Lord Devere's Ward (22 page)

“I’d like that. Will they allow me in?”

“I’ll arrange everything. Not to worry.” Reaching over, she stroked his shaft. “You’re so thoughtful.”

“Hmph.”

“And very sweet.”

“Hmph.” What the devil is she planning?

“Quinn, darling, may I go to the duel?”

“What?” He sat up.

“It just seems that I’m quite involved. What harm would it cause?” She continued to touch him through his nightshirt.

“It would be entirely unsuitable, Kate.” His rod twitched and rose.

“Oh, nonsense. We are married now. What do we care what other people think?”

“Hmph.” He was very hard. With some shock, he realized she was seducing him. This was not the plan.

“Say yes, darling Quinn.” Her hand wrapped around his tool, which was as hard as a tree trunk.

He groaned. “Kate, you minx.”

“You cannot stop me, you know.”
Stroke, stroke.

“You will not step foot out of this house on Thursday morning without my say-so!” He jerked away from her.

She giggled. “What’s wrong, Quinn?”

“You know very well what’s wrong! From where did you learn this scandalous conduct?”

“I thought you liked this. You liked this on the way back to Town.”

“I don’t like it when you’re asking for something outrageous. I will not be bribed!” He jumped out of bed.

“If you don’t like it, why are you so—so—so—”

“Ready?” He loomed over her.

She grinned up at him saucily. She leaned over and flicked at the tip, which tented his nightshirt.

He’d had enough of her teasing, so he leaped upon her and started to tickle her. She squealed and tried to roll away, but became entangled in both the bedclothes and her long nightgown, laughing helplessly.

“Stop, Quinn, stop!” Kate tried to wipe the tears from her eyes while squirming away.

Laughing, Quinn continued to scrabble with his fingertips up and down her sides while she wriggled and writhed. He slid down the bed as she struggled in the opposite direction. She gasped when he grabbed her ankle and tried to pull away without success. He laughed harder as he mercilessly scratched the tender underside of her arched foot.

He nibbled on her big toe.

“What on earth are you doing? That’s dirty!”

“Your toes had better not be dirty. You got from your bath into this bed. If the carpet is dirty, one of the housemaids will be sacked.” He bit gently, enjoying her helpless squeals and futile kicks, letting her go only because he wanted to keep his teeth in his head a while longer. He slid up the bed until he was level with her. He slipped a hand between her legs while he smiled into her eyes.

She felt luscious and ready, so he pulled up his nightshirt and lowered himself into her with more abandon than at the inn, where he’d had to be concerned for her welfare. This time he could take what was his with no restraints.

He swived his wife with a sense of primitive male satisfaction, prolonging the act as long as he could, drinking in each of her moans and whimpers far more greedily than he’d eaten their wedding dinner.

He lusted for her body and wanted desperately to fill her with his children. Imagining her belly big and round with his baby only served to make him even more eager. He flooded her with his seed hoping she’d be pregnant soon.

Lying beside her after their love, he wondered about his peers. The married ones complained about their state while the bachelors slandered a condition about which they clearly knew nothing.

Marriage is grossly underrated….if I’d known how
good it was to make love to one’s wife, I might have married
before!
But in his heart, he knew there was only one woman for him—the one he’d waited for. The one who cuddled beside him in their marriage bed.

Katherine, Countess Devere.

* * *

Kate awakened with a sense of delightful lassitude as the first rays of the sun struggled past the heavy dark hangings of the Dowager Countess’

bedroom. Her mood abruptly evaporated as she realized she was alone.

Damn and blast! Quinn had sneaked out, the wretch, without waking her up for the duel. She leaped out of bed and yanked on the bell pull, screaming for Bettina.

She fumbled through her belongings for her oldest gown and Blucher boots. As with the day before, her relationship with Quinn had led her into a social situation for which she had no idea of proper attire, but she assumed a dueling field was no place for flimsy muslin or silk. She pulled on her stuff gown.

“Has he been gone long?” She demanded of Bettina when her maid bustled in, tray in hand.

“I beg your pardon, my lady?” Bettina stared at Kate as though she were a Bedlamite.

“Devere. When did he leave?”

