There you two are,” Lady Ainsley called out as Belle and Quinn entered the drawing room.
Belle sent her an apologetic smile for taking so long to return, then gave one to Robert, Quinton’s older brother, in welcome as he rose to his feet at her arrival. He seemed happy to see her again.
More importantly, he hadn’t fled. Which meant that Lady Ainsley had yet to acknowledge the real reason behind his brother’s summons to the borderlands, most likely waiting until Belle was in the room.
She bit back a groan of embarrassment. She’d hoped that the viscountess had changed her mind about this mad scheme of hers—
“I imagine that you and Quinton had a great deal to discuss,” Lady Ainsley added hopefully.
No such luck. Her stomach sank as her last tendril of hope for reprieve fled.
“Not really,” Belle dodged, refusing to acknowledge her predicament to the two men until she absolutely had to. The entire situation was embarrassing enough. The last thing she wanted to do was admit in front of that scoundrel Quinton that she’d been unable to find a husband. No, not unable. More like purposeful evasion. And truly, with the way the men in her life had behaved, could anyone blame her for not being eager to shackle herself to one of their kind?
But now, she no longer had a choice.
Lady Ainsley’s lips tightened knowingly at Belle’s answer, clearly not the one she wanted. “Regardless, I am glad you’ve returned.”
The viscountess’s eyes narrowed curiously on Quinton, as if sizing him up.
Belle frowned. Did Lady Ainsley regret her decision to bring him here, now that he stood before her in flesh and blood?
Apparently not, because his aunt’s gaze softened with an optimistic gleam. Belle’s stomach sank further, this time all the way to her knees.
“Now that we’re all present,” the viscountess announced, “Quinton, Robert—welcome to Castle Glenarvon.”
“Thank you, Aunt Agatha.” When Quinton placed a kiss on Lady Ainsley’s cheek, the dowager flushed a happy pink even though she waved him away with a feigned scowl. She fooled no one. His aunt held great affection in her heart for Quinton, always had. Even when the rascal didn’t deserve it. “I’d never pass up the chance to see you.” Ignoring her unconvincing humph of disbelief, he jerked a thumb toward his brother. “Robert, though, tagged along in order to flee from a woman.”
“I wasn’t fleeing,” Robert interrupted with a touch of aggravation.
“As much as escaping,” Quinn clarified quickly.
Robert nodded. “The lifelong shackles of domestication—”
“And matrimony—”
“But any escape from matrimony—”
“—is a good escape.”
“Indeed!” they finished together.
The two men turned to look at Lady Ainsley, as if expecting some kind of reaction to their rapid-fire exchange. But the dowager only stared at them as if they were both bedlamites.
And truly, even Belle didn’t know what to say to that, her mouth falling open, speechless. The Carlisle brothers had always possessed an uncanny ability to finish each other’s sentences, but this was…astonishing.
Having long ago grown used to the brothers’ antics, Lady Ainsley claimed back the flow of conversation. “So good to have you both here.” She darted a sideways look at Belle. “However, I did not invite you here to avoid weddings. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Sobering quickly at her pronouncement, the two men exchanged a bewildered glance.
Then Quinton ventured with a grin, “You invited me here because you wanted to see me one last time before I left for America.” When his aunt hesitated to answer, his grin faded. “Didn’t you?”
Lady Ainsley’s ramrod-straight spine softened at that, as if she fully realized that this visit could very likely be the last time her old eyes laid sight on Quinton. “Of course I wanted to see you. I am very fond of all of Elizabeth’s children.” Her lips twisted into a judgmental grimace. “Although surely you boys take after your father’s side of the family and not mine.”
The two men grinned, and Belle was struck by how similar they looked. Like two life-size bookends, right down to the same broad shoulders, golden hair, and midnight-blue eyes.
“You are always welcome to visit.” Lady Ainsley admitted after a fleeting pause, “But that was not my prime motivation.”
Belle couldn’t breathe as the room tilted sickeningly beneath her. She held her breath, dreading this moment…
“Then why were we invited?” Quinn asked.
The question seemed to hover in the air like a trail of smoke. Knowing what was coming, Belle dropped her gaze to the carpet as embarrassment heated her cheeks.
“Because Annabelle needs a husband,” Lady Ainsley announced without preamble.
