My One and Only Duke--Includes a bonus novella

by Grace Burrowes

  “We all did. Had box seats. You made the whores cry.” Ned’s voice was casual—and vaguely accusing—suggesting the boy had also lost his composure. When a child had nothing else to his name save a few ragged clothes, composure was precious.

  Quinn had neither the time nor the focus to spare for a lad’s scolds, however deserved they might be. “I can never again swing for the crime of killing Robert Pike, Ned. And you should not have seen me hanged.”

  “You should not have been hanged. You didn’t swing, you dropped like a horse turd hits the street. Bloody bad business, and you’d best get to the bottom of it.”

  A tiger also dispensed advice, apparently, and took an inordinate interest in equine digestion.

  “I do intend to get to the bottom of it, but as far as you’re concerned, I was the victim of a simple judicial error. These things happen.”

  Ned snorted as Quinn turned the vehicle into the alley behind the house.

  “Ju-di-ci-al error,” Ned said, as if tasting a new batch of ale. “I like that. Sounds big. You should take Davies with you to and from the bank, you know.”

  Quinn pulled up as a groom ran out of the carriage house to take the horse. Ned leapt down—nimble as a tiger—before Quinn had brought the gelding to a halt.

  “You don’t take on my battles, Edward.”

  Somebody had washed the boy’s hair and dragged a comb through it, put him in clean clothes, and even managed to get a matching pair of boots on his feet. By a street urchin’s standards, Ned had come into a dukedom, and all the dignity of his office glowered up at Quinn.

  “When it comes to me mates, nobody tells me what to do, guv. I’ll hold your horses, I’ll trot around fetching your shirts from the tailor, I’ll eavesdrop on the maids for you, but I’m me own man.”

  I bloody don’t have time for your juvenile dramas. Quinn managed to keep the words behind his teeth, barely, as raised voices cut across the morning air.

  “You got trouble with your womenfolk,” Ned said, not a trace of gloating in the words. “Best make haste.”

  Quinn made haste—at a decorous pace—Ned trotting at his heels. “You will be relieved to know that as I travel to and from the bank, a running footman always accompanies me. I’ve let it be known that I never carry cash when I’m on the bank’s business, and I don’t wear enough glint to attract notice.”

  “I didn’t see no footman and I kept a sharp eye.”

  Quinn let himself into the back stairway. “You won’t see them. They aren’t in livery, and they know how to blend in. They carry knives as well as pistols and a pocketful of sand.”

  Ned snatched an orange from a bowl on the sideboard. “Knives is good and quiet. Sand has blinded many a man at a handy moment. Your womenfolk are loud.”

  Never had Quinn thought the sound of domestic discord would reassure him, but if Althea—that was Althea, plain as day—was bellowing like a robbed fishwife, then nobody had died.

  “Eat that in the kitchen,” Quinn said, “and don’t let the maids catch you eavesdropping.”

  Ned tossed the orange into the air and caught it behind his back. “I never do. Good luck with the warring parties, your worship.”

  Quinn wanted to take the stairs two at time, for the altercation was happening in the family parlor. He instead proceeded at a reasonable pace, nearly knocking over the Jamaican maid—Penny?—on the landing.

  “She’s not come to any harm,” Penny called.

  The words allowed Quinn to slow, marginally, but they also underscored the problem he’d wrestled with across half of London: He was responsible for his wife. The law and his own conscience agreed in that regard, and Quinn was prepared to write bank drafts, see to the succession, and put a roof over Jane’s head accordingly.

  Nothing on his list of husbandly duties required him to worry about her, though, to fret over her worn boots, watch her while she slept, or wonder what she’d name the baby. And—God save him—what if she took to worrying about him?

  The voices rose, and Quinn broke into a run.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I will not have this discussion before an audience, Althea.” In truth, Jane didn’t want to have this discussion at all.

  She remained sitting, rather than go toe-to-toe with Althea, much less take on Quinn’s sister while Stephen, Constance, a matched set of oversized footmen, and Susie gawked at the spectacle.

