by Louise Allen
‘I see. Reginald is not the heir?’
‘No, his elder brother George has inherited. He was away, I think.’
‘Good,’ Quinn said, as though that confirmed something he had been thinking. He folded the papers and set them aside. ‘Do you play chess?’
‘No.’ Lina watched apprehensively as Quinn removed a small box from the valise on the seat beside him and opened it to reveal a travelling chess set. ‘I do not expect I will be any good.’
‘No, Celina.’ Quinn shook his head at her as he put the board on the seat and began to set out the pieces. ‘No defeatist talk. You can do anything. Now, this is a pawn…’
Chapter Fifteen
Chess lessons were one way of taking her mind off her troubles, Lina thought, even if one of those troubles was sitting opposite her maintaining a scrupulous distance and patiently explaining for the fourth time what the difference between a rook and a knight was.
They were in London now, rattling over cobbled streets she did not recognise, working their way south towards Mayfair. Quinn had told her the address: Clifford Street. Not one of the great squares, but a very respectable, obviously fashionable, street running east off Bond Street. Just how wealthy was Quinn? she wondered, eyeing his plain breeches and coat. He had gems and silks, business affairs in Constantinople and now there was the house they were drawing up in front of, which, if it was not rented, had cost him a pretty penny.
‘That is Gregor’s next door.’ Quinn nodded to an identical portico with plastered hood and elaborate ironwork.
‘You both bought one?’
‘Yes. Seemed a good investment,’ he said, helping her down. ‘Now I am going to spend time here, then I will buy more property. London is expanding by the day.’
‘Welcome.’ Gregor stood on the top step of his own house, grinning at them. ‘You have brought me some excitement, just when I was getting bored with London.’ He ran down the steps and joined them on the pavement, his eyebrows lifting comically as he took in Lina’s changed appearance. ‘Madame! A masquerade?’
‘Good afternoon, Gregor.’ She dropped a slight curtsy, making his grin spread wider.
‘No, this is not a masquerade,’ Quinn said and she saw the Russian’s eyes narrow at the edge to the words. ‘Come, we will walk and talk where we cannot be overheard.’
‘I would like to go inside first,’ Lina said. The idea of walking, in broad daylight, without checking that her disguise was intact gave her palpitations. In fact, she was not certain she had the nerve to do it even then.
‘Of course, I should have thought.’ Quinn obviously thought she needed to retire for more intimate reasons.
‘Shall we all go in and have a cup of tea and then go out?’ she suggested and to her relief the men followed her past the butler and through the front door, almost cannoning into her as she stopped dead in the front hall. ‘How wonderful!’
And it was. A lofty hall with a great hanging lantern, a dramatic sweep of stairs with wrought-iron banisters and an array of massive panelled doors. ‘So large and grand.’
‘I am intending to entertain,’ Quinn said, much as he might have announced he was about to declare a small war. Lina cut a sideways glance at him and saw his expression; he looked grimly amused.
Now what is that about? she wondered as Gregor introduced the new butler, a middle-aged man called Whyte, to Quinn. ‘I’ll speak to the rest of the staff later,’ he was saying. ‘Tea in the drawing room now and please send Miss Haddon’s maid to show her to her room immediately.’
Gregor had selected a pleasant, plain, young woman who had an air of discretion and common sense about her. ‘Prudence, ma’am,’ she said, bobbing a curtsy. ‘This way, please, ma’am.’
The bedchamber, after the Gothic eccentricities of Dreycott Park’s furnishings, seemed modern and airy and luxurious. Lina sat before the dressing-table mirror patting rice powder into her cheeks and touching up tiny smudges of candle black under her eyes while Prudence dealt with loose hair pins. Lina wondered what the girl thought of serving someone who was all too obviously the paramour of her master.
They drank tea in the elegant drawing room, the men exchanging news about business matters, some new publications, domestic trivia that Gregor had dealt with. He was discreet about how he had spent his time otherwise, Lina noticed, although she suspected he would be less inhibited when she was absent.
‘Berkeley Square,’ Quinn said, grounding his tea cup. ‘You would like an ice at Gunter’s, I am sure, Celina.’
