by Diana Lloyd
After one crisp pump of their clasped hands to signal an end to the discussion, Wallingford walked to the door and opened it to a waiting footman. “Escort Lord Graham to the drawing room. Her Grace awaits.”
The knot in Quin’s gut tightened as he was led away. The hangover he’d been nursing all morning pounded in his skull as he made his way to his next challenge of the day. Through bloodshot eyes he spotted Her Grace, the Duchess of Wallingford, sitting near the entry to the room like a sentry. He swallowed back a bit of bile as he approached.
While the duchess appeared as harmless as a well-fed cat, Quin did not miss the flicker of warning in her eyes as he entered. Farther inside the room, huddled together near the fireplace, were four women of varying ages. Sisters, he guessed. So close was their combined scrutiny, he imagined he could feel it crawling over him, noting the shine of his boots and every stitch of the skill of his tailor. He responded with a polite smile and his most courtly bow. If fault were found, so be it. He had more pressing worries this afternoon, including not tossing up the meager contents of his stomach on his soon-to-be fiancée.
His intended sat alone, her back ramrod straight and hands clasped stiffly in her lap. When she raised her eyes to meet his, pity struck him like a dash of cold water to his face. He recognized fear in those eyes, but it was nearly overshadowed by the bold light of hope, and he was the first to shift his focus. He would extinguish that hope soon enough.
He noticed a few things about her he hadn’t recalled from last night’s brief but fateful meeting. Her dark blonde hair held warm shades of sand, honey, and sunshine. She had a pert little nose with not one freckle upon it, and her lips—dear God, her lips—finely shaped and the most erotic shade of pink he could imagine. Lips made for kissing. The thought appeared unbidden and unwelcome in his aching brain.
“Your Grace.” He turned his attention back to her mother and bowed, willing his head not to explode. “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance. I can see where your lovely daughter came about her beauty.” Common flattery, he knew, yet true in this case, as she was still a handsome woman.
The duchess nodded once, unmoved by his compliment. “We are so pleased to have you, Lord Graham. Or do you prefer the Scottish Laird?”
“While I appreciate your consideration, madam, I hold my family’s older English title of Baron Graham of Menteith. I believe the honor of Laird of Clan Graham was transferred to an English duke shortly after the ’45.” A twinge of perverse satisfaction filled him as her face pinched at his mention of Scotland’s 1745 rebellion. He may have been birthed by an English mother and wore an English title, but every Scotsman born after the ’45 had the word “Culloden” etched into his bones.
The duchess introduced his future sisters-in-law by first announcing the name and title of their respective husbands. They’d snagged a quartet of earls, yet another not-so-subtle reminder that a mere baron was not quite up to scratch. All four women were undeniable beauties, yet to his thinking, not quite equal to their youngest sister. He’d inadvertently plucked the prize bloom from Wallingford’s garden. By the time he made another excruciating bow, he’d already forgotten all their names and titles as he realized each individual strand of his hair hurt in its own uniquely torturous way.
“My son,” the duchess continued, “Viscount Ainsley, is otherwise engaged this afternoon. He will, of course, be attending the wedding.”
“Of course,” Quin remarked, as she appeared to expect a reply. The duchess clearly considered her daughter’s acquiescence a foregone conclusion. It squelched any hope he had that the girl might refuse him.
“And this is our youngest,” she said, with a sweep of her hand. “Of course, you’ve met,” she added coolly.
Quin’s perfunctory bow froze in midair as his brain processed the duchess’s last statement. He didn’t know his fiancée’s name. Had he ever heard her name? As far as he recalled, she’d only been referred to as daughter. Dear God, I don’t know her name. It was natural, he supposed, that everyone assumed they had at the very least exchanged names before the locking of lips. What was he to do?
He drew a deep breath and tried to force his brain to focus. Think man, think. Something biblical perhaps? Mary? Ruth? Sarah? No, no, and no. Something royal then…Elizabeth? Philippa? Mary? Oh, wait, he’d already done Mary. Anne? Christ, he was an eejit.