“Leave? The Earl? At this hour? Are you feeling quite the thing, my lady?” Bettina put the salver down on a dresser and advanced toward Katherine, hand outstretched.

“Tell me, at once, Bettina, where the Earl is at this moment.”

Bettina touched Kate’s forehead with a reflective look on her face. “No fever,” she muttered.

Kate pushed her maid’s hand away. “Of course I am well! Where is my husband?”

“I do not go into the Earl’s bedroom, my lady,” said Bettina stiffly, “but I believe my lord is there. I don’t mean to be saucy, but I hope you do not ask me to check.”

Kate stared. “Yes. Quite. The duel is tomorrow, is it not?”

Bettina reached for the fastenings of the stuff gown. “Yes, my lady. It’s to be at Parliament Hill at dawn. Tomorrow.” The maid pulled the gown off Katherine’s shoulders. “I am sure it will not be necessary for you to wear this dress.” She put it back in the press, nose wrinkling with disapproval.

“You’re quite right, Bettina.” Kate spoke meekly.

“Please get me my wrapper.”

She tied the strings of her dressing gown and regarded her maid, who was still busy at the clothespress.

“Bettina.”

“Yes, my lady?”

“I have never asked you to do anything which would endanger your position.” Kate sat on her bed and poured chocolate from a silver jug into a china cup.

“Thank you, my lady.”

“Tomorrow may be an exception.” The cup was decorated with red roses painted around the gilded rim. Very tasteful.

Bettina turned. “Is that so, my lady?”

“Please be assured that you are now my employee, not the Earl’s. I will not allow you to be sacked.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

“I wish to attend the duel on the morrow.”

“Of course, my lady.” Bettina bustled to the dresser. She began dusting the bottles and brushes which were set out.

“The Earl does not agree.”

“I understand perfectly, my lady.”

“Is there a stable boy or cook’s helper whose clothes can be borrowed?”

Bettina’s busy hands stilled. “That should not be necessary, my lady.”

“How so?”

“Simply follow in a carriage, my lady. No need to be uncomfortable.”

Kate considered. She tipped her head on one side.

“I do believe you are correct. I had thought to disguise myself as a tiger and travel on the back of my lord’s equipage. But that is sadly melodramatic and unnecessary, is it not?”

After she finished her chocolate she tiptoed into Quinn’s room. She wondered why he’d deserted her in the middle of the night, but couldn’t help feeling grateful as she stood by his bedside, listening to him snore. She slipped under the quilt to catch an extra nap, but his sonorous breathing made it impossible.

She jabbed him in the side with her elbow.

Snorting, he rolled over onto his stomach. His breathing quieted. She curled in the crook of his arm.

She awoke later to find her husband smiling down at her. “Awake at last, Quinn?”

He kissed her on the forehead. “You made it very difficult to sleep, sweetling.”

“I didn’t mean to disturb you. I thought it might be nice to wake up together.” Her hand slipped down the length of his torso.

“It is nice.” He cuddled her closer, caressing her breast.

“Why did you leave my bed last night?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Is there something wrong with the mattress?” He squirmed. “No.”

Kate eyed her husband, determined to discover the problem she sensed. “Well?”

“It’s just that—well, sweetheart, you—you sleep rather, umm, loudly,” he said, sounding lame.

“I beg your pardon?”

His discomfort visibly increased. “Your breathing. Is loud. When you sleep.”

“Do you mean to say, my lord, that I snore?”

“Well, er, yes.”

She was speechless.

He hastened to add, “I wouldn’t have said so, ’tis ungentlemanly. But yes, my dear, since you raise the question, you do—snore. A bit. A very little bit.” He patted her on the head. “It would be better to say that you—sleep loudly. Yes, that’s it. You sleep loudly. I felt you would be less disturbed it I slept in my own bed, you see.”

She wasn’t fooled. She whacked him on the head with a pillow. “You are saying that I snore? Sir, you sound like a company of elephants taking a bath in a rushing river, and you have the gall to tell me that I snore!” She bashed him again.

“I do not snore!” He grabbed the pillow out of her hands and hit her back.

“I apologize for differing with you, my lord and master, but you most distinctly do snore.” She used another pillow to smack him in the chest.

