‘You have left many friends behind?’ Quinn asked, making her jump. He straightened up and looked at her, the speculation in his eyes holding more than a simple question. It was the expression of a man assessing a woman and she felt it like a touch on her skin. She reminded herself that many men had an unpleasant predilection for corrupting innocence, but she could not feel the shudder of fear she hoped for, the reaction that would protect her. She simply felt the instinctive attraction of female to male.
‘A very few, close friends. We lived near each other. And my sisters, of course.’ Her world had become bounded by the walls of The Blue Door and her memories and dreams of her sisters. Now she was a friendless, fugitive virgin and utterly in Lord Dreycott’s power. Did he realise how vuln
erable she was? Was he titillated by it? Perhaps he thought she was too innocent to see her own danger.
‘You want to go back to them, I assume, when you have the money?’ Quinn asked, reaching for her hand. Lina made herself relax and let him take it. If she began to struggle, she thought she would panic and that, perhaps, would excite him more. But all he did was turn it over so he could study her palm.
Flirt, a little, an inner voice said. Be confident and lighthearted. Do not let him sense your anxiety or see how he affects you. If he is stimulated by stalking a virgin, confuse him. ‘Do you so wish to be rid of me, my lord?’ she asked, pouting a little. His eyes fixed on her mouth and Lina ran her tongue nervously between her lips.
‘Why, no, you are a charming addition to the household,’ Quinn said, his attention once more on her palm. He traced the crease that curved around the base of her thumb and she quivered, fighting not to close her fingers around his, trapping them. ‘Such a long life line. Look at all the adventures.’ His fingertip touched here and there where other, shorter, lines braided into the main one.
‘You read palms?’ It was curiously difficult to speak normally with his shoulder touching hers and the heat of his hand cradling her fingers.
‘A beautiful Romany taught me.’ Quinn hesitated, then opened his left hand, palm up. ‘You see the break in my life line? I am sure she would tell you that was where she knifed me in the back and left me for dead.’
‘What happened?’ Lina’s hand closed around Quinn’s in a startled grip.
‘Gregor happened. We were in Constantinople and he had gone off for a few days trading to leave me to my new inamorata. He strolled back in to find me ruining a particularly fine kelim rug, stopped the bleeding and went to retrieve my gold.’
‘And the Romany? What did he do to her?’
‘I did not ask him,’ Quinn said. ‘It taught me never to trust a woman, even a naked one.’
‘So where was the knife?’ Lina asked, determined not to be shocked. And, truth be told, she was as riveted as she ever had been when reading a sensation novel. His grip had shifted to open her hand again and his long fingers moved gently over the back.
‘In her hair.’ Quinn’s smile was rueful. ‘Now, you could be hiding a pair of duelling pistols in that bonnet.’
‘Perhaps I am.’ She let the silence drift on for a moment, full of unspoken words. ‘But I have no intention of removing it to show you, Quinn.’
His given name slipped out and Lina bit her lip as though to catch it, too late.
‘You keep secrets, Celina,’ he observed.
‘As many as your Romany, I have no doubt, my lord. But none so lethal.’ Although I killed a man…or I was the instrument of his own lust killing him. ‘Will you read my fortune? For, if not, I must ask for my hand back so I may go and make sure that luncheon has been set out.’ She was pleased with the light, amused tone of her voice.
‘Let me see.’ He lifted her hand to study it, the movement bringing them closer together. ‘A strong life line. Here.’ He touched a point and frowned. ‘Perhaps a moment of risk.’ His voice became puzzled for a moment. ‘Soon, I think. You must take care—if you believe such things. Your head line is straight—you are honest and intelligent, but perhaps too controlled by emotion. Ah, yes, see your heart line?’ He traced the line curving under her fingers. ‘Loving, intense—that is what overrules your head sometimes. And combined with this…’ he brushed his finger over the swell of flesh at the base of her thumb ‘…the Mount of Venus, I can tell you are passionate as well.’
Quinn lifted her hand to his lips and touched them to the soft mound, making her shiver.
‘Why, thank you, my lord, it lacked only a camp fire and some silver to cross your palm with! I see you sometimes wear an earring, which would complete the illusion. There was just such a lurid fortune-telling in a Minerva Press novel I was reading only the other day.’ He released her and she stood up.
‘I was Quinn a moment ago,’ he said, as he towered over her.
‘And I was careless,’ she murmured, glancing sideways under her lashes as she moved away. ‘I will see you at luncheon. My lord.’
Chapter Eight
She’s a married woman who has run away from her husband, Quinn decided on Tuesday morning as he stripped off his sweaty clothes. He and Gregor had been wrestling and using singlesticks and his muscles tingled with the exercise. He ducked under the big pump in the stable yard with a gasp as the cold water hit his heated skin. That was the only explanation that appeared to make sense of all the puzzles the woman presented, he argued to himself, scrubbing soap into his chest.
Celina was wary of men and yet she possessed a number of knowing little tricks and was comfortable with dinner-table conversation. She was assured with the servants and with their few callers, competent with the household management. A husband who had beaten her, perhaps? Or forced himself on her.
‘Harder,’ he ordered the groom who was bent over the pump handle. The male staff were used to him and Gregor now, the audience for their morning training fights had shrunk and the work of the yard went on around them as if two large, naked, dripping men were a commonplace sight.
He frowned as Gregor turned and he saw the familiar pattern of white scars lacing his friend’s back. Cruelty to anyone, whether it was a woman, a child or a beaten Russian slave, made him coldly angry.
He brought his mind back to the mystery of Celina. He had been suspicious about the aunt from the start—she did not exist, he was fairly certain. Somehow Celina had known Simon and the cantankerous old devil had given her sanctuary. It had probably appealed to him, hiding another man’s wife. And it explained why she had not been referred to by name in the codicil to the will—to put a false name might invalidate it and a fugitive wife would certainly not be living under her real name.
‘We’re late,’ the Russian said as the stable clock struck noon. ‘The water will be getting cold.’