An Affair So Right (Rebel Hearts #4)(16)

Quinn lingered a little while, watching with keen interest but confusion, too. Adele knew her lines well, and spoke them with authority and passion as she strutted the boards. Samuel Arnold would be a fool to drop her when the woman brought the crowds to the theater in droves. Quinn could not understand why Adele couldn’t believe she was irreplaceable to both the production and to him.

He nodded to the manager before he strolled out, at a loss for amusement for the afternoon. He’d hoped to spend the evening with Adele, but if she was too busy, he’d best find other interests to occupy himself. Perhaps a trip to his club would fill the empty hours.

He was about to hail a hack for White’s when his name was called out. “Lord Maitland?”

He glanced around, noted the livery worn by the Duke of Rutherford’s grooms and a familiar face. He groaned aloud. “Yes, Harrow.”

“Your presence is requested.” The man gestured toward his grandfather’s gleaming black town carriage that had stopped a little down from the theater’s main entrance. “Immediately, my lord.”

He rolled his eyes but hurried across the street. Would Rutherford ever slow down? The old man did more than most gentlemen half his age. Quinn could barely keep up with him. However, it did not go over well to leave his grandfather waiting, even when he was not expected to be in London at this time of year.

He murmured his thanks as a groom held the door open for him and entered the plush leather and blue-velvet interior. “I didn’t know you were in London.”

“Where else would I be,” Quinn’s father answered in a biting tone that had terrified him as a boy as the carriage moved off.

Quinn was utterly taken aback by his father’s presence, and the absence of the friendly face of the Duke of Rutherford in the carriage. “My apologies, Templeton. I didn’t know you had claimed Grandfather’s carriages for your personal use now.”

His grandfather had been very clear that he preferred they did not use his carriages and such without good reason.

“Did you call on Mr. Cushing’s daughter as I asked?” Templeton sneered. “No, of course, you did not. You disobeyed me.”

Quinn knew better than to rush in to defend himself. That was the surest way to escalate an argument. He took a moment to straighten his coat before answering. “There was no reason to raise her expectations.”

His father whacked him with a riding crop across his upper arm, something he had done all of Quinn’s life. Quinn barely flinched from the sting.

“Of course there was a need,” Templeton said, eyes growing hard. “Mr. Cushing expected you to call and grace his drawing room. You deliberately made me look a fool with your rudeness.”

Quinn sat back as if the punishment had not occurred. “I’m no longer in the service, nor must I carry out your orders. I have more important things to attend to than beating your drum.”

“Like calling on your flighty little tart,” his father bit out, glaring at him with all the gentleness of a caged lion.

Father took too much notice of his relationship with Adele for Quinn’s comfort. He chose to ignore the dig rather than defend her character yet again. “I have been renewing acquaintances, catching up with old friends I’ve missed over the years I was away from London.”

“Those men are bachelors, and are chasing after the same women you should be considering for your bride,” Templeton said with a definite sneer.

“Some are indeed wavering bachelors with much to say about the latest crop of debutants. We compare notes on our first impressions over coffee each day, and toss a coin as to who should have whom when the time comes,” he confessed. The talk over coffee was often vastly amusing—especially hearing the lengths some women went to snare a husband.

His father’s expression changed to anger, and the riding crop struck him again across the thigh. Hard. “Watch your tone, boy.”

Had there been much of a tone to his words? He must be slipping. However truthful he’d just been in his discussions on the debutants, Quinn had learned to adopt a neutral manner to avoid unpleasantness. Lately, he’d found it hard to even pretend at niceties when they were alone. Templeton rarely needed an excuse for his violence anyway.

“Dinner tomorrow night,” his father informed him.

That hadn’t been an invitation. It was a demand Quinn couldn’t immediately accept, for good reason. “Who will be there?”

“People who matter, so you will be on your best behavior. It is high time you started speaking to the right people instead of gallivanting around Town with those useless scoundrels you call friends.”

“They do have titles. Crawley is a duke and Deacon is an earl.”

“Deacon is an empty-headed fool, too stupid to see he embarrasses Crawley by always being in his shadow, and now in yours. You offer poor candidates as part of your inner circle. You need friends who are better connected than them, and cleverer. Powerful men who can support you in the battles to come.”

“You mean I should curry favor with men I have nothing in common with, like you do.” He sighed, resigned to the same old argument with his father and the next slap of the riding crop. His skin still stung from the last stripe, but he gritted his teeth rather than reveal that.

His father glared. “You don’t know the sacrifices I have made to make your way easy in life. You owe me.”