My One and Only Duke--Includes a bonus novella

by Grace Burrowes

  “But that’s…You can’t…I don’t see…” He was spluttering. “Explain yourself.”

  “Think about it. Whoever laid you low could do so because at some point, you were alone with Mr. Pike, or you could not account for your whereabouts when witnesses placed you at his side. Your wife—a minister’s daughter, a military widow, no less—can vouch for your whereabouts at all hours, day or night, because you only leave her side to attend to business or escort your sisters socially.”

  Jane smelled of flowers and soap, and holding her appeased some purely protective need Quinn tried to ignore.

  “Wentworths don’t socialize.”

  “You’re newly wed and newly titled. We shall socialize to the extent that I can.”

  “The family isn’t invited anywhere, and we prefer it that way.”

  Jane’s fingers began to work at his neckcloth. “Quinn—I do like that name—your way didn’t work. Your way, being socially aloof, recluses in plain sight, left you vulnerable to a sneak attack. I daresay it also tries the nerves of your family and inclines them to sour moods.”

  She left the ends of Quinn’s cravat trailing, unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt, then ran a gentle finger around the inside of his collar.

  Irritation he’d been ignoring eased. “My siblings were born in sour moods. Stephen in particular cannot be blamed for being easily provoked, for his leg pains him without mercy. If we receive no invitations, how do you propose we commence socializing, assuming I’m even considering this notion?”

  Which he was. Jane’s suggestion had that whiff of strategy about it, the difference between brawling and pugilism, the difference between walking away from a fight and ending up facedown, bleeding onto the filthy cobbles.

  “We start off humbly,” Jane said. “You invite the vicar for dinner—he’ll come. Vicars always appreciate a free meal. You take your sisters driving in the park. You ride out first thing in the day. You tip your hat to those whom you recognize, and you escort me to my outings on Oxford Street. At all times, you exert yourself to be agreeable, and society will see you for the gentleman you are. We must embark on this campaign immediately, for as my condition advances, I won’t be able to protect you as easily.”

  Jane’s plan—be gracious and society will be gracious to you—was the doomed hope of a minister’s daughter. Quinn couldn’t bring himself to deride her naïveté, foolish though it was.

  He was too busy grappling with the other manifestation of her wrong-headed notions.

  I won’t be able to protect you. The words might as well have been in some heathen tongue Quinn had never heard before. His family was loyal, which wasn’t the same as protective.

  Jane—expecting a child, in a marriage she hadn’t planned on, poor as a proud beggar—was determined to protect him. While she snuggled in Quinn’s arms—snuggle being another foreign word—he sorted through vocabulary. In the privacy of his thoughts he was determined to put a name on the emotion his wife had inspired.

  He’d make the effort to identify what he felt, the better to defend against it, lest ambush come from within.

  “We should also visit the lending library,” Jane murmured. “Put you on display before the spinsters and companions. Their good opinion matters.”

  I could barely read until I was older than Davies. “Fine idea.”

  She rubbed her cheek against the lace of his untied cravat. “I love your scent.”

  I stank worse than offal for most of my youth. “A gentleman’s hygiene matters. Shall I carry you to the bed, Jane?”

  She raised her head and peered at him. “If you think I’ll miss my sliced beef for the sake of a nap, you have wandered far from the path of sense, Mr. Wentworth.”

  “Quinn.” When he held Jane, he was three counties away from sense, which was a serious, serious problem. “Where did you think to start your shopping?”

  She rattled off the names of a few mercantile establishments, while her hair tickled Quinn’s chin, and he contemplated offensive maneuvers: Duncan could take Althea and Constance shopping, Quinn and Stephen could hack out in the park on fine mornings. Quinn, Stephen, and a groom, rather, there being safety in numbers.

  The family would squawk at the change in tactics, they’d protest, they’d grumble—and enjoy every minute of their own noise—but they’d see the wisdom of Jane’s idea. Joshua could be recruited to dine with Quinn occasionally at the club, and Quinn could carry on his own investigations all the more effectively for appearing to settle into married life.

