by Louise Allen
‘Then, why have you stopped?’ she asked and he realised that, much as he wanted to make love to her, he was losing his temper as comprehensively as he ever had in his life and that he really did not feel safe touching her. Which was a good thing, he concluded grimly, because he should not be touching her, gently or otherwise.
‘Do you really have to ask?’ Quinn demanded as he snatched up his robe. There was blood on his body, a smear. Hers. ‘I do not deflower virgins—or I did not until you lied your way into my life.’ He belted the robe and flicked one side of the coverlet over Celina as she sat up.
‘But…’ She paused and he saw her collect herself, fight the after-effects of unsatisfied passion, just as he was doing. ‘You are upset because I did not tell you. But I tried—’
‘Upset?’ He stalked over to the dresser and poured himself a large glass of brandy, thought about it, poured another and went back to the bed and handed that to Celina. ‘Yes, I would say I am upset. And all I can say is that you did not try very hard, Miss Shelley. In fact, you deceived me, did you not?’
‘Yes,’ she said, chin up. She was not defiant, he realised, feeling a sneaking admiration for the fact that she was making no effort to placate him or wriggle out of this. If his body would only stop admiring her too…
‘Did you think it would not matter to me?’
‘I realised I would not be very good at making love and you might be disappointed,’ Celina began and Quinn saw red. ‘But men seem to like—’
‘I do not force women,’ he snarled between gritted teeth as she flinched away. ‘I do not deflower virgins—but I have just done so because you, I presume, thought you had better attach me in some way to ensure I do not hand you over to the authorities after all. Which means that I have somehow given you the impression that you cannot rely on my word any more than I can rely on yours.’
‘No!’ Celina protested, sitting bolt upright and letting the silk coverlet slide down to her hips with devastating, innocent, effect. ‘I wanted you to make love to me because I desired you.’ The wide blue eyes vanished as her lashes came down in confusion. Quinn winced at the stab of ridiculous, treacherous pleasure the words gave him. He could not trust this woman, yet his own instincts threatened to betray him.
She was acting again, of course, and he was coming to believe that this wide-eyed protestation of innocent desire was her best performance yet. Miss Celina Shelley was a courtesan in training being groomed to take over from her aunt one day. She had been about to lose her virginity very profitably to Tolhurst when he had keeled over and, while it cannot have been anything but a very unpleasant experience, it was difficult to believe that she had been a prisoner of her own aunt, a woman she said she loved, or had been forced against her will.
There was no other explanation for her willingness to make love to him as she had, to be as bold and as sensual.
‘I should have told you, but I had no idea you would take on so,’ she finished with a gasp of indignation. ‘You are a rake, you told me so yourself. You have a shocking reputation. I thought rakes did that sort of thing all the time!’
‘Well, I don’t,’ Quinn retorted. ‘Where do you think I would draw the line if you believe that of me? Abduction? Rape?’ He threw himself into a chair at a safe distance from the bed—and the temptation to wring Miss Celina Shelley’s delightful neck. ‘And cover yourself up, I am not made of iron.’
She grabbed for the edge of the coverlet in confusion while Quinn tried to calm down. At least there was no risk he had got her with child, not that he would not have been careful in any case, he thought, resting his aching head on the chair back and glaring at the ceiling.
‘I suppose that being wrongfully accused of seducing Lord Sheringham’s daughter would have made you sensitive to such things,’ Celina ventured. ‘And being the victim of lies would give anyone a strong dislike of falsehood. I did not mean to deceive you out of any malice.’
Quinn looked at her curled up now against the pillows, swathed in the lush green silk of the bedcover. The picture of the perfect mistress, if it was not for the frown on her forehead and the anxiety in the wide blue eyes. And that lovely, kissable lower lip that just now she was biting in distress.
He let go of the anger as best he could and listened to his reason. Yes, she was telling the truth now: she had not deceived him about her identity for any motive other than fear. He was still not certain why she had wanted to come to his bed. He had a fair idea of his own worth, women appeared to find him attractive, but it took more than that surely, for a virgin to go so far?
