by Lloyd, Diana
A woman who would chase Byron through a ballroom was likely of questionable judgment but not necessarily tattered virtue. It was oddly easy to enjoy her company. Her earnestness while being ridiculously stuck in the guillotine, the serious yet fanciful tale of how their kiss came about, the look on her face as she pet the mighty elephant—those were not false. She was witty, curious, infuriating, kind, and a temptation. He craved her physically. And if her response in the aviary was any indication, she felt the pull of flesh as well. But could he ever trust her?
A servant tapped at the doorway, and Quin motioned for him to enter. “A note was just delivered, milord.”
“Thank you,” he said, taking the note from the silver salver and dismissing the footman.
“They are waiting for a response, milord.”
Quin looked down and saw the Wallingford seal pressed into the wax. Not from the solicitor then, something of a more personal nature perhaps? He broke the wax seal and read the few lines written there. An invitation to dinner that evening with the entire family. He grabbed a blank scrap of vellum from the desk and found a quill with a suitable nib. He wrote his acceptance quickly, sanded it, and sealed it with his own signet.
“Send this response,” he said, handing it to the servant. “Was it sent by runner or footman?”
“Footman,” the servant replied, and then added with some reverence, “In livery.”
Quin fished a few coins from the drawer of his desk. “Offer him this.” He handed them to the servant, who turned and walked away. He looked down at the invitation again, the carefully cordial note signified the duke’s surrender to the realization that it was to be Quin or nothing for his youngest daughter. If Quin’s guess was correct, he’d be treated like an honored guest tonight.
…
Quin stood with the other men while the ladies retired after dinner, watching his fiancée’s retreat from the room. She’d spoken no more than three sentences in the past two hours. This was not the lively outspoken woman he’d come to know over the past few days. If she was having second thoughts about the wedding, she had better speak up tonight. Unless…she was being forced into matrimony.
It had not occurred to Quin to investigate the duke’s finances. Not that he’d had time. But still, suppose Wallingford’s coffers were empty, might someone have offered him an enticement for forcing this marriage? Quin shook his head. He was being ridiculous. The past six months had been such hell he was now seeing ghosts and conspiracies in every dark corner. The man in the park had probably been a guest at the ball. The lads on the boat were just ruffians. And Lady Hippolyta was no more than a slightly spoiled debutante who would quickly learn to accept her place in the world. God, he needed a drink.
“Brandy, my lord?” A footman presented a tray with glasses and a bottle. At his side, another footman presented a box of tightly rolled Spanish cigarillos and a bowl of loose pipe tobacco.
Quin chose a cigarillo and nodded toward the bottle. When the footman poured a polite splash into the glass, Quin gave him another nod and he kept pouring. “Excellent,” he said when he was sure the amount was sufficient to put an end to any other conspiracy theories that might be brewing in his brain. He might regret it tomorrow, but there was already so much regret in his life, what was one more?
Wallingford’s tobacco and brandy were dispensed with a large dose of politics. Quin nursed his brandy and kept his tongue still. If history had taught him anything, it was that what was best for England and the crown was not always best for Scotland. Insulting his host and soon to be father-in-law, would not be added to his list of missteps. An elaborate standing clock ticked away the minutes of dry discourse until they could rejoin the ladies.
At last Wallingford stood, his sons-in-law jumping up to join him. Quin knocked back the dregs of brandy he’d been nursing for the past hour and got to his feet. After a hasty yet polite bow to the lady of house, Quin made his way to his fiancée, eager to calm her obviously ravaged nerves. In their brief acquaintance, he’d never seen her appear so out of sorts. Had she only now realized her fate? By this time on the morrow, they’d be man and wife. Lord and Lady Graham with naught but death to set them asunder.
“Such a fine meal.” Hippolyta jumped at the sound of his voice. “Apologies, I did not mean to frighten you. The night is equally fine. A short stroll after such a meal is often of great benefit, wouldn’t you agree?” His fiancée’s face registered relief. Speaking to her in private should do much for her nervousness. He only wished he had more comforting things to say.