The sound of a gentle “ahem” shocked him back to the present, and Quin realized his intended’s dainty hand hung in the air where he’d reached for it. He grasped it gently, and brushed what he hoped was a sufficiently attentive, yet completely innocent, kiss against her knuckles. He heard someone say, “Please have a seat, my lord.”
A memory of her perfect breasts molded in silk and wine flashed into his brain as he sat next to his soon-to-be wife, scuttling all thoughts of a proper introduction. He shifted uncomfortably, stalling for time to let his still alcohol-buffeted brain ponder his predicament.
“Your wrist seems to be healing nicely.” He offered this while wondering if it would seem too peculiar for him to ask for a current copy of Debrett’s so he could casually thumb through the pages until finding her family and locating her name. He hadn’t thought to travel with his own copy, his current situation clearly falling under the purview of “unforeseen circumstances” in which one might badly need a Debrett’s.
“Mama believes the redness will be gone by the end of the week.”
“Excellent.” He nodded while his mind still spun over his dilemma. He strained his already overtaxed brain to recall every word of conversation spoken for the past day, searching for any mention of her name.
“We’ll leave you two alone for a short while,” the duchess announced. She and her gaggle of countesses glided gracefully out of the room, closing the door only halfway behind them. Quin didn’t miss their expressions of abject pity for their sister as they left.
“Would you care for some tea?” she asked.
“Yes, please.” As she handed him his tea, the cup chattered against the saucer in a staccato betrayal of her nervousness. Her manner wasn’t that of smug triumph over a successfully laid marriage trap, but something more like desperation. Perhaps she was just an innocent pawn in this awful game. Remorse tugged at his gut for the awful consequences of her foolish mistake. She would soon enough regret her decision to ask him for assistance.
“I’ve brought you a gift,” he said, hoping to ease her obvious discomfort.
“Oh, how thoughtful,” she replied, rewarding him with the shy smile he recognized from the previous evening. His body responded with a sudden, involuntary flush of warmth. Unprepared for his reaction, he turned away, pretending a sudden interest in the floral pattern on the tea service as he reached into his coat pocket.
Had he been thinking more clearly, he would have thought to check the contents of the pouch before handing it over. Too late. He sighed, feeling the weight of it in his hand. They would both soon discover what her father deemed a token engagement gift.
“For you, dear,” he said, rather proud of himself for thinking to add the endearment, even as he felt the lowest sort of scoundrel for the implication that the gift was purchased by him. It was but one more admission he was not willing to make today.
As she slid the contents of the pouch into her hand, she gasped. What the duke considered a “token” was, in reality, one of the most exquisite necklaces Quin had ever seen. A perfect circle of small, filigree laurel leaves as delicate as gold lace was embellished with tiny white seed pearls.
“Oh, my lord, it is the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.” She ran her fingertips lightly over the necklace.
“May I?” he asked. Small and dainty, the necklace suited her beauty, and he wished he’d been the one to choose it for her.
“Please do.” She turned slightly so that he might fasten it around her neck. “How does it look?” she asked, turning back to face him, her cheeks pink with excitement.
It was lovely and perfect. Just like her.
“Fine,” he heard himself say. Deadly poison could be rendered from the most beautiful of blooms, Sorcha had taught him that cruel lesson. He’d presented his first wife with a diamond brooch upon their engagement. A Graham family heirloom, Quin supposed he could claim that he hadn’t purchased that gift, either. As far as he knew, it was still on the floor of Sorcha’s bedchamber where he’d tossed it with the other rubbish. He’d refused to let her be buried with any of the Graham family jewels. Quin turned his attention once again to the tea service, willing Sorcha out of his throbbing head.
“I have something for you as well,” she said quietly. He saw her glance again nervously to the doorway where he knew her mother and sisters were waiting just outside. “But first, I want you to know how very much I appreciate your assistance last evening. I never got a chance to properly thank you.”
“I wish it had turned out better for you,” he said, remembering how quickly her father had her removed from the room after they were found.
