Quin snorted.

She burrowed closer, reveling in the strong arms around her, the dark, spicy, masculine smell of his chest, the steel of his body . . . the hard nudge against her stomach that told her without words that he wanted her. That he thought every inch of her breasts and stomach and hips was worth kissing.

“I do feel some remorse about stealing you from Montsurrey. Stealing a man’s fiancée while he is serving his country is not entirely honorable.”

Olivia leaned against him, letting his heat warm her whole body. “Rupert lost air at birth,” she offered. “He will never be all that he could be.”

“He’s more than enough,” Quin said simply. “He’s serving his country, risking his life to protect England.”

A few more tears dropped onto Quin’s coat. “You’re right.”

“We will always be friends to him.” It was a vow of sorts. “He had you, and now I’m taking you away, and I will never forget what I forced him to give up.”

Olivia sniffled ungracefully, took the handkerchief he gave her. “Rupert might be more resentful if you took Lucy.”

Quin laughed.

“I mean it,” she protested. “And Georgie agrees.”

He nudged her head up, kissed her wet eyes again. Then his mouth came down on hers. And his hands were everywhere: possessive, almost rough, claiming and branding her.

Olivia melted against him as if she had always belonged there. Quin’s kiss was sweet, but under it was a hard demand, a man’s onslaught. Her arms curled around his neck and she clung to him, opening her mouth, inviting him in. Her head reeled from the smoky male smell of him, the way he tasted like champagne and something else, something intrinsically Quin.

The kiss made her feel wild and deeply alive. He had his hand on her cheek, tilting her head back, kissing her fiercely.

This was intimacy, she realized suddenly.

Quin nipped her lower lip, and Olivia shivered against him as if she’d been struck by a cold wind. He gave a little growl in response and tilted her head even further back. Then his mouth slid from hers to the curve of her jaw, leaving her to move restlessly against him. His arms ran more slowly down her back, pulling her closer.

Olivia actually went up on her toes, so intent on the intoxicating warmth of his arms and his lips that—

She almost didn’t hear the door opening.

Nineteen

Much Spontaneous Kissing. And the Other Kind, Too

Olivia broke free with a gasp and turned, still in the circle of Quin’s arms. The dowager didn’t look particularly angry or judgmental. Instead, she was regarding them rather the way a small child might watch a caterpillar: with curiosity, but not revulsion.

“Tarquin,” she stated.

“Mother,” Quin replied, not moving his arms from around Olivia.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Kissing Olivia,” Quin said. “Spontaneously.”

The duchess’s brow might have furrowed—except one had to assume that she did not hold with extravagant facial expressions of that sort. “Miss Lytton, I might ask the same of you.”

Olivia thought about saying, Being kissed, and decided that dissembling would be the more prudent course. “I expect that the exhaustion of the night has provoked a level of unwonted hilarity,” she said, piling on words in the hope that the dowager would find herself confused.

What was she thinking? This woman wrote The Mirror of Compliments. She was perfectly at home in a maze of language.

“It does not look like an expression of hilarity to me,” the dowager remarked. “Tarquin, I could remind you of the disastrous role that spontaneity played in your first marriage, but I shall not.”

“Quite right,” Quin said, his arms tightening around Olivia.

“I have no need to do so,” his mother continued, “because this young woman is promised elsewhere, and kisses, whether spontaneous, hilarious, or otherwise, will have no consequence, given that fact. Miss Lytton, before you indulged in this fit of unwonted enjoyment, did you remind my son that you are soon to be a duchess?”

Olivia had the sudden feeling that the dowager was a vulture, circling far above. Which probably made her a wounded lion. Or something even more vulnerable: a rabbit thrown aside by the wheels of a carriage.

“Yes,” she said. Then she looked at Quin. “As I informed you, Your Grace, I am indeed promised elsewhere.”

“To the Marquess of Montsurrey,” Quin said. “Once Montsurrey returns to England, you will be promised, and speedily married, to me.” He turned to his mother. “Olivia shall be Duchess of Sconce.”

“I do not agree.”

There was a long moment of charged silence. “Perhaps I should leave you to discuss this by yourselves,” Olivia said, gently freeing herself from Quin’s embrace.

The dowager ignored her entirely, keeping her eyes fixed on her son. “Miss Lytton is more than suitable for a dim-witted simpleton like Montsurrey. Moreover, she has shown a laudable loyalty toward the poor fellow, and I wrote his father myself to say so. However, she is not suitable for you.”

“I think she is,” Quin stated.

Olivia slid to the side.

The duchess turned to her. “I trust you are not going to sidle from the room, like a guilty housemaid with a broken saucer?”

Olivia’s back snapped straight. “I thought it would be more polite to allow you to continue this conversation with your son in private.”

“I would agree, except that what I have to say pertains to you—and to your sister. She is suitable to become Duchess of Sconce, which is, by the way, a far older and more august title than that of Canterwick. You are not suitable for the position.” Faced with the duchess’s direct gaze, Olivia realized that she could either drop her eyes—and never regain a position of strength again—or fight back.

“My sister would indeed be a remarkable Duchess of Sconce,” she said, hoping to avoid open warfare.

“That fact is irrelevant,” Quin said. Olivia didn’t have to turn to see that he was smiling; she could hear it in his voice. “I intend to marry Olivia, not Georgiana.”

“For love, no doubt!” The duchess said it in a burst of fury. “And what has love gotten you, Tarquin, but a reputation for horns that hasn’t left you even these many years later?” She turned to Olivia. “Do you know that he didn’t speak for an entire year after his feckless wife drowned? Didn’t speak?”

“I spoke,” Quin protested.

“Oh, you may have asked for a slice of roast beef, but you didn’t say anything worth hearing. Not for an entire year did you show interest in living.”

“It was rather like sleepwalking,” he agreed. Somewhat to Olivia’s astonishment, he didn’t sound in the least bit angry.

“Montsurrey is a noodle,” the dowager stated.

Olivia stiffened.

“That is a fact,” the dowager snapped before Olivia could say anything. “He is a fine match for you, but the same is not true for my son. You are, Miss Lytton—if you’ll excuse my bluntness—overly fleshly, coarse, and rather ill-bred. The last is particularly surprising given that your twin sister has achieved the utmost level of refinement. More to the point, you are uninteresting. You demonstrate no ability to concern yourself in matters important to my son.”