Oh God. Belle’s stomach plummeted right through the floor.
“Pardon?” both brothers rasped out simultaneously, their deep voices thick with bewilderment. And panic.
Mortification surged through her. Oh, she simply wanted to crawl under the settee and die!
With her cheeks heating, she glanced up to find Quinton staring at her. His puzzled gaze raked deliberately over her, as if he’d never seen her before. As if it had never occurred to him that she might become some man’s wife.
Belle rolled her eyes. The rascal was probably terrified that his aunt meant marriage to him. Which only made Belle’s face heat even more with embarrassment. And irritation. After all, there was nothing wrong with her, for heaven’s sake! She’d make him a fine wife. If anything, he was the one who wouldn’t do for a husband for her if she proposed to the scoundrel and—
Oh.
Her heart skipped as an idea began to take shape at the back of her mind. A thoroughly desperate, utterly mad idea.
A proposal…
Lady Ainsley explained quietly, “My late Ainsley insisted that Annabelle be taken care of after we’d both gone, to ensure a living and home for her. So we established an inheritance which would do exactly that.” Her shoulders lifted as she drew a deep breath. “We wanted to protect her from anyone who might try to do her harm, just as we wanted her to share her future with a loving husband, who would help her oversee her finances and provide the love and support she deserves. The same kind of marriage I shared with my Ainsley.”
“That was very kind of you and Uncle Charles,” Quinton murmured, drawing a concurring nod from Robert.
“We thought so,” Lady Ainsley agreed solemnly, her concerned gaze drifting to Annabelle, who looked away, unable to bear the viscountess’s helpless concern. “That was also why we attached a stipulation to the inheritance.”
Robert frowned. “Which is?”
“That I marry by the time I reach my twenty-fifth birthday,” Annabelle interjected grimly, to save Lady Ainsley from having to speak it. To ease at least a portion of the guilt Belle knew swirled inside the kind woman over this. She and Lord Ainsley had only wanted the best for Belle, and Belle had let them down by not finding a husband.
By not wanting one at all, if truth be told. Not unless she married for love.
“If I marry by then,” Belle continued quietly, not daring to meet Lady Ainsley’s gaze for fear one of the two women might break into sobs, “I will inherit Castle Glenarvon. If not, it goes to the Church.”
As the days grew closer and closer to her birthday, it seemed as if exactly that would happen. Unless…Belle took another glance at Quinton. While entering a love match no longer seemed an option, at the very least she wanted a husband who would allow her to keep the estate and run it exactly as she pleased. Someone who wouldn’t interfere.
Or who couldn’t interfere.
Hope fluttered inside her. The scoundrel might just prove helpful after all.
“So you understand that we must find her a husband.” The viscountess shifted her gaze between her two nephews. “And I expect both of you to help.”
“Help how, exactly?” Robert asked suspiciously.
“In two days, after Sunday service at church, we will casually announce that Belle has been given a generous dowry. The estate of Castle Glenarvon.” The dowager’s lips twisted distastefully at all that implied. “I expect word to flood through the countryside and for suitors of all kinds to inundate our front hall in order to declare their intentions to marry her. We will have to choose the best man from among them.”
“But that’s…” Quinn began thoughtfully, his voice trailing off as he closely watched Belle.
Like auctioning me off to the highest bidder? But Belle didn’t dare speak that aloud, knowing how much it would wound Lady Ainsley.
“Exactly like any other young society lady who debuts in London and makes her intentions to marry known,” the dowager finished. “The only difference is that those ladies have several seasons to choose a husband, whereas we have only four weeks.”
Belle cringed. Lady Ainsley made it sound like a battle plan for capturing the enemy.
“Which is why we need you two here,” the dowager continued. “Annabelle lacks male relatives to help her with the formalities of being courted and to sort the viable suitors from the undesirables, so I have called upon you to assist us. You will fill the role of guardian. Suitors will approach you, and you will put them through their paces. If you decide they are good enough to court Annabelle, you will give your permission. If not, you will ensure that they leave and do not bother her again.”
Belle kept her gaze glued to the carpet, unwilling to raise her eyes to see how Lady Ainsley’s plan was settling on the two men. Nor did she want to face the recrimination—or worse, the laughter—she knew she’d see on Quinton’s face.
