An Affair So Right (Rebel Hearts #4)
Heather Boyd
Dedication
This book might never have seen the light of day without the patience, humor, and enthusiasm of my editor, Kelli Collins. She rescued Quinn and his true love from a future gathering dust under my bed. You are priceless and I’m in your debt!
Chapter 1
If there was anything in life surer to turn a man’s stomach, it was a blatant attempt at matchmaking over a mahogany dining table. Quinn Ford, formerly a captain in His Majesty’s navy but now more happily Viscount Maitland, would rather be run through in battle than be the focus of his father’s machinations to see him miserably wed to the mouse of a woman perched at his side.
“Have you visited Tattersalls yet?” he asked her to be polite.
Miss Genevieve Cushing uttered a negative squeak to his question and then buried her face in her water glass again.
He sighed in resignation. Miss Cushing was without the courage to answer anyone with confidence, or even to look his mother in the eye it seemed. He fell silent and turned his attention back to his plate.
Quinn had not resumed a public life in society to put up with missish nonsense. He admired forthright women. Prim and proper Miss Cushing, daughter of a wealthy London merchant, a connection most likely indebted to his father in some way, was most certainly not his type of female. She had none of the presence required to be a future Duchess of Rutherford when the title fell to him eventually. Not that he had ever wished ill on his beloved grandsire.
Which was not the case when it came to his own father—Lord Templeton—seated farther down the table from him.
Quinn glanced along to where his father sat holding court. Father was probably destined to live forever.
“You should have your brother take you one day,” he said to Miss Cushing.
“He’s very busy,” she whispered.
George Cushing was probably visiting brothels with his intemperate friends right now. He was young and reckless. But who was Quinn to judge another man’s priorities?
He was only concerned about people who affected his own life, and Miss Cushing would never be one of them.
Quinn’s future wife would need to be possessed of firm convictions to survive his future, because when Templeton became the Duke of Rutherford, there was no telling what evil would befall him and the gentler members of the family. The family had already suffered due to Templeton’s grasping nature.
He considered what other arrangements his father had made with Mr. Cushing besides attending this dinner. Nothing good for the Cushings, most likely. Quinn knew firsthand it was never wise to make any deal with Lord Templeton. People who did tended to be vastly unhappy with the result.
“Gentlemen, if you will excuse us, we will leave you to your simple pleasures,” Mama, the Countess Templeton, announced as she set her napkin aside and rose from her chair at the end of the meal.
Quinn was quick to reach his feet, as were the other gentlemen, who protested she was leaving them too soon. His mother was an exceptionally popular woman in London society, hardly meek and most certainly not missish, and still attractive at fifty years of age. Quinn adored her, and so did everyone else. Quinn’s mother was respected, whereas his father was feared.
Mother urged the women to go with her, giving way for the gentlemen to partake of port and cigars after dinner. She gave Quinn a brief but pointed look that spoke volumes from her husband’s shadow. Tread carefully it said.
Quinn inclined his head to her as she moved toward him at a stately pace. He’d grown accustomed to such unspoken warnings from his mother, and where he could, he heeded them all. Thwarting the Earl of Templeton’s manipulations had become their life’s work.
Her attention strayed to the young woman lingering by his chair, and her eyes narrowed with a hint of displeasure.
Mama had shared her guest list with him yesterday, and at that time, the Cushings had not been included for this remembrance dinner in honor of his late sister. They had not known his sister Mary. The Cushings were new additions; included, most likely, at Lord Templeton’s express demand.
Mama grasped Miss Cushing’s elbow and led her by subtle force toward the drawing room and away from Quinn. He hid a smile, grateful that when it came to matrimony, he and his mother were of the same mind regarding his future. She wished him to marry for love, so she thwarted her husband at every opportunity.
The other women trailed after Mama, chattering happily and laughing among themselves as they fled into the drawing room for tea and a good gossip.
With them gone, Quinn took a turn about the room to stretch his legs and then headed for the decanters of port set aside for the gentlemen to partake from. He poured himself a drink and downed the lot. Dinners with his father required liquid reinforcement be deployed at all times.
He poured another and slid the bottle back into the spot.
Quinn joined Lord Deacon, who was nursing a brandy glass already at the end of the room. “My apologies for missing your cousin’s ball last week,” Quinn murmured to him.
Deacon, an earl near his age, was widely regarded as an idiot. Deacon did not excel at manly pursuits except for drinking; he did not seek to distinguish himself in parliament, claiming there were wiser voices to be heard. What Deacon did exceedingly well was friendship. He knew—not assumed, while wringing his hands—that sometimes his friends needed to use him as a shield. That was why, when he was invited to dine by the Earl and Countess Templeton, he could always be counted on to attend if Quinn would be there too.