Then he reminded himself what had triggered this whole chain of events—she had been in the act of selling her virginity to Tolhurst, so giving herself to him to secure his protection had to be an easy choice. And Celina’s instinct that once he had slept with her it would tie him to her emotionally was not wrong, either. Could he blame her? He tried to be fair. She was at risk of her liberty, if not her life.
‘Won’t you come back to bed?’ she asked.
‘No! Celina, I have told you—’
‘No virgins, I know. But I am not one any more.’
‘You are as good as,’ Quinn said, trying not to recall the feel of her, hot and wet, tight and silken around him.
That provoked a snort of rather desperate laughter. ‘I do not think I can be just a little bit of a virgin, Quinn.’ He glared at her and she sobered immediately. ‘Isn’t it very painful for a man to stop like that?’
‘It is not comfortable,’ he said, hoping to sound repressive and merely, he feared, achieving fractious. ‘It will get better in time.’ She really was the oddest mixture of innocence and knowledge. ‘Especially if you leave. You should go to your room. Are you…are you all right?’ Damn it, he should have checked at once. He had hurt her, for heaven’s sake, there had been blood. His damnable temper. Quinn felt a pang of guilt, then shoved it away. He was feeling bad enough as it was and it was all her fault.
Celina shifted a little, then bit her lip. ‘I’m sore. Just a bit,’ she hastened to assure him.
He now felt worse. She was being brave. Shouting at her was not going to help and he could hardly just throw her out of the room. ‘You need a warm bath,’ he said, in an attempt to deal with this practically. ‘With salt in.’ He got up, gathered her scattered clothing together and went to the door. ‘Stay there.’
If nothing else, he could cope with physical hurt even if he had no idea how to deal with the distress she was inevitably going to feel in the morning when the reaction to the danger of the Runner’s visit and the eroticism of that heated coupling subsided and she realised just what had happened.
Lina blinked back tears. She could not collapse and weep all over Quinn, not after what she had done. He was furious with her for lying, for entangling him with the authorities and for not telling him she was a virgin. She had thought, if he realised, that he might have found whatever pleasure other men did in that, but, apparently not. The very idea had angered him.
How had she got into this situation? If she had known she could trust him from the beginning, then she would have told him about the Tolhurst Sapphire. But she had not known and everything had followed from that, every tangled lie, every pretence.
Quinn came back, her robe in his hands, a nightgown over his arm. ‘Here, put on the robe and go into the dressing room.’ He turned away as he handed it to her, walked to the bell pull and stood with his back to her even when he had tugged it.
His respect for her modesty had the opposite effect to the one he had intended, Lina thought, blushing at the memory of her utterly wanton behaviour. The trouble was, she brooded as she scrambled off the bed and into her robe, Quinn’s reaction only made her want him more. He was chivalrous as well as intelligent, attractive, desirable… Lina knotted the sash and went into the gloomy little chamber that did service as a dressing room.
It was not until she shut the door behind herself that she wondered what she was doing there and what Quinn had r
ung for. Surely not to have her bath brought at this hour? It would utterly compromise her in the eyes of the staff. She should go back to her own room, but there was only the one door and she could hear him speaking to someone.
Lina sat down on the chaise and looked round, feeling rather blank. Soon, she would have to think about what had just happened, about how she felt about Quinn and how she was going to live day to day with him now. The triumph and excitement she had felt at Inchbold’s retreat, his acceptance that she was not the woman he was looking for, was ebbing away. That immediate danger was past, but it was very clear that the authorities still believed her guilty and were not looking for anyone else. How was she ever going to clear her name?
The sounds from outside were still continuing. Lina curled up on the chaise, wincing slightly at the unaccustomed intimate soreness. There was a little blood and she wished she could wash. She put her head on the bolster at the end and closed her eyes, too weary to try to think any longer.