“That is our plan,” the viscountess finished. “And it will work. We have not yet given up hope.”
But Belle had. Almost.
She stole a surreptitious glance at Quinn as the desperate idea at the back of her mind now blossomed into a real possibility. A proposal. It was ludicrous and reckless, absolutely mad—
And quite possibly the only good solution she had left.
Quinn arched a skeptical brow. “It takes a scoundrel—”
“—to know a scoundrel?” Robert finished just as warily.
“Exactly.” Lady Ainsley nodded imperially. It was a credit to the two men that they hadn’t either burst into laughter at her scheme or fled.
Quinn shook his head, the lunacy of this plan visible on his face. “Aunt Agatha, you know we’d do anything for you and Annabelle.” He flicked an apologetic glance at Belle. “But Robert and I don’t know any of the local gentlemen here.”
Robert agreed cautiously, “We wouldn’t know who to recommend or chase away.”
“You will do fine for what I have in mind.” Lady Ainsley inhaled a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, do they not, Annabelle?”
“Yes,” she murmured thoughtfully. Oh, what she was considering was certainly desperate!
“And you have no suitors now?” Quinn turned toward Belle. “No one who holds an affection for you?”
That stung. Because of him, she hadn’t had any serious suitors since the night of the St James ball, but then, neither had she encouraged any. All the men in her life had proven to be disappointments, either brutally controlling her or actively working to harm her. Even Lord Ainsley, whom she loved like a father, was now directing her life. Why would she be eager, then, to chain herself to one for the rest of her life?
“There is no one,” she admitted, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the aching humiliation darkening her chest. Society regarded an unmarried woman of twenty-five as being “on the shelf.” A pleasant way of saying unwanted spinster. They viewed her lack of marital status as an indication that something was inherently wrong with her, something lacking in her as a woman that made men shun her. Belle was doubly damned. Not only had her reputation been ruined six years ago, but she also lived between worlds as a lady’s companion, where she wasn’t good enough to marry into society and too good to marry an ordinary man from the village.
She might as well have been invisible. And sexless.
Until recently, none of that had bothered her. She’d viewed unmarried life as her path for independence. No man to control her or tell her what to do, no husband to yell or raise his fists in anger. She could dress however she preferred and spend her time on whatever activities she wished, and never would she be uprooted from her home again due to the actions of a man.
That was the bitter irony of her situation. A man once again had control over her life, albeit this time from beyond the grave, while only another man could save her.
“The gentleman who owns the neighboring estate has offered marriage,” Lady Ainsley commented, sensing Belle’s distress. “Sir Harold Bletchley. He is Annabelle’s leading suitor at the moment.”
Quick dread swept through her, and Belle glanced frantically at Quinn. “He is not my suitor,” she corrected the dowager as gently as possible. She didn’t want there to be any confusion in Quinn’s mind about her relationship—rather, her lack of one—with Sir Harold. “We are not courting, and I have not accepted any offers, from Sir Harold or anyone.”
Now that Quinn was here, she might never have to. For the first time, a glimmer of hope about her situation tingled inside her.
“Although he has offered in the past and would gladly court her,” the viscountess interjected. “He is quite fond of Annabelle.”
Perhaps. But he seemed even fonder of her inheritance. “I was hoping someone else might come along,” she explained. “Someone better suited for me.”
Her gaze drifted to Quinton. By the luck of fate, she might have just found that man. And right in the nick of time.
“It takes three weeks to read the bans,” Robert reminded them. His concerned gaze softened on Belle. “You’re not giving yourself much time.”
“I’ve procured a special license,” Lady Ainsley informed them. When they all looked at her in surprise, she explained, “The archbishop is a family friend.”
“Of course,” Belle mumbled, her shoulders sagging. Apparently, even God wanted her married.
“We’re planning the wedding festivities to coincide with her birthday,” the viscountess continued. “Both tied up perfectly together.”
“I see,” Quinn said slowly, although Belle knew from the quizzical expression on his face that he barely understood any of it. Or exactly how he and Robert had gotten snared in her mess.
“Considering Belle’s situation, and all the events that brought her here,” his aunt pressed, not so subtly reminding him of his role in her predicament, “you will be happy to assist us, won’t you, Quinton?” It was not a question.
He held her gaze for a long moment, the pause before he answered so thick with tension that they could have swum in it. “Of course.”
