Page 8 of My One and Only Duke
A sense of sweetness stole over Quinn, of innocence in the midst of insanity. Miss Winston was fond of cats, apparently, and Plato was fond of the butter he’d soon try to lick from the fingers of Miss Winston’s right hand. For a moment, everything—the stink and noise of Newgate, the reality of death a week from Monday, the vague worry about what Ned and Davies were up to—receded as woman and cat charmed each other.
“He’ll get hair all over your skirts.”
She sat back. “Do I strike you as a woman who has the luxury of taking exception to cat hair?”
Well, yes, she did, or she should have. Miss Winston should have had a maid brushing out her hair every night, bringing her chocolate first thing in the day, and fretting over her wardrobe. Not her two gray dresses, her wardrobe.
Quinn went to the sideboard and extracted twenty shiny coins. He took them to the table, tied them up in his last monogrammed handkerchief, and slid it across.
“A bit extra,” he said, “in case any of the parties involved require additional remuneration. Any excess you may keep for yourself.”
She put the cat on the carpet and set about untying the bundle. “That is not necessary, Mr. Wentworth. I’d free every nonviolent offender on the premises, every child, every—” She fell silent until she’d worked the knot loose and spread the coins on the square of linen.
“This is twenty pounds.” Miss Winston struck Quinn as a woman of great self-possession, and yet she was agog at the sum on the table. Once upon a time, twenty pounds would have been a fortune to him too.
“You said ten pounds would see Ned free. That means a great deal to me.” Though Quinn wasn’t about to examine why Ned’s freedom meant anything at all. A last gesture of defiance, perhaps, or a sop to a conscience past redeeming.
“But that’s ten pounds too much.”
“Is it? Complicated sums have ever defeated me.”
She looked up sharply. “Do not mock me.”
“Never disdain money, Miss Winston. The coin is innocent of wrongdoing, and you can use a new pair of gloves.”
Quinn brushed a few crumbs from the table and dusted them onto the windowsill. Birds would feast on them, and Ned would delight in the birds.
“What are you doing?” Miss Winston asked.
“Feeding pigeons. And you?”
As Quinn had swept the crumbs into his palm, she had done likewise with the coins, then tied them up in the handkerchief.
“I should not take your money,” she said. “Not more than the ten pounds agreed to. One behaves charitably and properly for the pleasure of doing the right thing.”
She believed that twaddle, which was a sign of either great integrity or a weakness of the mind.
“So allow me this small, final pleasure.” That was bad of him, bringing death into the conversation. Doubtless the Almighty had added another year on to the eternity Quinn would spend regretting a life largely wasted.
Miss Winston stuffed the coins into a pocket of her cloak. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because a week from Monday, I will hang from my neck until, gasping, choking, and soiling myself, I die. I would like to be recalled as something more than a fine show for the guards on a Monday morning.”
She put a hand to her throat, the first indication that she wasn’t impervious to the brutality of Newgate.
“You haven’t eaten your gingerbread,” she said.
He broke it in two and held out half the slice. Miss Winston looked at the treat, then at him, then at the treat. She must have had a fondness for gingerbread, because she took the proffered sweet.
They ate in silence, while Quinn studied his companion. Was she pale today? Tired? Resentful of her father? Or had arranging Ned’s escape taxed her composure? Something about the lady was off. If he’d met her at the bank, he would have put her in the category of customers about to explain a late payment but not yet in default.
“I apologize for my remark about your gloves,” Quinn said. “You have gloves. Mine were among the first casualties of the local economy.”
She took a considering sip of her lemonade. “But you have coin.”
“I do now. That took some time and ingenuity.” How that had stung, to be a banker without coin, without anything of value. Then old skills had reasserted themselves, and Quinn had bartered his way into a private cell and regular meals. The rest had been common sense and the inertia of a population for whom ingenuity was the difference between life and death.
“This lemonade is quite sweet,” Miss Winston said, wrinkling her nose. “Or perhaps I’ve grown unused to anything made with sugar.”
