The very idea of allowing her on a boat, anywhere near the Channel, was unnerving. And yet he knew that he had no choice.
“We must leave immediately,” she said. He saw anxiety in her eyes, but her smile was bright and brave.
“What on earth are you carrying?” he asked, as she carefully put a basket on the ground.
“Lucy, of course,” she answered. “I’m afraid she’s not very happy with the basket, but I don’t want to risk her falling into the sea.”
He stepped forward and took her hands, looking down into those lovely eyes. “Will you please remain here at Littlebourne in safety while I go to fetch Rupert? I will have the marquess at your side within twenty-four hours, if it’s humanly possible. I’m sure his condition has improved while the courier was travelling to us.”
Olivia’s smile widened.
“I had to try,” he muttered, as much to himself as to her.
“Your mother is waiting for you in the drawing room.”
Quin took the pistol case from Cleese. With it, he was as prepared to protect his lady as he possibly could be. He was a crack shot, but he knew perfectly well that aim and a well-oiled pistol would go only so far. He would need luck.
Olivia stood at his left shoulder. “Quin, did you hear me? Your mother is waiting for you in—”
He turned and dropped a kiss on her lips. “I did hear you. I shall pay a quick farewell to Her Grace directly. Cleese, will you dispatch that footman to Dover, then collect my travelling bag from Waller, and make certain that Miss Lytton is comfortable in the carriage?”
Olivia had turned pink and rather flustered. “You mustn’t kiss me in front of people,” she whispered.
“Kiss you?” he asked, then: “Cleese, close your eyes.” As always, the butler was prompt and obedient, and Quin kissed his lady again, hard and fast. “Is this better?” he whispered back, his voice roughened by a potent combination of desire and fear. “Our inestimable Cleese did not see that particular intimacy. But may I point out, dear heart, that our butler knows everything that happens in this household and was undoubtedly aware of my intention to marry you even before I was.”
“Cleese, I must beg you to pay no heed to your master,” Olivia said, rolling her eyes. “He’s clearly succumbed to the stress of the situation.” She moved toward the door, slipping away from his grasp. “Truly, Quin, we must hurry. I am worried that we will arrive too late.” Her expression rather stricken, she added, “That is, I want to find Rupert as soon as possible.”
Quin caught her hand, pulled her back to him, and gave her an openmouthed, hungry kiss. The kind he’d been thinking about ever since he left her at the break of dawn.
When he at last raised his head, she was sagging against him, her breathing unsteady. “I will kiss you,” he stated, looking into her eyes, “before Cleese, or before the Regent himself.”
Olivia blinked up at him, growing a little teary.
“Or the pope.” He began punctuating his sentence with small kisses. “Or the emperor of Siam. Or the archbishop of Canterbury.”
A voice came from the doorway.
“Tarquin.”
He raised his head and nodded, acknowledging his mother. Then he looked back down at his future wife and dropped another kiss on her rosy lips. “Before any and every member of my family, including my saintly aunt, Lady Velopia Sibble, who would prefer that people communicated only with the deity of her choice, and then only in prayer.”
Olivia shook her head at him. “I shall be in the landau.” She paused before the dowager and dropped into a low curtsy, head bent. “Your Grace. You may characterize this a housemaid’s scuttle if you wish.”
“As you have doubtless surmised, I am leaving for France,” Quin told his mother, as Olivia disappeared into the corridor. “I expect to return tomorrow, either with a wounded marquess, or the body of an English hero. It need hardly be said that I am hoping for the former.”
“By all accounts, including her own, Miss Lytton did not request your company on this foolhardy errand,” the dowager pronounced. Her face wore an expression of grievous injury, and her hands were clasped like a marble saint’s. The comparison ended there: the only female saint he could think of with a voice as commanding as his mother’s was Joan of Arc.
“Miss Lytton did not have to ask for my escort,” he confirmed. “However, I shall go to France, with or without her. May I accompany you to the drawing room, Mother? The tide waits for no man, and I intend to be in Dover in three hours.”
“Given the present inclement political situation I would prefer that you did not travel to France.”
“I am aware of that.” He was running through lists in his head, trying simultaneously to soothe his mother and do the very thing that was terrifying her. “Cleese, please have some rope and a dark lantern put in the carriage. Oh, and a flint.”
His mother ignored both his statement and the presence of the butler. “I must ask—nay, demand—that you reconsider this rash and dangerous venture. Montsurrey is undoubtedly at the point of death, if not already dead. I questioned Sergeant Grooper, the soldier who arrived in the middle of the night, and he described the marquess as barely able to raise his head from his pallet. That was a full twenty-four hours ago. He is surely dead by now.”
“If the marquess has died, then I shall repatriate his body to England,” Quin said firmly, guiding his mother down the corridor toward the drawing room. “He is a war hero. It is the least any English citizen could do for him.”
“Why must it be you?” the dowager cried, the words bursting from her mouth in an uncharacteristically urgent—not to say emotional—manner. “We could appeal to the Navy! His Majesty would send a force. Or we could hire Bow Street Runners. From what I hear, they could take on a French battalion without any effort.”
“His Majesty cannot risk the impression that a British force is attacking the shores of France, and the Royal Navy would face the same problem. But these are academic issues; there is no time to lose. I am beholden to Montsurrey. I shall do this myself.”
“You most certainly are not beholden to Montsurrey! Did you not tell me that you’d never met him?”
They had reached the entry, and Quin stopped. “Mother, you know why I am beholden to the marquess. And you also know precisely why I would never allow Olivia—”
“Miss Lytton!”
He said steadily, “You understand why I would never allow Olivia to cross the Channel without me.”
She was so pale that her rouge stood out in patches on each cheek. “This rash, imprudent effort is foolhardy in the extreme. The French will shoot at first sight. And you haven’t even been on the water since your wife died!”
Quin’s hand curled into a fist. “It is true that I have not been across the Channel, but only because I have had no need to travel to the Continent.” Quin’s even tone concealed the pit in his chest that had yawned open at the mere idea of crossing the same stretch of water that had swallowed his son. A duke should never be prey to such emotion, and he ruthlessly pushed it away. “Evangeline’s death is irrelevant. Montsurrey needs me; Olivia needs me. And frankly, Mother, I could not face the Duke of Canterwick, should he recover his senses, knowing I had not made every effort to bring his son home.”