Mad About the Marquess (Highland Brides Book 2) (11 page)

Lambs that needed to be fed, and sheltered, and shepherded into new lives. Which took a vast deal of money. Which she gave.
 

And so their little alms-producing operation turned efficiently, but more importantly, invisibly, both salving Quince’s spotty, but strangely ardent conscience, and giving her a reason to keep stealing.
 

Until Strathcairn had almost caught her.

“Aye, Charlie’ll ken how ’tis.” Jeannie was nodding. “He’s already been by to leave the wee purse frae the Tuesday.” Jeannie fetched a small suede purse out of a locked drawer, and poured the coins into Quince’s outstretched palm. “I don’t mind tellin’ ye, my Leddy Q, I’ll be fair relieved to have a wee break frae it. Stretches my nerves somthin’ thin, it does, having them things, and then the money, here.”

“I understand, hen. Me, too.” The strain was so constant Quince had mostly gotten used to it. Mostly. But she hadn’t thought of the toll it might be taking upon Jeannie, or Charlie. She hadn’t realized they, too, might feel the sick sense of relief that came when she passed the goods off, and then when she took the purse, and again when she deposited the coins in the poor box. “Would you rather we stopped for good?”

Maybe that would be for the best. Maybe Jeannie and Charlie wanted more than a temporary relief from the constant nagging tension—the worry each of them must feel for what might happen to them if they were caught. Jeannie and Charlie were far more vulnerable than she, who had a family of influence to speak for her. All Jeannie and Charlie had to speak for them was her, and who would believe a girl who had robbed her peers blind?

No one. Not even Strathcairn.

“Och, I don’ ken ‘bout that.” Jeannie knitted the stiffness out of her fingers. “I’ve nearly enough saved ta hire on another lass tae do the seaming. And Charlie’ll hae another mouth to feed soon, with his wife expectin’ another bairn.”
 

Quince nodded her understanding. “All right. Just a break, then.”

“Aye, mileddy. A wee break.”

That is, if Quince could actually make the break. She had never before managed to stop her pilfering. Everywhere she went, there was something—some jeweled hairpin or cravat pin, some silver comb or earbob left carelessly behind, forgotten on some table.
 

Everywhere she went, temptation was waiting.

But what if something—someone—else was waiting? What if she could alleviate her itchy fingers by clutching up Strathcairn’s expensive lapels, and rumpling his perfectly powdered hair? What if kissing him gave her as good a thrill as it had the other night, in the close dark of Lady Inverness’s bare spare room?

The thought calmed her fears, and spread a smile upon her face. “Now then, dearest Jeannie. All that remains is for you to make me a masquerade costume that will blend in with the wallpaper.”

By the time the Winthrop party arrived at the reception hall of the Marquess of Queensbury’s majestic mansion near Holyrood Palace, the crowd of costumed revelers awaiting admission stretched into the street, and Quince’s nerves were stretched as taut as the lacing of her stays—she felt as if she could barely breathe.
 

Days of waiting, of not stealing, and of still not seeing Strathcairn, had worn on her. She was not a person suited to inactivity. Wit and not wardrobe was only the beginning of her ethos—action not idleness was the beating heart of her character.

And so the moment they made their way through the doors, Quince abandoned the reception line by making herself both useful and scarce, taking her mother and sister’s silk evening cloaks, and depositing them with the footmen in the small chamber beneath the stairs. Which also gave her access to the servants’ stair, by which she could slip away from the crowd.

She made her way by back corridors to the narrow mezzanine above the ballroom, from whence she could take stock of the gathering. Below, the whole of the ballroom had been done over in a harlequin theme, with black and white diamond patterns painted onto the floor, and pastel garlands of flowers festooned above the doorways and windows, as well as all the chandeliers, perfuming the air with the scent of carnations and lavender. The effect was bright and gay and perfect for the longest day of summer, when the golden evening sunlight stretched through the windows, and bathed the room in gilded light. The marchioness was assured success—it was utterly enchanting.

And Quince was ready to be enchanted—she was beyond ready for something, anything to happen. Unable to even stand still, she passed down the length of the railing to the darkest corner, where she might observe the scene below, while being unobserved herself. The ballroom was filling rapidly with revelers of all sizes, shapes and costumes, all so busy with their own intrigues that none of them thought to look up into the dimmer corners of the balcony above.
 

It was the perfect place for a tryst.
 

The perfect place for her to forget everything but the sure pleasure of Strathcairn’s kisses. The lovely taut texture of his lips. The delicious rasp of his smooth shaven jaw against her cheek. The wonderfully generous way he had let her take her time, and explore at will, clenching his hands into white-knuckled fists against the wall to keep to her rules. Teaching her control by showing her power and restraint.

Her own fists gripped the railing in nervous, heady anticipation.

The feeling was almost as good as stealing. And nearly as dangerous.

Dangerous because there was something about him—that devilish combination of power and restraint—that called to her, and made her want to bedevil him. Something that, even as it appealed to her own mischievous nature, called for her respect.

That was a very rare thing indeed in her world, respect. There were only a handful of people she truly respected, but Strathcairn had to be counted as one of them. And so she would take care to keep him from being her enemy, and make him her friend. And maybe even, if she were very good and very careful, something more than a friend.

“The marquess is not here.” Plum appeared at the top of the small stairway with a pleasantly snide simper upon her lips, and flourished her embellished shepherdess’s crook with, well, a flourish. As if
she
were the one expecting someone to come upon her looking fetching in her short-skirted costume which exposed her trim ankles.

