By Love Undone

by Suzanne Enoch

  “We are pleased to have her here,” the older woman said. “I am Lady Halverston.”

  “Oh, yes,” Maddie said belatedly, blushing. “Mama, Lady Stokesley. Eloise, my mother, Lady Halverston.”

  “Charmed,” Eloise cooed, gripping the viscountess’s fingers. “Your daughter resembles you.”

  Lady Halverston chuckled with unbecoming amusement. “Thank you for the compliment, Lady Stokesley. Do come in.” She led the way into the drab morning room.

  It seemed Maddie was a better match for Dunfrey than she’d realized, Eloise thought. “I cannot stay,” she said hastily, contemplating with horror the idea of actually taking tea with the woman. “I thought Maddie might wish to accompany me on a picnic.”

  Maddie looked at her, something almost suspicious touching her vapidly innocent gaze for a moment. “Well, thank you, Eloise, but I really don’t—”

  “Hush, Maddie,” Lady Halverston interrupted. She put her hand on Eloise’s gloved one. “We’ve been having a little difficulty adjusting to Maddie’s return,” she confided with a smile. “I think a bit of fresh air with some friends will be just the thing to restore her spirits.”

  Not if I have anything to do with it. Lady Stokesley smiled warmly. “Say no more. Come with me, Maddie, my dear.”

  The girl hesitated again, glancing at her mother, then shrugged. “I’ll get my bonnet,” she said, and hurried out the door.

  “Thank you for your kindness to my daughter,” the viscountess said. “We never expected to see her again, and certainly not under such pleasant circumstances.”

  “Yes,” Eloise agreed. “I have already come to think of her as one of my dearest friends. And Quinlan—that is, Lord Warefield, my betrothed—speaks very highly of her.”

  “Lord Warefield does seem fond of Maddie. I think he was none too pleased when she left.”

  “We’re all sorry to see her leave.”

  Maddie hurried back into the morning room, her gloves and a pink bonnet clutched in one hand.

  “Ah, there you are, my dear. Let’s be off, shall we?” a291/>Eloise smiled as she led the way out to her coach. With the extremely helpful friends she had selected to join them, this was going to be so easy, it was almost pitiful. Almost.

  Chapter 15

  The Duchess of Highbarrow sat in her private room, sewing.

  Her favorite chair had been placed before the large window which overlooked the quiet street in front of the mansion, but she had no desire to look outside. She knew very well what was going on out there. A rather annoying clattering and clanging, which had begun below some forty minutes earlier, gave way to a rattling, clopping sound, and then slowly faded away into silence.

  Victoria’s hands stilled in her lap, and she sighed. She also knew what the absence of sound meant: her sons were gone again.

  It made sense. Quin had obviously stayed to keep an eye on Maddie, and Rafael had stayed because of Quin—and Maddie. Once she left, Quin spent an hour stomping about and pretending he wasn’t in a black temper. By teatime he had sent for his footmen at Whiting House and moved his things back home. And as he had over the past few years, Rafe went to stay with his brother.

  “Victoria?” The bellow echoed up from the hallway, the duke’s method of avoiding the necessity of asking the servants for the whereabouts of his wife.

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to, for Beeks would immediately inform his employer that she’d spent the afternoon in her private rooms and had asked not to be disturbed.

  A moment later the door opened. “Victoria?”

  “Yes?” She picked out her last row of stitches and began them over again. Apparently she hadn’t been paying very much attention to her work. She had paid attention to several other interesting things in the Bancroft household, though, and for the duke’s sake, he had better realize them as well—and soon.

  “Where’re the randy idiots and their mopsie?”

  “If you are referring to our sons and Miss Willits, they are gone.”

  He closed the door and went to look out the window. “Gone where?”

  “Maddie’s parents came to see her, and she left with them. Quinlan and Rafael went to Whiting House. You just missed them.”

  For a moment the duke said nothing as he gazed outside. “Good,” he muttered finally.