  Quinn sauntered into the room, not a care in the world, while Jane was ready to do somebody—anybody—a grievous injury.

  “Greetings, all,” Quinn drawled. “Althea, if you’ll join Jane and me in the—”

  “Mr. Wentworth,” Jane snapped, “I’d like a word with you in private.” Man-fashion, he had no idea what the substance of the altercation was, no inkling of the stakes, but he was ready to arbitrate and expect his judgment to be final.

  Jane would never disrespect her husband publicly, though neither would she allow him to lose this battle for her. He needed her to win. He simply didn’t grasp that yet.

  “You are in a delicate condition,” Althea said. “Shall you give birth on Bond Street? Shall you have the Wentworth heir in the middle of Piccadilly? This family works too hard—”

  Jane held out a hand to her husband. “Your assistance, please.” Jane was now a part of this family, and while Althea was well intended, she was also wrong.

  Mr. Wentworth’s inherent good manners had him helping Jane to her feet. She kept hold of his arm—it was one of those days, when her vision dimmed and her balance wavered whenever she stood.

  “We’ll talk later,” Mr. Wentworth said to his sister.

  “Indeed we shall,” Jane added, because in this case, having the last word—as rude and undignified as that might be—mattered.

  Constance smacked Stephen on the shoulder, though for once, the boy wasn’t smirking.

  “Where’s Duncan?” Mr. Wentworth asked as he and Jane gained the corridor.

  “Being prudent, leaving the battlefield to those invested in the conflict. I am not a turtle, Mr. Wentworth.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You were happy to haul me all over creation yesterday, up hill and down dale. I am in sufficient good health that you may trust me to reach our sitting room before sundown.”

  “Perhaps it’s my nerves that are overset, Jane.”

  “Doubtless, you are a quivering mass of near-hysteria, contained by only a gossamer thread of self-control. Why else would you have scampered off to the bank the day after your own scheduled execution?”

  He opened the door to their sitting room. “I own half of that bank, and I’d been absent from my duties for weeks. Showing up and pretending I’d been on holiday was of utmost importance.” He closed the door rather firmly.

  Having reached a private location, Jane could study her husband. His hair was windblown, the knot of his cravat a quarter inch off-center. For him, that was doubtless serious disarray, though the result of very slight dishevelment was to make him look more dashing.

  “How was your morning at the bank?” She could not read his expression, which probably meant that he was upset, to the extent Quinn Wentworth became upset.

  Would that Jane had his ability to weather all vicissitudes with calm.

  “Do you know how often I’ve been summoned home from the bank?”

  “Of course not.”

  He paced over to the sideboard, took a glass stopper from a decanter, and held it to his nose. “I have never been summoned home from the bank, Jane. My family knows better. At that bank, I’m an actor on a stage, and if I miss my cues, if I’m anything other than the personification of equanimity and decorum, then the play fails. In recent weeks, I have missed cue after cue, spectacularly, and half of London—half of titled London—was watching to see what I’d do today.”

  He breathed in through his nose, as if he were taking smelling salts.

  “I didn’t send for you, didn’t foresee the discussion with Althea becoming a pitched battle
, and didn’t take any satisfaction from the dramatics. I’m sorry your performance was disrupted. Are you alone of all the bankers in London forbidden to pop home for a midday meal?”

  He took another whiff of his glass stopper. “Yes, Jane. I alone of all the bankers in London am not to leave my post for anything less than urgent business.”

  Jane crossed the room, wrapped her hand around his, and brought the stopper to her nose. “This is lavender water?”

  Mr. Wentworth put the stopper in the decanter. “The scent is pleasant. What were you and Althea arguing about?”

  A clumsy change of subject, but useful when Jane disliked even discussing an altercation.

  “On one level, we were arguing about whether I’d make an outing to Oxford Street. On another level, we were arguing about who shall be the lady of your house.”

  The master of the household scrubbed a hand over his face and settled behind the desk. Why did he need a handsome desk in both his bedroom and his sitting room?