Her sister had somehow managed to follow her through the crowd. Quince would have to watch herself to make sure it didn’t happen again—it certainly would not do to have Plum witness her trying to entice Strathcairn into kissing her.

 
And she was not about to play Plum’s little game, by either asking
whom
she was talking about, or pretending she had not been looking for Strathcairn. “How inconvenient,” she said, instead. “Strathcairn owes me money.”

Plum’s expression blanked to astonishment, immediately followed by outrage. “The Marquess of Cairn owes you money?”

“Aye.” Quince let her voice slide deeper into the local dialect that always infuriated Plum, who was far more aspirational that any of the sisters, even fussy Linnea. “Lost a bet, he did.”

“You know you’re not supposed to bet, Quince, or play cards for money. It’s not ladylike. Wait until Mama hears.”

Quince was glad she had left her wee dirk at home as an aid to resisting temptation, or she might have been tempted to poke her sister in her interfering arse then and there. It wasn’t a nice thought, but there you had it—she wasn’t good. But she managed to resist that temptation as well.

“Then you’d better hasten off to tell her, hadn’t you?” And leave Quince alone to find a new place to hide. Which should not be a problem—the Queensbury mansion was a wonderful hodgepodge of different additions tacked onto the main house through the ages, with nooks and crannies to spare, as well as a wide sweeping garden down the south side of the walled property. Perhaps tonight Strathcairn would be Scots enough to take his ease under the shelter of the blackthorn tree—
Prunus spinosa,
her father would correct her—growing in the back corner of the garden.

“Not before I’ve made you over.” Plum immediately began to fuss and tug at Quince’s gown.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Keeping you, to use your own words, from fashion ignominy. That dress is revealing enough, but the drab color doesn’t do you much justice. Here.” Plum plucked two pink roses from the bodice of her own costume, and insinuated one down between Quince’s breasts, and tucked the other behind her ear. “That’s better. It warms your skin, and helps you look less afraid.”

“I’m not afraid!”

“You ought to be.” Plum looked her in the eye, as if doing so would make Quince hear her more clearly. “I’ve done what I can, and I’m going back to Mama now, so mind yourself. And don’t be with him too long.”

Before Quince could puzzle out such bizarre behavior, her sister was gone back down the stair. She followed Plum’s progress across the floor to where she met their parents on the far side of the ballroom. Mama was costumed as the constant Pole Star, with a glittering diamond ornament in her hair, while Papa was more predictably dressed as the esteemed botanist Carl Linnaeus—which meant he was dressed almost exactly as himself, but with a mask.
 

But while Quince knew how her parents were dressed, she had taken care to cover her own costume with her evening cloak. Because the simple truth was that the costume Jeannie had devised was a great deal more revealing than what Quince was used to, or what her lady mother would allow. But the risk had been worth it. From the vantage point of the balcony, Quince could see that at least five other ladies were dressed in the same costume as she—as Diana the Huntress. Jeannie’s intelligence from dressmaker gossip had been correct, and as a result, even with the addition of the roses, Quince would be just another masked girl with her hair in Grecian curls, dressed in ivory-toned muslin drapery that blended with the wallpaper.
 

Perfect. And perfectly anonymous among the crowd of dark dominos and be-wigged cavaliers.

And there he was—her own cavalier, moving purposefully through the throng, a vision out of another age. She would have known him anywhere—no mask could conceal the glitter of those green eyes, nor any domino shroud the delicious breadth of those strong shoulders. But most of all, not even the wide, plumed leather hat could cover the deep Scots russet of his hair.

Oh, holy apple carts. With all his staid white powder, she had quite forgotten the blazing glory of his brilliant hair.

A memory dropped into her mind like a cameo into her pocket—a younger Strathcairn with his bright ginger head bent, earnestly trying to inveigle her older sister into a kiss. A kiss which fussy Linnea had evaded.

Quince wouldn’t have.

And she certainly wouldn’t tonight. Not when he looked so gloriously magnificent. So devilishly kissable, with his hat and his plume and his pair of patent flintlock pistols bristling from his belt. The Marquess of Cairn. The man
she
would soon be enticing into kisses.

But not up here on the balcony—Plum might have revealed both her hiding place and her costume to Mama by now. Quince bolted for the stair, determined not to waste another minute that could be spent more profitably with Strathcairn, learning everything there was to learn about the taste and texture of his lips. Discovering just how far the sweet joy of kissing—
 

“Lady Quince.”

She came up short on the second to last step, to find her way blocked not by the man she sought, but by a man she hadn’t thought to avoid. The man who had for three years been the beneficiary of her larcenous largesse, though they had never met—The Reverend Mr. Adam Talent, medical doctor, vicar of the West Kirk of Saint Cuthbert’s, and principal administrator of the Charity Workhouse there.

Quince felt her face flush scarlet to the roots of her hair. Of all people to recognize her whilst wearing gossamer drapery in the middle of planning a tryst, she had to meet with the only clergyman in all of Edinburgh who seemed to know her by name, though she had taken pains that he should
not
know her.

Her heart plummeted to her sandals—her conscience, it seemed, had come to call.

What on earth had possessed the marchioness to invite such a Friday-faced, sober man to a revel? And what the devil could have possessed a reverend to accept? Unfortunately, Quince could think of nothing that would account for the clergyman’s presence—nothing that didn’t have to do directly with herself.