Formidable Lord Quentin (30 page)

He’d feel more comfortable with Bell at his side.
Unfortunately, Bell had chosen to distance herself in the role of dazzling
society hostess tonight. She was seated at the opposite end of the table—next
to his father. She was incredible, adorned in pearls and silk, directing the
conversation with the skill of a dowager marchioness—and smothering his father
in the most insincere smiles Quent’s imagination could conjure. She was
formidable—and so very much out of his plebian league.

The dowager marchioness side of her was capable of burning
acid with her tongue. Bell could give lessons to the queen on subjugating
pretension. His father had better be careful or he’d be fortunate to come away
with his skin intact.

Which was when Quent realized that Bell’s exquisitely
dignified behavior was leading the marquess down the garden path, and chances
were very good, right over a cliff. His hopes for keeping relations amicable
between Bell and his father plummeted to nil.

She was forcing him to choose sides.

“You are kind to consider the welfare of my sisters,” Bell
was saying in that false tone she’d employed dangerously all evening. “But they
are newly bereaved and need close family for comfort. When we’re ready, we’ll
certainly consider a good school for Lady Sydony.”

Sitting on either side of the table, Bell’s sisters sat
blessedly mute, toying with their food and sending the marquess glances from
beneath their lashes. Gauging from their unusual lack of smiles and chatter,
Quent would have to say the girls weren’t thrilled with his father’s blustering
autocratic habits.

Since they’d been raised by a dissolute Irish rebel in the
freedom of American society, Quent was fairly certain his father’s iron-fisted
imperialism would not bend them to his will any better than it would bend Bell.
Quent would wager they were already plotting. The sisters merely waited to see
if he and Bell stood up for them. Quent reached for his wine glass again.

His family had been his reason for existence for most of his
life. His siblings needed him as much as Bell’s needed her. If battle lines
were drawn . . . He didn’t want to choose sides.

“Nonsense,” his father declared. “Your sisters don’t know
you any more than they know me. And they certainly don’t know my son. Marrying
just to take them as wards is asking for trouble. They’ll be fine once they’re
settled.”

Quent almost spurted his drink in surprise. The old man, in
his curmudgeonly way, was trying to
protect
him from marriage—to a woman the marquess thought was a manipulative
harridan. His father’s old-fashioned defense of his family was the reason Quent
couldn’t tell him to go to the devil. He himself was guilty of a little too
much of the same.

If Quent judged Bell’s rising color at all, his father was
about to learn how the Virgin Widow protected her own. Battle lines were being
drawn as he watched.

“I told you the subject was not open to discussion,” Quent
warned, stepping in to prevent his intended bride from pushing his father over
the cliff. “I am marrying Bell, and that’s final. We will sue for the guardianship
of her family, if necessary. Without my funds, you cannot afford an English
barrister to fight us. So let’s have a decent family meal and speak of more
interesting topics. I believe Lady Tess can tell us more of American shipping
concerns.”

The girls gazed at him with awe and admiration. Bell looked
as if she might slap him. Bell was the smartest person at the table tonight.
She knew he’d just set off the old man’s stubbornness. But sometimes, a man
could only take so much.

“My sister’s boy, your cousin Gareth, is clerking with a
barrister,” the marquess reported in triumph. “He will have my case heard.”

With all the regal dignity and grace only a woman with one
of the highest positions in society could command, Bell rose from her chair.
Even the marquess hushed. Pink stained her cheeks. Her eyes flashed emerald
fires. Quent could swear her hair gleamed with more red than russet, and had
there been a sword at hand, she would have held it.

Well, he had warned the marquess to try to keep the peace.
For the sake of family harmony, it had seemed best to maintain a respectful
dialogue.

His father had been the one to break the rules.

As much as he feared the result, Quent refused to follow
Edward’s path and deny Bell her chance to speak.

Leaning back in his seat, he crossed his arms, nodded, and
let her loose. Very few ever stood up to his intimidating father’s
authority—especially when the old man was legally in the right.

Quent anticipated the fireworks with trepidation.

