Quin wandered among the guests feeling like a ghost: a human shell with a semblance of a face but no other distinctions than incredibly bad luck when it came to women.
He danced with Georgiana after dinner. He tracked Olivia from the corner of his eye, saw how she passed from man to man, how they ogled her and laughed with her and generally fell in love with her and into envy of the marquess.
Of course, no one would voice such a shabby emotion: not tonight, not after the French had surrendered that fort, which had been so hard-sought with lost English lives.
He walked from room to room, because if he kept moving, people didn’t try to stop him and talk of the marquess. “Envy” was a pale word to describe the emotion he felt: it was more like rage, pure hatred, livid, bone-deep jealousy. His mother put a hand on his sleeve, stilled, let him go.
He didn’t know what she saw in his eyes. It didn’t matter.
The devil of it was that he would walk out of the room where Olivia was . . . and find himself walking back into it a moment later. He couldn’t fool himself that he walked randomly. He tried to walk away. . . .
He found himself looking for her again. And again.
It seemed an eternity until the majority of guests retired to their rooms and the still excited and voluble duke was escorted to the Queen’s Chamber, so called because Queen Elizabeth had slept in it on three occasions.
Quin went to his chambers and bathed. He put on his dressing gown, then dismissed Waller and dressed himself all over again. He slipped out of his room, down the corridor, opened the door to Olivia’s bedchamber and entered.
She sat with her back to him, toes stretched out toward the fire, reading a book, just as in his dream. His body became a throbbing, aching torch.
He approached silently, swept her silky hair to the side, and bent down to kiss her neck.
His heart was pounding. He recognized the emotion flooding through his veins. He may not be the best at identifying emotion, but any fool could grasp this one. It was fear.
Rupert had done it. He was a war hero, now. A war hero.
Olivia had the choice of marrying a man who stayed at home, no better than a man-milliner, or marrying a man who scaled the ramparts, held the fort, and saved the day. Hell, Rupert might even have turned the tide of the war. He and his piddling hundred men.
His lips touched her neck as he breathed in that delicate combination of flowers and mystery that was his Olivia . . . as he waited with a sense of dread that stretched from the tips of his fingers all the way to his soul, wherever that mysterious organ might be situated.
He’d been in this state before: the first night Evangeline didn’t come home. When she’d returned with the dawn light, she’d said that he was boring, with his talk of nothing but mathematics until she wanted to scream. She had spent the night with a local squire.
“I couldn’t say no,” Evangeline had said dreamily. “He had gone out on a hunt and startled a gang of smugglers, captured them all. He’s a hero.”
Even months later, when the “smugglers” came to trial and turned out to have been starving villagers, desperately trying to poach rabbits in woods the squire liked to think of as his own . . . even then she’d still thought of the man as a hero.
Now, here, Olivia’s arms rose and caught him around the neck. Cherry lips, a gleam in her eye that was for him alone . . .
“I’m sorry,” he managed to say, but not until minutes or even an hour later.
“What for?” He’d maneuvered her from the chair to the rug, firelight leaping here and there, flickering on her creamy skin. As it turned out, she was wearing nothing but a dressing gown, and though she had tried to keep it tied, he had managed to wrestle it open.
Blood raced through his body. But it had to be said. “You could have married a war hero if I hadn’t taken your virginity. Every woman loves a hero.”
“Isn’t it wonderful for Rupert?” she said, smiling.
“Absolutely.” His voice was hollow, but he kept it in check.
“We won’t have any problem finding him a wife now,” she continued. “Is something wrong, Quin? You aren’t jealous of poor Rupert, are you?”
There was only one answer to that. “Yes.”
She came up on one elbow, put a soft hand on his cheek. “Please don’t tell me that you want to go to war.”
“I can’t. Too many responsibilities. But yes, I would like to. I’ve read Machiavelli, Julius Caesar, and de Saxe. I would like to do something that makes a difference in the world.”
“I do see what you mean,” she said, lying back and folding her arms behind her head. “You’re saying that you have to stay home and take care of thousands of acres of land, and make sure hundreds of people in your care and working on your lands are fed and clothed and able to live another day . . . Wait! Is that making a difference?” She tapped her chin. “No, you’re right. Unless you can go over to France and kill some people, your life is wasted.”
Quin made himself say the words, forcing them out of his mouth. “Under the circumstances, do you still wish to marry me?”
She frowned at him. “Which circumstances? Rupert’s triumphs or the battering ram episode of last night?”
“Battering ram!” Her indelicate simile caused him to momentarily lose track of the point, but he recovered. “Because of Rupert’s triumphs. Because you could marry a duke who seems likely to be one of the greatest heroes the British Empire has ever known.”
A little smile touched her lips. “Why, that is true, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I could spend the rest of my life discussing what Lucy ate most recently with a great national hero . . . or I could lie on a rug with you.”
His heart was pounding in his ears.
“Naked,” she added. Her eyes said everything. “Vulnerable to attack by a ba—”
“Don’t say that again.” The clench in his heart eased. He stood up and pulled off his boots. She watched him with heavy-lidded eyes.
