‘Do I need a housekeeper?’ he asked. ‘Can you not just act as the mistress of the house and order the servants to do what is necessary?’
Mistress of the house? There were so many layers of innuendo and meaning in that phrase that Lina could feel herself blushing. ‘Please, my lord, put me down?’ Lina asked as they reached the edge of the wood and level ground. ‘I would be most embarrassed if the staff saw me like this.’ He set her on her feet at once. It jarred her bruises, but she bit back the exclamation of discomfort in case he scooped her up once more. ‘If I had no work to do, then I would feel I was being a parasite, living off your charity.’
He was still holding her, one big hand cupping each elbow, standing far too close. His breathing, she realised with a thrill of awareness, was very slightly uneven. The effort of carrying her? She doubted it, he was very fit. No, he was still aroused by their encounter.
‘You will be living off Simon’s legacy. I am dismissing you as housekeeper, but you may retain your post as companion, if you like.’ He began to stroll back towards the house and Lina, trying not to hobble, walked beside him.
‘To whom?’
‘To me when I am here. I will be lonely with none of the local gentry prepared to receive me.’ He made no attempt to try to sound either lonely or pathetic.
‘But Gregor is here.’
‘He is going back to London once we have sorted some of the books and papers. He will open up the town houses, hire servants, talk to our business agents.’
‘I thought you never came to England,’ Lina queried. ‘How do you—?’
‘That does not prevent me investing or buying property in this country. I have agents and lawyers and customers here. I shall send the library from here to my house in Mayfair once I secure it.’ She glanced up at his face to find it suddenly serious, introspective. ‘I expect to spend more time in London in future—at the libraries, the British Museum, the learned societies.’
‘But are you not a traveller?’
‘I am also a writer. It is time I wrote more, spoke more at the societies, or I will end up like my great-uncle, having to coerce someone into finishing my work after my death.’
‘You are a scholar, in effect,’ Lina said. She was surprised, she realised; despite what Trimble had said, she had not taken his scholarship seriously. ‘But I thought you a—’
‘Libertine? I am an adventurer, I admit. I am also a traveller and a trader. How very inconsiderate of me to wear so many labels. But we are all multi-faceted, are we not? You seem meek and mild and modest and yet you spit like a hellcat when roused. And you kiss—’ They had reached the stable yard again and he stopped, just past the archway. ‘And you did not answer my question. Why so furious at being called a nun?’
‘Because—’ She could feel herself blushing again. ‘Because of the cant use of nunnery and nun,’ she blurted out and, despite her aching bruises, almost ran from him round the corner and through the service entrance to the house.
‘Cant?’ Quinn stared after Celina. Admittedly he had been out of the country for a long time, but when he was last here the only cant meaning for nunnery was brothel. He had been away from England far too long, that was certain, if young ladies understood the meaning of argot like that. He turned on his heel and went back into the yard where Gregor was lounging on a mounting block in conversation with the head groom.
‘Good day, your lordship.’ The man—Jenks, he remembered—touched his forelock. ‘I was just telling this gentleman about his late lordship’s hunters. Sad day when he decided to sell them, that was. You’ve a fine pair of riding horses, my lord. Arab blood, I can see.’
‘Yes, out of an English hunter mare for size by an Arab stallion for endurance. They are brothers. Tell me, Jenks, I have been coming to the conclusion that I have been away from England so long I am forgetting the language—what cant uses for nun or nunnery are there?’
The man looked incredulous, then grinned. ‘Well, my lord, only meaning I know is for an academy, if you know what I mean, and its young ladies. A cony warren, my lord.’
‘A brothel, in effect? Yes, that was my understanding also.’ So that explained the fury, but it did not explain why a respectable young lady would know what it meant. Gregor was obviously keeping a straight face at the cost of painful self-control. ‘Thank you, Jenks. I have indeed been away too long.’
‘And you can stop looking like that,’ he said to Gregor once they were out of earshot of the groom. ‘I was perfectly aware of that meaning, I was simply wondering if there was another I did not know.’
‘It is a good word for a brothel,’ Gregor said, seriously. ‘Your English is amusing, I find. Perhaps I will seek one out when I am in London and perform my devotions with the pretty nuns. A pity you are in disgrace, my friend, or you could give me introductions and I could chase the society ladies as well.’
‘It will take a little while. I can secure invitations around the edges of society to begin with,’ Quinn said. ‘And then I move in.’ He had given this some thought during the long journey back to England.
There had been time to plot his reinstatement into the ton, time to think about how uncomfortable he could make those who had tricked and condemned him and whose scheming had left his great-uncle to a lonely old age for the sin of defending him. He had not realised until that last letter just how isolated the old man had become, and guilt at his own absence did nothing to lessen his anger.
‘We could have some fun amongst the less respectable, more dashing, ladies.’
‘Almack’s?’ Gregor asked hopefully. ‘I have heard of Almack’s. Many pretty virgins. Rich ones, also.’
‘Almack’s would not let either of us through the doors,’ Quinn assured him. ‘But I would pay a good sum to see you there, a big bad wolf amidst the lambs.’ No, they would not admit either of them…yet. But the new Lord Dreycott with his reputation as a traveller and scholar could insinuate himself into the world of the men of learning, many of whom were influential members of society. If he played his cards right, he could be accepted back almost before those who recalled the old scandal were aware of his presence. Then he must rely on his wits and his money to stay within the charmed inner circle while having his pleasure with its womenfolk and his revenge on its men.
It would be amusing. The prodigal returns, far from penitent and reformed, but possessing now all the wickedness he was unjustly expelled for in the first place.
He had not lied to Celina; he did intend to spend more time in London in scholarly pursuits, in writing, in the libraries, at lectures, about his business interests. But he had no intention of skulking around pretending to be shamed by a ten-year-old scandal. He was not at all embarrassed, merely coldly determined to enjoy every facet of London life, and that included, when he was in the mood, the world of the ton.
And this time, if any wives or daughters of the aristocracy threw themselves at his head, he would have not the slightest scruple about taking everything that they offered. A momentary stab of self-disgust caught him off balance. Once he had been the perfect young English gentleman: gallant, virtuous, scrupulous. Fool, he thought. Look where that got you. Innocence once lost was lost for ever—he was what he had become, the product of hard choices and sharp disillusion.