  The duchess set aside her sewing and looked up at her husband. “And why is that good?”

  He glanced back at her. “They were too damned noisy. It was like having a flock of geese about.”

  “And it’s much better now—so quiet you can hear the minute hand of the grandfather clock on the landing?”

  Slowly His Grace turned around. “Did you like all that nonsense?”

  “I liked having my sons home. We don’t see them very often, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “We’re busy folk.”

  Victoria shook her head. “Not that busy. They don’t like coming around, now that they don’t have to be here.”

  “I suppose you’re going to blame that on me. Well, I expect guests under my roof to abide by my laws. Always have.”

  “I know,” she said quietly.

  “And always will. If that’s too much for them, then they have no business being here. Glad they’re gone.” He nodded, as though attempting to convince himself of his own sincerity, and stalked out of the room again.

  Occasionally Victoria wondered what would happen if she pushed against his “laws” to the point of open defiance. She’d come close several times, usually with regard to Rafe and his high spirits, but somehow the duke had always managed to deflect or ignore the attack. Lately it had begun to occur to her that his avoidance was no accident—and in a way, that was comforting. He wanted her there, even if the only way he could show it was by ignoring her direct questions and pronouncements.

  The duchess picked up her sewing again. Such an obtuse method of rule couldn’t last forever, and whether Lewis Bancroft realized it or not, his kingdom had already begun to crumble at the edges. A bright, fiery sprite had entered their lives, and nothing would ever be the same. She glanced out the window toward the light blue, cloud-patched sky. Her sons would certainly never be the same. One of them in particular.

  The mutterings began well before Maddie arrived. Quin pretended not to hear them, while carefully tracing their source.

  By now they’d spread across the Garrington ballroom, invading nearly every nook and cranny, but the center of the disturbance seemed to be a large group of his most intimate acquaintances. He stopped beside a potted plant and watched them for a moment as they chatted and laughed and managed to exclude all social inferiors by not even noting their presence.

  As usual, the main attraction of the group seemed to be his second cousin, and as she leaned sideways to whisper into another intimate’s ear, Quin decided he had several rather pointed questions to ask her.

  “Eloise?” he said, strolling out from his hiding place and stopping beside her. “I hadn’t expected to see you so early in the evening. You look lovely, as always.”

  She held out her hand for him to take. “It looked to be a sad crush, and I didn’t want to have to wade in through the mud and horseshit.” Her faithful circle of companions laughed, and she snapped her fan playfully. “Well, it’s true, you know.”

  Quin smiled, unamused, and tucked her hand around his arm. “Might I have a word with you? And a waltz, of course, if you’ve still one unclaimed.”

  “I always leave one for you. Excuse me, ladies. My future husband would like to speak to me—in private.”

  The two of them strolled toward the wide doors that opened out onto the balcony, and with a glance into the half darkness, they stepped outside.

  “Ah,” Eloise murmured. “Alone at last.” With another look around them and down at the darkened garden below, she slipped her hands up on either side of his face, and leaned up to kiss him slowly and deeply.

  It was the first time she’d exhibited any kind of passion towar
d him, and at the moment he wasn’t particularly interested. Not in her, anyway. “What was that for?” he asked as they parted.

  “Just to remind you that our marriage will be more than a union of names and wealth. I think you’d forgotten that.”

  Recently his views of what a marriage should be had changed. “When did you decide that?” he asked.

  She reached up to touch his cheek again, apparently undaunted by his cool tone. “Oh, Quin, we’ve known one another for so long. Sometimes I think it would have been better if our parents had kept us apart until it was time for us to marry.”

  Quin nodded. “You favor an element of mystery, I suppose?”

  “No, not really. But sometimes I almost believe you think of me as a sister, or something equally awful.”

  “I don’t, Eloise. But I do think of you as a friend.” Or rather, he had, until the last few days. Quin lifted her hand away from his face and held it. “And as a friend, I’d like an explanation.”