He threw the shirt away, pulled down his breeches. “Olivia.”
“Mmmm.”
“A battering ram?”
He threw off his smalls and her eyes went right to the spot. “That is an accurate description,” she stated. “Just look at yourself.”
Quin looked down. He was rampant, so to speak. And yes, formidable. “We really shouldn’t make love again until Montsurrey is back in England and has been informed of the change of circumstances.”
With a thrill of pure pleasure, he saw her eyes change and her lower lip droop. It seemed the battering ram wasn’t all that terrifying.
He dropped to his knees and drew his fingers sensuously down the slope of her cheek, to her neck, slower . . .
“That doesn’t mean we have to be strangers.”
“No?” she whispered, winding her arms around his neck.
He lowered his head, a low groan escaping from his chest.
“No.”
Twenty-four
Gallic Mustaches, a Friend in Need, and the Spirit of Adventure
In later years, Olivia looked back on the evening she spent on the hearthrug, being ravished by a jealous, possessive, and altogether perfect duke, as a defining moment, the point that would forever separate her life “before” from that “after.”
It was the night when she learned how breathtaking life could be.
And it was followed by the morning when she learned how truly fragile and dear it is.
She and Quin had crawled into her curtained bed, slept in snatches, woken each other up, laughed and whispered, and explored each other.
He departed as the sun was creeping over the horizon, having first told her exactly why the dawn rays stealing through the window were soft pink and not blinding white. She didn’t even have to pretend to be fascinated; she genuinely was.
Although she fell back to sleep thinking of the light in Quin’s eyes rather than that coming in the window.
The next thing she felt was a h
and shaking her shoulder. “Olivia, wake up! Wake up!”
The barely contained panic in Georgiana’s voice cut through dreamy half-sleep and snapped Olivia’s eyes open. “What’s the matter?”
Georgiana’s sense of urgency was briefly derailed by her sense of decorum. “Why aren’t you wearing a nightgown? No, I don’t want to know.” Georgiana hauled back the curtains with a jangle of curtain rings. “You must get dressed; Norah will be here in a moment, and she shouldn’t see you in that state.”
“What is it?” Olivia pushed the covers back, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and looked around for her robe. It was very peculiar to wake up naked, especially under the disapproving eye of her sister. “Has something happened to Mother or Father?”
“It’s Rupert,” Georgiana said, finding a discarded wrapper on the floor and throwing it at her. “Put this on, for goodness’ sake.”
“Rupert?” Olivia said, jumping up. “What has happened?”
Georgiana bit her lip. “He’s badly injured, Livie. There’s some question whether he will survive. I feel so—poor Rupert! Poor, poor Rupert.” Her eyes were bright with tears. “And that’s not all: the courier from Rupert’s company no sooner told his father than the duke fell to the ground.”
“Dead?”
“He’s not dead. But he is insensible. He hasn’t woken at all. The man arrived from Dover in the middle of the night, after we had all retired. Once Canterwick collapsed, the butler tried to find Sconce, but . . .”
“He was here with me.”
“I guessed as much. So Cleese woke the duchess, and she summoned a physician. But Canterwick has not moved or spoken, and I gather the doctor is not hopeful. The duke looks as if he were dead, but he still breathes.”
Olivia stood in the middle of the room, clutching the neck of her wrapper and thinking as hard as she could. “Is Rupert in London? I shall go to him immediately. He must be so frightened, and if his father cannot go to his side, then I must.”
Georgiana shook her head. “He’s in France. I think that’s probably what his father found most shocking.”
“In France?”
“I don’t know all the details, but the courier said his men were taking him up the coast of France, trying to bring him to Calais, where they were planning to cross the Channel with the first boat they could commandeer, but—Olivia, it’s just so sad—his injuries are too grievous. So one of his soldiers came without him, bringing the message for Canterwick, and was directed on from Dover to here.”
Olivia sank back onto the bed, feeling temporarily overwhelmed. “He is too injured to cross the Channel?”
“I’m afraid so.” Georgiana sat down as well and wound an arm around her.
“He must be terribly afraid. Unless . . . perhaps he’s insensible?”
“I don’t think so. Apparently he asked for his father.”
“I expect he asked for Lucy, too.”
“And you. He’s very fond of you,” Georgiana said.
“His father would have gone to him, if he had not suffered this attack,” Olivia said, her heart thumping miserably.
“One must suppose so. But it’s a terribly dangerous endeavor, given the war. Rupert got only as far as Normandy. He might be captured at any moment.”
Olivia stood up. “I must go to him. Now.” She hauled on the bell. “I suppose I’ll need a boat capable of crossing the Channel.”
“You would do better to travel by coach until you’re at a point directly opposite Rupert,” Georgiana said, and then gasped, “but of course you’re not going to France, Olivia! Don’t be foolish.”
Norah appeared in the doorway. “A bath,” Olivia stated.
Her maid had a rather smug smile on her face. “I thought as much.” She pushed the door open wider. Three footmen filed into the room, carrying buckets of water.
“And then a travelling gown, please,” Olivia added.
