to partner, and such a duke. Quinn Wentworth had scrapped and fought his way up from the slums to become one of London’s wealthiest bankers, then with an equal lack of decorum found himself the bearer of a lofty title and married to Jane.
Quinn was settling in to his station, year by year, though he still liked to growl at and figuratively pounce upon the unsuspecting peer in the House of Lords from time to time. Jane was having a grand time not settling in to the role of duchess, but rather, comporting herself like a Wentworth.
She had no lapdog. She had a big, black, toothy Alsatian who answered to the name Wodin. He’d been a gift from the footmen and was much beloved belowstairs.
She held duchess teas, gathering with others of her ilk, kicking off her slippers, and comparing notes on the delicate art of being married to a duke. In Jane’s opinion, Quinn was, of course, the best duke of the lot, having not been spoiled by the typical aristocratic upbringing. The other duchesses conceded that he was exceedingly handsome, and one had even allowed that Quinn “bore a resemblance to a younger version of my Percival.”
The best part of being a duchess, however, was that Jane’s opinions were never brushed aside as those of a mere woman, an impecunious widow, or a lowly minister’s daughter. She bore the constant weight of public scrutiny, but by God, she was no longer a silent, invisible wretch dependent on her father for grudging charity.
“You have that look in your eye,” Quinn said, taking off his glasses. He was past thirty and jaw-droppingly gorgeous in a tall, dark, and delicious way. His Grace was also regarding Jane with a particular
look in his eye.
He was at the desk in their sitting room—the bedroom no longer had a desk—while Jane was on the sofa pretending to go through correspondence. Mostly, she was sharing a quiet hour with her husband before they’d attend a musicale. Quinn loved music and had developed skill at the keyboard in the past few years.
“What sort of look do you refer to?” Jane asked, shuffling her letters into a stack.
“The hatching-one-of-your-plots look. It’s too soon for another baby, Jane. I must stand firm on that. Artemis should be at least a year old before another one is on the way.”
“I agree.” Artemis was a gloriously healthy little stoat, meaning she put demands on Jane that quite honestly sapped a mother’s energies.
“Althea and Constance have gone north for the winter,” Quinn said, joining Jane on the sofa. “That leaves you free to fret over Stephen and Duncan. Which one are you worried about?”
Quinn had noticed that Jane was worried, while she had considered herself merely preoccupied.
“You don’t think they’re lovers, do you?” she asked. “If they had that sort of attachment my view of the situation would be very different.”
Quinn stretched out on the sofa, resting his head against Jane’s thigh. “You’d still fret. Duncan has never inclined toward men that I know of, but then, for the past five years he’s been traveling more than he’s been in England. With Stephen, I can’t be sure. For all I know, he might fancy both women and men at the same time, as many as a bed can hold.”
Not that Quinn would care, for which Jane loved him.
“Something’s afoot, Quinn. Stephen is a conscientious correspondent and we haven’t heard from him since he decamped for Brightwell.”
Quinn stroked Jane’s knee. “He’s likely trying to help Duncan put the place to rights. Stephen’s property runs like a top, and the boy’s not stupid.”
Stephen hadn’t been a boy five years ago. “You gave Stephen a small estate in excellent repair. Pulling Brightwell back from ruin would be unknown terrain for him.”
Jane’s marriage was an ever-changing and fascinating terrain. Who would have thought that a man’s idle touch on a lady’s knee could have erotic repercussions, for example? Jane stroked Quinn’s hair in retaliation, and for the sheer pleasure of petting her husband.
Quinn turned on his side, a more comfortable posture for a man of his height. “Stephen did send a request for funds to the bank. He ordered a substantial sum sent out to Brightwell.”
“That makes no sense. Brightwell is not his to invest in. Would he be making Duncan a loan?”
“Duncan would not ask Stephen for a loan.”
Wentworths understood money as only people raised without it could. Jane’s upbringing hadn’t been as difficult as Quinn’s—hell’s muck pit would have been inviting compared to Quinn’s childhood—but she knew less of Duncan’s youth.
“Would Duncan ask you for a loan?”
“No, nor would I offer one. He has funds. His wages were generous as Stephen’s tutor, his expenses next to none. He has been investing wisely for nearly a decade, and his aunt left him a tidy property in Yorkshire that’s brought in steady rental income. If need be, Duncan could retire to his Yorkshire acres and live a very comfortable, gentlemanly existence.”
Jane gave Quinn’s ear a stout pinch. “We can’t let that happen. Yorkshire is much too far away. He’ll bury himself in a mountain of Latin translations, send us an annual letter at Yuletide, and grow reclusive.”
Quinn’s hand glided lower, stroking Jane’s calf. “Duncan thrives on travel. He’ll not grow reclusive. I suspect he might hold on to the place out of sentiment. His wife is buried near the property.”
“His wife? How could I be a member of this family for five years and not know Duncan is a widower? How like a Wentworth, to be so needlessly stoic about such terrible loss.”
And how like Duncan, especially. Myriad moments flashed in Jane’s memory: Duncan patiently showing Bitty how to tie her boots, his tolerance with Althea and Constance’s bickering, his loyalty to Stephen. A man bereft of immediate family valued the relations remaining to him.
