Page 60 of My One and Only Duke
Jane heaved over to lie against him. She was pleased too, but he was leaving in the morning, and the moment presented opportunities that might not return for weeks.
“I have questions, Quinn.”
The self-satisfaction sighed out of him. “Will they keep, those questions? After such pleasures, you’ve earned a respite.”
Ah, a respite. He wasn’t through, then. “Yes, they’ll keep. Suffice it to say…”
He kissed her, and Jane kissed him back, even as whatever thought she’d been about to express—pity for her first husband, gratitude to her second—flew out of her head. She fell asleep cradled in Quinn’s arms, warm, wonderstruck, and determined to have some answers.
* * *
Quinn’s early morning escape was thwarted by nothing less than the hand of God, or so it felt when Reverend Winston was ushered into the breakfast parlor by a bleary-eyed Kristoff.
“Good morning,” Quinn said, as Kristoff laid another setting to the left of the head of the table, Jane’s customary place being to Quinn’s right. “I hope you’ll join me for a meal.”
Winston wore his usual rumpled, righteous mien. The breakfast parlor was redolent of warm toast and bacon, though, and the reverend took the proffered chair at his host’s left hand.
“A cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss,” Winston said. “A visit from my prodigal daughter wouldn’t go amiss either.”
False paternal martyrdom was a sure way to drive Quinn onto the Great North Road, but Winston was family now, and he had answers to questions Quinn hadn’t been able to put to Jane.
“Newlyweds,” Quinn said. “We’re an inconsiderate lot. Then too, Jane needs her rest.”
Kristoff put a plate of steaming eggs and bacon before the reverend. Quinn passed over the butter, full pot of tea, and the rack of toast, then flicked a glance at his footman. Kristoff withdrew and closed the door.
“How is my Jane Hester?” Mr. Winston asked. “A father worries.”
This father had been waiting in his musty garret for more than two weeks for Jane to crawl home. Quinn had taken a solitary tour of Jane’s former abode when Winston had been off dispensing bibles and blame and the landlady had been at market. The upper apartment was the last, painfully tidy stop before the coach to penury reached its destination. The landlady’s quarters on the ground floor had been more commodious.
Quinn’s subsequent interview with the neighborhood pawnbroker had been illuminating.
“Jane is coping with much change,” he said. “My family has not had a genteel guiding hand, ever, and neither have I. If you’d tell me about Jane’s mother, I’d be grateful.”
Jane had mentioned her mother only in passing, and those mentions had been shadowed with grief.
Winston put down his fork. “I have a miniature.” He withdrew a small likeness from his coat pocket, the typical oval in a cheap gilt frame. “That’s my Hester. Sweetest woman God ever made, taken much, much too soon.”
The face smiling up at Quinn was indeed sweet. Kindness shone from her eyes, as did a glimmer of humor. She resembled Jane about the mouth and chin, though her gaze lacked the snapping alertness Jane turned on the world.
Quinn passed the miniature back. “Would you allow me to have a copy made of this painting?”
The portrait disappeared into Winston’s right pocket. “That is my only likeness of my Hester. I don’t typically let it out of my sight.”
“You would be welcome to watch the artist at work. He wouldn’t even need to remove the painting from the frame.”
Still, Winston’s gaze was guarded. “I’ll think about it. When will you bring Jane around to visit her old papa?”
The urge to coerce was instinctive: When will you allow her to have an image of her mother? In the alternative, Quinn could nick that portrait from Winston’s pocket without the pastor even realizing the painting had been removed from his person.
Would serve the old hypocrite right too, though Winston’s devotion to his wife’s memory seemed genuine.
“I’ll ask you again at a more opportune time,” Quinn said. “I suspect a copy of that little painting would be the finest wedding gift you might offer Jane.”
Another fine gift would be one genuine smile, aimed at Jane with sincere approval. Her words came back to Quinn: I love your smile. That Jane should be starved for smiles was wrong.
That Quinn was eyeing the clock, hoping to leave for York before Jane rose, was more wrong still. He wanted a few days to enjoy the memories Jane had given him before he submitted to her interrogation.
“I hear you’ve assumed a title,” Winston said around a mouthful of bacon. “A lofty title. News is all over the prison, and the guards say it’s true. My Jane is a duchess.”
