My One and Only Duke--Includes a bonus novella

by Grace Burrowes

  “Quinn”—Joshua spoke somewhat loudly—“if you need more time with your family, you have only to say so. Nobody would begrudge you a chance to recover from your ordeal.”

  “My ordeal,” Quinn said, “is only beginning. Who put my neck in a noose, Joshua?”

  He could ask that, because the partners’ conference room was the holiest of holies at the bank, and no sound escaped when the doors were closed. Customer privacy mattered, but not half so much as the privacy of the partners.

  “I thought you had convicted me of that folly?”

  “Upon reflection, you haven’t a credible motive. The bank was in the process of collapsing until this morning, and you’ve worked as hard as I have to make this place what it is. You might well hate me, but you grasp my usefulness and bear no ill will toward my family.”

  Joshua tidied the stack of letters, which was already tidy. “When will you leave it behind, Quinn? When will you realize you are no longer scouring the sewers for a stray lump of coal, burying corpses by day, and guarding them by night? You’ve food in your belly, a roof over your head, and—”

  “And somebody is trying to kill me, in the most ignominious, shameful way possible. They would have succeeded but for a twist of fate nobody could have foreseen. They have cunning, influence, and substantial resources.”

  Joshua came around the table and set the papers at Quinn’s elbow. “I fit that description; so do many of these depositors and most of our investors.”

  As did Stephen, Duncan, and half the peerage who owed Quinn money, in addition to one northern countess who owed Quinn her silence.

  Quinn rose, ignoring the papers. “You see the problem.” Though something Joshua had said teased at Quinn’s mind. A stray penny of a thought, about…

  “The bank is prospering as a result of your situation,” Joshua said. “Whoever wished you ill would be frustrated to know that for every viscount who sought to withdraw his funds, a butcher, a baker, and a jeweler came in to open an account. The damned flower girls and opera dancers now bank here, and they expect better service than a dowager duchess receives. Look at the bible tallies for the last three weeks.”

  Quinn always purchased a bouquet for his desk when there were fresh flowers to be had, and he’d directed Althea to purchase the house flowers from the street vendors rather than from a professional florist. The choice was pragmatic. Flower girls were out and about at all hours, every day. They knew the comings and goings of a neighborhood better than anybody.

  Look after the flower girls, and they looked after you. The concept wasn’t complicated, though few in Mayfair seemed to grasp its utility. The small accounts opened in the last fortnight went on for pages, the flower girls prominent among them.

  “We’ll need a new bible soon.” The christening of a new volume of the bank’s master account book always merited a toast after hours for the staff.

  “I’ve hired two new tellers, one of them female. The milkmaids, flower girls, and opera dancers prefer dealing with a woman.”

  One of their own kind, somebody who’d realize that a task as simple as putting on boots could become a challenge when a woman carried a child. Althea had already set up appointments for Jane with dressmakers, milliners, and glovemakers, and had also made arrangements for her to meet with an accoucheur.

  While Quinn had been trying to talk Jane into an annulment. He’d never go back on his word, but neither would he hold a woman to a marriage she resented. His father had made that mistake, and Mama had paid with her life.

  “Quinn, was your hearing damaged in Newgate?”

  “Perhaps. Wretched place is noisy. What were you saying?”

  “That we might want to let some of these accounts”—Joshua waved the stack of papers—“move elsewhere. Detwiler was among the first to give notice, and he’s teetering on the brink of ruin.”

  “He’s been teetering on the brink of ruin for two years.” Ever since his oldest daughter had left the schoolroom. She or her ambitious mama had beggared Detwiler with millinery, dancing slippers—

  Jane would need a cobbler’s services. Her boots would disgrace a muck heap.

  “So let’s push his lordship over the edge,” Joshua said, propping a hip on the edge of the table. “He’s arrogant and stupid. All we need do is lose today’s letter from him and prepare him a bank draft.”

  “We do not engage in sharp practice,” Quinn retorted, closing the bible. “We have a fiduciary relationship with our customers, meaning their best interests must come before all else. I have an appointment. You will excuse me.”

  “We do occasionally cull the herd, Quinn. Detwiler is perilously close to overdrawn in all regards.”

