My One and Only Duke--Includes a bonus novella

by Grace Burrowes

  The coach swayed around a corner, while Quinn made himself wait for Jane’s answer. He could go on, elaborating settlement terms—pin money, dower portions, morning gifts, life estates, and so forth. He could warn Jane in detail regarding the obstreperous trio he called siblings, or he could ask her if she had any more questions.

  This was not, however, a negotiation at the bank.

  “You mention children, plural,” Jane said. “You expect to have a family with me.”

  A duke was expected to have heirs. Quinn had come to this realization while soaking in the first tub of truly hot water he’d enjoyed in weeks. For himself, he wanted nothing to do with a title, much less with paying off debts the king was too miserly to take on. Nonetheless, Quinn was damned if he’d set an ailing dukedom to rights just so the Crown could snatch his wealth away through escheat.

  “I would like to have a family with you.”

  She treated him to a frowning perusal. “Why haven’t you married? You’re well to do, gorgeous, and temperate.”

  “Because I have been busy becoming well to do, and any woman who’d leap at a man simply because an accident of nature made him attractive is asking for trouble.”

  She laughed. “Touché, Mr. Wentworth, and Gordie was far from temperate. Still, you are a handsome devil, you can be charming, and you’re of age.”

  Quinn had no problem discussing money, which was vulgar of him in the extreme. Discussing his appeal to women made him want to dive from the moving coach.

  “My antecedents are lowly, my trade is finance, and my nature is difficult. I hold mortgages on nearly a quarter of the recently purchased homes in Mayfair, and can’t ride in the park without running into some viscount or baron who has sought an unsecured loan from my bank. The only club to admit me hasn’t a lord to its name. Finding a young lady who can overlook my shortcomings would require time I don’t have.”

  Quinn was being honest, though soon enough, Jane would find out how very lowly his antecedents were—and how lofty his title. He refused to tempt her with a tiara, though, when he’d be the man sharing her bed.

  “I like you,” Jane said, which pronouncement left Quinn more uneasy than ever. “You were decent to Ned and Davies. You fed the birds.”

  He’d fed the birds for entertainment. “Ned and Davies will be employed in my household, as will Susie, Penny, and Sophie, if they so choose.”

  “I also respect you.”

  What in seven flaming hells was he to say to that?

  “We spoke vows,” Jane went on. “I did not anticipate becoming your wife, but I much prefer it to being your widow. I’ll honor my vows if you’ll honor yours.”

  “I keep my word, Jane.” Quinn reserved for later the matter of Jane’s firstborn, for sad to say, birth could be fatal for both mother and infant.

  She let her weight sink against his side. “Then we shall be man and wife, Mr. Wentworth, until death do us part, shouting matches and all.”

  “Man and wife,” he said. “For better or for worse, and all the rest of it. I have siblings. They come under the ‘worse’ heading. Let me tell you about them.”

  Chapter Nine

  “You are dithering,” Joshua said. “You’ve nothing to dither about. Your family is ecstatic that you’ve been pardoned. Even Duncan was offering toasts to your continued good health when I left your house, and he’s the next thing to a Presbyterian. Now he can boast that his cousin is a duke.”

  Quinn tugged at the cravat that Joshua’s valet had tied too snugly around a brutally sore and abraded neck.

  “Are you ecstatic at my continued good health?” Quinn asked.

  And how long did one woman need to soak in a bathtub before she’d completed her ablutions? More than an hour ago Joshua’s housekeeper had whisked Jane abovestairs, muttering about daft men and a lady’s nerves.

  “What sort of question is that?” Joshua retorted, opening a desk drawer and extracting a deck of cards.

  They waited in Joshua’s library, which in bachelor quarters doubled as an office and game room. Joshua pulled out a chair opposite Quinn at an ingenious little table that could be used for chess, backgammon, cards, writing, and several other tasks, depending on which hidden lever Joshua manipulated.

  Joshua Penrose liked his intrigues.

  “Somebody put my neck in that noose,” Quinn said. “The usual motives are greed, revenge, or passion. I haven’t inspired anybody’s passion for years, I am scrupulously fair in all my financial dealings, and you benefitted the most by my death.”

