Althea moved the brandy aside before Constance could serve herself more spirits. Ladies also did not take spirits, except for the occasional medicinal serving, but Althea and Constance had likely imbibed their first taste of gin while still at the breast.
“I do wonder how she gained Quinn’s notice,” Stephen said. “He’s had plenty of options where the fair sex is concerned.”
Althea rose to set the brandy on the sideboard. “We can’t know what it was like for him to face such a death. He was supposed to die for somebody’s convenience, despite his innocence, despite his wealth. That could change a man’s heart.”
Quinn had no heart, beyond a wild beast’s devotion to its pack. Duncan reached that conclusion without judging his cousin. Quinn had been raised in hell and managed as best he could. The damage was lamentable but permanent, and the resulting lack of sentiment had made Quinn an enviably successful banker.
“You are certain of his innocence,” Duncan pointed out. “Most of London is certain of his guilt.”
“Fine thing,” Constance said, rising and shaking out her skirts. “You put your feet under Quinn’s table, take his coin, and call him cousin, but you don’t defend him.”
What need had Quinn of a defense when his siblings were on hand to pour boiling oil from the parapets? “I merely make an observation, and you have never once heard me condemn or criticize Quinn Wentworth.”
“You’re wrong about all of London thinking him guilty.” Stephen’s comment embodied an adolescent’s oblivion to conversational subtleties. “The lords and MPs who owe Quinn money were doubtless happy to see him brought low. I don’t think the real people—the people who work and worry and strive—feel that way about him. They know he’s pulled himself up from nothing, and they respect him for it.”
“I respect him too,” Duncan said, lest Stephen’s ferocious loyalty be stirred into a passion. “Apparently the king does as well.”
Constance tipped her glass to her lips to shake a final drop into her mouth. “I was rather looking forward to having my own property, truth be told. I could get away from you lot and from Quinn’s infernal hovering.”
“Constance.” Althea’s tone was chiding rather than dismayed. The Wentworths raised blunt discourse to dizzying heights, a refreshing change from the hypocrisy of the academics and clerics with whom Duncan had come of age.
“Don’t let us keep you,” Stephen said cheerfully. “If you’re determined to leave London, talk to Quinn. The brandy will last longer without you here.”
Nasty boy, but then, Constance was a bitter young woman, and Stephen could not afford to be tenderhearted.
“I’d miss you,” Duncan said. “You keep us honest.” Such as the Wentworths could be honest.
Constance set her empty glass on the sideboard. “Quinn doesn’t know what to do with her.”
She refused to say Jane’s name, which spoke volumes about this desire to leave the household.
“Quinn will get her sorted out,” Stephen said, finishing his drink. “He’s resourceful.”
“We shall all adjust,” Althea snapped. “Jane is family now and Quinn’s wife. She married him thinking to be widowed again today, and she’ll have some adjusting of her own to do.”
“Truer words…” Duncan murmured, getting to his feet. “I have translations to work on, so I’ll leave you three to dissect Jane’s character in peace. You might consider that she faces the daunting prospect of childbirth among strangers, and the woman does not look well to me.”
“She looks uncomfortable,” Constance said. “Hard to hate somebody who barely nibbles her biscuits.”
And hard to know how to go on in the absence of enmity. Duncan often wondered who lived with the greater pain: Stephen with his injured leg, Constance with her injured heart, or Althea, buffeted between love for, and exasperation with, her siblings. And then there was Quinn, who had doubtless lost the ability to admit any suffering before he’d been breeched.
“Perhaps Jane will be a good influence on us.” Duncan left his cousins snickering at what had been a sincere hope, rather than a jest. He’d tried for years to exert a civilizing influence on his family, to no avail whatsoever.
So he’d given up trying, and they’d all been happier as a result.
* * *
Jane drifted amid the blissful comfort of a well-stuffed mattress, clean linen, soft blankets, and the soothing scent of her husband. In sleep she’d shifted closer to him, her belly to his back. The rhythm of his breathing suggested he slumbered on, a comforting presence, as opposed to Gordie’s pawing and thrashing.
