Stephen was perched on the box, Ned with him. Althea and Constance sat opposite Quinn, looking as pleased as Hades in contemplation of a plump robin.
Quinn sat beside his duchess, who was ominously quiet.
He gathered his courage and plunged into battle. “I should have told you what I was about.”
Jane’s gaze remained straight ahead. “Not now, Quinn.”
If he didn’t fight for his marriage now, he might never have another opportunity. Jane would be decent to him, accommodating even, but she wouldn’t plague him with discussions of names and nurseries, wouldn’t be his rutting heifer.
He tried another tack. “I meant well.”
His sisters glared daggers at him. “Not now, Quinn,” they said in unison.
The coach swayed around a corner, the pace sedate, but the journey home from Tipton’s town house was already half over.
“I’m sorry,” Quinn said, though he wasn’t sorry he’d never lay eyes on Beatrice again.
Constance sent him a wan smile. “Quinn, please. Not. Now.”
He permitted himself a tactical retreat until the coach had pulled into the mews and he’d handed Althea and Constance down. By rights, Jane should have been first out of the carriage, but she was making a point.
She looked at Quinn’s proffered hand, picked up her skirts, and stepped to the ground without touching him. She’d taken two steps in the direction of the garden gate when Quinn spoke.
“I am in more peril now than when the noose was placed about my neck.”
She turned slowly. “Explain yourself.”
Had he ever faced a greater danger than the hurt in Jane’s eyes? “I keep my family safe.”
Jane was mentally counting to three again, and that made him wild.
“Quinn, you keep your family out. They think you want to be left alone, so they return the favor. The lot of you rattle around in this gorgeous house, captives to a past that matters less by the year. What am I to do with you?”
A chance comment Stephen had made outside the walls of Newgate came back to Quinn. “What would you like to do with me?”
He was encouraged by her brooding regard. She was thinking, and thinking was better than walking away.
“I would like to be your wife, your friend, your duchess, your lover, but handing my heart to somebody who marches into harm’s way without me won’t serve.”
Without me. “You’re not upset that I confronted the countess. You’re upset that I went alone.”
“And that you purposely loved me witless first, thus assuring I’d be sound asleep while you took on a jealous earl, his half-daft countess, stray butlers…Quinn, a duke is a leader. He leads armies, he helps lead the nation. He does not charge off all on his own without a friend or ally to be had. I would like to be the wife of a duke, rather than the domestic convenience of some self-appointed warrior who might never come home to me.”
They should not be having this discussion in the benighted alley, where Quinn didn’t dare take Jane’s hand.…
Ask her. “Could we continue this conversation in the stable?”
She shot a glower toward the house. “Excellent suggestion.”
Quinn offered her his arm. “Ned!” he shouted. “Wherever you are, get into the house and stay there, or your name will be Ned Can’t Sit Down for a Week.”
The bushes on the far side of the garden wall rustled as Quinn led his wife to the cool, quiet surrounds of the stable. Horses were dozing in their stalls, an all-black cat rose from a pile of straw and stropped itself against his boots.
“Is that the fellow from Newgate?” Jane asked.
The fellow who’d nose-kissed Jane while Quinn had tried not to envy a cat. “The warden kindly surrendered him when I sent a note requesting the favor. I can offer you a choice of trunks to sit on, or we can repair to the harness room.”
Jane preceded him down the barn aisle, the cat at her heels. The harness room was humble, redolent of horse and leather. Jane perched on a trunk, Quinn turned a wooden bucket upside down and planted his arse upon it.
Jane spoke first. “Ned said you gave him the Wentworth family name.”
“He hadn’t one of his own, and Wentworth is an honorable name, lately.”
“You gave me that name as well, Quinn. I gather you will give it to my firstborn too.”
“The child may use whatever name you please,” Quinn said. “MacGowan was your husband, and a child should be encouraged to honor his father. I would certainly be honored if your baby had the same last name as our other children.”
Jane wrinkled her nose. “I want to be furious with you, but I’m far more wroth with that blasted earl. He could not bear for his wife’s former paramour to obtain a higher status than he had.”
“Her former footman, Jane. When status is all a man has, he guards it jealously. Then too, Tipton has no heir of his body, and to an aristocrat, that’s a bitter pill. I can make no excuses for his thieving from the late Duke of Walden, but that wrong was committed against a party now deceased.”
She stared at her boots. “You are forgiving and forgetting, and all I want is to see that man in Newgate, counting the hours that remain to him, hanging his food from the rafters so the rodents don’t steal it. Not very charitable of me.”