  “Then we ask him for a meeting and call upon him at his convenience. Not his man of business, him. I’ll threaten to close his account, you’ll console him with a prepared budget, and he’ll bumble into better finances over the next few years.”

  Quinn retrieved his hat and cane from their customary places by the door. Two private offices opened on to this room—his and Joshua’s—and both also had entrances on to the mezzanine above the bank’s main lobby.

  The bank’s public area might have been any fashionable set of assembly rooms, complete with potted palms in various corners, fine wool carpets over an oak parquet floor, and cloudy Low Country landscapes on the walls.

  Quinn liked the lobby, liked to look down on the people coming and going, liked the feel of commerce in the air, but now was not the time to linger here. He had put in an appearance, greeted his tellers and a few customers by name, smiled at all and sundry despite the stares and whispers.

  Business as usual, while I hunt a killer.

  “Where are you off to?” Joshua asked, joining Quinn at the mezzanine’s railing.

  “To hire a grave robber.”

  “You didn’t kill Robert Pike? Didn’t knock him arse over appetite in that alley?” The questions could not have been more casual.

  “Mr. Pike and I spoke for a few minutes. He wanted money—a fellow Yorkshireman, down on his luck—I obliged with a pair of sovereigns. When I left the alley he was still muttering about life’s many injustices and them as gets above theirselves.” Quinn had dropped into street patois to imitate his supposed victim. Pike was an acquaintance from the old days who’d learned that not all of Quinn’s transactions were made through the bank.

  “That’s what you told the jury.”

  “They did not believe me. Now I’m off to find a body.”

  Joshua smiled down at a young couple in expectation of an interesting event. They smiled back up at him. Did they know that the lady’s feet would swell? That she’d become exhausted from her burden in a few months?

  “I should have thought of that,” Joshua said. “No body, no crime. The court had a coroner’s report.”

  “I’ll talk to the coroner too. His demeanor on the witness stand was less than scientific.”

  An errand boy sidled up to one of the assistant tellers. Children were safer conduits of information on London’s streets. They were more reliable than running footmen, less conspicuous, and cost less to feed and house. Pickpockets left them alone, though half of Quinn’s messengers had been pickpockets themselves.

  The Wentworth and Penrose errand boys also slept on the premises, adding to the bank’s security—and their own.

  The teller nodded, and the child wafted away. The assistant teller made a leisurely path to the head teller on duty, who occupied a windowed corner office. Another conversation ensued.

  “Something’s afoot,” Quinn said.

  “You cannot be twice put in jeopardy of losing your life for the same crime, Quinn. Even if Pike is dead, you cannot be again convicted of his murder.”

  “I know the law, Joshua. I also know my neck will bear a scar for the rest of my life.”

  That silenced Joshua—a feat for the history books—or possibly the head teller’s ascent of the side stairs did.

  “Mr. Penrose, Mr. Wentworth,
good morning. I bring a message from home for Mr. Wentworth.”

  The message had been brought discreetly, per bank policy. Quinn’s belly did an odd flip, nonetheless. Ever since Jane had bumped up against him and the child had nudged at Quinn’s ribs, Quinn’s concentration had been off, his mind prone to wandering.

  A child nestled beneath Jane’s heart. One who put demands on her even months before birth.

  Joshua nodded to an old gent in a tailed wig below. “Say on, Peters. Mr. Wentworth is a busy man.”

  Peters was a tidy little fellow who put Quinn in mind of Mr. Dodson. Both were dapper, aging men whose prosperity manifested in a small, comfortable potbelly.

  “Mr. Wentworth is wanted at home.”

  “Is my wife well?”

  “The message was simply that you are wanted at home, sir.”

  Quinn managed a decorous pace down the steps, though only just.

  * * *

  “I’m staying,” Susie said. “Man saves me from transportation or the damned Magdalen houses, and I’ll stick around long enough to give him my thanks. Hold still, Penny. I’ll do up your hooks.”

  Sophie had already piked off, taking pockets full of bread, butter, and cheese, which had been freely on offer in the servants’ hall. She had family somewhere in the stews and two little girls to see to. Susie wasn’t about to judge a woman for returning to her children.

