Page 74 of My One and Only Duke
Chapter Nineteen
Holding Jane while she dozed was exactly the ambush Quinn had feared it would be. The daft woman liked swiving him, liked touching him, liked talking with him. The touching was bad enough—Quinn well knew the danger of sweet touches—but the talking would be his doom.
For Jane not only expressed herself well, she listened.
“I’ll be back,” she said, pushing up off his chest and scampering to the privacy screen.
Quinn had not even bothered to get that damned shift off of her, hadn’t done a moment’s homage to her breasts. Maybe next time…if there was a next time.
Jane came back to the bed by way of the hearth, where she banked the fire for the night. “You never did tell me exactly what business awaited you in York.”
She resumed her place straddling him, cuddled to his chest, a fiendishly distracting interrogation posture.
“I’ll be ready to go again with no provocation whatsoever, Jane. Mind yourself accordingly.”
She drew her fingernail in a circle around his right nipple. “Go? To York?”
He flexed his hips. “No, love. Not to York.”
“Ah, well then.” She kissed him and drew the covers up over them both. “I’ll be ready to go again too. Tell me about York. You are very dear to pay a call on an old friend.”
“I stay with Mrs. D when I have to visit York. She doesn’t let on that I’m in town, and between her and her daughter, they hear most of the market gossip.” Quinn also paid for the roof over Mrs. Dougherty’s head and the food in her larder, as much out of loyalty to a former fellow combatant as to twit Lord and Lady Tipton.
“Gordie was a great one for gossip and it led to his death.”
Quinn had brought up Jane’s late husband before they’d climbed into bed, thinking to make an awkward situation easier. Clearly her mourning for Captain MacGowan included some anger.
“Gossip doesn’t fire real bullets, Jane. I understand that you loved him, but any soldier would know dueling is dangerous.”
Jane nuzzled Quinn’s neck, her nose cool against his skin. “The danger in Gordie’s case was stubborn arrogance. The older brother of a fellow officer made some comment about me, or about a new husband who chose to drink rather than enjoy his wife’s company—nobody told me the details. All I know is, Gordie brooded and paced and drank, and then he hunted through half the pubs in London, until he found the man who’d made the comment.”
The moment should have been marital—a confidence shared between a wife and her husband amid warm blankets, while the pleasure of lovemaking yet lingered. Quinn stroked Jane’s hair and silently cursed Gordie MacGowan.
“You tried to talk him out of this foolishness, I take it?”
“Quinn, I wept, I bellowed, I threatened, I begged, and all he’d say was that a slight to my honor must be avenged. He would not let it go, and now he’s dead.”
Let sleeping dogs lie. Forgive and forget. “I don’t intend to stand in front of any loaded guns on account of a few stupid words, Jane. You may rest easy on that score.” Nothing less than public disgrace would do for Quinn’s enemy. “I didn’t work myself to a shadow, ignore gossip without limit, and pinch pennies until they screamed just so some drunken lordling could put period to my existence.”
Not when married life included pleasures such as falling asleep with Jane draped over him like a contented cat.
“I married a brilliant man.”
“You married a determined man.” Also one who couldn’t think when his naked wife wiggled about like that. “Jane, have mercy.”
She peered at him, even her expression catlike in its impatience. “We are husband and wife. I have missed you. I am awash in the glow of newfound delights, and you turn up missish. I know I’m not the stuff of naughty fantasies, but the midwife said that a certain abundance of appetite in regard to—”
He put a gentle hand over her mouth. “For the love of God, Jane, hush. These delights are newfound for me as well.”
And more precious than she could possibly know.
She slowly pushed his hand away, then winnowed her fingers through his hair. “You’ll look a fright in the morning, going to bed with wet hair. What do you mean, these delights are newfound for you too? You are so far beyond handsome that words fail, and you have scandalously abundant means, according to your siblings. I am benefitting from your amatory experience, of course, but my comprehension in certain areas…What do you mean?”
Quinn cradled the back of her head, urging her to snuggle so he’d at least not have to look her in the eye. She thought him handsome. Not hulking, coarse, or common. Not pretty either.
“When a man has a certain vitality,” Quinn said, “the attention that comes his way is the same as that aimed at a prancing colt. All and sundry assume the ride will be spirited in a purely athletic sense, and that the colt is eager for the outing. If the stud is afraid of rabbits, backsore, or missing his pasture mates, that’s of no moment. He’s to charge and leap on command, while his rider shows off her new habit and her fancy mount. I learned that I did not care to be that stud colt.”
Please let her understand. Let that be explanation enough forever.