The dowager nodded, pleased at his answer. “Just as Annabelle will be happy to let you help her find a husband.”
Annabelle smiled at the unwitting irony in the viscountess’s words. “Absolutely thrilled.”
Quinn’s sapphire-blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. He recognized her comment for the lie it was, even if he had no idea of the true motive behind it.
“Ah.” Lady Ainsley sighed gratefully when the butler appeared in the doorway. “There’s Ferguson now.”
The butler bowed to the viscountess, then to the room at large. “Dinner is ready, my lady.”
“Very good.” Lady Ainsley put an end to the conversation by offering her arm to Robert to escort her into the dining room, leaving Belle with…
Quinton.
She sucked in a deep breath to steady herself and to keep from saying anything she might regret. It wouldn’t do to chase him away now that he was her last best hope. Having no other choice, she took his arm.
As they followed slowly behind Robert and the viscountess, he leaned down to bring his mouth close to her ear. “What the devil is going on here?”
“Lady Ainsley explained everything,” she whispered, her cheeks heating. “She wants your help in finding me a husband so I can meet the conditions of my inheritance. That’s all.”
His gaze narrowed suspiciously. “You’re lying.”
“I am not.”
He flicked a pointed glance at her blush. “Like a rug.”
She rolled her eyes. Darn that blush, and double darn that responding grin of his! The rascal infuriated her to no end. Yet her silly heart also skittered traitorously at the warm tickle of his breath against her earlobe.
She grimaced at herself. Such a hopeless goose! Even caught red-handed in a lie, with her world ready to crumble around her—even knowing what a scoundrel he was—she couldn’t help the familiar pull of him. The same one from six years ago which had gotten her into this mess in the first place. And if she wasn’t careful, her goose would be good and cooked before it was all over.
As they entered the old banqueting hall turned dining room that soared two stories high from its stone floors to the wooden beams above, he gave a friendly tap of his shoulder against hers. “Tell me the truth,” he cajoled. “Do you really want my help in finding a husband?”
“More than you realize,” she murmured honestly.
He asked bluntly, “Why?”
She certainly couldn’t tell him that! If he discovered her new plan before she was ready to share it, he might very well leave right now. And then where would she be? So she purposefully misunderstood his question and answered, “Can’t I call on an old friend when I need him?”
With his lips twitching at that blatant evasion, he led her around the table that could accommodate over fifty people to the four settings laid out for them at the far end near the fireplace, where Robert had already seated the viscountess.
“We were a lot of things, Belle,” Quinn admitted sotto voce, the deep sound falling through her like warm summer rain. “But we were never friends.”
Her mind filled with the memory of their kiss beneath the rose bower, the solidity of his body pressing against hers, the surprising softness of his warm lips…Fresh heat flashed through her. To think that her future now lay in this rascal’s hands— She hated that she’d sunk so low that she had to ask for help from him.
Yet there was something sweetly fitting that the man who broke her heart and made her swear off men and their insincere charms should now be the only one who could save her.
“I’ll explain everything later,” she murmured. “I promise.”
He slid her a disbelieving look, yet acquiesced. “All right. I’ll leave it alone.”
Relief poured through her. “Thank—”
“For now.”
He pulled out her chair for her. She shot him an aggravated grimace before slipping into her seat.
He leaned over her shoulder and warned, “But one way or another, I will get the truth from you. Even if I have to tie you up and torture you.”
Her breath caught in a silent gasp. Before her befuddled mind could come up with a proper response to that, he’d already moved away to take his own seat. She stared after him, but the infuriating pest didn’t so much as glance in her direction so she could give him the cutting glare he deserved.
Belle chewed her bottom lip and stared at him across the table as the footman carried in the first course. Oh, he was certainly not happy at finding himself coerced into helping her acquire a husband. From the trapped expression on his face as he turned to speak to Lady Ainsley, Belle suspected that he might not be any more receptive of the scheme she now turned over in her mind. But there was no other way to keep her home, not without the possibility of bringing down upon her head the same sort of miserable marriage her mother had.
Lady Ainsley was right. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and she could think of nothing more desperate than what she had in mind. Because she now knew what had to be done.
She needed to marry Quinton Carlisle.
* * *
Quinn’s eyes narrowed on Belle across the drawing room, where they’d gathered after dinner. What was really going on with the Bluebell?