  Her delicate brow furrowed. “An explanation of what?”

  Quin looked down at her for a moment, wondering when, precisely, he’d ceased to think of her as a potential mate. Probably the moment he had set eyes on Madeleine Willits. “Did you go somewhere with Maddie today?”

  She yanked her hand free. “I’m trying to seduce you, and you still ask me about her?”

  “Eloise, she’s here in London because of me,” he returned flatly. “She’s my responsibility. I have an obligation to look—”

  “She is not your responsibility. She is her own responsibility. You didn’t ruin her, Quin. You had nothing to do with it.”

  That wasn’t exactly true anymore, but as he didn’t want to begin a shouting match, he nodded. “All right. But tell me what happened today.”

  “Nothing happened. I invited her on a picnic, as we’d discussed, and—”

  “We discussed taking her on a picnic,” Quin agreed. “With mutual friends attending.”

  “Oh, Quin, don’t you see? You already spend nearly every day with her. You’re not helping her by accompanying her everywhere. Besides, everything was fine. She did very well.”

  He continued to watch her, looking for any sign that she could actually be as devious as he had begun to suspect. “Not according to what I’ve been hearing tonight.”

  “What have you been hearing?” she asked, meeting his gaze evenly.

  She could be telling the truth, he supposed, and truly knew nothing of the widely circulating rumors. But for the first time, he doubted her word. “I heard that she suggested you and your female friends leave so she could enjoy the company of Lord Bramell and Lionel Humphries in private.”

  Eloise clapped her hand over her mouth, but the expression in her eyes wasn’t all that surprised. “Nothing of the sort happened! John and Lionel were there, of course, because you know they always attend such things, but—I mean—when Lady Catherine Prentice arrived, we all went to see her new setter puppy, but Maddie was alone with John and Lionel for only a moment. Two at most.”

  “You shouldn’t have left her alone.”

  “She wanted to stay behind, Quin. I couldn’t drag her across the park, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Damnation,” he swore softly. Maddie knew better. Anything she did—anything—whether innocent or not, would be viewed in the worst light possible by her fellows. To stay behind, alone with two single gentlemen, was worse than stupid. And Maddie wasn’t stupid. Far from it.

  But neither was Eloise. He looked at her speculatively. If his suspicions were correct, Eloise had a great deal of explaining to do. In all fairness, though, his mind didn’t exactly work to perfection where Miss Willits was concerned, and he had no proof. Blind in love with Maddie or not, he couldn’t accuse Lady Stokesley until he knew for certain that she was guilty of sabotage.

  “Just remember, Quin, in a month’s time you won’t be able to claim poor Maddie as your responsibility any longer.” She leaned up against him, her short blond curls tickling his cheek. “That will be me.”

  “I remember.” He wondered why he hadn’t always found her so self-centered and cloying. “We’d best go back inside, or we’ll be starting some rumors of our own.”

  He escorted her back to their group of friends and spent the next hour dividing his attention between polite conversation and keeping an eye on the ballroom doorway. Rafe had said Maddie would be attending. He’d also said a few other things, at a rather high volume, and Quin intended to take care of those issues as soon as Miss Willits arrived.

  Finally, late enough that she’d likely fought against coming, Maddie and her parents arrived. Quin’s breath caught at the sight of her, glorious in green and gray. He watched her take stock of the room and the other guests, and he knew precisely when she decided she didn’t want to be there.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” he said, to whomever happened to be listening, and started across the room toward her. He couldn’t help himself. He craved her like he breathed air.

  Rafe, obviously making use of his military skills, damn him, reached her first. “Good evening, my dear.” He took her hand. “So pleased you could join us this evening.”

  Quin made a valiant attempt not to break into a full-on charge. It would never do for the Bancroft brothers to begin a tug-of-war over her in the middle of the ballroom. He stopped beside her. “Miss Willits.” He smiled, stealing her hand from Rafael’s grip and lifting it to his lips. “You look…stunning.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” she said, meeting his eyes and then looking quickly away. “Do let go of my hand.”