  A voice in his head that sounded like Ned warned against deceiving Jane in this regard—appearing to ingratiate himself with polite society while laying what traps and snares he could—but if there was protecting to be done, he’d do it.

  Protect his family, Jane’s innocence, and his own life.

  “We don’t have to accomplish all of this in a week,” Jane went on. “My stamina is not what it used to be. I’d also like to interview some midwives and an accoucheur or two.”

  A tap sounded on the door. Quinn rose with Jane in his arms and settled her on the sofa.

  Ivor and Kristoff came in, bearing silver trays and wearing smirks, for Quinn’s wife had ordered him away from the donnybrook in the family parlor not twenty minutes past. By now, a word-for-word re-enactment of that encounter had made its way to the kitchen.

  “Please put the trays on the balcony,” Jane said. “His Grace and I will be going out after we dine. You’ll want to see to your own sustenance, for you’ll both accompany us.”

  Ivor bowed, Kristoff did as well, an instant later. “Yes, milady.”

  “My wife is a duchess,” Quinn said. “Might as well get in the habit now of addressing her as Your Grace.”

  The pair of them withdrew, no longer smirking.

  Quinn got Jane situated on the balcony and took some pleasure in her appetite. She finished two beef sandwiches and a pair of ginger biscuits before pronouncing herself satisfied. Quinn saved her half of his sandwich, because she apparently didn’t stay satisfied for long.

  “We didn’t say grace.” Jane folded her table napkin and laid it beside her empty plate. “I am very grateful. Not only was I hungry, but my digestion appears to be settled for once.”

  That was it. “Thank you, Jane.”

  She took a third ginger biscuit and held it out to him. “For what?”

  Quinn detested ginger biscuits. They were never sweet enough. “For sharing your ideas with me.” For trying to protect your husband. He broke the biscuit in half and passed her the larger portion. “For being honest.”

  “Let’s agree that our union will be characterized by honesty. The truth is serving us well, so far.”

  Oh, Jane. If Quinn were honest about the details of his past, they’d have no union at all. If he were honest about his plans for his enemy, they’d have no future.

  “I will look forward to many more of your frank opinions, Duchess. Shall you rest before our outing?”

  She nibbled her biscuit. “I believe I shall. Give me an hour, and we’ll storm Oxford Street.”

  Quinn stood and kissed her cheek—she’d said she liked the scent of him near. “I’ll send one of the maids to fetch you in an hour.”

  He needed to get away from her, needed time to think, to explain the situation to his family. He needed time to consider what it meant that he was grateful to his wife, purely, simply grateful.

  And that he was determined to thoroughly deceive her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “The news is all over the clubs,” Cuthbert, Earl of Tipton, said. “Nobody’s quite sure what to make of it.”

  Beatrice took a slow, stalling sip of her chocolate. She ought to have ordered a tray in her room, because her husband always broke his fast in the morning parlor and always read the paper from front page to back. A former diplomat’s habits died hard.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said. “Might I have the jam?”

  The footman at the sideboard broug
ht the jam pot to Beatrice’s end of the table. She sat where no impertinent beam of sunlight could strike her face and otherwise blight the beginning of her day.

  Her husband’s relentless good cheer accomplished that feat most mornings. She didn’t hate Cuthbert, but managing him was wearisome.

  “That damned Wentworth,” he muttered, turning a page. “You may be excused, Thomas.”

  The footman, whose name was Harold, withdrew.

  “Wentworth?” Beatrice made a production out of choosing a slice of toast from the rack on the table. The toast was warm, and Cook had flavored half the batch with cinnamon.

  “Quinton Wentworth, the banker. He was to be hanged for murder, and now he’s larking about at liberty again, free as you please. One of King George’s many queer starts. Butter, pet?”

  “Please.”

  Cuthbert brought her the butter, for he was ever considerate. Beatrice wished he’d curse, rant, and accuse, but he never did. Not ever. Another relic of his days as a diplomat.

  “Murder is distasteful so early in the day.” Beatrice tore her toast in half. The crime had been manslaughter, though the difference mattered not at all to the victim. The distinction was one of intent. A murderer sought to end the victim’s life. A manslaughterer might have shoved the victim to the ground or come at him with violence in mind, but without intent to take a life.