  Joshua dealt cards with the smooth practice of an expert—or an expert cheat. “In your shoes, I’d ask the same question, which is why I won’t lay you out flat for your suspicions. If you’re looking for who benefitted from your death, all of your family members did, but the charities stood to gain the most and I doubt they had any inkling of their impending good fortune. How long can one woman soak in a bathtub?”

  “My wife may take as long as she pleases.” Though even Quinn, desperate to wash off the stink of prison, hadn’t been able to linger more than a half hour at his bath.

  He’d detoured back to Joshua’s town house with Jane because the Wentworth residence was yet mobbed with reporters. Even that menace would not prevent Quinn from spending the night in his own bed.

  A desultory hand of piquet ensued, one of thousands Quinn and Joshua had played when no food was to be had and no fuel was to be burned. Soldiers did likewise, whiling away the evening before battle.

  Quinn tossed down his cards twenty minutes later. Joshua was either distracted or he was letting Quinn win.

  “What did you tell my family about Jane?” Quinn asked.

  “That you had taken a bride and would be bringing her home to them. Shall I deal again?”

  A soft tap on the door nearly startled Quinn out of his chair, though he moved not at all. Prison had brought forth the reflexes that had kept him alive as a boy.

  The housekeeper, a prim article who likely regarded mud on the carpets as a sign of the end times, opened the door and stood aside so Jane could enter the room. The dress Joshua had found for her was aubergine velvet, suitable for a new widow newly remarried, also suitable for a woman in anticipation of an interesting event.

  Quinn stood. “Madam.”

  Joshua rose and bowed. “Ma’am.” His manners were a dig at Quinn. They did that for each other, kept one another alert and aware.

  She curtsyed with unhurried grace. “Mr. Wentworth, Mr. Penrose.”

  “You may be excused,” Quinn said to the housekeeper, “and please have my coach brought around.” The inevitable had been put off as long as possible, and interrogating Joshua would get Quinn nowhere.

  The housekeeper remained by the door. “Mrs. Wentworth?”

  Jane’s confusion was fleeting, showing mostly in her eyes. She was Mrs. Wentworth, until Quinn found a way to explain that she was Her Grace of Walden.

  “You are excused, Mrs. Gaunt. My thanks for your assistance.”

  Some sort of alliance had formed between the women in the space of one bath. That was good, because Jane would need allies.

  “Penrose,” Quinn said, “my thanks for your assistance as well. I’ll see you at the bank tomorrow.”

  Joshua was wearing his harmless, charming look, which meant he was up to no good. “You are newly married and newly risen from the almost-dead. Mightn’t you want to spend some time with your family before resuming your duties at the bank?”

  Jane watched this exchange with veiled curiosity.

  “I will spend the balance of the afternoon at home,” Quinn said, “and endure as much of my family’s joy as one day can hold, but then I have business to attend to.”

  The business of finding and putting period to an enemy, first and foremost.

  “I will wish you both good day,” Joshua said, “and extend my sincere felicitations on your nuptials.”

  He accompanied them to the front door, and an awkward silence ensued while Quinn wai
ted for his coach to arrive and Jane discreetly gawked at the stormy Dutch seascapes displayed on Joshua’s walls.

  Silence had always been a friend to Quinn, assuring him his father was away from home or sleeping off another drunk in his filthy bed. Silence had remained an ally in the banking business, because customers who’d mis-stepped prattled of their stupidity when Quinn allowed a silence to last too long.

  Silence was uncomfortable now, because it was shared with Jane and Joshua and the butler hovering near the porter’s nook.

  “Will you undertake a wedding journey?” Joshua asked.

  Trying to get rid of me? “Perhaps later,” Quinn said. “My wife’s health must come before any other consideration.”

  Her health and her safety, for somebody’s scheme had been thwarted by that royal pardon, and that somebody had wanted Quinn dead. Such a person might think little of hurting Jane or her child in a second attempt at ruining Quinn.