With her parents’ permission granted, a servant quickly produced his hat and a lady’s maid a bonnet and wrap for Hippolyta. Despite the duke and duchess’s nonchalance, Quin knew better than to keep their daughter away from them too long.
Once outside and away from the family’s curious ears, Quin phrased his first question carefully. “Do you never speak in front of your family?”
“Is it that obvious? I barely notice it anymore.” In the moonlight he could see the hint of a shy smile before she turned her head away.
“You seem to have no trouble articulating your thoughts when we are together. Would you care to explain your silence at dinner?” They were far enough from the house now that even the footman waiting on the front steps would not hear her reply. Quin stopped walking, reached out and tucked a finger under her chin, turning her back toward him. “Well?”
“They treat me like a child. They always have and they always will. That is the curse of being the youngest of six children. I learned a long time ago that any attempt at intelligent conversation would be rebuffed.”
“I do not think of you as a child.” Quin started walking again, hoping the exertion would also stimulate his brain to produce the right words for all he needed to say. “I should hope you would feel that you could always speak to me as an adult.”
“As a wife, friend, and confidant?”
“All those?” He attempted a chuckle. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“Then, Lord Graham, I do indeed have something to say.”
Here it is. The jilting. He looked back at the footman. “Then I suggest now is the time to do so.”
“I’m afraid I’ve done something that I shouldn’t have.”
“If it’s about what happened yesterday at the menagerie that was my fault, dearest Polly. I was not acting the gentleman.”
“Not that. It was something before that. I did something unkind to you.”
Quin nodded. “I know.”
“You do?”
“Your maid has a great talent for acting, I’ll give you that. Your error was in looking much too pleased with yourself. Lucky for you, I never really liked those breeches.”
“Wait, what are talking about?” She squinted with confusion. Wine may have erased her memory of the event, but his skin was still raw.
“The wine. I kenned all along that it wasn’t the accident it appeared to be.” Relief washed over him. She wasn’t jilting him; she was trying to apologize for her childish behavior.
“Oh, I forgot about that. I am very sorry for that, too.”
“Apology accepted,” he said, taking her hand in his. “For a while there, you looked as tense as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Do you feel better now that you’ve cleared the air?”
“There’s one more thing I need to apologize for…” Her voice faded as a hired hack pulled up in the lane next to them, and a dark figure leaned out the door.
“Graham? Lord Graham, is that you?” a voice called out.
“Mr. Humphries?” Quin squinted into the night and recognized his London solicitor.
“Aye, my lord, none other. So sorry to disturb you, but your household said you’d be at this address. And, well, you did say you wanted the settlement documents as soon as humanly possible. Once again, might I say, my lord, how terribly sorry I am that the originals were ruined by mishap. With your approval, and if His Grace is in residence, we can get this new copy signed and seal
ed this eve.”
Quin turned to her. “Would you mind, dear? ’Tis quite important that they be agreed on before tomorrow’s ceremony.”
“Of course.” Her words were coated in honey and graciousness, but there was an edge to the way she turned to walk back to the house.
Quin reached out and touched her arm. “Polly, is everything all right?”
“Everything’s…fine.” She sounded so desolate. If Humphries and the footman hadn’t been watching, he’d have pulled her into his arms and kissed her sadness away.
“We’ll resume this conversation after the signing.” He tried to smile, but she’d already started back to the house. Cold feet, he told himself. They’d speak again later. All he had to do was come up with the perfect encouraging yet nonspecific reassurance that all would be well in the end.
Within minutes, Quin found himself sitting in the duke’s office for the second time that week with hopes that this meeting went better than the last. He was, at least, sober this time. A state that Wallingford seemed determined to alter as he poured them both a generous glass of whisky.
“Thought you’d enjoy some Scottish whisky, Graham. Brandy is well and good for after dinner and such, but I find a good, bracing whisky helps with business negotiations.”
