The scientist in him was quite satisfied by the prolonged ripping sound that resulted.
Swallowing a smile, he flowed into a smooth series of apologies—surprisingly fluent, for him. Georgiana remained calm, although many a lady would have been in hysterics. The seam at the waist of her gown had separated and now gaped open, revealing her chemise.
“I’ll walk behind you,” Olivia said to her sister. “We only have to make our way through the room and then straight up the stairs.”
“Nonsense,” Quin said. “I did the damage and I’ll carry you to your chamber. Miss Georgiana, you have turned your ankle.” He picked her up and discovered she weighed almost nothing. It was like picking up a bird, all hollow bones and feathers.
Georgiana didn’t squeal, but she sucked in an anxious breath. “Olivia, you’ll have to accompany us,” Quin said, over his shoulder. “I can carry your sister upstairs, but I need you with me as chaperone.”
Without waiting for an answer, he walked through the open doors. A rising spiral of conversation greeted them as people inquired what mishap had felled Georgiana.
“It’s just a turned ankle,” Olivia kept saying, walking just in front of them.
“I’m perfectly fine,” Georgiana said, her voice as tranquil as ever. “In fact, I think I shall rest briefly and then return to the ballroom.”
“I shall deliver you to your maid,” Quin announced, making sure all in the near vicinity heard him. “You may, of course, make up your own mind about whether you feel it advisable to return. One wouldn’t want to see you dance on an injured ankle, Miss Georgiana.”
This flummery got them to the bottom of the stairs. Quin started climbing, thinking about the difference between the sisters. Georgiana felt like a bundle of feathers in his arms, whereas the idea of holding Olivia like this . . . carrying her upstairs to the bedroom . . .
He walked faster. When they reached the top of the stairs, he moved to the side to allow Olivia to go before them.
As soon as they were inside Georgiana’s bedchamber, she politely but firmly freed herself and dropped a perfectly calibrated curtsy. “I thank you very much for rescuing me, Your Grace.”
“I am happy to be of service; after all, it was I who was responsible for your predicament. And I think we should be on a first-name basis,” he said, picking up her hand and kissing it. “My intimates call me Quin.”
There was an odd look to her eyes, one he couldn’t interpret, not the way he could read Olivia’s.
“May I call you Georgie? The name suits you.”
She nodded. “I would be honored.” Then she turned to her sister. “Olivia, I’ll join you downstairs in a half hour or so. Thank you again, Your Grace.”
“My name is Quin,” he insisted.
She really was a somber young woman; her smile came nowhere near her eyes. “Of course,” she agreed. Then she closed the door in their faces.
Olivia stared, frowning, at the door, but Quin didn’t give a damn about what Georgiana was feeling or thinking. He gave one swift look about and found to his deep satisfaction that there was no one within sight, and no one could see them from below. His hand closed on Olivia’s like a vise and he pulled her down the corridor, flung open the door to his bedchamber, and hauled her inside like a recalcitrant child.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded in a harsh whisper.
Quin not only knew exactly what he was thinking, but he knew what she was thinking, too. She could protest all she wished, but he had learned to read her eyes.
Without a word he closed the door and backed her against it, and bent his head to her mouth, spurring the wild, searing passion that always flared between them.
“Quin,” she gasped, but he was tilting her head to the side, unable to think, his entire body just a fierce ball of want. He throbbed to touch her, to have her, to be inside her.
“I need you,” he said haltingly. He shaped his hands around her bottom and pulled her up, closer to him, molding her luscious body to his. “Olivia!” Her name came out low and deep, like a plea or a prayer. She was on tiptoes, kissing him back, and still it wasn’t enough.
With a smooth swirl he plucked her from her place against the door and placed her on his bed. He lowered himself on top of her slowly, making sure that every inch of him was against her softness, watching her to see that she understood what he was doing.
She made a sweet, inarticulate sound, more like a gasp, but she didn’t say a word. Then she was kissing him too, and her body was soft under his muscled thighs, her fingers locked in his hair.
They stayed there, not moving much, for long minutes. It wasn’t kissing the way Quin ever thought of kissing. He thought he knew exactly what a kiss was: a caress of the lips that might or might not involve an exploration of the recipient’s mouth by the giver’s tongue.
None of that made any sense compared to this. This was an inferno and a conversation, all at once. He felt every touch with double ferocity: the way her fingers caressed his hair and then clenched almost painfully if he nudged forward with his hips. Her breath, sweet and smelling of tea and lemons. The little sounds she made in the back of her throat, urging him on, telling him without words that—
He reared up, looking down at her, running a possessive hand down her neck, her shoulders, trailing onto her breast. He felt her shudder under his touch.
She opened her mouth, about to speak, so he put a finger across her lips. The tip of her tongue stole out and touched his finger. He pressed back, just a little, allowed his finger to slip through soft lips into liquid warmth. The groan was torn from his chest, reverberated through his entire body.
It crystallized his thoughts.
“I will not marry Georgiana.” It was blunt because he wasn’t good at words, even though he was a little more fluent around Olivia. Somehow, he could talk to her.