  The coach pulled up and Quinn once again took his place beside Jane inside. To have company in the carriage was different. Quinn’s sisters had their own conveyance, while Stephen preferred traveling on horseback if he had to go any distance.

  Jane remained quiet as the coach pulled into the street.

  “Did you have anything to eat?” Quinn asked. The new Mrs. Wentworth had had a trying day, and her condition was delicate.

  “The housekeeper brought me some ginger biscuits with the tea tray. I was in heaven.”

  While Quinn had spent the past month in hell’s family parlor. “We didn’t finish discussing my siblings.” Though where to start?

  “I don’t expect them to like me,” Jane said, smoothing a hand over her velvet skirts. “We don’t have that sort of marriage. I’ll be agreeable, Mr. Wentworth. I excel at being agreeable when needs must.”

  “You sound determined on your penance.” Also surprisingly fierce. Alas, Quinn hadn’t an agreeable bone in his body.

  “You were kind to me when I was in desperate need of kindness. I’ll endure much to repay that consideration.”

  She saw the marriage as a bargain, a transaction. Quinn understood business dealings, so a commercial frame of reference ought to suffice.

  Except it didn’t. “My family might be unruly when they greet me. Loud, undignified.” Foul-mouthed, if they’d been at the brandy. Constance could swear like a sailor, though she usually exercised restraint out of deference to Duncan’s delicate sensibilities.

  Jane took Quinn’s hand. “I was loud and undignified when I saw you, also overjoyed.”

  She had hugged him as if he’d been a prodigal son lost in a hostile land during a time of famine.

  “I will not be undignified,” Quinn said. “I am disinclined to displays of passionate sentiment.” He could not engage in displays of passionate sentiment was the more accurate admission.

  “No matter,” Jane said, stifling a yawn. “In my present condition, I’m the next thing to a watering pot. I’m not half so interested in maintaining my figure as I am in maintaining my dignity, all to no avail. I’ll doubtless be sentimental enough for the both of us.”

  “Are you interested in taking a nap?”

  Jane looked unwell to him. The dark dress accentuated her pallor and her fatigue, and ginger biscuits weren’t the steak and kidney pie she ought to be eating.

  “I have become prodigiously talented at appearing awake,” Jane said. “Before I retire yet again, you will introduce me to your family, please, for they will be my family now too.”

  She alluded to some bit of scripture, a laughable source of authority in the life of Quinn Wentworth. As the coach horses clip-clopped along, Quinn turned his mind to the list of suspects he’d pursue starting first thing tomorrow.

  Joshua most likely did not belong on that list. He had an abiding respect for money, as would anybody raised in Yorkshire poverty, but more than money, Joshua Penrose had a taste for power. He liked the role of éminence grise, influencing parliamentary debates, bringing down enemies by stealth and indirection.

  Having Quinn arrested for a hanging felony was indirect but hardly stealthy. Still, Joshua bore watching.

  As did Quinn’s family.

  Quinn’s younger half-siblings had withstood Jack Wentworth’s dubious care for years before Quinn had been able to intervene. Stephen, Althea, and Constance lacked a motive to kill him, though, unless resentment qualified. Jack Wentworth was to blame for Stephen’s ill health, and God alone knew what horrors Althea and Constance had borne.

  “Are you worried?” Jane asked.

  Determined. “Like you, I am plagued by fatigue. Perhaps the relief of a pardon has that effect.” Or the weeks in Newgate, unable to sleep, unable to find quiet, unable to pursue true justice.

  “Then I’ll see that your siblings don’t keep you overlong. They must reassure themselves that you’re alive and well, but you shall be allowed your rest.”

  Jane subsided against him, not exactly a cuddle—Quinn wouldn’t know a cuddle if it pounced on him in a dark alley—but something wifely and trusting.

  How odd. Of all the people in Quinn’s life—family, business associates, employees, enemies, neighbors, and old acquaintances—Jane alone was free from suspicion.

  Perhaps that in itself ought to make Quinn cautious with her, but he could not sustain the burden of such zealous vigilance. She was expecting a child, without means, and all but a stranger to him.

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and steeled himself to endure his family’s welcome.

