Authors: Heather Cullman
The marchioness turned at the sound of his footsteps. “Why, Quentin! My darling boy! What a lovely surprise!” She stood up and held out her arms to him, letting her sketchbook tumble to the grass in the process.
Sophie immediately knelt down to retrieve it, hoping to escape Quentin’s notice. As an afterthought she shoved the bonnet she had dangling over her arm like a basket back atop her head. There! If she kept her head tipped just so, the brim would hide her face. Hopefully, Quentin would assume her to be just another servant and ignore her.
As she picked up the book and pretended to smooth its pages, she stole an anxious glance at the pair before her. The marchioness had Quentin in her embrace, kissing and fussing over him as if he were five years old. As for Quentin, he was at his most charming, dimpling and fussing back like the most doting of sons. Both appeared quite absorbed in the other.
Good. She bowed her head over the book again. With luck her ladyship would forget all about her and take him back to the house, leaving her behind unnoticed. Exactly what she would do then, she didn’t know, but she would think of something.
As usual, luck abandoned her. After several long moments, she heard the rustle of grass. A second later a pair of gleaming boots appeared before her. “And who do we have here, Mother?” Quentin drawled. “Can’t say that I recognize the figure.”
“No. I am sure you do not, and I shall thank you not to make such personal remarks about the servants,” her ladyship replied in a censorious tone. “Especially this particular servant. This is Miss Sophie Barton, Miss Stewart’s assistant, and a gentlewoman.”
“Indeed?” He more purred than said the word, sending a chill down Sophie’s spine. “In that instance, please do allow me to help you up Miss Barton.” A gloved hand appeared before her eyes.
Seeing no other choice, Sophie took it and slowly rose, keeping her head bowed in one last desperate attempt to avoid the inevitable. When she was on her feet, she murmured, “Thank you, my lord,” and tried to pull her hand from his.
He held tight. “I do hope I didn’t offend you with my indelicate remark just now. If I did, please accept my apologies.”
“I assure you that you didn’t offend me in the least,” she replied, again trying to reclaim her hand.
Again, he refused to relinquish it. Instead he moved nearer and whispered, “In that case, I hope you shan’t take offense at me telling you that you have a particularly fine figure, one that I wouldn’t be at all displeased to find in my bed some night.”
“My lord!” she gasped, looking up in her shock.
He, too, gasped.
For a long moment they stared at each other: he, in stunned recognition, she, in terror. Then he smiled slowly.
A suffocating sensation tightened Sophie’s throat. Here it came.
To her surprise, he merely kissed her hand and said, “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Barton.” Smiling blandly, he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and turned back to his mother. “I see that I shall have the privilege of escorting two beautiful ladies back to the house.”
“Indeed you shall,” the marchioness replied, accepting his other arm. Sophie couldn’t help but to notice that she wore that queer expression again.
Like the afternoon of the pineapple tragedy, the stroll back to the house seemed interminable. Indeed, Sophie was certain she would shatter from tension as she awaited Quentin to reveal his game. Whatever he played at, she knew she wasn’t going to like the rules, just as she knew that she hadn’t a prayer of winning. Better that he denounce her here and now, and end her suffering.
But he gave no sign of doing any such thing. Indeed, he was at his most charming, taking care to include her in the conversation and forcing her to feign laughter at his witty stories. So tortured was she, that by the time they reached the manor she was ready to denounce herself and be done with it.
“My lady, I just sent John to the garden to find you,” Dickson exclaimed, opening the door at their approach. He paused a beat to bow, then added, “Cook has a need to consult with you immediately. A problem with the menu, I believe.”
The marchioness nodded. “Thank you, Dickson. Please tell her that I shall speak with her in the library this very instant.” She handed Sophie her bonnet and gloves, then turned to Quentin.