She nodded silently, reached down under the sofa where it was hidden, and pulled out his shoe. The silver-buckled dancing shoe had been nearly severed in two by the guillotine. “This might have been my wrist,” she said as she handed it to him.
He couldn’t help but smile ruefully as he took it from her. “Thank you. I wondered what happened to it.”
“It’s most likely beyond repair, but I wanted you to have it back. You saved me from being a one-armed spinster.”
“A one-armed spinster with ten cats,” he teased, and they both laughed nervously. He realized then that there was no choice but for him to be gauche and simply ask after her given name. His alcohol-pickled brain was not going to magically produce it. She’d be beyond offended, and he’d look the fool, but there was no way around it.
Resolved, he opened his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted before the question could be asked.
“I can tell by your face that you’re wondering about something,” she said quietly, with her eyes on the open door.
“As a matter of fact, I was. I do hope you’ll forgive me for not knowing.”
“You can blame Lord Byron’s poetry and faeries, I suppose,” she said.
“I see. Wait…what?”
“That’s why I kissed you last night. Isn’t that what you were wondering?”
“Well, aye, I did wonder about that. But I’m not sure prose and magical beings really address the issue to my satisfaction. Why the devil did you kiss me?”
“I was looking for Lord Byron,” she said, as if that fact should bring everything else into focus.
“I don’t follow.” And, then, another possible meaning to her words occurred to him. “Are you trying to tell me that you are a favorite of Lord Byron?” He asked the question carefully, holding his rising anger in check. It would be in keeping with his bad luck to have affianced himself to some randy English poet’s discarded mistress.
“Certainly not. We’ve never even met.” If she was offended by his inference, she didn’t show it. Her face registered only mild irritation, as if she was growing weary of trying to explain something simple to a lackwit. “I left the ballroom to find Lord Byron. I had wanted him to sign a copy of one of his poems that I’m quite fond of.”
“Is it a poem about kissing?” Quin ventured.
“No, it’s about longing and adventure, and that’s quite another thing altogether.”
Although it hurt his head, he nodded in agreement. “Adventure and faeries?”
“No, just adventure. The poem explains why you found me alone, but the faeries really explain the kiss.”
“They do?” His head pounded with renewed vigor.
“Tell me, my lord, when you were very young, did you believe in faeries and the like?”
“Of course not. I was a sensible child.”
Her eyes narrowed in skepticism. “I don’t believe you.”
“For the sake of argument, and because I’m now on pins and needles wondering how far flung this conversation can become, I will acquiesce to the notion that at one time in my life, when very, very, young, I may have indeed believed in selkies.”
“I hope that admission was painless for you, my lord. My point is, the moment you stop believing in faeries, and such, is the moment you are no longer a carefree child. It is a major turning point in a person’s life. After that, nothing is the same.”
“That’s it? That explains nothing.” She was mad. Beautiful and utterly mad, that much was obvious.
“What I’m saying, if you’d only listen, is that I realized at that very moment when we were found in less than desirable circumstances, my life would never be the same. It was a turning point of sorts, something there was no coming back from. And, so, I indulged my curiosity and kissed you.”
“I see.”
“Do you really?”
“No, but it hardly signifies. We’ve been condemned to one another regardless.”
“Condemned?” She hung her head. “Is that how you see it?”
“You will find that I am nae much of a bargain for a duke’s daughter.”
“My father would not have sent you in here if he didn’t approve.” She didn’t look up as she spoke, and Quin was once again overcome by pity for her. As he reached for her hand, he wished he were the sort of man she deserved and not the man he was.
Best to just get on with it. He concentrated his attention on her left earlobe as it seemed much safer than looking into those trusting amber eyes. He took her hand in his, and after one last moment of obstinate hesitation, slid down to one knee.
Her hand trembled in his and her eyes widened. The sound of a stifled giggle carried from the hallway cutting the tension filled silence in the parlor like jagged broken glass. He tightened his grip on her hand, lest she shake it free of him, and he began to speak.
