A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,99
he was endlessly decent. “I am concerned for Althea.”
“Meddling won’t help, will it?”
Jane got off his lap after he’d first stolen a lovely kiss. “I’ve tried keeping a distance, Quinn. I’ve tried to allow Althea to manage on her own, and when she decided to miss the Season, I understood. I did not agree with blowing retreat, but a woman grows weary.”
“Tell me who I need to ruin, Jane. I haven’t ruined anybody yet for the sheer pleasure of it, but what good is owning two banks if I don’t occasionally remind the sots and schemers running this country that their power has limits?”
“I suspect you’d have to ruin half the peerage, Quinn. The matchmakers and hostesses took Althea into dislike because they could. Stephen is your heir, Constance has a retiring nature, and your title and influence protect me. That left Althea.”
“But she’s not alone, is she?” Quinn said, rising. “She’s attracted the notice of a peer who also apparently cares naught for the busybodies and gossips of Greater Dingleberry. That is a very pretty frock, Your Grace. One would hate to see it torn.”
“You haven’t torn one of my dresses on purpose for three years.”
He prowled across the room to take her hand. “Maybe it’s time I gave the seamstress some work.”
Quinn in a loving mood was a force of nature, but then, Jane had never seen a reason to ignore her own loving moods.
“We should go north, Quinn. I know you are conscientious about voting your seat, but the man accosting Althea in broad daylight is a duke. By merest coincidence, that duke’s mama paid a call on me yesterday. I could not fathom her agenda, though she told me she is shortly to make the journey to Yorkshire.”
Perhaps to lend her consequence to Lady Phoebe’s gossip campaign?
“Rothhaven is a duke. He’s a match for Althea, or nearly so.” Quinn embarked on a serious kiss, and when Jane could breathe again, somebody had unhooked her dress most of the way down her back.
“Or Althea’s amorous duke is in a position to ruin her permanently,” she said. “Lady Phoebe claims the Dukes of Rothhaven hark back to Viking habits. They take what they want and recognize no authority save—”
Another kiss, hotter and more carnal than the last.
“Please recall that I’ve had a letter from Stephen,” Quinn said, turning Jane by the shoulders.
“Your brother does know how to use paper and pen.” And Quinn knew how to get a wife unlaced in thirty seconds flat.
“Stephen’s fraternal sentiments aren’t often in evidence, but I suspect he’s worried for Althea. The letter was succinct.”
Quinn passed Jane a folded, embossed sheet of vellum. She knew Stephen’s exquisite penmanship—he was a brilliant draftsman—but the words surprised her.
Althea headed for more trouble than even I can handle. Millicent abetting the nonsense. Get your ducal arse up here. Love to Jane and girls.
Stephen.
Jane set the letter on the mantel as Quinn looped his arms around her from behind. “So are we going north, Quinn?”
He kissed her nape, the warmth of his lips causing a delicious shiver. “I do believe we are, but first, Your Grace, I suggest we go to bed.”
“A fine idea, sir. One of your finest.” Jane took him by the hand, led him into the bedroom, and locked the door.
Althea waved Jane’s letter under Stephen’s nose, regretting—not for the first time—that smacking a man in a Bath chair would be unsporting. “You summoned the watch on me?”
“I did not summon the watch, I merely…”
He wheeled away to the music room’s pianoforte and heaved to his feet. Using the piano, a cane, and the arm of the chair for balance, he levered himself onto the piano bench.
“You merely…?” Althea prompted, stalking after him. “Merely let all of society know my own family doesn’t consider me capable of even socializing in the shires without supervision? You merely sabotaged my first humble effort to present myself as an adult female of independent means? You merely went behind my back to tattle to Quinn and Jane when all I’m doing is being neighborly in godforsaken Yorkshire?”
Was there any exasperation greater than a meddling sibling? Jane, at least, had had the decency to warn Althea of Stephen’s perfidy, but Jane had also packed up her duke and her household and begun the march north.
“You might be in godforsaken Yorkshire,” Stephen said, folding back the cover over the piano keyboard, “but that only means your consequence makes you a bigger target. I did inform our family of your