“No!” Quin almost laughed at the idea of his slender cousin somehow managing to drag him along the ridge. “I can get up.” And he did, bones protesting, muscles screaming. “It wasn’t a long drop,” he said aloud, as if telling himself would make it true. “And the branches surely slowed my fall.”

“Nonsense,” Olivia said crossly. “You could have been killed. You never should have climbed that tree after me. You’re obviously too—” She stopped.

“Too old?” He gave her a scowl and started walking, slowly and painfully. He could tell already that he would be fine. But damn it, he really was too old to be climbing trees.

“Yes,” she said baldly. “You are too old.” Then she added, “How old are you?”

“Thirty-two,” he said. “But at the moment I feel as if I were sixty-three.”

“How many years ago did you lose Alfie?”

He didn’t look at her, just walked. “It will be five years in October.”

“You married quite young.”

“Yes.” But she seemed to be waiting, and words flowed from somewhere, so he said them. “I had just come back from France and Germany, and I went to London for my first season. It was Evangeline’s first season as well. I didn’t meet her the first two months, but as soon as I saw her . . .”

“Love at first sight?” she suggested.

“Something like that.” He had never thought he was capable of love. But he had certainly been capable of fascination. Not to mention obsession.

Justin was loping toward them. “Lady Cecily wants to go home!” he shouted. “You’d better walk faster, Quin. She’s as cross as a teakettle on the boil.”

Olivia gave a little moan and started trotting toward the cart.

But Quin had lived through a thousand of his aunt’s tempests, and he was in no condition to move faster. He just kept walking, thinking about what it meant to fall in love at first sight.

He knew that particular capacity was burned out of him, or perhaps it just wasn’t part of his character. He really couldn’t imagine anyone in his immediate family—other than Justin—experiencing such an emotion. Still, he couldn’t help but wish that he’d met Olivia instead of Evangeline. Olivia was the kind of woman one could fall in love with, even at first sight.

Unless one had a heart like a withered turnip, which was about the condition of his.

Fifteen

“Turdy-fancy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogue!”

“So you flew a kite and then you climbed a tree?” Georgiana’s brow furrowed. “It sounds most peculiar to me.” They had retreated to her bedchamber after the evening meal.

“The kite was stuck in the tree,” Olivia explained.

Georgiana put down her cup of tea. “When are you going to grow up, Olivia?” Her tone was uncharacteristically sharp.

Olivia felt a pucker of hurt. “I consider myself to be grown up.”

“You climb trees,” Georgiana said, counting off the fingers on her left hand. “You think it’s amusing to insult a duchess. You bring Lucy into the house when you know that you could simply put her in the stables; Rupert would never be the wiser. You jest about with Lord Justin as if you and he were the same age—and he is a very young sixteen.”

“I could not lie to Rupert about Lucy,” Olivia said, seizing on the easiest of her sister’s points to defend.

Georgiana shrugged. “Do you think that the whole table didn’t hear you and Lord Justin laughing this evening? How do you think we felt, trying to have a serious conversation when all you care about is funning? The duchess said to Lady Sibblethorp that she felt as if she should take the nursery furniture out of Holland covers. I was humiliated.”

“I’m sorry if I interrupted your conversation,” Olivia said. Her voice was stiff, despite herself. “I truly am, Georgie. I didn’t mean to. Justin was making up more silly insults and I couldn’t help but laugh.”

“You could,” her sister said stonily. “We could all hear you, and even the duke couldn’t help but listen. That long one you and Justin came up with . . . what was it?”

“Turdy-fancy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogue.”

“Exactly! Turdy? Fartical? How could you, Olivia? Don’t you care for me in the slightest?”

“Of course I care for you! I didn’t label you, nor the duke, turdy. Nor even the supercilious author of The Mirror of Compliments. We were just funning!”

“You’re always funning,” Georgiana snapped, picking up her teacup again with such a sharp, angry movement that tea slopped onto her saucer. “I can’t manage this with you carrying on!”

“Can’t manage what?” Olivia asked. Part of her wanted to snap back that she had avoided adult conversation in an effort to convince the duke that she was so uninterested in him that she’d rather converse with Justin.

But another part of her, the sisterly part, took a good look at Georgiana and saw the pinched, miserable look that her sister often had after a long night of sitting with the dowagers. She knelt next to her chair. “What’s the matter, Georgie? I see I’ve been unbearably gauche. If I promise to make nothing but distinguished and righteously tedious comments for the rest of our visit, will you be happier?”

“It’s not working,” Georgiana replied, her voice catching.

“What isn’t? You don’t think you could care for Sconce?”

“I could,” her sister whispered. “I really could. He’s thoughtful and sober and everything I honor in a gentleman.”

Olivia slid her hand over her sister’s, which was clenched around the fragile bone china. “You’re going to break the cup.”

Georgiana looked down numbly and then put it away from her.

“Tell me what isn’t working? I wasn’t jesting with Justin the entire time, you know. I kept an eye on you and Sconce, and you seemed to be having an involved discussion about science. The nature of light, wasn’t it?”

Georgiana looked up. “It was fascinating.” But then she stopped.

“Well, that’s a wonderful point of concurrence between you,” Olivia prompted. “The sort of shared interest that will make a marriage long and vital. Just look at our parents.”

“What about them?”

“They have always had one shared passion: the duchification of their two daughters. I wouldn’t say they’ve been particularly successful at it in my case, but they certainly managed to turn you into a model of good breeding. After you marry Sconce, they’ll have two duchesses for daughters. I expect any sacrifices they made will be thought worth it.”

Georgiana nodded. “I think that, too. That is, I believe I would always be interested in what His Grace was investigating, whether scientific or mathematical. And he seemed interested in my ideas about chemistry as well. I don’t think he was merely being polite.”

“It’s my distinct impression that Sconce is virtually incapable of prevarication,” Olivia put in.

“Well, then, so he is interested in my potions. He even said that if I could give him the recipe for arthritis liniment, he’d like to have it made up for his head gardener. I gather the man is terribly bothered by years of being out in the damp.”