And if I said no, I would find myself there anyway, Lina thought, not sure whether to be amused or irritated. The men escorted her punctiliously, leaving her feeling rather like a small prisoner between two large, if unlikely, jailers. She kept her head down, expecting a Bow Street Runner to jump out at any moment and point an accusing finger at her.
‘Nervous?’ Quinn asked as they paused at the kerb, waiting to cross Bond Street.
‘No…yes. Yes, I am,’ Lina admitted.
‘Well, stop looking as though you have something to hide or are going to faint with nerves,’ he said. ‘You are behaving like a girl about to make her come-out dithering on the edge of the dance floor. Remember, you are my mistress and act like it.’
‘But I am not, am I?’ she shot back. ‘So it is quite hard to imagine the role. But I will do my best to act as brazenly as you would wish.’ Gregor, she saw, was biting the inside of his cheek, presumably in an effort not to laugh. What had Quinn told him in the time she had been upstairs? They were as close as brothers—did that mean they shared everything, even her intimate secrets?
Lina tightened her grip on Quinn’s arm, put up her chin and looked around her with frank, defiant, curiosity. In some ways, that was easy to do; she had never ventured this far into the exclusive world of Mayfair and in such a fashionable lounge as Bond Street there was the chance of seeing almost any member of the haut ton, including the Prince Regent.
The shops were dazzling. Lina saw Savory and Moore, where her aunt obtained the fine milled soap she insisted on using at The Blue Door. ‘I would like to go in there, one day,’ she said, slowing down, then saw the advertisement in the bow window: Newly arrived, the renowned Seidlitz Powders, exclusively to be had of Savory and Moore. An infallible cure for every digestive distress or obstruction. Or perhaps not, certainly with a masculine escort.
Quinn turned into Bruton Street. ‘We must certainly shop. You have your image as an expensive ladybird to establish.’
By the time they emerged into Berkeley Square Lina was feeling thoroughly out of charity with Quinn. Ever since they had arrived he had been more autocratic and less sympathetic. Perhaps the full enormity of the problem had only dawned on him as they reached London, or perhaps he was simply regretting taking up her cause. I am a fool to love you, she thought, deliberately pouting at him before batting her eyelashes at a passing gentleman. The young man smiled and slowed, then focused on her formidable escort and hurried past.
It was easy to see where Gunter’s was. Rows of open carriages were drawn up, each with one or more ladies sitting inside, their male escorts leaning against the carriage doors or the railings that enclosed the central rectangle of gardens, while waiters in huge white aprons hurried back and forth with trays laden with ices and sorbets.
‘We will sit under the plane trees, not being in possession of the requisite fashionable carriage,’ Quinn said, walking through the gate. ‘What would you like, Celina? An ice or a sorbet?’
‘Lemon ice, please.’ She unfurled her parasol and stared around while Gregor went to place their order. ‘What is wrong, Quinn?’
‘Nothing,’ he said and smiled. Lina blinked. No, nothing was wrong, he was simply vibrating like a tuning fork with concentration and excitement, tightly reined. He was enjoying this, the danger, the challenge, and his sharpness with her was like the orders of an officer just before battle. She was one of his troops and he wanted her obeying commands and with all her weapons in perfect
order. She wondered if he had forgiven her for her lies; she suspected not, but it did not seem to spoil his enjoyment of the fight now they were in it.
Gregor came back, a waiter at his heels. When they were seated, with no-one within hearing, he said, ‘Now, tell me what this is all about, my friend. You give me mysterious instructions, send me to an expensive brothel—I do not complain of that, you understand—and now Miss Celina arrives looking delightful, but not quite as a respectable jeune femme should and with an air as though the devil is after her.’
‘Quinn, if we tell Gregor, then we are implicating him, too,’ Lina said. ‘I should have thought of that.’
‘Indeed. Gregor, do you object to being made an accessory to a capital crime?’
‘Who committed it?’ the Russian asked. ‘You have murdered your husband, Celina? Did he deserve it?’
‘I do not have a husband and I have not done anything wrong. At least,’ she corrected with scrupulous care, ‘I have not committed any capital crimes. I am unjustly accused of one.’
