“I was considering something like that.”

Quinn picked up his glass and set it on the sideboard. “Whatever you do, don’t execute your plan without consulting with Miss Abbott first. Duchesses frown on their menfolk going off half-cocked.”

“Right. Good night, Quinn.”

He padded to the door but paused with his hand on the latch. “She’s in the peacock apartment, and the dog sleeps in her sitting room. Damned beast you gave her will soon eat its way through Smithfield Market.”

Babies had a way of disrupting the most prosaic of marital routines, and the smaller the baby, the worse the disruption. Jane had no sooner returned from a nocturnal visit to the nursery and lain down in the ducal bed than the mattress shifted—or so it felt. She might well have been sleeping for an hour.

“Missed you,” she murmured, feeling her husband’s weight settle beside her. “Was it awful?”

From the earliest months of their marriage, Quinn had been sparing with words and lavish with physical affection, at least in private. Jane usually fell asleep with Quinn spooned at her back and woke curled against his side.

“The evening was long without you,” he said, moving closer. He rested his head on her shoulder. “The baby was asleep when I looked in on her.”

“Sleeping off her latest banquet.”

Normally, Quinn would offer at least a cursory report: Some retired admiral had been in his cups before the dancing opened, a dowager countess had been accused of cheating at cards. He kept track of the trivialities because often, those on dits had financial repercussions and his banks served many titled families.

“Is Stephen all right?” Jane asked, for polite society had doubtless remarked Stephen’s presence with more curiosity than compassion.

“Stephen is…” Quinn sighed, the sound profoundly weary. “Stephen is…Hold me, Jane.”

Never in more than a decade of marriage had Quinn asked that of her. She threaded an arm under his neck and pulled him close.

“Quinn, are you well?”

“I am heartsick for my brother.”

Jane waited, because surely even Quinn would embellish such an admission.

“All these years,” he said, “I’ve thought Stephen spoiled—a contrary, self-indulgent, arrogant, difficult fellow who simply could not put behind him an injury that resulted in nothing more than a bad knee. Jack Wentworth scarred us all, and Stephen spent less time around Jack than any of us.”

Ah, well then. In Jane’s opinion, Jack Wentworth was capable of greater evil than Old Scratch himself. Mention of him would turn any conversation melancholy. Jane stroked Quinn’s hair and drew the covers up over his shoulders.

“You and Stephen were discussing the past?” A difficult topic for any Wentworth.

Quinn hitched closer, and Jane was glad the candles were out and the fire was banked. This was not a conversation to have in daylight.

“All along,” Quinn said, “I thought: My brother is so disgustingly smart. From the kites he makes for the girls to the modifications he’s designed for his saddle, to the cannons and rifles and even a bedamned crossbow. Everything he touches is brilliant. Stephen has so much intelligence, I thought, why must he be bitter about an unreliable knee? Get the hell over it and move on. I was jealous of him. He can read in any language he pleases to, he’s charming, he’s stylish.…”