By Love Undone by Suzanne Enoch Page B

writing is my brother.” He pointed at another, much later entry. “This is my writing. Not much better, but at least you can tell the t’s from the w’s.” He returned to the indicated pageand its rows of neat entries. “And this writing, I believe, is yours.”
    She gave the page a sour look. “All right, my lord, I confess. I know how to do arithmetic.” She pointed at one of the lines. “But if you’ll note, my lord, nowhere did I allow my writing to touch yours.”
    Ignoring that, he lowered the book to look at her. “Why didn’t you say you’d been tending Langley?”
    “We wrote as much to your father.” Maddie met his gaze. “You didn’t seem to be interested.”
    Actually, he was more interested than he cared to admit. “Why don’t we say that I was ignorant of the facts? You’ve done a great deal of good here, both for my uncle and for the Bancrofts.”
    “I do what I am employed to do,” she answered shortly, and turned back to the shed. “Was that all you required, my lord?”
    “I just wanted to thank you for tending my uncle.”
    She looked over her shoulder at him. “Someone needed to be here, my lord.”
    After yesterday, that same thought had occurred to him. If Maddie hadn’t been Uncle Malcolm’s companion, both the situation at Langley and Malcolm himself might have been in much worse condition than even the duke had surmised. He followed her, angry at the prick to his pride. “Ah. Now you are criticizing me for not coming to Langley sooner.”
    “It is not my place to criticize you for your shortcomings, my lord.”
    “Merely to point them out to me.”
    She curtsied. “As you wish, my lord.”
    That was too much. “Just a moment!” he growled, striding after her.
    Maddie stopped and faced him. “Yes, my lord?” she asked, only the slightest hesitation showing in her eyes.
    “Miss Willits, what in God’s name….” He stopped,not because she lifted her chin at him defiantly, but because her hands shook before she moved them behind her back. “What,” he began again, revising his choice of words, “have I done to distress you?”
    She looked at him for a long moment. “Nothing, my lord,” she said slowly. “And I wish to keep it that way.”
    Finally. “What if I were to assure you that I have nothing but the best intentions where you, my uncle, and Langley are concerned?” Quin put his hand over his heart. “I swear not to harm any of you. Including Miss Marguerite.”
    Maddie narrowed her eyes, her expression so clearly suspicious that Quin couldn’t help smiling. She weighed what he’d said against whatever it was she thought she knew about him. For a moment he couldn’t tell which side had won. Then she lifted her chin.
    “If you had come here to help Mr. Bancroft,” she said slowly, “I would have much less objection to you.”
    “I did come here to help him,” Quin protested. “What do you think—”
    She raised a dirt-smudged finger at him. “You came here to help your father. To see to the crops, and keep up the ledgers. And you didn’t come for three weeks, and then arrived precisely on the fifteenth.”
    Quin took a deep breath. By God, this woman was infuriating. “I was at Warefield,” he snapped. “I didn’t know anything had happened to Malcolm until my father sent for me.” He leaned toward her, closer to losing his temper than he’d been in years. “Why didn’t you write sooner?” he accused hotly.
    Maddie glared at him. “He wouldn’t let me, at first. Mr. Bancroft doesn’t like your side of the family.” She folded her arms over her chest. “And now that I think about it, neither do I.”
    Quin leaned closer still, his face only inches fromhers. And then his eyes focused on her lips. The anger in his veins became something else entirely—something equally hot and equally disturbing. “You don’t know me,” he murmured, meeting her gaze again.
    She held his eyes, still fearless. “And you don’t know me.”
    “I