She must have dozed off, she realised as the door to the bedchamber opened, and she blinked against the sudden flood of light. More candles had been lit and, in the corner, steam was curling up from the marble sarcophagus.
‘You rang for that to be filled at this time of night?’ Lina walked stiffly to the doorway. Towels were spread on the edge of the bed and Quinn was rolling up the sleeves of his robe.
‘I did. Highly inconsiderate of me, I know. I also made the point of warning the footmen to tiptoe past your bedchamber door as I assumed you would be asleep,’ he added, shaking what she assumed must be salt into the water. ‘Come and get in and soak a while. It will make you feel better.’
He sounded briskly practical, but he looked grim as he moved to put the screen around the big marble container and she realised he was afraid he had hurt her.
Protesting was embarrassing. Lina smiled a nervous thank you and slipped round the screen. She shed her robe and climbed the library steps that had been pressed into service. It was easy to get over the side and she slid into the warm water with a splash and a sigh of pleasure at the way she could sink up to her neck.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Silence. Something prompted her to keep talking. ‘Such luxury! No wonder you use it daily. But I am sorry that you will appear so inconsiderate as to have demanded a second bath and at this hour.’ It was easier to talk without being able to see him. How strange that they could speak like this when only a short while before she had lain in his arms, their bodies joined. The very thought of it made those rippling waves of sensation run through her again, and she saw with surprise that her nipples had hardened despite the warmth of the water.
Even the new aches and soreness were pleasurable, Lina found, as she cupped the water in her hand and let it trickle over her body. How could her body feel like this when there was so much wrong, so much to fear?
‘Lina?’ It sounded as though he was pacing.
This was no time to hide in the bath tub. Lina found the soap and washed, wishing she was not rinsing away the scent of Quinn as she did so. She stood up, then realised that without the steps she could not climb out. ‘I’m stuck, Quinn. My legs are not long enough to get out.’
‘Here.’ He came round the screen, eyes closed, holding out a large bath towel. ‘Wrap yourself in that.’
It seemed ridiculous to be shy after what had happened, but she was grateful for his tact. ‘I am decent now.’
Quinn opened his eyes. She wished he would smile, but he still looked grim as he put his hands around her waist and lifted her out.
‘Quinn, are you tired?’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘I am not sure how to take that—I will try not to feel insulted.’ Lina felt herself blush; he was talking about their short-lived lovemaking. ‘No, I am not tired.’
‘Then let me tell you who I am, how I came to be at The Blue Door, what happened at Sir Humphrey Tolhurst’s house. Everything.’
‘Get dry, then, and put on your robe.’
When Lina emerged Quinn had lit the fire and tidied the bed. The room looked innocent and comfortable and safe. ‘Curl up on the bed,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll sit here.’ She wondered whose protection that distance was for. ‘Now, tell me it all. Honestly.’
‘I was brought up in a vicarage in the Suffolk countryside,’ Lina began, flushing at the implication that she would tell him any more untruths. The pillows were soft yet firm and smelt of Quinn as she tried to make herself relax. ‘I have two sisters—Arabella and Margaret—and our mother died when we were children. Our father is very strict, very puritanical…’
Chapter Fourteen
‘…and Lord Dreycott took me in,’ Lina finished, perhaps half an hour later. ‘I have heard nothing from my aunt, so I wrote to Cook, who lives out, the other day, but there has been no reply from there either. Now I do not know what to do.’
‘So this man Makepeace forced you to go to Tolhurst?’ Quinn was looking decidedly sceptical.
‘Yes! What choice did I have?’
‘Run away.’
‘Where to?’
‘Back to Suffolk,’ he said as though it should have been obvious.
‘My father would have thrown me out.’ She was not convincing him, she could see. ‘And my sister had gone, too.’
‘And you say Makepeace told you that and you believed him?’
She had not thought that the man had lied, Lina realised. Of course, that was the sort of lie he would tell. Then the way Quinn was phrasing his questions hit her. He thought she was telling another pack of lies.
