Page 71 of My One and Only Duke
She wouldn’t leave him to bathe in peace. Weariness that had little to do with hundreds of miles of travel pressed on Quinn, weighting his limbs and his thoughts.
“My stint as a footman was years ago and is best forgotten. I’ve held many, many other jobs.”
Jane tested the blade of his razor against her thumb. “Wearing livery is no disgrace, Quinn. Domestic service is honest work.”
Someday, he’d tell her about the months working at Tipton Hall—the prettied-up version of his youth that Mrs. Dougherty was determined to recall.
Now, the simple sight of Jane, hair swept back in a tidy bun, hands graceful and competent, made him long to toss her on the bed and curl up next to her until her warmth, her scent, and her sweetness obliterated the memories even a few days in York had brought back.
“Domestic service is hard work,” Quinn said, shrugging out of his coat. “I didn’t last long.”
He pretended to focus on unfastening his watch, sleeve buttons, and cravat pin, but he watched Jane in the cheval mirror. She dunked a ball of hard soap in the hot water, then closed her eyes and sniffed at the soap. Despite Quinn’s guilt, frustration, and fatigue, the sight of Jane merely sniffing soap stirred erotic longings.
“When you were a footman, who was your employer?” she asked, unfastening her cuffs and rolling up her sleeves.
Her wrists—her wrists—made him hungry.
I am a man in trouble. “My employer was a mostly absentee lord who liked to roam around on the Continent and call himself a diplomat when he wasn’t in London waltzing until all hours.” Not a lie. “Might you have the kitchen send up a tray? Sandwiches and ale will do.”
Jane used the speaking tube to order Quinn food he didn’t want.
“I’ve eaten more beef in the past two weeks than in the previous year,” she said. “The midwife told me to consume as much red meat as I can tolerate. I’ve become quite the carnivore.”
“You do seem more vigorous.” More at home handling Quinn’s things, more the lady of his house. More married to him, God help her.
Having no alternative, Quinn went about removing his clothes and handing them to Jane, who hung up his shirt and folded his cravat as if husband and wife had spent the last twenty years chatting while the bath water cooled.
Quinn was down to his underlinen, hoping for a miracle, when Jane went to the door to get the tray. He used her absence to shed the last of his clothing and slip into the water. She returned bearing the food, which she set on the counterpane.
“I’m happy to wash your hair.”
“I’ll scrub off first. Tell me how you occupied yourself in my absence.”
She held a sandwich out for him to take a bite. “This and that. The staff has a schedule, the carpets have all been taken up and beaten, Constance’s cats are separated by two floors until Persephone is no longer feeling amorous.”
Quinn was feeling amorous. He’d traveled to York and back, endured Mrs. Dougherty’s gushing and Ned’s endless questions—“Ned Nosy, that’s me!”—and pondered possibilities and plots, but neither time nor distance had dampened his interest in his wife one iota.
Jane’s fingers massaging his scalp and neck didn’t help his cause, and when she leaned down to scrub Quinn’s chest and her breasts pressed against his shoulders, his interest became an ache.
The water cooled, Jane fed him sandwiches, and Quinn accepted that the time had come to make love with his wife. He rose from the tub, water sluicing away, as Jane held out a bath sheet. Her gaze wandered over him in frank, marital assessment, then caught, held, and ignited a smile he hadn’t seen from her before.
“Why Mr. Wentworth, you did miss me after all.” She passed him the bath sheet, and locked the parlor door while Quinn stood before the fire and dried off.
“I missed you too,” Jane said, taking the towel from him and tossing it over a chair. “Rather a lot.”
Quinn made one last attempt to dodge the intimacy Jane was owed, one last try for honesty. “Jane, we have matters to discuss.”
He could not tell her he was on Pike’s trail, could not tell her he’d made a youthful fool of himself over a lonely countess, but perhaps if he told Jane more about life growing up in York, she might grasp why her husband was determined to have justice.
Not vengeance, justice.
“We’ll talk later all you like, Quinn. For now, please take me to bed.”
She kissed him, and he was lost.
* * *
Quinn’s absence had given Jane two weeks to gain her footing with his family and his staff, and to rest. She’d needed the rest desperately and would need more in the months to come. The past year had gone from grueling to disappointing to heartbreaking, the burden of anxiety alone wearing down her energy and her composure.