‘Of course. So tell me. I think we are here to prove you innocent, no?’
‘Yes, but if we fail, then you and Quinn will have been seen to help me.’
‘So? There are many other countries in the world where I can live, quite happily. Tell me.’
She should not be happy that yet another innocent person had become embroiled in her troubles, she knew, but the thought that Gregor’s formidable presence would be at Quinn’s back made her feel much safer for both of them.
‘Celina lives at that brothel I sent you to,’ Quinn said. Lina waited for the change in Gregor’s expression. He would think less of her, she knew, treat her differently. But he just nodded and settled to listen as Quinn told the story, including the events as she had described them in her notes. Although he did not spell it out, she knew the Russian would be quite clear that she had gone to Tolhurst’s house deliberately to sell her virginity.
I will not behave as though I am ashamed, she thought. I have nothing to be ashamed of. Except lying to Quinn, embroiling him in this, not telling him I was a virgin and falling in love with him, her conscience reminded her. She made herself concentrate on what Quinn was saying.
‘We need to talk to Celina’s aunt, Madam Deverill, and discover what she has been able to find out and what she has done to clear Celina’s name. She may still be too sick to have done anything—did you see her when you were there?’
‘I did. A lady of great personality,’ Gregor said. ‘In her day, which was not so very long ago, I think, she would have been one who wove magic—an enchantress.’
‘So my great-uncle thought, I assume,’ Quinn said. ‘She is well?’
‘She looked fragile, like glass. But formidable. Now I hear the story I can see she is under great strain, but she hides it—almost.’
‘I have a back-door key,’ Lina said. ‘We could let ourselves in and make our way to Aunt Clara’s rooms.’
‘No.’ Quinn shook his head. ‘I want to see Makepeace in action if he is there and I want to walk in through the front door legitimately so if we are found wandering about we may plausibly be lost.’
‘Then I will go in at the back door,’ Lina said. ‘I still do not understand what Makepeace has to do with this.’
‘He is a loose end I want to snip off,’ Quinn said, infuriatingly vague. ‘No, we all go in the front door.’
‘But I cannot!’
Gregor looked across her at Quinn and laughed. ‘Aha! Our young friend the prince incognito?’
‘Exactly. I have the clothes in my baggage.’
‘What are you two talking about?’ Lina demanded. ‘Let me explain,’ Quinn said. ‘Once we had reason to remove a young lady from a place where she was not happy to be.’
‘A harem?’
‘A staging post on the way to one. We could not walk out with a young woman, so we left with—’
‘A youth!’ Fear and a thrill of excitement made her laugh out loud. ‘But could I pass?’ Quinn’s gaze swept down over her bosom and she coloured up. Her breasts were not impressive, she knew that, but perhaps, now, that was a blessing.
‘By the time I have finished with you, you would pass for the Shah of Persia,’ he said with a grin.
It was certainly a high-class establishment, Quinn thought as they mounted the steps of The Blue Door at half past eleven that evening. The deep blue paint was offset by gleaming brass fittings, torchères flamed with brazen disregard for discretion and elaborately clipped shrubs in tubs lined the wide steps.
He looked for the spy hole and saw it blink with light for a moment before the door swung open. ‘Monsieur Vasiliev.’ The big man inside spoke politely, even as his eyes flickered over the two figures beside the Russian. ‘Welcome back. And your friends also. You will sign the book?’
It was all part of making this seem like an exclusive club, Quinn thought, signing George Arbuthnott with a flourish. Doubtless the book was full of more pseudonyms than genuine signatures. He stood back and the slim youth at his side bent his turbaned head over the book and produced an elaborate flourish. It had taken Quinn half an hour to teach Celina how to write something short but very rude in Arabic.
‘Gentlemen, the salon.’ Celina took a step forwards and he reached to touch her arm, then she must have realised her own mistake, for she dropped back, gazing around as though in wonder at what must be very familiar surroundings indeed. The doorman gestured towards a wide arch hung with blue-velvet curtains. ‘Mr Makepeace will be with you at once to enquire your pleasure. Refreshments will be brought.’
