The Duke Is Mine - Eloisa James [83]
“It was rather like sleepwalking,” he agreed. Somewhat to Olivia’s astonishment, he didn’t sound in the least bit angry.
“Montsurrey is a noodle,” the dowager stated.
Olivia stiffened.
“That is a fact,” the dowager snapped before Olivia could say anything. “He is a fine match for you, but the same is not true for my son. You are, Miss Lytton—if you’ll excuse my bluntness—overly fleshly, coarse, and rather ill-bred. The last is particularly surprising given that your twin sister has achieved the utmost level of refinement. More to the point, you are uninteresting. You demonstrate no ability to concern yourself in matters important to my son.”
Olivia pulled her dumpy self very straight, and as tall as possible, and said with icy precision, “I will respond only to the claim that reflects on my parents, although I will note that your incivility warrants no response at all. My parents may not be members of the aristocracy themselves, Your Grace, but they are related to peers on both sides. In fact, my father’s claim to the title esquire has been held for one generation longer than the Sconces can claim. And may I add that when it comes to matters of breeding, no one in my family has married into the Bumtrinkets?”
The dowager’s bosom rose slightly into the air, resembling a balloon ascension Olivia had once seen in Hyde Park. “I was referring not to your birth,” she said, biting the words with frigid disdain, “but to your manners.”
“I like the way Olivia looks,” Quin said, intervening. For the first time, his voice had a distinct warning in it. “In fact, I adore the way she looks. And I think her manner is perfect for a duchess.”
“I’m sure you do!” the dowager snapped. There were red flags high in her cheeks and her black eyes glinted with anger.
“What do you mean by that?” Olivia demanded.
“I mean that you are made of the same stuff as his first duchess, Evangeline. He adored her appearance as well, and found out too late that all that wanton sensuality tends to mask a woman who should be flattered to be called a trollop.”
“Mother.” Quin’s voice was now as icy as his mother’s. “You go too far. I beg you, for the sake of all of us, to modify your voice and behavior.”
“I will not.” The duchess was clearly beside herself. “The Duke of Canterwick wrote me before you arrived,” she said, turning on Olivia with the look of a mother tiger facing a threat to her cub.
Olivia waited, head high.
“Have you informed my son that you may well be carrying the heir to the Canterwick title? You will note that I say nothing here about the fact that you are unmarried; that the duke is reportedly such an innocent that you almost certainly molested the poor man; nor that he is barely eighteen. Those are such deeply unpleasant facts that one can only hope that no one outside your immediate family ever learns them, Miss Lytton, because they do not speak highly of you.”
“Are you threatening me?” Olivia gasped.
The dowager actually backed up a step, but then linked her hands at her waist and stood her ground. “Certainly not. Those of us in the peerage have no need to resort to methods such as you clearly envision.”
Quin met Olivia’s eyes with a silent question.
“No heir,” she managed.
“Mother!” Quin’s voice was lethal, and cold as ice. “You will show me the courtesy to instruct your servants that you will be leaving for the dower house on the morning. I refer not to the dower house on these grounds, but that attached to Kilmarkie, our Scottish estate.”
To Olivia’s surprise, it was she—and not the dowager—who blurted out “No!” in response to this command.
The dowager was utterly silent for a heartbeat. Then she bowed her head and descended into a curtsy.
Olivia grabbed Quin’s arm and shook it. “You will not do this!” she said to him, not gently.
He frowned at her. “I don’t—”
“Your mother and I have the perfect right to disagree about what is best for you without your interfering!”
“I wasn’t interfering. I was responding to what my mother said about you. That, I cannot, and will not, tolerate from anyone.” He looked at