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“Whatsituationdid my duchess ever decline to take in hand?” He stroked Jane’s hair, gently urging her to snuggle against his shoulder.
“I suspect Althea is frequently bullied.”
His hand went still. “I beg your pardon?”
“I cannot believe she’s prone to spilling punch on half of her ballgowns or stepping on her own hems every other outing. I found her practicing with her fan once, but soon realized whoever had instructed her had given her incorrect meanings for the signals. She’d been told that ‘I value you as a friend’ meant ‘I miss your kisses’ and so forth.”
“That is cruel. Why wasn’t I told?”
Jane brushed his hair back. He needed a trim, but she preferred his hair long and a bit rakish. “Think, Quinn.”
“Because Althea is stubborn and proud, and never asked for quarter from anybody. Of all the reasons to wish Jack Wentworth were alive so I could put out his lights, the damage done to my siblings sits at the top of a long list.”
The damage to Quinn sat at the top of Jane’s list. Althea, Constance, and Stephen had had Quinn to occasionally take up for them and fend off starvation. Quinn had had nobody.
And now, Althea had nobody. “I cannot leave her to deal with this situation on her own, Quinn. She will soon be considered on the shelf, and the fellow taking liberties with her person is well placed.”
“Is he courting her?” Quinn asked, drawing a pin from Jane’s hair. “Courting couples delight in taking liberties with one another. So do married couples, I’m told.”
Three more pins went into Quinn’s pocket, and Jane’s braided coronet drifted down over her shoulder.
“He is not well liked in the neighborhood, according to Lady Phoebe. He’s an arrogant titled bounder from a family of arrogant, titled bounders.”
Quinn paused, two more pins in his hand. “She put that in writing?”
“She claims she has reason to know the family history, and it does not recommend the man involved. The Rothmeres have more wealth than decency, in her words.”
“So Althea has made the acquaintance of the neighborhood duke, though by reputation, I’d say Rothhaven is retiring rather than randy.” Quinn untied the ribbon at the bottom of Jane’s braid and trailed the scrap of silk across her décolletage. “People say I lack decency. They delight in saying it, always behind my back, of course.”
And it wasn’t true. Quinn was enormously wealthy, but 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.