They sauntered through. Celina he could feel quivering slightly—fear or excitement? He suspected both, but he had confidence that she would act her part. With her hair concealed under a turban, her curves by a long jacket of heavy silk with a long brocade waistcoat over the top and full trousers caught at the ankles, she made the perfect youth. Her skin was stained to a warm gold, her eyebrows and lashes blackened and her blue eyes subtly ringed with kohl to make them seem darker. Cotton pushed high inside her cheeks changed the shape of her face and she had spent the afternoon following Gregor around trying to walk like a man—an exercise that had them both in fits of laughter.
Now she was serious, staring about her with a good approximation of a cocky youth rendered nervous by his first exposure to the sins of the flesh. Perhaps she had seen enough young men receiving their initiation here under the aegis of older brothers or even fathers to know what to do.
There were half-a-dozen young women in the room and four men. A swift glance reassured Quinn that he knew none of them. Two of the girls fluttered over, all pretty silks and low cut gowns. ‘Gentlemen.’ A redhead with bouncing curls took Gregor’s arm. ‘Oh, you’ve come back and brought some friends, Mr Gregor.’
‘Friend,’ Celina said in Arabic. Her accent was atrocious, but with any luck no one here would speak the language.
He had taught her three words. Friend for those she knew would not betray her, enemy for those who might and unsure.
‘Ooh.’ The redhead giggled. ‘Who is the young gentleman?’
‘A very special young gentleman,’ Quinn said with heavy emphasis. ‘He speaks no English and those who serve him would be very anxious if they knew he was out. But young men will be young men, hmm? And we think it is best he sows his wild oats with us and not by slipping off and getting into mischief.’
‘I’ll help him keep out of trouble,’ the redhead said with a smile, fluttering her lashes at Celina, who ducked her head and wriggled in convincing embarrassment.
‘I think we would all like to stay together,’ Quinn said. ‘Perhaps some of your friends would like to join us?’
‘Ooh, yes. I’m Katy and this is Miriam.’ The brunette gave him a look that promised a night of smouldering pleasures. ‘And there’s Daphne, just come down.’
‘Unsure,’ Celina said after a swift glance at the statuesque blonde.
‘How about someone more our young friend
’s size?’ Quinn asked.
‘Paulette?’ Katy looked at Miriam, who nodded. ‘She’s ever so sweet and she’s tiny.’ Katy’s hands waved about five foot from the floor.
‘Friend.’
‘He likes the sound of her,’ Quinn said.
‘I’ll just get Mr Makepeace and find a nice room.’ Katy fluttered off, leaving Miriam to press glasses of champagne into their hands and lead them to couches on the far side of the room from the other group.
Wedged between himself and Gregor, Celina was safe from Miriam’s wandering hands that just now had settled one on his thigh, the other on his shoulder as she curled up on the sofa next to him. He was in proper evening clothes after a hectic afternoon at the tailor and shirt maker and the skilful caress was hard to ignore through thin knitted silk.
He could have worn his own eastern clothing here, but the first part of the evening had taken him to the Society of Antiquaries. He had membership, originally because old Simon’s influence had overruled any qualms about his reputation and latterly because of his own fame amongst men who valued travel and scholarship above tales of society scandal.
Now he had a handful of introductions, some renewed acquaintances and two invitations. His own campaign of revenge and reinstatement was running very well alongside Celina’s adventure. But there was no time to think of that now; the man approaching them across the room was more than sufficient distraction from Miriam’s wandering hands.
‘Here is Mr Makepeace,’ she said. Quinn decided that the man’s taste in waistcoats alone was a crime.
Chapter Sixteen
‘Mr Vasiliev, Mr Arbuthnott, er…’ he frowned a little at the crown of Celina’s turban, which was tilted towards him ‘…sir, welcome.’
Quinn could feel Celina pressing closer to his side. Tension was radiating from her and he could see why she disliked this man so much; now he was showing them an unctuous servility, but the crocodile was visible beneath the surface. The urge to put an arm around her was strong and quite impossible. He wondered at how protective he felt.