Page 109 of My One and Only Duke
As if an old dodderer like Quinn might forget a promise made five minutes ago. “His lordship does not dance, but you will enjoy sitting out with him.”
“A man who doesn’t dance?” Her ladyship brushed the violets aside. “Surely I will fall in love with him on sight. Lead on, Your Grace.”
Before Jane took pity on Quinn and let a plea of fatigue end the outing, Quinn introduced Stephen to three young ladies with pin money to invest, Joshua to a widowed viscountess who did not trust her solicitors, and Duncan to an aging baroness whose articulate contempt for lawyers would have put a Yorkshire drover to the blush.
“You knew this would happen,” Quinn said, as he settled beside Jane in the town coach. “You knew I’d be mobbed by sweet young things mad to control their own funds.”
“And by sweet old things. What better man to entrust their hopes to than you?”
She had such faith in him. “What makes me so special? The Dorset and Becker has been around for centuries and they also claim a connection to a duke.”
One who’d called on Quinn’s sisters twice and invited Quinn to an evening of cards that had been positively friendly. The lot of them—two dukes, a marquess, and a smattering of lesser peers—had played for farthing points with more intensity than school boys betting on a tin of fresh biscuits.
“You make you so special,” Jane said, taking Quinn’s hand. “You know what it is to have nothing, to be without allies, to be at the mercy of an unkind fate. Speaking of which, Lady MacHenry said the Earl of Tipton is in for years of unrelenting misery and an ongoing battle with dysentery.”
Quinn laced his fingers with Jane’s, for she liked holding hands and he liked any excuse to touch her.
“Should I know Lady MacHenry?”
“Her uncle was governor of the Westward Orejas Islands some years ago. Her aunt claims a more surly local populace, a hotter sun, a denser jungle, or a greater variety of large and menacing insects does not exist this side of the Pit. Tipton’s diplomatic assignment will include years of dodging fevers, uprisings, snakes, and spiders.”
“Ned will rejoice at that news.” Quinn was pleased as well, but the burning need to wreak justice on Tipton had moderated to a more philosophical inclination. Tipton was fundamentally unhappy, could not manage money, lacked the self-respect to earn any coin of his own, and had ruined all hope of joy in his marriage.
The earl deserved the fate he faced—one Quinn had arranged with Elsmore’s aid—but his lordship also deserved a crumb or two of pity. The countess had purchased a villa near Lyme Regis, and the Tipton estates in the north had been leased by a wealthy haberdasher intent on becoming a respectable squire.
Tipton was a laughingstock, and his “diplomatic post” was the merest fig leaf of mercy granted to a disgraced peer.
“The baby is restless,” Jane said, nestling against Quinn’s shoulder. “Will you take me north after the child arrives?”
I will breathe again after the child arrives. I will cease dunning the Almighty with my prayers for Jane’s safety. I will have sex with my wife against the wall again, and possibly on the billiards table as well.
“You want to peek in on your papa,” Quinn said.
The light of a passing lamp illuminated Jane’s features, and if anything, advancing pregnancy had made her more beautiful. She had the loveliest brown eyes, the sweetest smile.…
Quinn kissed her fingers, the easiest part of her to reach.
“I correspond with Papa,” she said. “He seems to be rising to the challenge of ministering to a congregation, though the bishop has reminded him that brevity is a virtue. I don’t miss him.”
“Ah. The guilt of not feeling guilty. I know a certain cure for that.”
The reverend had been packed off to a living in the West Riding, and bad roads ensured he’d stay there rather than make a nuisance of himself at the ducal seat.
“I do like your certain cures,” Jane said. “I’m getting too big to carry all over the house, though.”
Quinn’s cures generally required bedrest, after a lusty expression of marital accord. Jane prescribed the same recipe frequently, to the point that Stephen and Duncan had agreed to leave on a grand tour in the autumn.
They—like the rest of creation—were waiting for the baby to arrive in another three months or so.
“You are not big,” Quinn said. “You are merely a heifer who’s been at summer grass.”
Jane smacked his arm, then resumed cuddling. “I’m the Duchess of Walden. I’ll thank you to recall the dignity of my office, sir.”
Quinn tucked his arm around her shoulders and kissed her ear. “You’re my duchess of rutting heifers, and I’m your gutter whelp from the slums of York. Who knew being a duke could be so diverting?”
Jane peered at him in the gloom. “Speaking of diversions, I do believe we need to find a wife for Joshua.”
“I thought Duncan might be your next project.” Forgive me, cousin.