“No one else has ever told me that I snore!” Kate gasped. That was a foul blow. “No one else has been honest with you, my lord. I assume your other bedmates were either hired or earnestly seeking your affections for reasons known only to themselves.”
Whack!

He raised his brows. “Do you not desire my affection?”
Whack!

“I’m married to you. I don’t have to scheme.” She waved the pillow at him threateningly.

He grabbed it as he clambered out of bed, retreating to a safe haven behind a table set near a window. “Peace, peace!” He waved the pillows. “I have the weapons, sweet Kate, so you’d best make peace before I overwhelm you.”

She grinned at him. “Overwhelmed? That sounds fun. Come and overwhelm me, my lord.”

* * *

Quinn, true to his word, took Kate to observe him at fencing practice at the establishment of Signor Henry Angelo. After removing his coat, Quinn, dressed in cross-braces and tight-fitting breeches, fenced with Signor Angelo as she watched. She had to admit her husband handled the rapier well, and surely would best Uncle Herbert if Badham were so foolish as to choose rapiers rather than pistols. Her concern regarding firearms remained.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the strangest sight, another woman in the exclusive environs of Signor Angelo’s. Kate knew that Devere had used persuasion as well as outright bribery to bring her in, but another lady, bold as brass, swaggered into the room as though she belonged here.

Quinn finished practice and came to stand near Kate, wiping his face with a towel.

“Quinn,” she hissed, sotto voce. “Who is this lady?”

“That’s no lady, that’s Madam Cain.”

The woman picked up a foil and tested it, swishing it through the air.

“Is she going to fence with Signor Angelo?”

“Most likely.”

“Then I would like to fence also. Would you fence with me?”

Her husband’s shoulders gave a sharp jerk upwards. “I am not a fencing master,” he said in what she recognized as his most repressive tone of voice.

“I don’t require a teacher, just a partner. I already know how to fence. Please, Quinn. I didn’t realize ladies were permitted to fence in London. Now that I know, please may I practice a bit? I’m sadly out of trim, but I promise to be entertaining.”

“You know how to fence?” Quinn recoiled in horror.

“Of course. And how to ride, hunt and shoot, and many other useful skills. What do you think I learned in school?”

His mouth made a tight line. “What other ‘useful skills’ did you learn at that school in Bath?”

“Oh, ever so many. Too many to recount, really.

Languages, of course, and everything one needs to know about the proper maintenance of a household and its accounts, dancing, music and art, well—

everything! And Miss Telmont said many times that I was one of the top students,” Kate said proudly. “So, may I fence?”

“Absolutely bloody well not!”

She drew back, astonished at her husband’s unusual display of temper. “Well—well,
she
is!”

“Madam Cain is very bad ton!”

The woman looked at Kate and smiled, but did not approach.

Kate said, “Well, so am I.”

“You are married to me. You are therefore very good ton.”

His arrogance both silenced and infuriated her.

What the devil was wrong with him? She struggled for a suitable rejoinder while her husband dictatorially laid down the law as he saw it.

“While it would remind me most pleasantly of our childhood follies, sweet Kate, I’m afraid I must decline. A gentleman does not fight his lady.” He shrugged back into his coat of navy superfine. “Shall we be off to the draper’s?”

She was about to argue when she remembered that she had never won an argument with him by conventional tactics. She deliberately softened her tone. “Yes, my lord.” She hoped she looked submissive as she followed him out of Signor Angelo’s.

* * *

As he handed her up into his barouche, Quinn shuddered at the thought of Kate fencing. Kate with a pillow was discomfiting; Kate with a rapier in hand would be a force to be feared. He climbed in after her, saying, “You seem to have great respect for Miss Elizabeth Telmont.”

“Yes, she’s been very good to me. She was very kind after—after my parents went.” The equipage started to move.

He pressed her hand. “I’m glad you had someone there to support you at school. It must have been a very difficult time.”

“Not really. I’ve heard others complain about their schools. I was fortunate.”

“How so?” He was curious about how her mind worked. Most people would be sad or bitter about the loss of their entire family.

“I’ve actually been rather lucky. I may have lost my parents, and have just that appalling uncle of mine left, but I have good friends. Like Anna and Pen and Bryan.” A cloud passed over her pretty face.