Her eyes flew open and her whole body went rigid. “Oh, God, I’m the worst sister in the world. Let me up!”
He shook his head, dragging his thumb along the curve of her jaw. “Your skin is beautiful.”
“I feel sick to my stomach,” she said, fierce and low. “And you—you’re seducing me!”
“Yes.”
“Stop it. And let me up!”
Reluctantly, he rolled to the side but kept his arm across her body. “I can’t marry her, and it has nothing to do with you.”
“Liar.” She glared at him, and he took a moment to savor it. Olivia was like a flame.
“Actually, I never lie.”
“You’re lying now. If you had never met me, you would have married Georgie and been happy as two bedbugs in a mattress or, more to the point, two alchemists in a laboratory.”
“I can’t know for certain, of course, but I don’t think so. It wasn’t until my mother brought Lady Althea and Miss Georgiana here that I realized I could not simply marry whomever she chose for me.”
“She chose rightly,” Olivia said, stubborn as ever. “You’re perfect for each other. This thing between us is nothing more than a forest fire, as you described it. Temporary. It will burn itself out. Let me rise, please.”
“I don’t believe that I know what love is, at least the sort that people talk about between men and women. But I would venture to say that some people characterize the feeling I had for Evangeline as love. I think care about is a more accurate description, especially if one understands the phrase to include an abiding desire.”
She stilled. Raised a hand, touched his cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t a good marriage. She wasn’t in love with me, and she had a deep urge to be with other men. It was problematic. But I cared about her, even when she made me a cuckold and finally left me. I couldn’t stop. Stupid, I know.”
Olivia leaned over and gave him a kiss that clung to his lips. “Actually, you should be proud of your loyalty. You are wonderful, Quin.”
“No, I’m quite foolish. I should have stopped myself. Somehow.”
“I don’t think anyone has the ability to choose whether or not to fall in love.”
“Exactly,” he said with deep satisfaction. “I agree with you. When I told you that I don’t lie, I meant it.”
She shook her head. “I must return downstairs in case Georgie decides to rejoin the ball.”
“I am telling you something.” He tried to remember what it was, but it felt as if his entire body was focused on the plump, sweet curves of her lips.
“You never lie,” she said, sitting up and breaking their eye contact. “I accept that.”
“I’m not good at . . . interpreting complex statements.”
She pulled up her knees, wound her arms around them, and then rested her chin on them, looking at him curiously. “And yet you’re the most intelligent person I’ve ever met.”
“Only because you haven’t been to university.”
She gave a deep chuckle. “Most people would prevaricate on hearing that compliment, and insist that I was exaggerating.”
“As I said, I don’t lie. The possibility is extremely good that I am the most intelligent person you’ve met. But that doesn’t mean I’m the wisest. Witness the fact that I cared so deeply for Evangeline.”
“A fact that proves you human.”
“It’s a miserable way to achieve humanity,” he said wryly. “My point is that I couldn’t say those vows without meaning them.”
“Vows?” Her eyes changed. “Oh. The marriage vows.”
“ ‘To have and to hold,’ ” he quoted. “ ‘To love and to cherish, till death us do part.’ ”
She swallowed. “Poor Evangeline.”
“She’s in the past now.” And he meant that. “But I can’t say those words to just anyone. They mean a great deal to me. They’re powerful.”
“Even though Evangeline was not respectful of those vows?”
“Yes. Do you know how she died?”
Olivia hugged her knees more closely. “No.”
“She was leaving me. She had decided to run away to France with her current lover, a scrap of absurdity named Sir Bartholomew Fopling.”
Olivia choked.
“I’m not joking,” he said. “Fopling was a most gifted man: he could sing in any number of languages, dance everything worth dancing, and his cravats were always pressed. At any rate, she and Fopling took Alfie with them.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “They left for France even though a storm was brewing. They were warned not to embark, but Evangeline bribed the captain. She was terrified that I was following her, that I would catch her.”
“Are you sure you wish to tell me this?”
“Why not? It’s no more than your maid would tell you if you asked.”
“And were you following her?”
“I almost killed my horse riding him hard, but I was too late. The devil of it is that I still dream of that pier. I’d missed them, and the only thing I could see was the sea, boiling with whitecaps. The boat went down only a mile or two from shore.”
There was a moment of silence. “I suppose,” Olivia said slowly, “that a future duchess should not engage in profanity, especially with regard to the dead. So I would say, Quin, while avoiding curses, that your wife was an ass.”
He could feel a twisted little smile on his lips. “It was a long time ago. Five years. Practically a lifetime.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “One never gets over the loss of a loved one. Especially a child.”
There was no point in answering that comment. It was cruelly true. “At any rate, I can’t marry Georgiana.”
Then he added, just so she understood: “Ever.”
“I think you could grow to love her—or care about her, if you prefer that term.”
“Evangeline was not faithful to me, but I was to her. I was so feverishly in lust with her that there were times when I doubted my own ability to maintain my self-control. Though, of course, I did.”