***

Bell didn’t need Quent’s approval for what she was about
to say. She’d been struggling all through dinner, trying to be polite and
reasonable—just as she’d used to do with Edward. That had grated badly.

Then she had tried a subtler approach, showing the marquess
that her sisters were grown, with minds of their own, and not in need of an
oppressive guardian. But if the irascible old codger could diminish the
prospects of his own daughters— obviously, he was the sort who thought women
were mindless tools to be used for his own benefit. His suppression of Quent’s requests
did not bode well for dealing with headstrong Kit.

She had wanted to be generous for the sake of the children.
Hell would freeze over now before she left them in his hands.

“My lord,” she addressed her dinner companion in her best
dowager frostiness. “You and my late husband have far more in common than you
can possibly know.”

The marquess harrumphed. “Edward was a clutch-fisted,
obstinate bigot. There isn’t a man alive who could call me that.”

“Then this
woman
will call you so,” she said coldly. “All that matters to you is how much coin
you have and how you can acquire more. Women are no more than pawns on your
chessboard—proving your bigotry. The one honest thing Edward ever did in his
life was to respect me enough to marry me. And it turns out that he even did that
for selfish reasons—just as you are forcing my sisters into servitude for your
own selfishness. My father was in no position to protect me, but by all that is
holy, I
will
defend my sisters!”

“Servitude!” the marquess bellowed. “School isn’t
servitude!”

“It is when all you think of is how cheaply you can push
them out of the house until you can marry them off to the highest bidder
without a bit of consideration to their happiness! You are doing the same thing
to your own
daughters
! How can I
possibly believe you have my sisters’ happiness in mind when you are making
your own daughters miserable? Quent and I shall invite them to stay with us.
You cannot force them to become spinster teachers if they wish to marry. Sally
and Margaret are of legal age—they can choose to leave you anytime they like.”

At the far end of the table, Quent gave a muffled cough that
might have been objection, but Bell was too furious to care. “Women are too
valuable a resource to be thrown to any available man or cast aside as
worthless dependents,” she continued, not letting the marquess speak. “We have
minds and abilities and are your
equal
—unless
you’re such a coward that you fear we’re better than you and seek to suppress
us.

“If you attempt to force my family from my care, you are a
bigot, a coward, and far greedier and more spiteful than Edward ever was. I
will not hear you speak another word against me or mine when you sit there like
a fat cockroach, feeding off your young. Quent could be racing yachts and
horses instead of working himself to the bone trying to keep you in comfort. You
have smothered his life just as you would your daughters. Did you ever consider
their happiness? Or were you hoping to force me into paying your expenses so Quent
might pursue more grandiose projects than your roof?”

Quent rose, ire flaring in his eyes and his fists knotting
on the table. “That’s going too far, Bell. You needn’t defend me along with
your sisters. You’re hurting yourself as well as them to speak to my father in
such a manner.”

“Someone needs to speak plainly to him,” she threw back.
“And if you won’t, I will! I have no intention of politely obeying still
another tyrant wearing the bedeviled Belden title—if I have to haul the girls
back to the Americas to stop you.”

“I’ll go to Ireland before I’ll go back to the Americas,”
Syd protested.

“Beebee and I’ll go with you, and we’ll take Kit with us,”
Tess agreed stoutly.

“You won’t go anywhere without my permission,” the marquess
roared. “The Irish estate is under my authority until the lad comes of age.”

“You can’t earn enough to keep a roof over your own head,”
Quent shouted, as Bell had never heard him shout before. “I told you we’ll
fight you. You accomplish nothing by antagonizing the ladies.”

“You
owe
me a
roof,” the marquess shouted back. “I paid for your education so you can provide
what the cattle cannot. And you owe
me
respect. You don’t owe Edward’s doxy a second thought. What’s the matter with
you, boy? I’ve come to set you free from her clutches.”

“I don’t owe you a spot of respect when you behave like a
tyrant,” Quent said, pounding his fist on the table until his water glass
jumped. “You’re ruining everything.”