Dinner had been pleasant enough, he supposed, except that he’d spent half of it wondering about Belle’s situation and the other half contemplating how much fun it might be to actually tie her up, given the glimpse of her he’d had at the pond.
His aunt’s announcement that Annabelle had to get married had stunned the daylights out of him. He’d heard of similar stipulations by members of the quality to force their children into doing their bidding, especially to second- or third-born children, who didn’t have the restraints of entailments and the pressures of continuing peerages that the heirs had. One way to ensure that sons and daughters married suitably and settled down into respectable adulthood was to control their purse strings.
But for Belle, it made no sense. That a proper gentleman from a respectable family would ever attach himself to her was highly unlikely, regardless of how sizable her dowry. Surely his uncle had realized that. What the late Lord Ainsley should have done was give her the property outright, to establish a home and living for her in case she remained unmarried.
What Uncle Charles had actually done, however, was force her into the very real possibility of falling prey to a fortune hunter. Which gave veracity to Aunt Agatha’s explanation for why she wanted him here.
But it didn’t begin to clarify everything.
Whatever Annabelle was hiding, he would discover it eventually. And she knew that, too, based on the way she’d kept her distance ever since they’d gone through after dinner. As if she couldn’t trust herself near him. Even now, she played at the pianoforte on the far side of the room, pretending to ignore him and missing half the notes in her lack of concentration.
The butler slid open the double doors, and a footman carried a coffee tray inside. He set it on the sideboard and retreated from the room.
“Ah, the coffee’s arrived,” Aunt Agatha commented as she picked up a discarded ace in the card game she’d taken up with Robert. “All of you help yourselves. We don’t stand on formalities in the evenings here at Glenarvon.”
Ferguson’s heavy sigh said otherwise, but the butler dutifully arranged the coffee for service, then stood to the side and waited to pour cups.
Belle rose from the pianoforte and crossed the room to request a coffee.
And so did Quinn. As Ferguson reached for the coffeepot, he stepped up beside her. “Belle.”
Her pink lips parted in a peculiar mix of nervousness and awareness that reminded him for a moment of a hare who knew it had stumbled into a snare but couldn’t flee for falling deeper into the trap. She stared straight ahead, unwilling to look at him. Which made him only more determined to discover the truth.
Ferguson finished pouring and held out her cup.
As she turned to walk away, Quinn took her elbow and stopped her, forcing her to remain at his side unless she wanted to cause a scene. She tensed with a shallow gasp, and he felt that soft breath shiver through her beneath his fingertips.
“A coffee for me, too, Ferguson,” he requested, although he didn’t have a taste for it tonight. But it gave him a good excuse to remain at her side.
The butler nodded and reached to pour a second cup.
“The truth now, Belle,” he pressed. “Why do you really want my help?”
She hesitated, and for a moment, he suspected she might tell him. But her eyes flicked with uncertainty at the butler. “I cannot say right now,” she answered quietly. “There are too many ears in the room who might overhear.”
Ferguson bristled at the comment, caught in his eavesdropping. Quinn thought he heard a soft humph sound beneath the butler’s breath.
“You can’t avoid me for long,” he warned. “I deserve answers.”
“I told you—”
“You’ve told me practically nothing.” He took the proffered coffee from Ferguson, who turned away with a sniff of pique and politely put several feet between them. “Except enough to raise my suspicions.”
She scowled. “Now you’re just being dogged.”
He let that insult slide, knowing she wanted to make him angry enough that he’d leave her alone. Not a chance. He hadn’t believed one word of that sentimental cock and bull story she gave earlier about wanting the help of an old friend.
“I plan on hounding you until you give in and tell me the truth,” he warned. With a self-assured grin playing at his lips, he added as rakishly as possible just to goad her, “And I always get my way with women.”
“Not with this one,” she replied haughtily and pulled her elbow away, but not before her cheeks pinked. Shaking her head, she muttered beneath her breath, “I had absolutely nothing to do with bringing you here. That was all your aunt’s doing.” Then she paused, her lips parting in soft hesitation, as if considering what to say, how much to divulge…“But I do have an idea for how to get us out of this mess.”
Interesting. He leaned in closer—
“Come join us, you two,” Agatha called out, interrupting them. “We need more hands to play at whist.”