As she gave him a kiss and a promise for her undivided attention that evening, Sophie escaped up the stairs. Her first instinct was to flee. To run as fast and far away from Hawksbury as possible. Yet there was a part of her that resisted, telling her that Nicholas would return any day now and handle matters.
But what if he didn’t return in time? She had no idea how long Quentin would keep his counsel, but she had a feeling that it wouldn’t be long. Not unless she consented to join whatever game he played. She had just reached her ladyship’s chamber door when someone grabbed her shoulder.
“Well, well. Miss Sophia Barrington. Fancy meeting you here.”
Quentin! Panic raced through her veins like quicksilver, So preoccupied was she with her thoughts, that she hadn’t heard his approach. Firmly bridling her urge to run, she slowly turned to face him. “What do you want, Quentin?” she whispered, far too distraught to bother with pleasantries.
“The same thing you are giving my brother, of course.” The insinuation in his voice was unmistakable.
Pointedly ignoring it, she retorted, “I do not know what you mean.”
“Come, come, now, pretty Sophie. Surely you don’t think me such a dolt as to believe that Nicholas has granted you sanctuary here out of the goodness of his heart?” He inched nearer. “Good old Colin might be a fine and noble gentleman, but he isn’t a particularly forgiving one.”
She took a step backward. “Then, you do not know your brother very well, my lord. He is fine, noble,
and
exceedingly forgiving. You would do well to heed his example.”
He stepped forward. “Oh. But that is exactly what I wish to do. And I promise that you shall find me just as noble and far finer in bed than you do my brother. Indeed, though I may not be as oafishly large as he, I can assure you that I am counted to be a giant among men — a superbly skilled giant, if you take my meaning.”
She did take it, but she had no intention of letting him know that she understood. “You speak in riddles, my lord,” she snapped, “riddles to which I have no interest in learning the answers. Now please do go about your business and allow me to go about mine. I have no time for such nonsense.”
As she started to turn away, hoping without faith that he would let her go, he grasped her shoulders and pinned her against the door. Pressing his face to hers, he spat, “You don’t care for riddles? Fine, then I shall speak plainly. I know that my brother has had his way with you. Everyone in London knows it. Why, I saw dearest Colin at our club just last week, and do you know what he was doing?”
When she refused to reply, he snarled, “He was bandying about how he wooed, won, seduced, and then spurned you. Quite a fitting revenge after the way you jilted him, eh?”
“No! I don’t believe you!” she cried, her very soul weeping with anguish at his words. It couldn’t be true! Nicholas would never do such a thing.
Yet if it weren’t true, how did Quentin know that Nicholas had wooed and won her? Grief such as she had never known welled up in her throat at the answer. As much as she hated to admit it, the explanation suited Nicholas’s actions perfectly. All of them.
“Believe it, it is true,” he shot back.
“Why are you doing this Quentin?” she whispered, her voice trembling with repressed tears.
“Because I fancy you, and wish you to warm my bed. You are quite lovely, you know.” He smiled an undeniably sensual smile as he reached out and lightly fingered a curl.
“And if I refuse?”
“Why, then, I shall tell my parents who you are and personally escort you back to London to face your creditors. I can promise you that no one will stop me from doing so. In case you haven’t noticed, dear mother and father quite dote on their beloved heir.” He all but spat that last.
To her surprise, he released her then and took a step back. “I shall leave you now, my dearest Miss Barrington, to go about the business to which you are so eager to attend, and to think about what I have said. I will expect you in my chamber no later than midnight.” With that, he sketched a bow and stalked away.
She watched him go, despair clinging to her like mist on the moors. There was nothing for her to think about. She must leave. Now. Before she shattered completely and was unable to do so.
Quentin lounged on the drawing room settee, a glass of Madeira in hand, listening to his mother recount Nicholas’s recent brush with a pineapple tart. As she described his suffering in detail, he made a note to remember the fruit’s effect on his darling brother and use the information to his own advantage. How very amusing it would be to watch the exalted Earl of Lyndhurst break out in spots and lose his bowels before the entire ton.