  “Never thought I’d be back in service,” Penny said, twirling a lacy white cap on the end of her finger. “That Miss Althea don’t mince words.”

  “‘Don’t steal,’” Susie mimicked. “‘Don’t drink to excess, don’t lead any footmen astray and think to profit from their interest. You will be loyal to this house for the duration of your employment or leave now.’ Poor thing could use a good rogering.” Though Miss Althea had also said Penny, Susie, and Sophie were to be allowed to sleep late on their first morning, to recover from their “recent tribulations.”

  Susie finished with Penny’s hooks, then turned around so Penny could return the favor.

  “That Mr. Duncan isn’t a bad-looking sort.” Because Penny spoke with the slow cadence of the Caribbean Islands, her every observation carried a knowing weight. “Miss High-and-Haughty didn’t say nothing about keeping our filthy paws off of him.”

  The housekeeper had burned Susie’s only dress and consigned her and Penny to a lengthy soak in the laundry. Susie’s hands were clean—truly, truly clean, even under her fingernails—for the first time in months.

  “Mr. Duncan is right handsome,” Susie agreed, “if you like a man past the stupid years. He has that quiet-but-interesting look about him. Has a brain in his head.”

  “Them kind can be inventive. D’ye suppose Mr. Quinn Wentworth trifles with the help?”

  Susie donned her own cap. The cotton was light as a virgin’s wish, the lace spotless. “We’re proper housemaids now, Pen. You mustn’t be lusting after Mr. Wentworth.”

  Penny sat on her cot to don a pair of black wool stockings, not a rip or darn to be seen. “You were in service before. Housemaids are only as proper as the menfolk they work for. I understand why a man facing death might not fancy a poke, but he’s been pardoned, ain’t he? Cor, these stockings are lovely.”

  Quinn Wentworth was lovely to look at, also off, somehow. What sort of pardoned killer collects five other prisoners on his way to freedom?

  Susie tied the ribbons of her cap beneath her chin, the bow off to left. “He never even looked at us, you know? Not like that. Didn’t look at any of us like that.”

  “Maybe he prefers gents or boys. Maybe he only likes fancy pieces, the kind that don’t land in Newgate. If he’ll keep me in wool stockings, he can have anybody he pleases with my blessing.”

  Susie passed Penny a pair of boots. “I have big feet. These might fit you.”

  A whole collection of newish boots lined the bottom of the maids’ wardrobe, which sat at one end of the long dormitory. Eight beds were neatly made, a spare quilt folded across the bottom of each mattress. Beside each bed was a washstand and small table, and two of the tables bore vases of fragrant irises.

  The far end of the room had been fitted out as a sitting room, with a sofa and chairs grouped around a big parlor stove, and a flowered oval rug on the floor. The damned place even had paintings on the walls—more flowers—and an orange cat curled up on the mantel.

  “This is respectable, Pen. I don’t know if I can stand it.”

  Penny stuck her foot in the air, showing off her half boot. “This house is safe and warm. We’ll be fed, and we won’t have to spread our legs for any gent with the coin or a notion to steal what he should be purchasing.”

  “I was raised respectable. Poor, but respectable.”

  “Of course you were. Put your boots on, Susie. I smell bacon.”

  Susie grabbed the largest pair of boots in the wardrobe. “My name’s Susan. I don’t think Mr. Wentworth was raised respectable.”

  “He weren’t. I heard a couple of the guards talking. Some say Mr. Wentworth were a highwayman, some say he stole jewels off rich women. Some say he did worse than steal. The guards didn’t bother him, I know that. Why do I feel prettier in this ugly dress than I ever felt on the stroll?”

  “’Cause you’re daft. These boots fit. I haven’t worn a pair of boots that fit, ever.”

  “You know who I really fancy?” Penny asked, putting on the second boot.

  “The man with the most coin,” Susie replied, though that was a whore’s response, and she was done with whoring. Maybe.

  “Him too, but I do think young Mr. Davies cleans up nice.”