“Of course.” Belle smiled at his aunt as if she and Quinn were discussing nothing more important than the evening’s weather. But as she turned to join the game, she paused to briefly rest her hand on his arm and lowered her voice. “Meet me in the library at midnight.”
A midnight meeting in a room only a bluestocking would pick. Not the kind of midnight assignation with a woman he usually found intriguing, but the Bluebell had pricked his interest. In more ways than one.
And he couldn’t resist teasing her about it. “A midnight tryst?” He faked astonishment. “Why, Belle, I’m shocked at you.”
For a heartbeat, she froze, astounded at his insinuation. “It isn’t like that at all!”
When he grinned at her, her shoulders slumped in irritation. She blew out an aggravated breath, knowing she’d risen to the bait exactly as he’d wanted.
“Someday, Quinton Carlisle,” she seethed, “you’re going to regret all the childish torment you’ve done to me over the years.”
Not as long as he could glimpse the fire he raised inside her. Like now. It was simply too delicious to avoid. “Perhaps,” he agreed, then walked away to join the card game, chuckling low as her blazing eyes followed after him. He murmured to himself, “But today is not that day.”
“Annabelle,” Aunt Agatha called out to her, “we need you.”
He had to give her credit as she plastered a carefree smile on her face and slid onto the chair at his elbow, partnering with Aunt Agatha against the two brothers and appearing for all the world as if nothing untoward had passed between them. Still, he placed his coffee safely out of her reach just in case she decided to fling it at him.
Ah, the Bluebell! Always so unpredictable and challenging, always so much fun to fluster and tease. And so much more interesting than those society ladies he associated with in London.
Robert dealt the cards, and as the tricks played out and trumps were taken, they fell into easy conversation. Aunt Agatha asked for details about Sebastian and Miranda’s wedding, right down to what kinds of cakes were served at the breakfast. She guffawed loudly when Quinn described how Edward and Kate Westover’s daughter Faith, who had been the flower girl, hit little Stephen Crenshaw, the ring bearer, over the head with her petal basket.
“The boy was born a marquess.” Aunt Agatha laughed. “Best he get used to abuse while he’s young. Especially that which involves irate females and flowers— Don’t trump my ace again, dear.”
“Apologies.” Belle bit her lip and frowned at her cards, as if she wasn’t certain which ones she still held in her hand. Her mind clearly wasn’t in the game.
“I’m a great fan of flowers and women myself,” Quinton murmured lazily as he counted the point in his and Robert’s favor on the marker.
Belle’s gaze slid sideways at the private innuendo, narrowing murderously on him. But his comment went right over the heads of Aunt Agatha and Robert, who paid it no mind.
Agatha shuffled the cards and dealt out the next hand. “And how is Elizabeth?”
Quinn frowned and answered quietly, “Mother’s much better now.”
But for the past two years, she’d been through hell. Richard Carlisle’s unexpected death had nearly taken her, too, in her grief.
No, it was more than mere grief. It was an inconsolable anguish that devoured her from the inside out, such pain and desolation that she’d barely survived it. In those first black weeks after his father died, Quinn had sat at her bedside and held her hand for days at a stretch, begging her to drink some water or broth, to eat anything in order to keep up her strength. Instead, she’d wasted away, until Dr. Brandon called him and his siblings together to tell them that he now worried that she might also perish.
So Quinn returned to her bedside and begged her again, this time not to die. Not to leave him and the family alone without her.
She’d heard him through her grief, and slowly, she’d recovered. Eventually, she’d moved out of her mourning and returned to society, going so far this past season as to sponsor Miranda Hodgkins and help with the wedding when his brother Sebastian fell in love with the girl. But even now she wasn’t nearly the same vivacious and energetic woman she’d once been. A light had dulled in her with Father’s death, one Quinn wasn’t certain would ever shine as brightly again.
“I was worried about her,” Aunt Agatha murmured. “I regret that I wasn’t able to go to her during her mourning, but it was so close on the heels of my own dear Ainsley…” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t look up from her cards, but Quinn could see the glistening of tears in her eyes, and his heart tugged for her. His aunt was another widow whose loss of a husband had nearly ended her, as well.