‘Your father is a vicar,’ he persisted. ‘Am I to believe he would be seen to throw you out? He would be angry, I have no doubt. Had he ever struck you?’
‘No,’ she admitted. He had whipped Meg, but never her or Bella. ‘But he shouts—’
‘Are you telling me that being shouted at by your father is worse than being deflowered by Tolhurst?’
‘No, of course not. But Makepeace was demanding the money. If he didn’t get it, he would do all those dreadful things at The Blue Door.’
‘He would do them anyway. You are an intelligent woman, you would know that.’
‘You do not believe me, do you?’ she demanded.
‘I believe that you are being groomed as your aunt’s successor by both her and her business partner. You would not welcome the encounter with Tolhurst, but you accepted it as a necessary evil. After that, yes, I believe that you are not responsible for the theft.’
‘Why should I lie to you now?’ Lina wanted to weep. She thought that she had Quinn’s support. Yes, he was right: her story was full of holes if it was looked at objectively, in cold blood. But how to convince a confident, courageous man that at the time she had felt terrified, trapped, without any option but to submit?
Perhaps if she had thrown herself on his mercy right at the beginning, he would have believed her. But now she had lied to him, deceived him, shown herself less than chaste.
‘For the same reason you wanted to be my lover once I had heard Inchbold’s story—because you need me.’
‘I see.’ Lina felt too miserable even to protest. She lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes. ‘So, what happens now?’ He could not throw her out because of the will. They were tied to each other.
‘We must both go to London,’ Quinn said, startling her so much she sat bolt upright. ‘Letters are too dangerous.’
‘We? You will take me? You will help?’
‘Of course.’ Quinn was staring back at her. ‘Do you think I would abandon this—you—now?’
‘But it will compromise you even more if I am caught,’ she protested. ‘If they come back, you can say you were mistaken in the dates or something, but if you do something active, then it makes you an accessory, does it not?’
‘Yes. So we will not be caught.’
We, Lina repeated to herself. We. I am not alone any more. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘I do not know why you should, after I lied t
o you, but I am just so grateful.’
‘I dislike injustice as much as I dislike lying,’ Quinn said. Lina dropped her eyes from the look in his. He was disappointed in her as well as angry, she realised. ‘We will go to my town house—the one I have purchased and spent one night in so far—and establish you as my mistress, just in case the Runners are still taking an interest. I will write to Gregor tomorrow, tell him to work faster to open it up and employ servants.’
‘The will,’ Lina recalled, and her heart sank. Of course, there had to be a reason why this would not work.
‘There is no reason that you must stay here. You are entitled to, but I do not read that codicil as compelling you to remain here. If I cannot clear your name in six months, then I will send you abroad until I can.’
‘Abroad?’
‘Better than Newgate, wouldn’t you say? But that’s academic—we will face it if we have to.’
The relief that he was not abandoning her made it difficult to think straight, but she still felt so guilty. ‘You would do all this for me after I embroiled you in it, lied to you. How can I repay you? I…I led you on to make love to me when you believed I was not a virgin. But I am not any more. If you still want me, then I will be your mistress, Quinn.’
Even as she said it, Lina knew she was making a mistake. Quinn’s face hardened and his hands closed into fists on the arms of the big chair, but when he spoke his voice was calm. ‘If I give you money for sex, you say that makes you a whore,’ he said. ‘If you give me sex for protection, what does that make me?’
‘A bodyguard?’ Celina ventured, her cheeks flaming. Pride, male honour, this man’s honour. She understood none of it well enough, it seemed, and now she had blundered again.
Quinn felt the anger and the tension dissolve. He wanted to laugh for what seemed the first time all day, and controlled the impulse, afraid if he began he would not stop. His innocent courtesan-in-training had managed to put her dainty foot in it, yet again. And this time, he was convinced, she had meant it as a genuine gesture, offering him the one thing of worth she possessed: herself.