Sitting on a dusty trunk, Jane yet exuded all the dignity of a duchess. She’d stood before a loaded gun for Quinn, and the weight of that…he leaned forward to press his forehead to her knees.
“I went there to give Bea her damned letters, to tell her she needn’t worry that I’d ever betray her confidences. I have much more enjoyable tasks to occupy me than brooding over the past. You were right, Jane. The time has come to put youthful stupidity behind me.”
To put all of the past aside, including Jack Wentworth’s insults, York’s endless bitter winters, and too many missed meals to count.
Jane stroked a hand over Quinn’s right shoulder.
“He could have killed you, Quinn. He could have taken you from me, when I’ve already gone and fallen in love with you. I could not have borne…” She folded down over him and kissed him—the right cheek, then the left—and wrapped her arms around him. Quinn rested his cheek against Jane’s thigh, surrounded by her warmth and the fragrance of lemon verbena. He pushed aside the terror he’d endured when she’d faced Tipton’s gun, and instead clung to pride in her courage.
She sat back and Quinn took the place beside her on the trunk. Her relenting came as a profound relief, though the discussion wasn’t over. Somehow, he must tell his duchess that he loved her. He’d never said the words, not to anybody, not even to Bea in a moment of maudlin excess.
Thank God.
“You want to be free of your past, Quinn, but I think you will have to assist her ladyship if you’re to achieve that result. Tipton has doubtless held her indiscretion over her head for years, while he went lifting skirts all over the Continent. A woman can only bear so much.”
“I’m willing to pursue any course you please, Jane, but I’d as soon be spared any further dealings with her ladyship.”
By rights, Jane should hate the countess, but something of Beatrice’s circumstances had come clear to Quinn. She was a captive to her station, neglected and scorned by a man to whom she was bound to grant intimate favors. Her ladyship was also without true friends and allowed only an occasional season in London to alleviate her boredom.
“You should settle a sum in trust for her,” Jane said. “Give her enough to live separate from the horror she’s married to. The woman wants rescuing, Quinn, though I expect that butler of hers will accompany her to any household she establishes.”
“Rescue her?”
“She’ll have a good deal less trouble forgiving and forgetting you if she’s the toast of the gentry in Cornwall and you’re here in London. An estrangement will make life splendidly awkward for the earl.”
Quinn kissed Jane’s cheek, because even his tolerant duchess had a sense of justice. “A set of prison bars would make life awkward for the earl.” A peer could be arrested for criminal wrongdoing, but he’d be tried in the Lords and possibly acquitted. Perhaps that privilege had inspired Tipton’s timing where Quinn’s downfall had been concerned. The House of Lords would hesitate to convict a duke, while a jury of twelve commoners adjudicating the fate of an upstart nabob had been easy for Tipton to sway.
“Your family’s name would come up if you pressed charges,” Jane said, “and Tipton would of course tell the world why he’d carried a grudge. Whoever assisted him to empty the Walden coffers has doubtless decamped for foreign parts. We must be creative about this.”
We, the most beautiful word in the language. “As long as I can guarantee the safety of my family, I’m willing to be as creative as you please.”
Jane cradled his hand in her lap, and for a moment, the only sound was the rumbling of the black cat, who’d curled up on a pile of woolen horse blankets.
“Rescue the countess, then, but as your wife, I have a few things I need to tell you too.”
* * *
Jane had castigated Quinn for being too battle-ready, too willing to confront all foes, but his fault was that he was too devoted to those he loved. He’d stuck his neck in a noose rather than put his liberty before his family’s wellbeing, and today he’d faced a bullet from the same man who’d schemed, connived, and bribed to send Quinn…
Jane could not bear to finish that thought.
“Are you in need of ginger biscuits, Your Grace?” Quinn asked, bumping his shoulder gently against hers.
“I’m in need of absolution, Quinn. I lost my temper with Papa.”
He kissed her fingers, such a casual, intimate, husbandly gesture. “Did you hurl a knife at him across the breakfast parlor? Not exactly at him, but close enough so as not to matter?”
“Be serious.” Jane wanted to tuck her face against his shoulder and breathe him in, but some words needed saying. “I had Papa thrown out of the house. He’s not to come back until he’s patched things up with his bishop or otherwise found gainful employment.”
When she put the situation in plain English, her decision didn’t sound so awful. Wastrel sons were cast out into the world frequently, and for the most part, they grew up or at least acquired some humility.
“He must have provoked you.”
“I don’t want to tell you how.”