And that was why he planned on remaining a bachelor. What good could come of marriage? All the marriages he knew were either ones made as advantageous matches for acquiring property or position, in which both spouses grew to detest each other—if they’d ever liked each other in the first place—or love matches. But in the end those were just as bad, if not worse. Because love always ended. Always. And nothing was left but grief.
Marriage might be fine for other people, those like his sister and brother, who needed their spouses the way flowers needed water to bloom. But not for him. He’d never let himself need a woman that much, or ever let a woman need him so much that she’d come to grief over him.
Besides, there was no room in his life for marriage anyway, now that his future was settled in America, where he looked forward to years of long days and hard work to prove himself successful.
“Miranda helped a great deal with Mother’s mourning,” Quinn said thoughtfully. And thank God she had.
“Especially when she married Seb,” Robert interjected. “Mother’s in heaven now that she’s got two of her children happily married off.”
“And giving her grandchildren,” Quinn added.
“Which takes the pressure away from us.” Robert grinned.
“For a while anyway.” He slid his brother an amused glance across the table. “Because she’s hoping for another wedding by next summer.”
“Oh?” Belle glanced up at Quinn, with a stricken look almost as panicked as the one Robert shot him. “You’re not…are you, Quinton?”
“Not me, but Robert,” he informed them, much to Agatha’s delight and Robert’s chagrin. And to Belle’s visible relief as she slumped back against her chair. Odd. “He’s been courting a general’s daughter in London. A lovely girl named Diana Morgan, who has a penchant for growing roses.” Because he wanted to see the fire spark inside Belle again, and divert this conversation from weddings, he added, “If I remember correctly, Annabelle, you also had a fondness for roses.”
Belle’s mouth fell open at that private tease. She darted a panicked glance at Lady Ainsley, but the viscountess noticed nothing untoward. Then she jutted her chin into the air and gave a haughty little sniff. “I suppose I used to when I was younger…and extremely foolish.”
Instead of being piqued as she wanted, he gave her a grin, which only caused her to simmer in her seat.
“You’ve trumped my ace again,” Agatha sighed with exasperation.
“Apologies,” Belle mumbled, this time unable stop a pretty little blush that pinked her skin all the way up from the back of her neck to her cheeks.
Sweet Lucifer, he was beginning to like that blush.
Unable to say what it was for certain about Annabelle that pricked his puckish nature, but only that he couldn’t resist, he murmured, “In my experience, roses can be quite beguiling.”
She shot him a quelling look. “Roses are a menace. They might seem all sweet and charming from a distance.” Belle laid down the knave of hearts to take the trick and ignored the puzzled expressions on Agatha’s and Robert’s faces at the peculiar turn of conversation. And that she’d distractedly claimed a trick won by Robert’s king. “But beneath their pretty exterior exists nothing but thorns.”
Lady Ainsley looked at her peculiarly. “But you spent all last spring putting in a rose border along the south terrace.”
A caught expression flashed across Belle’s face. Quinn felt a sharp stab of guilt for teasing her.
She drew a calming breath. “Not all flowers are bad, though, I suppose,” she acquiesced. “Lilies, poppies, daisies—”
“Bluebells?” he asked innocently, taking a sip of coffee to hide his grin. Apparently, that stab of guilt hadn’t been so insurmountable after all.
She froze for a single beat. Then, more calmly than he expected, she slowly laid down her cards and rose to her feet. “I regret that I am tired and have a headache,” she announced. “A very large, very pestering headache.”
When Quinn opened his mouth to respond, she sliced her gaze sideways at him and narrowed her eyes to slits. He wisely closed it again.
“If you all will excuse me, I need to retire. Good evening.” She nodded at Lady Ainsley and Robert, then glared at him. “Quinton.”
She walked stiffly out of the drawing room, holding her head up in an imperial posture, surely learned over the years from his aunt.
“What on earth…?” Agatha commented as she laid down her cards, the game over. Then she arched a brow at Quinn with an expression somewhere between amusement and accusation.
“Apparently, she was very tired,” he murmured with a touch of remorse. Already, he missed her company. Without her presence, the room seemed inexplicably empty.
Except that as Belle had walked from the room, he’d seen the fire in her that he’d come to crave. He would never deny himself a chance to see that, along with that telltale blush that stained her cheeks. A blush whose deeper meaning he was very much beginning to understand.
And liked a great deal.