  “Explain.”

  “Would you like some luncheon?” Jane asked. “I’m a bit peckish.” She’d glossed over breakfast with tea, toast, and two ginger biscuits. Perhaps that accounted for the light-headedness.

  “Order whatever you like,” Mr. Wentworth said. “Use the bellpull in the bedroom once, wait for the count of five, then speak into the tube.”

  Jane asked the kitchen to bring up trays, though where should those trays be put? Mr. Wentworth’s quarters held two desks and one enormous bed, but nowhere to take sustenance.

  She sank onto the sofa, which was devilishly well padded. “Shall we eat on the balcony?”

  “Jane, what in all God’s creation was so important that somebody called me home from the bank?”

  He hadn’t raised his voice. Jane suspected Quinn Wentworth never had to raise his voice.

  “I have no idea. I did not call you home from the bank. I do know that Lady Althea, doubtless thinking to be helpful, decided to jail me on the premises. Without a word to me, she arranged a procession of modistes, milliners, mercers, and other tradesmen to invade this house, destroy my peace, and generally keep me from making a single adult decision regarding even my own attire without both her and Constance to supervise me.”

  Mr. Wentworth was back to studying the maple. “You’re upset because my sister tried to be helpful?”

  Jane preferred diplomacy and tact for resolving delicate matters—“Turn the other cheek, Jane Hester!”—or she had before marrying Quinn Wentworth. Turning the other cheek, in this one instance, would not do. She pushed off the sofa, wobbled a bit, and crossed the room to slap both palms on the desk blotter.

  “Lady Althea,” she began, “is not being helpful when she decides how my time is spent, with whom, or where. I can understand that she has been the lady of this house, and I would never attempt to divide your loyalties. Neither will I permit her to treat me as some dimwitted child who can’t be trusted to cross the street without a nanny. My own father seldom sank that low.”

  Mr. Wentworth picked up an engraved gold snuff box and rotated it, dropping each edge in succession onto the leather blotter. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk…

  “Althea wasn’t treating you like a dimwitted child. She was trying to keep you safe.”

  “From what? The baby isn’t due for months.”

  He set aside the snuff box, rose, and took down a sachet bag that hung on the balcony curtains. The bag held a key, which unlocked the balcony door.

  “Remember where the key is,” he said, replacing it in the bag, “in case there’s a fire and the balcony becomes your only route to safety.”

  The day wasn’t quite warm, but the balcony was on the lee side of the house, the air was still, and sun was strong. Jane took a seat on a wrought-iron chair while her husband faced her, leaning against the railing. He made a handsome picture backdropped by the maple—a handsome, annoyed picture.

  “The Wentworths aren’t like any other family on this street,” he said.

  They weren’t like any other family in all of England. “One gathers as much.”

  “We started off in the gutter, Jane. We’re as lowborn and disreputable as a family can be this side of Newgate, and now the distinction of a prison record has befallen us as well.”

  A man unused to explaining himself was trying to make something clear. Jane ignored her rumbling belly and set aside the argument with Althea.

  “And yet, you are a duke.”

  He folded his arms and gazed upward, which made the edge of the injury to his neck visible above the linen of his cravat.

  “Dodson agreed that no announcement would be made regarding the title. I’ll be invested as quietly as possible, and the dukedom will be a matter of gossip and speculation unless and until I take my seat in the Lords.”

  This apparently was a relief to him, the poor man. “You’d be better off using the title and having done with the gossip. A dukedom is impossible to keep quiet for any length of time. Just get it over with, and let people draw their own conclusions. Refuse to discuss your personal situation and you can’t be drawn into gossip.”

  He took the chair beside her, then took her hand. “The matter isn’t that simple. I am legally the son of a destitute drunk and a desperate woman. What I did to escape that upbringing is grounds for one scandal after another. I dug graves, Jane. I emptied privies for the night soil men. I collected debts. I drove a knacker’s cart. If there was a low, contemptible job available for coin, I did it. I made enemies, very powerful enemies.”