And snoring.
And worse. Jane’s first transition to married life had consisted of that wild trip to Scotland—accomplished one rocking, jouncing mile after another—a few seedy inns, and Gordie rocking and jouncing on top of her at those seedy inns.
Eloping had been expedient rather than romantic. She saw that with the perfect hindsight of regret. No banns, no opportunity for the naïve bride to give in to second thoughts, crawl home, and beg her papa’s forgiveness.
And then, just as she’d been reeling with the enormity of the mistake she’d made—Gordie drank, he consorted with other women, he squandered his half pay—he’d died.
Relief, sorrow, and guilt had had a moment to compete for the status of greatest source of misery, then had come a period of futile bargaining with the Almighty: I’m simply upset, I’m grieving. I’m dealing with too much upheaval. This is a digestive ailment. I cannot possibly be with child. Somewhere in the past several months, Jane had lost her bearings, such that life had become a matter of coping from moment to moment.
Mustn’t be sick.
Must eat something.
Must find a chamber pot.
Why must Papa pawn Mama’s cedar chest when she was very clear that chest was to be mine?
Must lie down.
In the last six hours Jane had acquired a new and far safer address, and with that development had come one conviction: The whirling in her life had to stop, and before the child arrived. Jane’s best estimate was that she had another five months before she’d become a mother.
“You’re awake,” Mr. Wentworth rumbled. He remained on his side of the bed, lying on his back, his arms folded behind his head.
“For now. This is a lovely bed.”
“So you’ve said. We needn’t share it if you’d rather have this bedroom to yourself.” He made his announcement without doing her the courtesy of looking her in the eye.
And here she’d been so comfortable. “Are you about to offer me another annulment, Mr. Wentworth?”
He darted a glance at her in the gloom created by the bed hangings. “And if I were?”
“I’m told you don’t go back on your word, so why re-open this discussion?” Did she want him to renew this offer? On the one hand, he wasn’t at all what she had planned, and Jane set very great store by her plans. On the other hand, he was warm and he smelled good. His hands didn’t wander uninvited, and she liked him.
Mostly. She would very much like another beef sandwich. She did not like this conversation.
“You’ve met us,” he said. “Duncan is the only Wentworth with pretensions to gentility. The uncle who raised him was a vicar, and Duncan was educated accordingly. He ended up as a teacher after a failed attempt at the church. Don’t ask him why he changed course, for the tale is unhappy and even I am vague on the details. The rest of us…”
Mr. Wentworth was self-conscious about his family, which Jane understood all too well. “You met my father. Your family might take a while to warm up to, but Papa is a trial to the nerves, for all he means well.”
Mr. Wentworth sat up, resting his back against the headboard. His chest was bare, and a fine chest it was, all sculpted muscle with a dusting of dark hair. The occasional scar nicked at his anatomical perfection, making him human as well as handsome.
“We should resolve this before the child is born, Jane.”
Resolve? Insight s
truck as if the child had kicked her. “You are a duke. You’ve realized your heir might be Gordie MacGowan’s son.” This was what Mr. Wentworth had meant when he’d referred to changed circumstances. He was a peer, and not just any peer. Dukes were rarities and their lineages ancient.
Mr. Wentworth—or rather, His Grace of…what was his title?—laughed, a single rusty guffaw.
“I don’t give a stinking goddamn who gets stuck with the title after me so long as Fat George doesn’t get his hands on my money. The easiest way to assure that outcome is to have sons, and you’re apparently willing to be their mother. The issue for your firstborn, however, is that your current husband is a convicted killer.”
Jane struggled to a sitting position and tucked the covers under her arms. “If you don’t care about your succession and you aren’t ashamed of marrying a preacher’s disgraced daughter, then why not try to make something of this union?” The question was for herself as much as for her bedmate. “I ask myself, What are the options? Should I go home to Papa and resume being Miss Jane Winston of the inexplicably gravid shape and uncertain digestion?”