Bell waited for Quent to say he didn’t
want
to be released from her clutches, but he was too caught up in
his power struggle with his father.

“You wanted your fancy city life,” the marquess countered.
“Are you giving it up for this moldering piece of expensive rock? Is that what
you want?”

“Of course not! I told you, we’ll find a place for Stuart to
work here, and possibly Elizabeth, if she would like to take charge of running
the place. That’s two more of your dependents off your hands. Then you can buy
your own roof. Bell and I prefer the city.”

She didn’t remember discussing where they’d be living. She
hadn’t even agreed to a settlement yet, and he was catering to the damned
marquess, directing her life—as she had vowed never to allow another man to do
again.

“What the devil does the roof have to do with it?” she cried
over the men’s bellows.

“The damned roof has nothing to do with it!” Quent roared,
sounding very much like his father.

The marquess finally dragged his bulk to his feet. “And is
this how you plan to raise the bairns then? Shouting and roaring over their
heads?”

Bell shot him a look of incredulity. Then cast her glare to
her no-longer betrothed.

He didn’t even notice her horror.

Quent was just like every other Hoyt who’d ever lived—concerned
only with himself. She didn’t need to hear more.

Heart crumbling to ashes, Bell coldly interrupted the
tirade. “Edward’s
doxy
will buy your
foolish roof if you’ll simply assign guardianship to me, my lord,” she said
sardonically, with all her foolish hopes crashing around her. She cast Quent a
deprecating glance. “Then you can keep this puppet of yours and let him dance
to your tune in his lonely tower for the rest of his years.”

Looking stricken, Quent started after her. The marquess
yelled at him in Scots, then collapsed heavily into his chair and grabbed for
his whisky glass.

Uncaring, Bell nodded at Tess and Syd. “Come along, we’ll
leave the men to finish biting off each other’s heads.”

“This is not over!” Quent shouted after her.

***

Quent feared it was very much over. Bell’s horror-stricken
face would be etched into his worst nightmares for years to come.

“You’ve just destroyed everything I’ve worked for these last
ten years,” he said heavily, shoving away his wine and glaring at his
unrepentant father.

“No, lad, ye did that yerself. Ye don’t love the lass. Let
her be. Find yerself a good woman who’ll knit your sweaters and warm your bed,
not a flighty Thoroughbred who skitters off at every loud noise.”

“What the devil do I want with a woman who knits?” Quent
asked in disgust. “If I want sweaters, I’ll buy them!”

And if he wanted a woman to warm his bed, it was Bell, but
even he refused to discuss some things with the bully. Besides, he greatly
feared he’d seen the last of the beautiful, laughing woman who had adorned his
sheets these last nights.

Pain crushed him.

Worse yet was the agony of knowing there was a certain truth
in what his father said.

He didn’t know how to raise a family. Or to argue without
creating a gale storm of the likes his family created over every dinner table.
All he knew how to do was negotiate a business deal.

As he watched his entire precarious house of cards crumble, he
shoved up from the table and glared at his self-satisfied parent.

“If love is what you feel for me and the reason for driving
off the only woman I’ve ever wanted, then you can take your love and shove it
into the frozen loch of your damned heart,” Quent told him. “I’ll not be your
puppet
a day longer.”

The marquess raised his flask and drank deeply.

Through an open window, the wild cry of a terrified horse
blended with Kit’s furious screams of outrage.

***

Quent dashed for the nearest exit. Bell had already lifted
her skirts and was racing through the hall. He stopped her sisters from doing
the same. “Wait here until we know what’s happening. You’ll need to direct the
servants.” With longer strides, he sped after Bell.

He’d spent the last ten years building up a sturdy fortress
of civilized behavior to hide behind while he acquired a fortune.

The proper, dignified mate he’d chosen had obliviously shredded
every ounce of his civility in less than ten days. He was prepared to crush
heads with his fists and stomp her enemies with his boots.

The madwoman evidently thought she could do it on her own.
Quent ran faster, catching up with Bell outside in the side yard, hauling her
up by the waist until she kicked his shins with her slippers.