  Those enemies haunted him, whoever they were. “Your foes have had years to bring you low and they haven’t succeeded.”

  He kissed her knuckles, an odd gesture. “Yes, Jane, they did. They brought me all the way to the gallows.”

  The angry red weal hadn’t faded from his neck. A mere half inch was visible above the white of his neckcloth, and his clothing had to be a constant irritation. Still he hadn’t told her the whole of it, and he might never.

  What he was saying became obvious between one beat of Jane’s heart and the next.

  “You didn’t kill Robert Pike,” she said. “You never laid a hand on him.”

  * * *

  Quinn watched as Jane went on rearranging puzzle pieces. She sat very still, her hand cool in his.

  She had married him thinking him capable of taking a human life. Perhaps that meant she was foolish—or brave—but it also signified the lengths she’d go to for the sake of her children.

  “If you didn’t kill that man, then why…?”

  Quinn was reluctant to explain, but he dared not leave her in ignorance. “Because somebody wanted me not only dead, but disgraced. A previously thriving bank was approaching ruin until this morning, and our fortunes are still far from secure.”

  “The crumbs,” Jane said, making no sense whatsoever. “Ned, the women, Davies…marrying me. They were simple decency rather than gestures of atonement. I should have known.”

  Quinn had no idea what mental flights drove those words. “Anybody associated with me is in danger, Jane, and I can’t keep you safe if you’re flitting all over Oxford Street.” The arrival of a child would only complicate the whole challenge, for babies were so very vulnerable.

  Jane’s grip on Quinn’s hand became firmer. “I haven’t flitted anywhere for months. This is why you mentioned setting me aside. You think I should distance myself from you not because of the scandal, but because you have enemies.”

  He did not want to set her aside. He’d reached that conclusion somewhere between the third and fourth hours after midnight, the previous five hours having been spent watching Jane thrash about in her sleep, get up almost hourly to make her way behind the privacy screen, then flop back to the bed and resume thrashing about.

  She could not find rest, she could barely keep a meal down, she never complained, and she hadn’t asked to become a member of the Wentworth family. She could not possibly foresee the sort of evil that put a noose around an innocent man
’s neck.

  Quinn would never be much of a husband to her, but neither would he leave her to fend for herself. He’d worry about the child’s situation later, assuming the infant made a safe arrival into the world.

  “You are innocent,” Jane said, her voice low and hard, “and I am furious.”

  “Furious at me?”

  “Of course not at you. You’ve done nothing wrong. What sort of vile, crawling, contemptible maggot accuses an innocent man of taking another’s life? The witnesses abetted this disgrace, as did the journalists, the—”

  She winced, putting her free hand to her side.

  “Jane, you must not become upset. Think of the child.”

  “The child will never be safer. What about your poor family? They are reeling with how close they came to burying you. They’d be lost without you, and I daresay they are a bit lost with you. The authorities cannot turn a blind eye to such a perversion of justice.”

  “The authorities were in on it, love. The judge was bought and paid for, the coroner, the witnesses, all of them. The warden told me not to even try to bribe my way to an escape and that appeals would be pointless. Whoever did this was determined and powerful.”

  “And that means,” Jane said, “you are more in need of Althea’s concern than I am. I have a suggestion.” She rose, balancing with a hand on Quinn’s shoulder. She lowered herself to his lap, an awkward perch that required him to steady her with his arms about her.

  “This is friendly, Mrs. Wentworth.” Awkward, but friendly.

  She scooted, which was like a load shifting in a wheelbarrow. “You usually call me Jane. I have a suggestion.”

  “While you never call me Quinn.”

  “Quinn, you will please consider my suggestion before you roar and stomp about and splutter.”

  Despite her awkward shape, she made a nice armful. “I haven’t roared or stomped for years, and I never splutter.”

  “You will,” she said, patting his chest. “The child will make you splutter and curse—and laugh, I hope. My suggestion is that you consider allowing me to protect you.”

  Allowing her…Quinn could get his arms around the lady, but his mind refused to wrap around her words.