Nothing helped, not looking forbiddingly ducal as Almack’s patronesses approached, not hovering protectively near Jane, not casting threatening glances at Duncan and Stephen.
Althea and Constance were too busy fending off handsome bachelors to do more than smirk in Quinn’s direction between dance sets, and Joshua was tucked in some corner with a widowed marchioness doubtless advising her about how to conserve her assets.
Quinn was doomed to bow over the hands of a legion of debutantes and to lead each blushing young lady onto the dance floor like the ducal paragon Jane was determined to fool the world into taking him for.
What a lot of bloody nonsense.
“Might I ask Your Grace a question?” Lady Marianne Honeycutt’s blue eyes were lit with the determination of the very young.
“Of course.” Quinn turned her ladyship down the room, though the waltz was German, which meant the tempo was funereal. Lady Marianne would probably have his life history before the set ended.
The prettied-up version of his life history Jane had made him rehearse, a taradiddle about humble origins, working hard, finding favor with a kindly elderly banker…That Jane’s story was entirely true was mere coincidence, for it was also entirely misleading.
Lady Marianne stared hard at Quinn’s shoulder. “I have a bit of coin, a very little. I’d like to invest it. Have you any advice for me?”
What the devil? “Surely you’ve a father or brother—”
She shook her head, making the violets affixed to her coiffure bob as if in a gale. “I’m not to trouble my pretty head, they say, as if my pretty head can’t foresee the day when I’ll have to sign marriage settlements or maintain my own household as a spinster or a widow. The gossips say you built a fortune from nothing.”
“One cannot always believe gossip; in fact, one rarely should.”
“You have enough money to establish a charitable trust for women seeking to join transported spouses—a large trust. Papa grumbled about it, but I know he admires you for it.”
“My duchess established that trust in memory of her mother.” Would this waltz never end?
“But Your Grace”—Lady Marianne leaned closer—“Papa says that the charitable endowment is enormous, and if you have that much money to give away, then you know how to turn a few coins into a modest sum. I don’t need a fortune; I simply need…”
She frowned, though Quinn had it on good authority—Constance’s—that young ladies were discouraged from adopting any expression that wrinkled the countenance.
“You want some say in your future,” Quinn suggested. “Some security against a rainy day.” The same goals that had motivated Quinn as a youth, the same objectives that sent most people to their labors day after day and year after year.
“Exactly. My brother has control of his funds, though he’s squandering his allowance quarter after quarter. Mama says he’s headed for scandal.”
This conversation was scandalous, and yet, Quinn appreciated the young woman’s initiative. Fortunately, Jane had admonished Quinn that a duke did not take on every challenge as an army of one. A duke led a loyal force and contributed his cunning and courage without taking any unnecessary bullets himself.
“When we conclude this interminable penance of a dance, meaning no insult to present company, I will introduce you to my brother, Lord Stephen. His grasp of finances is superb, and he’s blunt to a fault. He will explain all you need to know and arrange for your funds to be handled through one of our investment accounts, if you so choose.”
Nothing in that offer broke the law, though it certainly broke with convention, and required a good deal of trust on the lady’s part.
“Lord Stephen is your heir?”
“For now.” Which status Stephen exploited with all the delicacy of a large hog untroubled by pretensions to dignity.
“His lordship has a nice smile.”
Stephen had a naughty smile, though dragooning him to Almack’s along with Duncan and the sisters seemed to please Jane. Quinn’s duchess roosted amid the potted palms like a partridge nestled in a sunny hedge, though of course she was not as plump as a partridge—yet.
“Someday,” Lady Marianne said, “I want the esteem of a man who will look at me as you look at your duchess, Your Grace.”
Jane waggled gloved fingers in Quinn’s direction and provoked half the room to smiling. Had any other duchess assayed the same informality in these surrounds, unkind talk about standards and decorum might have ensued. With a few smiles, a few soft answers where another woman would have offered criticism, Jane had made informality a virtue and marital affection fashionable.
Quinn’s duchess worked miracles, witness a guttersnipe from York was waltzing his evening away with the year’s current crop of debutantes.
“Thank you,” Lady Marianne said, as Quinn bowed over her hand at the conclusion of the waltz. “You promised to introduce me to Lord Stephen.”
As if an old dodderer like Quinn might forget a promise made five minutes ago. “His lordship does not dance, but you will enjoy sitting out with him.”
“A man who doesn’t dance?” Her ladyship brushed the violets aside. “Surely I will fall in love with him on sight. Lead on, Your Grace.”
Before Jane took pity on Quinn and let a plea of fatigue end the outing, Quinn introduced Stephen to three young ladies with pin money to invest, Joshua to a widowed viscountess who did not trust her solicitors, and Duncan to an aging baroness whose articulate contempt for lawyers would have put a Yorkshire drover to the blush.
“You knew this would happen,” Quinn said, as he settled beside Jane in the town coach. “You knew I’d be mobbed by sweet young things mad to control their own funds.”
