Page 104 of My One and Only Duke

“Althea?” Quinn added. “Constance?”

Two bright silver blades appeared in the ladies’ hands.

“All very barbaric,” Tipton said, “and my bullets might not kill a hulking specimen like you, Wentworth, but they will do the lady here grievous injury.”

Oh, no they would not. Jane dipped her hand into her right pocket while the countess remained cowering behind Quinn.

“You’d take the life of an unarmed woman?” Jane asked, using her left hand to link her fingers with Quinn’s. “An unarmed duchess? Who do you think summoned you home from the Continent, my lord?”

For on this point, because Quinn himself had raised the question, Jane was certain.

“I neither know, nor do I—”

“My lord,” Quinn recited. “I regret to suggest that your lady wife has formed an irregular association with a footman in your employ. Your immediate return to the family seat would be well advised. I sent that letter myself. Labored over the penmanship for days. Debated my obligation to you as my employer. I also fretted over my obligation to her ladyship as a woman who’d been treated cavalierly by the man who’d vowed to honor her. Then I considered that a child could all too easily result from my continued folly, and the way was clear.”

Quinn took a step closer to the earl. “Damn you, Tipton, damn you to the dungeons of Newgate, for giving my family cause to worry, for jeopardizing the financial well-being of every customer at my bank.”

Quinn’s indignation took up the entire room, but his confession—he’d summoned the earl home himself—put confusion in the earl’s eyes.

Jane squeezed her husband’s hand slowly. Once, twice, three times, then flung the fistful of sand from her pocket into the earl’s eyes.

Quinn was on him in the next instant, the gun skittering across the floor. Stephen caught the countess as she sagged against the piano, and two apples went sailing at the earl’s head.

“Got him!” Ned crowed as one missile connected with its target.

“Hold your fire, Ned,” Jane said. “His Grace has the matter in hand.”

The matter was on the floor, Quinn towering over him. A butler hovered in the doorway looking helpless and agog.

“Bugger off,” Stephen said, gesturing with his cane. “We’re busy here.”

The countess, who’d draped herself against Stephen, fluttered a hand. “Do as he says, Parker.”

Parker cast a glance at the earl, facedown on the floor, Quinn’s cravat knotted around his wrists. The butler smiled, bowed, and withdrew.

“Get up, Tipton,” Quinn said. “Get up, and if you are very lucky, the ladies will allow you to live.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Stephen was perched on the box, Ned with him. Althea and Constance sat opposite Quinn, looking as pleased as Hades in contemplation of a plump robin.

Quinn sat beside his duchess, who was ominously quiet.

He gathered his courage and plunged into battle. “I should have told you what I was about.”

Jane’s gaze remained straight ahead. “Not now, Quinn.”

If he didn’t fight for his marriage now, he might never have another opportunity. Jane would be decent to him, accommodating even, but she wouldn’t plague him with discussions of names and nurseries, wouldn’t be his rutting heifer.

He tried another tack. “I meant well.”

His sisters glared daggers at him. “Not now, Quinn,” they said in unison.

The coach swayed around a corner, the pace sedate, but the journey home from Tipton’s town house was already half over.

“I’m sorry,” Quinn said, though he wasn’t sorry he’d never lay eyes on Beatrice again.

Constance sent him a wan smile. “Quinn, please. Not. Now.”