  Ulysses had explained the nuances to her in tedious detail, as if the legalities should fascinate her when Quinn Wentworth had once again survived despite all odds to the contrary.

  “His bank has to be reeling,” Cuthbert said, in the same tones he’d report that a cricket team was doomed without its best pitcher. “Though with a royal pardon in his pocket, Wentworth will likely come right soon enough. Please do have more toast. I can’t abide the cinnamon myself.”

  Was he baiting her?

  Cuthbert was an odd combination of shrewd and oblivious. He’d come into a second cousin’s title years ago, but the wealth had taken some time to free up from trusts and bequests. His solution had been to spend time in the diplomatic corps, living more cheaply overseas, drawing a salary, and periodically abandoning his younger wife for months at a time.

  He made a credible earl, a touch of gray about his temples, his frame lean, and his wardrobe dapper.

  Cuthbert wasn’t ugly, wasn’t stupid, wasn’t anything in particular that a wife was entitled to complain of. He was a considerate and undemanding lover, when he bothered to recall he had a wife.

  Beatrice wasn’t sure which she resented more: his neglect or his attentions.

  “I like variety in my treats,” she said. “Plain toast grows boring even with butter and jam.” She’d spoken without thinking, a simple truth about breakfast fare, but Cuthbert gazed at her consideringly over the top of his newspaper.

  “If you’re bored, we might take a trip to Lisbon before the weather grows too warm.”

  Any excuse to drag her off to his favorite haunts. “The social season has only started, my lord. What can you be thinking?”

  He smiled, the diplomat’s self-conscious, gracious smile. “I’m avoiding my parliamentary committees, if you must know. What difference does it make how many hackneys trot around London, or how loudly George begs for more money? Will I see you at Almack’s tonight?”

  “Possibly.”

  He folded the paper and rose. “I’ll live in hope until this evening. Should I send Thomas back in?”

  Harold-Thomas was handsome—footmen were required to be handsome—but he needed a better acquaintance with soap.

  “No, thank you. I’ll enjoy the rest of my meal in solitude.”

  Cuthbert kissed her cheek, the newspaper tucked under his arm. “Maybe we’ll go to Lisbon this autumn or sail off to Rome. You’d like Rome.”

  All those ancient statues with their chipped noses and eternally staring eyes? Having a doting husband fifteen years Beatrice’s senior was bad enough.

  “Let’s think about it. Autumn is months away.”

  Cuthbert patted her hand. “You ladies do so enjoy your waltzing. I’ll take lunch at the club, see what the fellows have to say about this Wentworth debacle. A few of them bank with him, despite the availability of many more venerable institutions. Some say he stole his first fortune, the rest remain strangely reticent, even in their cups. All very interesting.”

  “Money,” Beatrice said, putting a world of disdain into two syllables. “Was there ever a more boring topic?” Or a more interesting topic than Quinn Wentworth?

  “A club man is easily amused,” Cuthbert replied. “Enjoy your day, pet.”

  “Save me a waltz.”

  “I’ll be happy to.” He left the morning parlor at his usual brisk pace, though why—why in the name of every gentlemen’s club in St. James—must Cuthbert focus on Quinn Wentworth now?

  Beatrice closed the door after her husband, drew every curtain in the room, and resumed her seat. She rested her forehead on her crossed arms and hated her whole dreadful life.

  And Quinn Wentworth. For good measure, she hated Quinn Wentworth too.

  * * *

  “You’d best tell me,” Stephen said, patting his gelding. “Whatever has you half deaf at table, and off to the bank at all hours, is worrying the sisters. You’ve been out of prison for nearly two weeks, and yet you might as well still be locked away somewhere for all we see of you.”

  “The sisters always worry.” They’d also taken to shopping like coachmen sampling free summer ale. Instead of bickering incessantly, Constance and Althea planned mercantile raids, compared prices between establishments, and tried on bonnets without number. Jane abetted these excesses, and when Quinn had arrived home last evening—half an hour earlier than usual—he’d heard feminine laughter coming from the family parlor.