“Your father has decided…that is, um, we agreed that you and I…” He frowned and looked over at his severed shoe. This was not how he meant to begin. This was likely the only proposal the girl would get in her lifetime, it should be…pleasant. He had, after all, been raised to be a gentleman, even if the honorific no longer truly applied. Straightening his shoulders and taking a deep breath, Quin managed to look into her eyes as he began again. “I beg of you to consent to be my wife.”
Both aware that her mother and sisters stood just beyond the doorway, his fiancée gave the response they both knew she would. She took a deep breath as if to fortify herself. And, speaking loudly so that all in the hallway could hear, she replied.
“Yes, my lord. Oh, yes.”
Chapter Four
“One should not expect much from a new hound’s first outing. Allow him to run with the pack and learn by observation.” Oglethorpe’s Treatise on the Obedient Canine
The phaeton Quin had hired for his sojourn in London was not quite as nice as he would have liked. However, his well-appointed traveling coach simply would not meet his needs today. He’d been asked—no, ordered—to take his fiancée through the park during a fashionable hour. The point, he knew, was to be seen paying his attentions to her in public to prove she’d not been both ruined and abandoned.
His first challenge of the day arose when the door opened to a dour-faced butler, and Quin realized he didn’t have a name to ask for. He watched one of the servant’s eyebrows raise a fraction of an inch in question as he stood on the stoop struggling for words. “My intended is expecting me,” he managed at last as he fumbled to produce his calling card.
A gloved hand relieved him of the card as if he’d just offered up a sardine from the depths of his pocket. The butler’s only response was to open the door and step back, giving Quin just enough room to squeeze by and into the entryway. The offending card was laid on a silver salver, and the butler walked away with measured steps and not a single word.
Quin frowned. So, he was to wait in the entryway like an unwanted bit of baggage, was he? Had they not yet realized that he held their daughter’s fate in the palm of his hand? He could have packe
d up his household last night and been well on his way back to Scotland by now without a backward glance. He should have. He’d certainly considered it, but chivalry and gentlemanly propriety had won out in the end.
Quin lifted his chin, pushed back his shoulders, and soothed down the prickle of irritation that scratched its way up his spine. He’d been treated worse and by his fellow Scotsmen who still looked down upon his family name with derision. Someday, they would all forget the rising, forget who supported who, who lost all, and who managed to make gain… At least, he hoped they would. Until then, he could tolerate an English duke’s petty insults. He had bigger problems.
All residual irritation melted away at the sight of her coming down the stairs to greet him. Gone was the pale ill-fitting gown of the ball. Gone was the ruffled schoolgirl frock of their engagement. Today, she was dressed as a woman, and Quin’s body appreciatively recognized it. She wore a fashionable pink spencer over a cream-colored muslin walking dress that hinted at the womanly curves within.
“How lovely you look”—he remembered then that he didn’t yet know her name and struggled to complete the compliment—“mo chridhe.” How he had managed to leave the Wallingford household yesterday afternoon without yet knowing his own fiancée’s name was still a bit of a mystery.
He’d intended to ask, but somewhere along the way, the conversation had been pirated by a band of faeries and that scoundrel Lord Byron. The man was an absolute menace, always had been. Him and that damned bear of his. All things considered, she was still better off that Quin had found her before that rogue laid eyes on her—whatever her name was. Wallingford’s man would deliver the settlement papers soon enough, and her name would surely be on them somewhere. Quin could tolerate another day of ignorance in exchange for not looking the fool. He would fake it until then.
His instinctive pleasure at his fiancée’s appearance evaporated to dust when he spied not only a maid as their chaperone but Her Grace, the Duchess of Wallingford herself, gathering up her reticule and shawl to join them. Apparently, her parents thought to head off any undue speculation by throwing a high-ranking member of peerage into the hot seat of the carriage beside them. Whatever people might think of him or his intended, no one in town would dare cut the duchess. Tactically, it was brilliant. But for practical purposes, it was going to make it deuced difficult for him to have any sort of conversation with the poor girl.