  * * *

  “Pardoned, can you believe it?” Beatrice, Countess of Tipton, crumpled up the handbill, intent on hurling it into the dustbin, then thought better of the impulse. She would read it again, read every word, when she had privacy.

  These little announcements—a combination of obituary and lurid fiction passed out at executions—were popular with the lower orders. The printer would be sold out by sundown, and a woman of Beatrice’s station wasn’t likely to come by another copy.

  “How can so much resilience and good fortune attach itself to such an unworthy object?” she asked, pacing before the fire. “How can a man who’s earned the enmity of half the good families in the realm, a jumped-up gutter rat in fine tailoring, earn the clemency of the very king?”

  A handsome, shrewd jumped-up gutter rat. Beatrice had noticed Quinn Wentworth’s good looks too soon and seen the shrewdness too late.

  “Perhaps Wentworth’s wealth played a role?” The Hon. Ulysses Lloyd-Chapman had casually passed over the handbill, as any caller would share the gossip of the day. Ulysses was Beatrice’s favorite sort of man—handsome, idle, venal—but what did he know about her connection to Quinn Wentworth and how had he learned of it?

  “Money should have resulted in a verdict of innocence,” Beatrice retorted, “if money had been effective. Might you add some coal to the fire? The afternoon grows chilly.”

  The afternoon was no colder than most April afternoons. Beatrice simply liked giving orders, especially to men.

  Ulysses rose gracefully, prowled over to the hearth, and put half a scoop of coal on the flames. He was a blond lion of a male specimen, though in later years he might run soft about the middle. He set the scoop back on the hearth stand.

  On Beatrice’s next circuit of the room, he made an elaborate, mocking bow.

  Subtlety was a lost art. Quinn had been subtle, damn and drat him. “What are they saying in the clubs?” Beatrice asked.

  “About Wentworth?” Ulysses lounged against the piano, looking both elegant and indolent. “The usual: He has the devil’s own good luck, he’s the symbol of everything wrong with society today, where did he get his money?”

  Beatrice had some suspicions regarding that last item. She wasn’t about to share them with Ulysses.

  She patted his cravat, adding a few creases to his valet’s artistry. “If that’s all you know of the matter, then you’d best be on your way. Give your sisters my love.”

  Ulysses caught h
er hand in his and kissed her bare knuckles. “The Fashionable Hour approaches. By the time you’ve donned your finery, I can have my phaeton on your doorstep. The park will be full of the latest news, and Wentworth is bound to figure in several conversations.”

  They would be quiet conversations, for nobody admitted to borrowing coin from Quinn Wentworth; nobody admitted to wishing him dead either.

  Ulysses kept hold of Beatrice’s hand, stroking his thumb gently over her knuckles.

  The wretch was coming to know her too well. “Away with you. My finery is not donned in an instant.”

  He kissed her cheek, a small effrontery. “As my lady wishes.”

  Ulysses sauntered off, letting himself out of Beatrice’s personal parlor. He wasn’t Quinn Wentworth—the Creator had fashioned only one Quinn Wentworth—but then, Quinn had caused far too much trouble in the end.

  And he was causing trouble still.

  * * *

  “This is where you live?” Jane asked as the coach slowed on a quiet Mayfair side street. The trees were leafing out, though most of the stoops and porches had yet to boast of flowers. A competitive display of housekeeping wasn’t required here, in other words. This neighborhood was built on established wealth rather than the upstart variety.

  “I live a short distance away,” Mr. Wentworth said. “My front steps are aswarm with that variety of pestilence known as the London journalist. We’ll make a private approach to the family abode.”

  The carriage stopped. The door opened. Mr. Wentworth emerged first, then turned to assist Jane, who felt more like sleeping for a week than trotting all over London. She had barely gained her balance when Mr. Wentworth escorted her across the street to a plain coach drawn by bays whose white socks didn’t quite match.

  Respectable rather than showy. The larger vehicle drove away, and one footman attached himself to the back of the humbler conveyance. The interior of the smaller coach was spotless and comfortable, though less roomy.

  “You live a complicated life,” Jane said as her husband took the place beside her.