A shadow crossed her eyes. “Evangeline threw away something that every woman in this kingdom would love to have. She didn’t deserve it.”
“Deserve it or not, she had it. When I carried your sister up those stairs, I didn’t feel even a shadow of desire.”
She frowned at him. “Georgie has a perfect figure. In fact, she’s perfect in every way.”
“It felt as if I were carrying a child up the stairs, all long legs and hair.”
“She’s elegant,” Olivia stated. “I would kill to have her figure.”
“Really?”
“Of course. I have always wished to look precisely like her. Though obviously, not enough to avoid food,” she added.
“That’s madness. You have everything she doesn’t.”
Olivia opened her mouth, ready to argue.
“Everything she hasn’t.”
She frowned at him.
“Including me.”
Eighteen
Madness, in All Its Forms
Quin’s last two words—spoken with the reasoned calm that characterized him—shook Olivia to her core. “What?” she whispered. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I care about you. Embarrassingly, I seem to care about you more than I did Evangeline. It may be that I am mad.” He paused, considering. “I don’t perceive any other signs of mental weakness, though, so I am inclined to simply acknowledge this as a human weakness. I am reluctant to label it a failing.”
She shook her head, dazed.
“It could be that I am merely the sort of man who is ruled by lust.”
Olivia took a deep breath. “I am honored by what you said. I assure you that no woman dislikes being told she is an object of desire. But you must listen to me, Quin. I will not betray Rupert by leaving him while he is overseas, in battle. More to the point, I will never betray my sister. You sat out there in the garden with her for almost an hour. You carried her up the stairs. You courted her.”
“I was no more courteous to her than I would be to any other young woman under my roof.”
“Sitting on a bench for almost an hour? I can’t envision you doing that with any of your other guests.”
“Your sister is remarkably intelligent; we talked about science. It is a pleasure to converse with her. However, a forty-five-minute conversation does not require that I marry her.”
“Put together with everything else, it means that she has a reasonable expectation of marrying you. And I will not, ever, stand in the way of her wish. If the two of you do not marry, for whatever reason, so be it. I will never have it be said that I stole her chosen husband.”
She stood up. “I must pin up my hair—”
He came at her in a low, silent rush, a surge of power and speed. “Don’t marry me,” he said, holding her tightly.
“I won’t!” But he heard the catch in her voice.
“Just don’t pretend that you don’t want to. That there is nothing between us that is far beyond what I shared with Evangeline, you with Montsurrey, or even you with your sister.”
Olivia’s heart pounded in her chest so loudly that she thought he must be able to hear it as well. “I don’t think it matters.”
“It doesn’t matter?” he bellowed it. “What matters more than that? What?”
“Hush!” she said sharply. “I’ll be forced to marry you if we’re caught here, and I shan’t forgive you for it.”
He jerked her a touch closer, so that her body was flattened against his. “You don’t know what I mean because you have never lost someone. There is nothing that matters more, not science nor mathematical propositions, not my title and my lands. . . . Nothing.”
“There’s honor,” she said, feeling pain arrow into her heart. “My honor. I can’t betray my sister or Rupert.”
Something changed in his eyes. “Your love is not so boundless as the sea, or so deep.”
“I never said that I loved you at all, let alone to the tune of those metaphors,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “I hardly know you.”
His fingers tightened on
her hips, as if he were going to argue with her. Olivia felt a quiver deep inside. He knew what she felt for him.
But he let go. “My mother has always said that I’m a hopeless fool when it comes to emotion. I rarely feel it, and when I do it’s like a kind of madness.”
Olivia shook out her skirts, avoiding his eyes. She had the same madness, though she couldn’t say that. If she did . . . he would take her. She could see it in his eyes. He would bellow “Mine!” and summon the whole party to the room.
And she would have to live with wounding—and betraying—her own sister.
No.
“I am retiring to my chamber for a few moments, and then I’ll return downstairs,” she stated. “If you would be so kind as to return to the ball now, there is a chance that no one will notice that we were both missing.”
He bowed and she walked past him, closing the door quietly behind her.
Olivia’s pulse didn’t slow until Norah had pinned up her hair again, and she’d walked back to her sister’s room. “Georgie?”
Georgiana was sitting by the fireplace, reading a book, the very picture of serenity. “Has it been long enough that I can go back downstairs now?”
“I believe that you have rested your ankle sufficiently,” Olivia said, managing a smile.
“You don’t think that I must pretend to limp, do you?”
“No, of course not. You bathed your foot in vinegar and cool water—though naturally you won’t be so indelicate as to mention the particulars—and it felt well immediately. Perhaps you shouldn’t dance, though.”
“That will not be a sacrifice. I don’t like to dance.” Georgiana got up and smoothed her hair before the glass.
“You don’t like to dance?” Olivia asked, surprised. “I had no idea.”
“I am discovering that there are aspects to being a duchess that I do not enjoy,” her sister replied, turning about. “Dancing, for example. And I don’t enjoy chatting about embroidery either, as with Althea’s mother this afternoon. For two hours.”