“And by sweet old things. What better man to entrust their hopes to than you?”
She had such faith in him. “What makes me so special? The Dorset and Becker has been around for centuries and they also claim a connection to a duke.”
One who’d called on Quinn’s sisters twice and invited Quinn to an evening of cards that had been positively friendly. The lot of them—two dukes, a marquess, and a smattering of lesser peers—had played for farthing points with more intensity than school boys betting on a tin of fresh biscuits.
“You make you so special,” Jane said, taking Quinn’s hand. “You know what it is to have nothing, to be without allies, to be at the mercy of an unkind fate. Speaking of which, Lady MacHenry said the Earl of Tipton is in for years of unrelenting misery and an ongoing battle with dysentery.”
Quinn laced his fingers with Jane’s, for she liked holding hands and he liked any excuse to touch her.
“Should I know Lady MacHenry?”
“Her uncle was governor of the Westward Orejas Islands some years ago. Her aunt claims a more surly local populace, a hotter sun, a denser jungle, or a greater variety of large and menacing insects does not exist this side of the Pit. Tipton’s diplomatic assignment will include years of dodging fevers, uprisings, snakes, and spiders.”
“Ned will rejoice at that news.” Quinn was pleased as well, but the burning need to wreak justice on Tipton had moderated to a more philosophical inclination. Tipton was fundamentally unhappy, could not manage money, lacked the self-respect to earn any coin of his own, and had ruined all hope of joy in his marriage.
The earl deserved the fate he faced—one Quinn had arranged with Elsmore’s aid—but his lordship also deserved a crumb or two of pity. The countess had purchased a villa near Lyme Regis, and the Tipton estates in the north had been leased by a wealthy haberdasher intent on becoming a respectable squire.
Tipton was a laughingstock, and his “diplomatic post” was the merest fig leaf of mercy granted to a disgraced peer.
“The baby is restless,” Jane said, nestling against Quinn’s shoulder. “Will you take me north after the child arrives?”
I will breathe again after the child arrives. I will cease dunning the Almighty with my prayers for Jane’s safety. I will have sex with my wife against the wall again, and possibly on the billiards table as well.
“You want to peek in on your papa,” Quinn said.
The light of a passing lamp illuminated Jane’s features, and if anything, advancing pregnancy had made her more beautiful. She had the loveliest brown eyes, the sweetest smile.…
Quinn kissed her fingers, the easiest part of her to reach.
“I correspond with Papa,” she said. “He seems to be rising to the challenge of ministering to a congregation, though the bishop has reminded him that brevity is a virtue. I don’t miss him.”
“Ah. The guilt of not feeling guilty. I know a certain cure for that.”
The reverend had been packed off to a living in the West Riding, and bad roads ensured he’d stay there rather than make a nuisance of himself at the ducal seat.
“I do like your certain cures,” Jane said. “I’m getting too big to carry all over the house, though.”
Quinn’s cures generally required bedrest, after a lusty expression of marital accord. Jane prescribed the same recipe frequently, to the point that Stephen and Duncan had agreed to leave on a grand tour in the autumn.
They—like the rest of creation—were waiting for the baby to arrive in another three months or so.
“You are not big,” Quinn said. “You are merely a heifer who’s been at summer grass.”
Jane smacked his arm, then resumed cuddling. “I’m the Duchess of Walden. I’ll thank you to recall the dignity of my office, sir.”
Quinn tucked his arm around her shoulders and kissed her ear. “You’re my duchess of rutting heifers, and I’m your gutter whelp from the slums of York. Who knew being a duke could be so diverting?”
Jane peered at him in the gloom. “Speaking of diversions, I do believe we need to find a wife for Joshua.”
“I thought Duncan might be your next project.” Forgive me, cousin.
“I’ll take them both in hand, and your siblings as well, though Stephen has some wild oats to sow first. Do you mind very much being a duke?”
He loved that Jane would ask him such a blunt, personal question. She was no longer the minister’s accommodating daughter who had spoken vows in prison, though she had become exactly the wife Quinn needed.
Did he mind waltzing with earnest young women, playing cards with peers, and driving Jane in the park at the Fashionable Hour? Did he mind the theater, the social calls, the subtle overtures from ambitious members of Parliament?
“I will never be fond of opera.” Ned loved all the drama and caterwauling. “The rest of it is no great burden, as long as my greatest treasure remains safe. Take away my coin, my fine clothes, my fancy house, and the title, and I will contrive. If anything should cost me your love—”
Jane offered him a lemony kiss that turned into several kisses. “You say the loveliest things, and you express my own sentiments. Let the title be hanged, as long as the man I love stays by my side.”
The coach rocked to a halt, though even Ned had learned not to intrude on Their Graces until the door opened from within. Quinn handed his duchess down and escorted her into the house with all the dignity inherent in her station.
In other words, he scooped her into his arms and carried her up the steps, straight to the ducal apartment, while the footmen smirked, the chambermaids blushed, and Her Grace of Walden mooed against the duke’s elegant, lacy cravat.