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He wasalsohonor-bound to keep his distance from her.
“I will consider the duchess’s kind warning,” Nathaniel said, “but now, if you’ll excuse me, I feel the urge to do a spot of gardening with my family.”
Sorenson stalked across the room and paused by the door. “I can call you out—you are as common as I am—except Lord Stephen deserves that privilege more than I do.”
“Sorenson—Pietr—I would gladly call myself out, except that would also redound to her ladyship’s discredit. I’ve already done far more damage to her reputation than any decent woman deserves, so we will have no calling anybody out.”
Sorenson whipped open the estate office door, surprising Thatcher, who held a tea tray.
“Please take the tray to the garden, Thatcher,” Nathaniel said. “I will see our guest out.”
“Guest.” Thatcher harrumphed. “We’re not to have company here at the Hall, but it’s good day Vicar, and here’s the duchess, and how-do-you-do Lord Quarrymaster, and a tea tray for that Lady Althea with the splendid hogs. A body does wonder. That he does.”
“The garden,” Nathaniel said, sidling past the butler, “and then it’s time you had a cup of tea yourself.”
Nathaniel saw Sorenson on his way, changed into a pair of old riding breeches, and joined his mother and brother in the garden.
“Thatcher says the vicar came to call. What did Sorenson want?” Robbie asked, passing over a slice of lemon cake that looked to have been baked sometime before Yuletide.
“He wants me to go to Lady Althea’s ball.”
Mama glanced up from her battle with a bed of weeds. “What ball?”
“Jane tells me the local leading lights have taken you into dislike.” Quinn passed Althea a glass of brandy, though the sun had not yet set and the ball was still hours away.
“One local leading light,” Althea said, taking the reading chair by the fire, “and Lady Phoebe is within her rights. I have threatened her niece’s prospects.” Though Lady Phoebe’s campaign had begun before Lord Ellenbrook had graced the shire with his presence.
“You? Threatening a local beauty?” Quinn settled into the seat opposite, though he looked out of place in Althea’s private parlor in a way Nathaniel had not. “I mean you no insult, Althea, but I thought the finishing governesses had polished all threats right out of you.”
Quinn made the years spent with all those tutors and finishing governesses sound like a lark. Fat lot the great and powerful duke knew. He’d been so busy building his financial empire at the time, he might as well have still been a footman in service on a distant estate.
“I have invited Lady Phoebe to tonight’s gathering,” Althea said, swirling the glass gently and holding it up to admire its garnet color. “She can do her worst for all I care.”
“Then why have the ball, Althea?” Quinn sampled his brandy without any preliminaries. “Why lure your enemy into the open if you intend to cede the duel to her?”
“There will be no duel. We will reach a dignified understanding, and she will leave me in peace. That’s why you and Jane charged up from London, to ensure a truce. I still haven’t decided whether to disown Stephen for meddling or commend him for trying to prevent the inevitable.”
Quinn took another sip of his drink. “Lady Phoebe’s niece would be Miss Sybil Price?”
“Yes.”
He brushed a glance in Althea’s direction.
“Don’t you dare, Quinn. Miss Price is innocent of her aunt’s schemes and will likely suit Lord Ellenbrook well.” Whatever Quinn was planning where Miss Price was concerned, it would be subtle and effective.
“Althea, you’d best worry less about what I might get up to, and instead concern yourself with your own deportment.”
“I will behave,” Althea said, breathing in the fragrance of apples, cinnamon, and toffee along with the pungent scent of the spirits. “This is one more ball. I’ll get it over with, and my neighbors can all have a good gossip at my expense. Next year, somebody else’s peccadilloes will be grist for the mill, and I can hold my card parties and fêtes in peace.”
Oddly enough, she no longer had any aspiration to hold card parties or fêtes. Lady Phoebe was due for a setdown, and Althea intended to deliver it. That Lady Phoebe would cast aspersion on Althea was to be expected—half of Mayfair had and with virtually no provocation—but her ladyship was also threatening Rothhaven, and that Althea could not allow.
“You will behave,” Quinn said. “Why am I not reassured by that statement, Althea? Why am I more nervous about this ball than about any ball Jane has dragged me to?”
Althea took a considering sip of her brandy—mellow heat, a touch of oak and citrus—and was spared from making a reply by Millicent fluttering into the parlor, her complexion flushed.
“My lady, Your Grace, please do excuse me, but the duchess has asked that I fetch His Grace. She said I was not to alarm you, but I do believe Her Grace has a touch of dyspepsia.”
“Bloody bedamned hell,” Quinn muttered, tossing back the rest of his drink. “Not this again.” He stalked out, Althea in his wake, for when Quinn reverted to foul language before his womenfolk, the matter was serious indeed.