“You cannot even consider such a rash gesture! Do you have any idea what the relationship between France and England is at the moment? What if you—you—are captured by the French, Olivia?”
Olivia considered that for a moment, then she shrugged. “We are at war. We have been at war for some time. We’re still at war. I need to get to Rupert. I’m sure that any French soldiers I meet will understand.”
Her sister groaned. “You haven’t been reading the newspapers, have you?”
“Would it surprise you to hear that the answer is no?” The footmen had left, and the bath was ready. Olivia tore off her wrapper again. “If your sensibilities are going to be offended by my state of undress, Georgie, you had better leave now.”
“You have nothing I don’t have,” her sister said, dropping onto a stool to the side of the bath.
“I just have more of it,” Olivia murmured, poking a toe into the steaming water.
“You cannot take such a quixotic trip across the Channel,” Georgiana insisted. “You haven’t the faintest idea of the peril.”
“I can live with the uncertainty,” Olivia said. “Norah, will you please wash my hair as quickly as humanly possible?”
“Yes, miss,” Nora said, tackling Olivia’s hair as if it were a bundle of laundry.
“Since you do know all the danger and you read the newspapers, Georgie, you’d better tell me everything I absolutely have to know.”
Her sister started to protest, but Olivia held up her hand. “You’ve known me longer than anyone else in the world. Do you really imagine that I would leave Rupert to die in some hut on the coast of France? Alone? I may not have wanted to marry him, but I am fond of him. In an odd way, I truly respect him.”
There was a moment of silence, but for Norah’s splashing.
“He is not your fiancé anymore,” Georgiana said. But her voice betrayed the fact that she knew she couldn’t win.
Olivia shook her head. “Stop.”
“Then I am going with you.”
“No, you certainly are not. Just how perilous is it to land on the French shore, anyway?” Olivia soaped an arm while she waited for an answer.
“According to the newspapers, French soldiers are constantly patrolling the beaches, looking for an invasion force and also for smugglers. You could be captured.”
“Why on earth would they want to capture me?”
Her sister stared at her. “Do I really need to spell out what soldiers are capable of doing to women, Olivia?”
“Ravished by a Frenchman,” Olivia said lightly. “There are those who pay for the privilege.”
Georgiana gasped. “How can you respond with—with a vulgarity to such a terrible prospect?”
“I do not mean to belittle the terribleness of such an event, Georgie. But if I have learned anything during my betrothal to Rupert, it is that dwelling on the worst possibilities is not helpful. Therefore, I choose to picture any French soldier I might encounter as seductive and gallant.” She spoke the last word using the French pronunciation, and considered. “Perhaps with a mustache that curls at the edges.”
“I will never understand you! Just how gallant will those soldiers be if they believe you to be a spy?”
“A spy? Me? I look nothing like a spy.”
“Who knows what a spy looks like? I have a definite understanding that there are women engaged in that business. I wonder if you’re even allowed to ransom spies the way you can officers.”
“Thank goodness you read the paper so assiduously,” Olivia said. “Perhaps you can find out the answer to that question before my need becomes pressing.” She stood up, letting the water sluice from her. “Norah, I’m sure you’ve gathered that I will need a small travelling bag.”
“I will accompany you to France, miss,” Norah said stoutly. “You will need someone to dress you, even in a French prison.”
Olivia’s smile included her maid and sister. “Neither of you is coming with me.”
“You cannot go alone!” Georgiana protested. Then: “Oh.”
“Exactly.”
> “You must send the duke a note now if you intend to leave immediately,” Georgiana said. “Asking him to accompany you.” She moved toward the little writing desk in the corner.
“I am quite certain that the duke is already preparing for the journey,” Olivia said calmly. “Thank you, Norah, that is a perfect choice for travelling. Doubtless all the best spies wear dark plum.”
“It will blend with the night,” the little maid said, her voice squeaking with excitement.
Georgiana shook her head. “How do you know that His Grace is prepared? May I remind you, Olivia, that you met Sconce all of four days ago?”
Olivia grinned at her. “That man longs to serve the nation; if being a spy will allow him to, he’ll be a spy. He positively writhed with jealousy at the idea of Rupert’s going to war. He’ll accompany me.”
“And what will the dowager say to that?”
Norah shivered. “They do say below-stairs that the duke generally does whatever Her Grace demands.”
“She will not be happy,” Georgiana persisted.
“I would venture to say that unhappy doesn’t approach her feelings on the subject,” Olivia said, considering the matter. “But there’s this to be said about it: If Quin stays in England because of his mother’s objections, then he is not a man whom I wish to marry.”
“A test?” Georgiana asked, her tone rather dubious.
Olivia nodded. “Do you remember that old story of the lady who was decreed to be a real princess because a pea had been hidden under her mattress? Well, this is my version. No prince is real if he obeys his mother.”
“Rather than his fiancée?” Georgiana asked.
“Rather than the spirit of adventure!”
Twenty-five
The Matter of a Parental Blessing
Quin was in his gunroom, assessing the rather extraordinary number of weapons collected by his forebears. In the end, after careful consideration of what lay ahead, he chose a pair of small but deadly Italian pocket pistols.