Not as amusing, of course, as the expression on his face would be when he learned that he’d stolen Miss Barrington from him.
It was all Quentin could do not to rub his hands together in his glee. How his brother could be such a looby as to forgive the chit after what she had done to him, he didn’t know. How he could actually love her was beyond the grasp of his wildest imaginings.
But love her he did. And despite the fact that he would most probably be looked upon as the worst sort of nodcock for doing so, he also intended to marry her. He’d overheard Nicholas tell his equally priggish best friend, Lord Huntley, of his plans to do so while at White’s just last week. Not that his plans were any great secret. There were rumors flying fast and furious all over Town about him paying Miss Barrington’s debts as a wedding gift to her.
Quentin smiled scornfully. He had no doubt that the rumors were true. It was just the sort of thing his brother would do for the woman he loved. It would also make what he was about to do all the more gratifying. Nicholas’s pockets would be thousands of pounds lighter with nothing to show for his investment but heartbreak and embarrassment.
As for himself, he would have the pleasure of telling the ton that his perfect, privileged brother had once again made a fool of himself over Miss Barrington. How sweet it would be to reveal yet more tarnish on Nicholas’s seemingly flawless armor. Almost as sweet as the way it would discredit him in his parents’ eyes. In his mind they esteemed him far beyond his desert, and it was high time they realized that he wasn’t at all the nonpareil they blindly assumed him to be.
He out and out grinned as he thought of what they would do and say when they discovered that the Lord of all Goodness and Light had actually planned to marry the very chit who had disgraced him. If anything could make them realize their mistake in revering him so, it was that. When he then explained how he had seduced
Miss Barrington to save poor Colin from making a dreadful mistake, they were bound to transfer some of that adoration to him.
“Why, Quentin! How can you smile so? I hardly find your brother’s tongue swelling up and almost choking him amusing,” his mother chided.
Quentin instantly sobered. “Nor do I. I was simply marveling at his fortitude in enduring his trial so bravely.” No doubt Lord Paragon hadn’t uttered so much as a cross word during his ordeal.
“Yes. He was very brave,” she agreed, her face glowing with pride, as it always did when she spoke of her precious firstborn. “Poor dear didn’t complain even once, though he had every reason in the world to do so.” Of course he didn’t, damn him.
Before they could resume their discussion of Nicholas’s virtues, there was a scratch at the door.
The marquess looked up from the newspaper he read and directed, “Enter.”
It was Dickson, an exceedingly agitated Dickson. “My lady. My lords.” He bowed. “I am afraid that I have the most distressing news. We have been robbed!”
Quentin saw his parents’ gazes dart to him. “Don’t look at me. I didn’t do it,” he protested, genuinely insulted. Just because he had once made off with a valuable Chinese vase to pay his tailor bill was no reason to automatically suspect him this time. Besides, the vase incident had taken place over six months ago … a veritable lifetime. It was high time they forgave and forgot.
“Well, you cannot blame us for being suspicious,” his father retorted, eyeing him dubiously. “The only time you ever grace us with your presence is when you are in need of funds.”
Which was the case this time as well, though finding Miss Barrington here had quite erased the purpose from his mind. He’d naturally assumed that Nicholas had tucked her away in Scotland or some other remote place until he had cleared her debts and paved the way for their marriage. Thus, it had come as an enormous shock finding her beneath his parent’s roof …
A shock, a boon, and a blessing. The boon, of course, was his chance to discredit Nicholas in his parents’ eyes; the blessing was that Miss Barrington had so readily believed his tale about his brother seducing her for revenge. Admittedly, he had taken a chance in assuming that Lord Virtue had bedded her. He was, after all, just the sort of man to wait for a trip to the altar before taking his beloved’s maidenhead. That he had obviously not waited, at least judging from the chit’s devastated expression, made him feel a niggle of grudging respect for the old boy.