“Jane, you just stood beside me in front of a loaded gun and all but ordered a titled swine to bugger himself. What could you possibly fear to tell me?”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and Jane’s throat ached. “I don’t want to admit to you that I was wrong. That sometimes, we must call others to account and demand that they behave honorably. We must fight sometimes, even when we don’t want to, because…”
Hot tears slid down her cheeks. Quinn brushed them away with his thumb. “I’m glad you fought for me, Jane. If you hadn’t shown up…”
“I almost didn’t!” Jane stormed off the trunk, startling the cat, who leapt from its pile of blankets. “I almost left you to face your enemies alone, because you were trying to spare me any cause for worry. Then Papa came by, spouting his daft notions about taking guardianship of the baby, and I could not listen to him. I could not bear to be under the same roof with him.”
She faced Quinn and crossed her arms, because the feelings inside her wanted containing, lest they break her heart.
“Sometimes, we have to fight,” she said. “Turning the other cheek, letting go of the past, they have a place, but for who and what we love, we can’t help but risk everything when called upon to do so, and I love you so very much.”
Quinn rose, the small space making his size more imposing, as did the gravity in his gaze. “Your father threatened to petition for guardianship of your child?”
Even here, surrounded by wool, leather, and hay, Jane could discern the fragrance of Quinn’s shaving soap.
“The notion is laughable,” she said. “I told him as much. Told him a man who couldn’t pay his own bills wasn’t fit to take on the expenses of a child, and I left much unsaid.”
Quinn tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Such as?”
“Such as a child needing a father figure to trust and love, not some pontificating buffoon to make excuses for. I eloped to Scotland rather than deliver Papa the dressing down he deserved. Accompanied him to the prisons, said nothing when he stole my inheritance…and I’ve turned into a watering pot.”
Quinn took her in his arms. “My watering pot.”
“You found Mama’s treasures and brought them back to me.”
“You were your mama’s greatest treasure, and you’re mine to treasure for all time.”
He was such a poet, such a good, dear…Jane simply cried in Quinn’s arms for a good long while. Cried for her mother, for Gordie, for disappointments and losses too numerous to name, and for the sheer relief of having Quinn to love.
She clutched his handkerchief and clutched him, until the tears were spent, and lightness replaced her sorrow and anger.
“We have four more months of this?” Quinn asked, kissing her forehead.
“More or less.”
“I like it. You’re very cuddly when you weep.”
She smacked his chest, then looped her arms around his waist. “What will you do about the Earl of Tipton?”
“I’d like to forget about him, but instead I’ll ask you if we might decide his fate later.”
We…“Yes, Your Grace, though not too much later. Somebody has been considerately collecting invitations to discuss with me. That will not be a short conversation.”
He scooped her into his arms and sat with her on the trunk. “I meant to do just that, but then I realized I was being followed by Tipton’s man and my patience came to an end. The conversation regarding the invitations will be short, Jane. You tell me whom we’re to call on, and when we’re to call. I dress up in my duke clothes, and we pay calls.”
Jane closed her eyes, because the comfort of Quinn’s embrace was irresistible. “It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, love. When a duke loves his duchess, it’s exactly that simple, and I do love you so very, very much.”
The baby moved, or maybe Jane’s heart turned over. “I love you too. I’d like to take a nap now.”
Quinn rose with her in his arms. “I’d like to join you.”
“I’d like that too.”
Quinn had carried her as far as the garden gate when a gig clattered up the ally, Duncan at the reins. A smaller man in laborer’s attire sat beside him on the bench.
Quinn settled Jane on the garden wall. “Duncan, welcome home and thank you for a job well done. Mr. Pike, so glad you could join us. The magistrate will be wanting a word with you, so don’t think to decamp anytime soon.”
“Mr. Pike wouldn’t dream of being so cowardly,” Duncan said. “Duchess, good day.”
Jane hopped off the wall and threw her arms around Quinn. “Well done, Your Grace. Well damned done.”
“Somebody has become a Wentworth,” Duncan said, offering a rare smile. “You’re in good looks today, Duchess.”
“My duchess is fatigued,” Quinn said. “I’ll see her upstairs. Thanks again, Duncan, and we’ll chat further at dinner.”
As it happened, Jane and Quinn did not come down for dinner, though Mr. Pike did indeed bide long enough in London to offer a sworn statement to the magistrate: Quinn Wentworth had made him a small loan in that dark alley, wished him well, and gone about his business without doing anything more violent than shaking Pike’s hand.
Word was all over the newspapers within a week, and by then the invitations and calling cards had reached flood stage.