Page 33 of My One and Only Duke
And he was causing trouble still.
* * *
“This is where you live?” Jane asked as the coach slowed on a quiet Mayfair side street. The trees were leafing out, though most of the stoops and porches had yet to boast of flowers. A competitive display of housekeeping wasn’t required here, in other words. This neighborhood was built on established wealth rather than the upstart variety.
“I live a short distance away,” Mr. Wentworth said. “My front steps are aswarm with that variety of pestilence known as the London journalist. We’ll make a private approach to the family abode.”
The carriage stopped. The door opened. Mr. Wentworth emerged first, then turned to assist Jane, who felt more like sleeping for a week than trotting all over London. She had barely gained her balance when Mr. Wentworth escorted her across the street to a plain coach drawn by bays whose white socks didn’t quite match.
Respectable rather than showy. The larger vehicle drove away, and one footman attached himself to the back of the humbler conveyance. The interior of the smaller coach was spotless and comfortable, though less roomy.
“You live a complicated life,” Jane said as her husband took the place beside her.
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.”
