"Do you live here, my lord?"
"Only when I'm visiting London. My house is in the cathedral close in Melchester, in Hertfordshire, where I'm a canon."
Juliana absorbed this with a thoughtful nod. Canons were very important in the church hierarchy. She changed the course of the subject. "Why does my husband live here? Doesn't he have a house of his own?"
The footman appeared with the coffee, and Quentin waited to answer her. Juliana saw that there were two cups on the tray. Obviously, the servants made it their business to know where their masters were in the house.
"It was part of the arrangement Tarquin insisted upon," Quentin told her after the footman had left. He took a cup from her with a nod of thanks. "For your benefit. Obviously, you would be expected to reside under the same roof as your husband. Lucien's own establishment is uncomfortable, to put it mildly. He's besieged by creditors. And, besides, Tarquin can keep an eye on him if he stays here."
"Ensure he doesn't molest me?" Juliana raised an eyebrow.
Quentin flushed darkly. "If I believed that Tarquin would not protect you, ma'am, I would not be a party to this business."
"Would you have a choice?" she inquired softly. "Your brother is very… very persuasive."
Quentin's flush deepened. "Yes, he is. But I like to believe that he could not persuade me to do something against my conscience."
"And this manipulative scheme is not?" Juliana sounded frankly incredulous as she took a piece of bread and butter from the plate. She regretted the question when she saw how distressed Quentin was. She bore him no grudge- indeed, sensed that he would stand her friend and champion without hesitation if she asked it of him.
"How can I say it isn't?" he said wretchedly. "It's an abominable design… and yet it will solve so many embarrassments and difficulties for the family."
"And the family interest, of course, is supreme?"
"For the most part," he said simply. "I'm a Courtney before I'm anything else. It's the same for Tarquin. But I do believe he will ensure that you don't suffer from this… and…" He paused uncomfortably. "Forgive me, but it does seem to me that you could benefit from this scheme if you don't find Tarquin himself distasteful "
Juliana was too honest to lie. She set down her cup, aware that her cheeks were warm. "No." she said. "It's all very confusing. I hate him sometimes and yet at others…" She shrugged helplessly.
Quentin nodded gravely and put down his own cup. Taking her hands in a tight clasp, he said earnestly, "You must understand that you may count on me. Juliana, in any instance. I have some influence over my brother, although it may seem as if no one could have."
His gray eyes were steady and sincere resting on her face, and she smiled gratefully, feeling immeasurably comforted. It was the first real statement of friendship she'd ever been given.
Another knock at the door interrupted the moment of tense silence, and the butler appeared. "Lady Melton and Lady Lydia, madam," he announced. "I took the liberty of showing them into the drawing room."
"Thank you, Catlett," Quentin replied swiftly. "Lady Edgecombe will be down directly… Don't worry," he said to Juliana with a quick smile as the butler departed. "I'll lend you my company for the ordeal."
"Will it be one?" Juliana examined her reflection in the mirror and patted her hair with a nervous hand.
"Not at all. Lydia has the sweetest nature in the world; and Lady Melton is not too much of a gorgon."
"The duke seems not inclined to marry Lady Lydia," Juliana said, licking her fingertip and smoothing her eyebrow. "He said it was a marriage of convenience." She caught sight of Quentin's expression in the mirror behind her, and her heart jumped at the bleak frustration, stark in his eyes. Then he'd turned aside and opened the door, holding it for her. Vividly now, she remembered his studied indifference at the theater, an indifference that she'd been convinced had masked a deep tension.
But this was not the moment for examining the puzzle. Juliana tucked it away for future reflection and prepared for her first social encounter as Lady Edgecombe. It was only as she was crossing the hall to the drawing room that she realized she had no story to explain her marriage to the viscount. Who was she? Where had she come from? Had the duke said anything to the Meltons at the play? If so, what?
Panicked, she stopped dead in the middle of the hall, seizing Quentin's black silk sleeve. "Who am I?" she whispered.
He frowned, puzzled; then his brow cleared. "A distant cousin of the Courtneys from York. Didn't Tarquin tell you… but, no, of course he didn't." He shook his head.
"I could cut his tongue out!" Juliana whispered furiously. "He is the most inconsiderate, insufferable, dastardly-"
"My dear Juliana " The duke's soft voice came from the stairs behind her. "Could you be referring to me?" His eyes twinkled.
She whirled on him and caught her heel in the hem of her gown. There was a nasty ripping sound. "Oh, hell and the devil!" she exclaimed. "Look what you've made me do!"
"Go and ask Henny to pin it up for you," Tarquin said calmly. "Quentin and I will entertain your guests until you're ready."
Juliana gathered up her skirts and cast him what she hoped was a look of utter disdain. But he pinched her nose lightly as she swept past him to the stairs, and she stuck out her tongue with lamentable lack of dignity. Their chuckles followed her upstairs.
When she entered the drawing room twenty minutes later, Tarquin came forward immediately. "Lady Edgecombe, pray allow me to make you known to Lady Melton and Lady Lydia Melton." He took her hand, drawing her into the room.
The two ladies, seated side by side on a sofa, bowed from the waist as Juliana curtsied. They were both dressed in black, Lady Melton also wearing a black dormeuse cap that completely covered her coiffure. Her daughter wore a more modest head covering of dark gray. But the overall impression was distinctly melancholy.
"I am honored, ma'am," Juliana murmured. "Pray accept my condolences on your loss."
Lady Melton smiled fleetingfy. "Lady Edgecombe, I understand you only recently arrived from York."
Juliana nodded and took the fragile gilt chair Tarquin pushed forward. Lady Lydia smiled but said little throughout the interview, leaving the talking to her mother. Juliana was far more interested in the daughter than the mother, noting a sweet but not particularly expressive face, a pair of soft blue eyes, a somewhat retiring disposition. The duke was formally polite with both ladies-distant, it seemed to Juliana, unlike his brother, who was warm and attentive. She noticed that most of Lady Lydia's shy smiles were directed at Lord Quentin.
The visit lasted fifteen minutes, and Juliana was gratefully aware that she was being steered through it by the Duke of Redmayne. He answered most questions for her, but in such a way that it appeared she was answering for herself. He delicately introduced neutral, superficial topics of conversation that took them down obstacle-free avenues of purely social discourse and touched on subjects that he knew would be familiar to Juliana. When the ladies took their leave, Juliana was confident enough to think she might be able to manage the next one on her own.
Quentin and the duke escorted the ladies to their carriage. Juliana watched from the drawing-room window. It was Quentin who handed Lady Lydia into the carriage, while Tarquin did the honors for her mother-which was odd, Juliana thought. Lydia smiled at Quentin as she settled back on the seat, and he solicitously adjusted the folds of her train at her feet.
And then, with blinding impact, it struck Juliana that if she was asked who was affianced to whom, she would guess Quentin and Lady Lydia were to make a match of it. It would explain Quentin's strangeness at the theater, and it would certainly account for that fierce, bleak look she'd surprised on his face when she'd carelessly repeated what Tarquin had said about his impending marriage. It seemed she had put her foot in it with her usual clumsiness.