“Don’t be daft.”
That gruff rejoinder assured her that Mr. Wentworth would not abandon her. He might annul the marriage, but he’d honor the obligation to support her. Jane should have been relieved rather than resentful.
“So,” she said, “that leaves either making a go of this situation, or annulling the marriage and doing what with me and the child? If you cast me off, I’ll be doubly disgraced, and the child will be a MacGowan rather than a Wentworth. I suppose you’d put me in my own establishment, like a former mistress? Doubtless some MacGowan will appear claiming to be the child’s guardian and getting his hands all over whatever pin money you grant me.”
Mr. Wentworth likely had a mistress. He was wealthy, unmarried, and stunningly handsome. Of course he had a mistress. A slender blonde with limpid blue eyes and a tinkling laugh.
Jane didn’t like that thought at all.
“You’ll not be left for a MacGowan to prey upon.”
Prey upon again, though that was unfair to Gordie’s memory. Jane smacked a pillow and arranged it behind her back. “All manner of developments occur despite probability to the contrary, Mr. Wentworth. You never expected to end up in prison. I never expected to end up widowed and with child, but here we are.”
Here they were, having a disagreement in the same bed on the first day as man and wife. Jane would find a credible explanation for that bizarre state of affairs after she’d had another serving of perfectly salted sliced beef.
And buttered bread. She was abruptly mad for buttered bread.
“Here we are. Where do you want to be, Jane?”
“In the kitchen eating fresh bread with butter.”
He left the bed and crossed the room to use the bellpull, then he spoke into a cone-shaped copper tube protruding from the wall near the hearth. Black silk trousers moved over powerful muscles and rode low enough to reveal dimples at the base of a long, strong back.
Also another crop of scars, these more conspicuous than the ones on his chest. Old injuries, some casual, some nasty. Quinn Wentworth hadn’t always been a well-dressed, well-to-do banker. Jane suspected he was making the point for her on purpose.
“Bread and butter,” he said into the tube, “strawberries, ginger biscuits, and ginger tea.”
“And roast beef,” Jane said.
“And roast beef.” He took a chair behind a large desk that managed to be both masculine and elegant. “You did not answer my question, Jane. Where would you like to be? If we make a go of this situation, as you term it, you’ll be a duchess, regardless of my criminal past. Certain obligations accompany the title.”
He lounged casually in exactly one article of clothing—even his feet were bare—and yet, Jane felt as if she were being interrogated by a banker: And when was the appraisal done? By whom? Any fixtures or appurtenances? What about fungibles or livestock?
“My first obligation,” Jane said, “is to the child. I must situate myself however I can to give the child the best chance of a happy, healthy life. If that means being a duchess, then a duchess I shall be.”
He studied the branches of the maple tree outside the window. The leaves were unfurling, from pink buds to softest green leaves. In a few weeks, the tree would provide shade. Now the gauzy foliage seemed to reflect the afternoon sunlight and spread illumination.
“Your commitment to the child does you credit,” he said. “I assure you that you will have material security, regardless of how we arrange the legalities.”
Jane wanted to close her eyes again and this time to sleep for a week. “I am a female. I cannot arrange any legalities, sir. My father refused to recognize my marriage to Captain MacGowan and if you declare this marriage void, by Papa’s reasoning, I will remain under his authority. Despite my age, despite Scottish marriage lines, he will press his position upon the courts and I will have no practical means of thwarting him.”
The last thing—the very, very last thing—Jane wanted to face was protracted litigation in courts famed for inquisitiveness rather than speed, not that she could afford a barrister and not that any respectable lawyer would take her case.
Mr. Wentworth retrieved an afghan from the foot of the bed, and draped the soft wool around Jane’s shoulders.
“You have no idea what a burden a disgraced father is to a small child, Jane. You could establish your own household and keep your finances in a trust. Then the child would have my money and the guiding hand of an ordained grandfather.”