“Thank you, Your Grace. But I have already agreed to the terms you set out previously. I don’t expect much negotiation is necessary.”
Wallingford sat back at his desk and laughed. “Let’s have a read-through anyway, shall we? We wouldn’t want your solicitor to have ink-stained fingers for nothing, now would we?”
Mr. Humphries’s fingers, nervously clutching the glass Wallingford set before him, were indeed splotched with black India ink. He must have recopied most of the agreement himself. Quin sat, leaned toward the candles for better light, and began reading. Everything appeared to be as he recalled it. The dowry was generous, yet the majority of it was set aside for any future children of the union and for the use and discretion of…Elsinore?
Poor Humphries must have made a mistake in his haste to copy the papers. Quin took a sip of the whisky and turned back to the first page.
Lady Elsinore Anne Mary Charlotte Cosgrove, daughter of the Duke of Wallingford, he read. Not believing his eyes, he blinked and focused on the paper once again…
Lady Elsinore Anne Mary Charlotte Cosgrove.
He slammed his fist down on the desktop and snarled at the document. A white-hot anger bubbled up from his gut. He’d been made a fool of once again.
“An Dhiabhal orm-sa! Who the fuck is Elsinore?”
Chapter Eight
“Once your hound’s role has been determined, notch the ear or employ a pigment tattoo of the underbelly. Make your mark permanent and visible.” Oglethorpe’s Treatise on the Obedient Canine
“He’s not coming, is he?” Elsinore asked, feeling surprisingly calm for having been left at the altar.
“It’s only been an hour, dear.” Her mother patted her arm and straightened her veil for the hundredth time. “Have I told you how beautiful you look?”
Elsinore had rarely seen her mother stoic. It was unnerving. “Yes, Mama,” she replied, anticipating the eruption of weeping and wailing at any moment.
Her wedding dress, borrowed from her sister, Verona, and quickly altered by Yvette, was a gossamer dream of fine India silk shot with gold thread that shimmered when she walked. She’d been pacing and shimmering for the better part of the last hour. Sitting, it was decreed, would crease the silk, so she’d been forbidden to do so until after the ceremony.
“How long do neglected brides wait before they’re allowed to retire?” This particular subject was sorely missing from her recollection of Oglethorpe’s. There had been a chapter about building trust between hound and master, but she could not recall how to repair the bond of trust once it had been broken.
“None of that now, little sister, he’ll be here,” Imogen reassured her.
“He will, if he knows what’s good for him,” her mother added, her voice betraying her distress for the first time that morning. “Your brother has gone to look for him.”
Feeling suddenly short of breath, Elsinore reached up and touched the gold necklace her not-quite-husband had handed to her on the day of his proposal. Everyone else thought it lovely, but to her it was nothing more than a symbol of falsehood and lies. She lied to him, he lied to her, and they all lied to each other. Would it ever end?
“And if they don’t find him?” Her knees began to tremble. His absence settled everything. She’d be quietly sent off to one of her father’s country estates to live her life away from polite society—a slightly tarnished woman left to survive on the capricious whims of her male relatives. She should be happy, she supposed, but she wasn’t.
“Papa is ready to call him out. The only acceptable excuse for not being here is that he’s already dead.” Verona took her turn at fussing with Elsinore’s veil.
Dead? Had her father already struck him down? “I need to sit,” Elsinore whispered. She was pushed into a chair just before her knees gave out.
“Fetch a vinaigrette,” her mother shrieked, “she’s fainted dead away!”
“Mama, I only needed to sit…” Her protest was cut short by a commotion in the hallway, and she looked up to see Lord Graham striding into the room with her father, her brother, and all four brothers-in-law following on his heels.
“My apologies for being late, Your Grace,” Quin addressed the duchess, bowing low and ignoring his bride. “I have been engaged in a most illuminating discussion with my solicitor, and time got the better of me, I’m afraid.”