“I didn’t know Duncan had lost a wife when I first sent for him,” Quinn said, giving Jane’s calf an oddly pleasurable squeeze. “Stephen was in serious difficulties, and the tutors and governors I’d hired were making his situation worse. Duncan came south straightaway, but before he took a shilling of my money he acquainted me with some of his past, lest I hear it from anybody else. Are you undressing me, Your Grace?”
“Loosening your cravat. We’ll need to change before we go out. Tell me the rest of Duncan’s story.”
Jane would also need to stop by the nursery. Artemis was old enough to take warmed gruel several times a day, but she also still needed her mama.
“I don’t know the rest of his story,” Quinn said. “He told me he’d left the church over theological differences with his pastor and bishop, and had taken a wife who did not survive long after giving birth. The child perished as well, and—”
“Duncan lost a child? Oh, Quinn, that poor man. That poor, dear man. Such a tragedy explains much.”
Jane hugged Quinn, who rolled to his back the better to be hugged. This escalated to kissing, though Jane wasn’t about to be distracted from their conversation—not yet.
“I gather these losses occurred when Duncan wasn’t even as old as Stephen is now,” Quinn said. “The past does not seem to trouble him.”
Jane shoved at Quinn’s shoulder. “Not trouble him? Not trouble him? Quinn, you snapped your fingers over a younger brother in distress and Duncan traveled two hundred miles without a qualm. He’s barely left Stephen’s side since, and no matter where Stephen sought to wander, Duncan wandered with him. That’s biblical devotion to a very difficult young man, and you say Duncan isn’t troubled. To lose a child, a wife and a child, and a livelihood all in such a short time. Our poor Duncan. Stop distracting me.”
Quinn left off running his finger along Jane’s décolletage and affected an innocent look that earned him another shove.
“I might be misreading my cousin, Jane. Duncan was necessarily concerned with his own situation when we were younger. I gather his uncle wasn’t the compassionate sort, though the aunt left everything to Duncan upon her death.”
“When I first met Duncan,” Jane said, “I thought him cold, an academic longing for his secluded tower. Then I thought him merely reserved. Now you tell me he’s known great loss, and I’m not sure what to think. What happened between Duncan and his pastor that would cause him to give up his vocation?”
“Maybe he hadn’t a vocation. Tell me again why we’re going out this evening.”
“A pianist is performing at a musicale—a duke’s son is debuting a new sonata. We must lend our cachet. Why would a young man who had no other professional training leave the church, Quinn? Why wouldn’t he go back to the church, hat in hand, when he had a wife and child to support? Or did he leave because of the wife and child? Maybe she was a Dissenter?”
Quinn sat up. “You won’t let this go, will you? Duncan is a surpassingly private man, and I’ve hesitated to probe old wounds.”
Jane smoothed Quinn’s hair and drew off the cravat she’d untied. “Until those old wounds are healed, we can obligate Duncan to any number of properties, but he’ll still find a way to wander. Might you unlace me?”
She scooted around, giving Quinn her back, and he started on her hooks. “Duncan likes wandering, just as Joshua likes running the bank.”
Joshua Penrose, Quinn’s financial partner, loved running the bank, thanks be to heaven. “We must pay a visit at Brightwell, Quinn. If Stephen needs a substantial sum delivered, then the money will be more safely sent with the ducal coach, outriders, grooms, and footmen.”
Quinn kissed Jane’s nape, which gave her a delicious, shivery feeling every time he did it—still.
“Tell me this, madam duchess: How is Duncan to accommodate and feed the army
that you insist I take with me when I leave Town?”
Jane’s dress fell open and Quinn switched to loosening her stays. “That’s simple. Provisions can be sent as well. You say Brightwell is barely a day’s journey from Town.”
“In good weather, with good horses. Winter has begun, in case you’d forgotten.”
When Quinn slipped his arms around Jane’s waist and hugged her bare back to his chest, she was much too warm to notice mere winter.
“I’m a duchess and a Wentworth,” she said, wiggling into his embrace. “A spot of weather shall not deter me.”
“You’d leave the children?”
“Of course not.”
Quinn’s hold shifted. He had different sorts of kisses, silences, and smiles. He also had a vocabulary of embraces. The notion of traveling with the children had momentarily deterred him from a marital objective.
“I can’t bolt for the shires, Jane. I have committee meetings this week and a directors’ meeting at the bank.”
“I must make preparations as well, but we’ll not leave Duncan all on his own to endure whatever mischief Stephen is up to.”
“Agreed,” Quinn said, rising and extending a hand to Jane.
She stood, her dress falling halfway down her arms. “I know you love to hear the piano competently played, Quinn, but might we miss the first half of tonight’s gathering?”
He stepped close enough that Jane could start on his shirt buttons.
“You’re asking me to give up half an evening of cultural enrichment, mingling with good society, and furthering my political agendas merely so I can tarry with my duchess in the bedroom yonder?”
Quinn was still the best-smelling man Jane had ever met. She buried her nose against the join of his neck and shoulder. “I am asking you to make that great sacrifice yet again, Your Grace.”
When a Duchess Says I Do Page 13