  Davies was likely the same age as Penny, but he was also young in a way Penny could never be. “He’s sweet. He’ll make a fine footman. Don’t scare him, Pen. Prison takes a toll on a fellow the first time he’s locked up.”

  “D’ye think Mr. Wentworth has been locked up before?”

  Locked up for sure, though maybe not in prison. “He’s cold, Pen. Cold right down to his bones. He didn’t get us out of Newgate because of his kind heart. He took us along like spoils of war, a hearty up-yer-arse to King George. That’s a cold man what gives it back to the king who pardoned him.”

  Susie stood, the boots feeling odd on her feet. Real heels, that added more than an inch to her height and made noise when she crossed the room. Laces without knots, stockings without holes or darning to give a blister a place to start.

  “So Quinn Wentworth is cold,” Penny said, dropping her skirts around her ankles. “What about marrying Miss Jane? Was that a cold man, speaking his vows to a woman in her condition?”

  Susie’s belly rumbled, and for once she didn’t have to ignore her own hunger. “We’ll keep an eye on Miss Jane. She didn’t bargain for none of this, least of all on being the wife of Quinn Wentworth. I’m tellin’ you, Pen, something’s not right with that man.”

  “We look a treat, don’t we? Newgate yesterday, respectable today. Let’s go find some bacon and flirt with the footmen.”

  “You flirt with the footmen. I’m for the bacon.”

  * * *

  “Miss Jane might not be dying,” Ned said, over the clatter of the wheels on the cobbles.

  Quinn’s personal gargoyle of doom was perched on the back of the phaeton. Ned had been offering helpful pronouncements through half a mile of snarled traffic and pedestrians with nothing better to do than inspire Quinn’s rage.

  “A tiger occupies his post silently,” Quinn said, steering around a costermonger’s cart only to face a parked coal wagon.

  “Why call me a tiger if all I do is lounge about up here on me rosy feak and watch you drive like a parson’s granny?”

  Quinn backed the phaeton up several yards—no mean feat—and pulled around the coal wagon. “You wait, silent as a tiger, until you are required to pounce to the cobbles and hold the horse. Goddamn it, take the reins—”

  Ned was already off his seat, wading into a verbal conflagration between a portly dandy in a gig and a
pair of beldames in a dogcart.

  “His worship hasn’t time to watch you lot heckle away the day,” Ned bellowed, seizing the bridle of the dandy’s prancing bay and dragging the horse from the intersection. “You should be ashamed, all o’ ye, making a spectacle in a decent neighborhood when folk have pressing matters and the king’s business to be about. Your mothers couldn’t peg out the wash stone sober on a sunny day and neither of ye can steer worth a draft horse’s Sunday fart.”

  Quinn drove through the opening Ned had created, and Ned jumped up behind as the gelding trotted past.

  “Impressive, Ned.”

  “A tiger’s got to roar sometimes. Maybe Miss Jane fainted. She used to do that, at Newgate. She always woke up. She tossed up her accounts a time or two as well. The whores said it weren’t nothing to fret over.”

  Ned kicked his feet idly, while Quinn reviewed the litany of emergencies that could have pulled him away from the bank: Jane’s baby was coming too soon—though what was Quinn supposed to do about that besides curse fit to scour a London sewer?

  Perhaps Stephen had taken a fall. The boy had no sense of his own limits, not when it came to aggravating his sisters, not when it came to his physical problems, and certainly not regarding his temper.

  Maybe Constance had secreted a bad bottle of gin in her rooms, which had last happened when she’d been fifteen and as wretched as a girl that age could be.

  Althea.…If a summons had gone forth from the house, then Althea hadn’t been in any condition to prevent it.

  Or some evil had befallen Duncan. He was the only family member not given to drama, and if he’d taken sick, had a mishap, got the worst of one of Stephen’s rages…Duncan had never once hinted that managing Stephen was a thankless or difficult task, though Stephen on a bad day was a human tempest. If Duncan was planning to leave the household, panic was warranted.

  “You didn’t look this thunderous when they was striking off your shackles,” Ned said. “If tragedy’s afoot among your family, then somebody woulda said.”

  Quinn took a corner as fast as gravity allowed. “You saw the guards taking off the chains?”