Quin handed his hat to a footman and began removing his gloves slowly, pulling one finger loose at a time. Only then did he turn to face her. “Good morning…Elsinore.”
The cold, raw anger radiating from his stare struck her to the core. Her father’s face reflected the bitter disappointment that she’d seen all too often lately. Even her sisters’ husbands looked peevish and irate. It was all her fault.
The room began to spin.
Someone produced a vinaigrette, family was gathered in the morning room next to her father’s office, the vicar was roused, and ten brief but tortuous minutes later, she was a married woman. She was bound forever to Lord Graham, who was even now glaring at her as they sat down to the wedding breakfast.
She clasped her hands in her lap, pinching her palm to focus on the pain instead of the tears that threatened to fall. There was an urgently whispered conversation at the far end of the table before her father stood to proclaim a toast in their honor. “We wish you happy,” was all he managed, followed by a few mumbled hear-hears by her brothers-in-law. An uncomfortable silence fell over the table before her brother jumped up from his seat, urged by a kick in the shin under the table, no doubt.
“I wish you much happiness and many children,” he offered.
Elsinore closed her eyes. How horrible that no one even knew what to say at such a rushed and unpropitious occasion. How had her seemingly harmless prank caused so much upset? Oh, if only she’d told him her real name before the ceremony. Perhaps her parents were right after all; she did do things without thinking them through. Her eyes flew open again as she felt Quin’s chair being pushed back from the table. Oh God no, she prayed silently.
“A toast to my lady wife,” he announced. “I consider myself a lucky man indeed to have such a wife as Lady Elsinore.” His eyes bored into hers as he spoke the last word.
In a vain attempt to summon another fainting spell, Elsinore raised her hand to her forehead.
“Dinna even consider it,” Quin whispered in her ear as he took his seat.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered back.
“And for which bad deed, Elsinore? Leaving your mother’s side at the ball or perhaps getting your pretty little hand stuck in a guillotine? Or maybe it is for cheating at cards?”
“I’m sorry I lied to you about my name.”
“Oh, yes, that one. Did you t
hink I’d never find out?”
“I meant to tell you last night, but you left in such a hurry.”
“Hear me well, my lady wife,” he said, his voice a menacing whisper. “That will be the last time ye make a fool of me.”
…
Her room at Lord Graham’s temporary London address was clean but hopelessly out of style. The realization that she would never again sleep in her beautiful chambers in her father’s house was sobering. She would soon have her own home and her own household to manage—whatever state that household might be in.
On the bed lay a wooden box tied with a red velvet ribbon. With cautious curiosity, she flicked at the ribbon to reveal a small card. Her eyes burned with unshed tears as she read the writing there. “Hippolyta” was written in a man’s bold hand. She swallowed hard and backed away from the bed and into the solid body of her new husband.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked as she jumped back a step. “Your room is across the hall.”
“Aren’t ye going to open your wedding gift?”
“I’m quite fatigued. Perhaps later, after I’ve had a lie down.” Elsinore retreated to the far side of the room.
“But I insist,” Quin replied, folding his arms across his chest.
She circled the bed, keeping as much distance between them as possible. Reaching out, she eased the box to the edge of the bed and pulled at the ribbon.
“There’s a card,” Quin pointed out. “Why don’t you read it?”
Elsinore’s cheeks flushed. “I’d rather not,” she said sheepishly.
“And I would rather that you did,” Quin replied, his voice cold and demanding. “An obedient wife would do as her husband wished.”
“And an honorable husband wouldn’t make her.” Shocked at her own brazenness, she removed her trembling hand from the box. She heard him chuckle, and the sound sent a shiver down her spine.
Quin reached over and snatched up the card. “Hippolyta,” he read aloud. “Whoever could that be? A siren perhaps, using false charm to lure men to a certain death?”
“I’ve already explained that I meant no harm by it. Do you intend to deny me forgiveness forever?”