For an instant, she was tempted. Perhaps such an arrangement could return to Jane the kind, if distracted, parent she’d known before Mama’s death.
And perhaps not. “Trusts take time to set up,” Jane said, sniffing the wool caressing her shoulders. “Where would that arrangement leave the baby if something happened to me?”
Mr. Wentworth hadn’t an answer for that, which was just as well. Jane was trying not to stare at the red weal gouged into the side of his neck. She resented this conversation for the uncertainty it brought, but she also resented that injury.
Hadn’t life put enough mementos to pain and suffering on her husband’s body? The king’s pardon had come at the very last possible instant. How was Mr. Wentworth dealing with that? How was he dealing with the torment of the whole last month? With the notion of having taken a life?
Though seeing him all but naked, Jane had reason to doubt the court’s judgment. Only a fool would engage Quinn Wentworth in a physical altercation, and his nature would not allow him lethal intemperance.
“Wait here,” Mr. Wentworth said.
He padded to the parlor and came back bearing a tray. The scent of ginger wafted across the room, a sweet, smooth ginger free of the bitterness found in the coarser varieties. Mr. Wentworth set the tray on the desk and carried a heavy chair to the side of the desk as if the chair weighed nothing.
“You’ll catch a chill,” Jane said, climbing from the bed and taking a dressing gown down from a hook on the bedpost. “Fresh air is lovely, but if you sit in a draft wearing less than nothing, you’ll soon regret it.”
Then too, she wanted to think about his scars later, after she’d done justice to the tray. She stretched up to drape the dressing gown around his shoulders, careful that the collar didn’t touch his injury. Her movements put her close enough to her husband that her belly nudged against his side.
The child chose that moment to reposition itself, delivering a poke to Jane’s innards.
“What the hell was that?” Mr. Wentworth stared at her belly as if he’d only now noticed her condition.
“The baby,” she said, arranging the collar of the dressing gown and stepping back. “When I lie down, he or she wakes up. Shall we have some tea?”
“The tea is for you,” he said. “We’ll continue this discussion later.”
A fine suggestion. Jane did justice to the food, while Mr. Wentworth—what was his title?—sa
t across the desk, nibbling a ginger biscuit and sending dubious glances in the direction of her belly.
Chapter Eleven
“Whom King George pardons,” Joshua Penrose said, leafing through the open stack of morning correspondence, “society pardons. Your thirty-day rule saved us.”
“Snobbery saved us,” Quinn countered from across the polished mahogany table. “Let me see the list again.”
Within a fortnight of Quinn’s conviction, half the bank’s customers had given notice of intent to close their accounts. Joshua had spared him news of that development until Quinn had been soaking in a bathtub the previous day and unable to do more than curse at length.
Fortunately, the depositor’s agreement required that the bank be given thirty days’ written notice of any intention to make a major withdrawal or close an account, and thus none of the money had yet been removed.
The list of the high and mighty who’d been prepared to flee Wentworth and Penrose’s felonious clutches read like an excerpt from Debrett’s. The same names, save for a few, had changed their minds overnight.
“I have more good news,” Joshua said, passing over the bible.
The bible was the main ledger book, the one that kept a daily tally of the bank’s available assets and outstanding liabilities. Either Joshua or Quinn signed the bible at the close of each week, then it was countersigned by the head teller and the auditor.
The auditor was a little drill sergeant named Mrs. Hatfield, though Quinn suspected she’d had other names at other times. She was passionate about her accounting and knew every possible avenue for embezzlement, fraud, deceit, and sharp practice. How she’d come by that knowledge was a secret between her and Joshua.
She’d greeted Quinn that morning with the first smile he’d ever seen from her, and a wink. “Well done, Mr. Wentworth.” She was pretty when she smiled, in the manner of a buttoned-up librarian preparing to host a reading of the Bard.
Jane was prettier, in a blooming, ungainly, grouchy sort of way.
My One and Only Duke--Includes a bonus novella Page 11