  He complied reluctantly. It seemed like days, rather than hours, since he had seen her last, and he wanted—needed—to touch her. “May I have a waltz with you?”

  “I don’t think you should,” she said, still gazing determinedly at the punch bowl on the refreshment table.

  “I do,” he answered.

  “No.”

  “Yes.” As usual when he argued with her, Quin began to feel as if he was beating his head against a brick wall.

  “Better do as he says, Maddie,” Rafe put in, for once helpful. “But save one for me as well.”

  She smiled and looked at him. “Of course I will.”

  Quin didn’t like that. Blast it, now he wanted to pummel people insensible just because she was smiling at them. Somehow, somewhere, he had completely lost control—and the oddest part was, he didn’t mind it all that much.

  Before he could ask her what in God’s name had happened at the picnic, the orchestra began playing again, and he had to excuse himself to dance with his designated partner. For a moment he thought Maddie would have to remain alone beside her parents at the end of the room, but the Duchess of Highbarrow appeared from nowhere and led the Willits family off for a chat.

  Whatever orders His Grace had given his wife regarding her assisting Maddie, she seemed to be ignoring them. He would have to call on her tomorrow and thank her: she’d just seen to it that Maddie would have partners for any dance she wished.

  And so he danced a quadrille with that young lady, and a country dance with this one, and the entire time he kept his attention on Maddie. When Rafe claimed her hand for the first waltz of the evening, he barely managed to wipe the scowl from his face before he went to fetch Eloise.

  “Rafael seems quite fond of Maddie,” Eloise purred, as they circled grandly about the crowded room. “Do you think he might offer for her?”

  “No,” he answered sharply, glancing at the smiling couple again.

  “No, I suppose not,” she agreed smoothly. “Whatever Rafael’s standards might be, your father would never allow such a poor match.”

  That caught his attention again. “What do you know of Rafe’s standards?” he asked.

  “Oh, just speculation,” she returned. “I have to admit, though, they do look rather good together.”

  Yes, they did. Tall and muscular, with slightly tousled hair the color of ripened wheat and an easy grin made a little lopsided by the
scar on his cheek, Rafe would look good with anyone. And Maddie, tonight wearing Quin’s favorite gown because it brought out the gray of her eyes, her auburn hair piled high with curling wisps framing her face, was absolutely mesmerizing.

  “So you think her a poor candidate for marriage to a peer?” he pursued, wondering how she would reply.

  “Despite your commendable efforts, my dear, how could I think anything else?”

  Quin nodded, remembering Eloise throwing tea at a servant, and Maddie slipping down to the kitchen to patch him up. “Then you were being kind to her only for my sake?” he continued.

  “I like her, of course,” Eloise retorted, her expression exasperated. “I’d like her more if you didn’t seem so fond of her.”

  “Or if she was a social equal,” he added.

  “You make that sound like a bad thing. We all have standards to uphold, Quin. Especially you.”

  Quin nodded, wondering if she could sense his grow ing disgust. “Yes, I do. Thank you for reminding me,” he said softly.

  She smiled coyly at him. “You’re welcome, my love.”

  By God, Eloise could be a snob. He realized how very much he disliked her, though he wondered how he might have reacted to Maddie’s unexpected return to London, if he hadn’t become acquainted with her first. Quin stifled a completely inappropriate grin. It was more accurate to admit that she’d pummeled him to his senses.

  If Eloise had simply stated that she didn’t like Maddie, and that she felt threatened by her presence, he could have accepted it. In fact, her honesty would have made him feel an absolute cad. But she’d been devious, and lied, and apparently had set Maddie up for several scandalous episodes. He couldn’t help falling in love with Maddie, but he could help how he dealt with it. And Eloise was making the choice a surprisingly easy one.