  Who would have guessed?

  “The servants tell me everything,” Stephen said, turning his horse down a quiet bridle path. “Everything, Quinn. If you want eyes and ears at home, I’m your man.”

  On horseback, Stephen looked older than when in his Bath chair. He was growing into Quinn’s height, and he’d chosen a mount that stood more than seventeen hands. To compensate for the weakness in his leg, his upper body strength was significant, and his chest and shoulders were well developed as a result.

  By the laws of the street, Stephen was a man.

  “You’re my baby brother. Asking you to spy for me only puts you in harm’s way.”

  Quinn had forgotten that Hyde Park early on a spring day was a slice of heaven. Birds flitted overhead in the luminous canopy of new leaves, the Serpentine reflected brilliant morning sunshine. Here was peace and beauty, right in the midst of London’s endless vice.

  Stephen’s horse shied at a rabbit darting across the path, dislocating Stephen from the saddle not one bit.

  “I do believe those two words—baby brother—are my least favorite pairing in any language,” Stephen said. “I wouldn’t be spying. I’m simply summarizing the endless stream of gossip, news, and hearsay that is heaped upon me daily by our loyal staff. Kristoff and Ivor are having a row over the new maids, for example.”

  Kristoff and Ivor barely spoke when in livery. “What sort of row?”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You might be married to your bank, but the rest of us are human.”

  “I am married to Jane.” Which made Quinn increasingly uneasy. He slept beside Jane every night, to the extent he ever slept, and to the extent he could sleep when she was in and out of the bed so frequently.

  Quinn almost enjoyed squiring her about to the glovemaker’s or the milliner’s—almost—but did Jane enjoy her post as his self-appointed bodyguard?

  “I like Jane,” Stephen said. “She can’t play chess worth a tinker’s prayer, but she’s a good sport and she puts up with Althea and Constance. I think you’d like Jane too if you’d give her a chance, Your Grace.”

  I do believe those two words…“I’m glad you and Jane are getting along. I’d take it as a favor to me
if you’d teach her to shoot.”

  Stephen halted his horse. “You should teach her. She’s your wife. Joshua says you’re frequently gone from the bank, off doing God knows what. Jane is determined that we all help keep your ungrateful self safe, which is difficult when we don’t know where to find you. Althea says the baby won’t settle for months yet, but leaving word with me of your whereabouts would be a husbandly courtesy. Mind, I’m not suggesting you tell your duchess what you’re about, because I would never meddle between man and wife.”

  “What does that mean, the baby won’t settle?”

  “Ask Jane.”

  She and Quinn didn’t talk about the child. Jane had chosen a midwife and an accoucheur, and made second choices for each in case the first was unavailable. Always sensible, that was Jane.

  “I don’t want to worry her. Please teach her to shoot.”

  “You teach her to shoot. You’re her husband.”

  Wentworths were stubborn, and Stephen was enjoying himself.

  “You’re a dead shot,” Quinn said. “By comparison, I barely know which end of a gun does what.” Pistols were loud, they cost money, and they could fire at most four bullets, with little accuracy over any distance. Quinn was very good with a pistol, Stephen was brilliant. “A sharp knife is a poor man’s best friend.”

  “You are not a poor man—or has that changed too? Is the bank in trouble?”

  Stephen’s question was reasonable, but he had waited for one of few opportunities to raise it in private. Jane had asked Quinn to make this dawn jaunt with Stephen for three mornings in a row, and Quinn had relented mostly to appease her.

  “The bank is in good health for the moment,” he said. “Any renewed scandal and we’re done.”

  “Joshua says you’re thriving.”

  Damn Joshua. “We’ve brought in some accounts from the working classes, I’m happy to report, though they have little in the way of funds. The major depositors are nervous. I’ve also been busy trying to learn the business of the dukedom.”

  “Such a pity nobody else in your family has a grasp of basic math or simple mercantile concepts. All alone you must struggle on, the uncomplaining hero of some tragedy you’re determined to write in your own blood.”