It took the gloss off the lovely morning, she thought as she walked back between the gate lodges and along the carriage road through the park. The thought of six months in hiding in a village where she was now shunned was not a pleasant one, although she supposed she could go to church and do her shopping in the nearby towns of Cromer or Holt.
If she could only find out what was happening in London. Was Aunt Clara better or worse? Had she found anyone to help clear Lina’s name? Then the idea came to her. Mrs Golding, the cook at The Blue Door, lived out, at her daughter’s house off the Strand. She could read, she was devoted to her employer and had always been friendly with Lina. A letter to her, enclosing one for Aunt Clara, could be delivered without anyone else being any the wiser.
Now she had the idea, she could not wait. Lina ran; her bonnet blew off and hung down her back and her hair began to come down, but she did not care. Breathless, she arrived at the front door just as it opened and Quinn came out.
She beamed at him and he smiled back, then took her round the waist with his bandaged hands and lifted her, laughing up at her flushed and excited face. ‘Put me down,’ she gasped, still laughing, but he merely turned on his heel so she was spun round in a circle, hair flying.
‘You look as though you lost a farthing and found a guinea,’ he teased, coming to a halt at last and lowering her until her feet touched the ground.
‘I am going to write a letter.’ Lina felt the laughter gradually ebb away to be replaced by a feeling she could not understand. She felt a little breathless, rather serious, almost apprehensive. And yet it was not an unpleasant sensation. Quinn must have seen something in her face, for he sobered, too, moving closer, his hands still at her waist, his gaze steady on her face.
Then he blinked and dipped his head to deliver a rapid kiss on her parted lips. ‘What am I thinking of, standing looking at a beautiful woman and not trying to kiss her? I must be losing my touch.’ But his tone was at odds with his serious face and the slight frown between the dark, straight brows. And then he released her and strode off towards the stables, leaving Lina on the steps, her fingertips pressed to her lips, her pulse racing.
There was no writing paper in her room, so she went to the study once she had restored her windswept appearance to normality and made sure her scarf hid the red marks on her neck. The door was not locked, so she assumed there would be nothing on view that Quinn wanted to keep private, but she was taken aback by the piles of papers on every surface.
It was all neatly ordered, docketed with coloured slips tucked in here and there, and she glanced at the piles, curious to see what it all was. Blue slips, she realised after a few minutes, related to old Simon’s memoirs and a small stack of papers covered in a strong, neat black hand sat next to a far larger one, many of the pages yellowing and the handwriting thinner and more sprawling.
Other piles with green slips related to the estate and finally there was a smaller section with red labels. Ottoman Court; trade and shipping; religious ritual; harems and the position of women, Lina read as she walked along the trestles, peering at the work. Quinn Ashley was organised, knowledgeable and very hard working, she realised when she had walked right around the room.
She sat at the desk and drew a clean sheet of paper towards her, but it was a moment before she dipped the pen in the inkwell. She had dismissed Quinn as a dilettante, a seeker after sensation and Eastern luxury, and he was nothing of the kind. He had been right when he had said that he had many facets and she wondered now if she understood him at all. Which was the true Quinn Ashley? The ruthless rake who happened also to be a scholar and a traveller, or the scholar who enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh and thought it hypocrisy to pretend that he did not?
And what does it matter to me? she thought, dipping the quill with sudden decision. He is not so unprincipled that he will force me and if I become uncomfortable, why, then I will have to be firm with him and keep one of the maids with me at all times.
She sealed her letters, one within the other, using the wafers from the box on the desk. Was that secure enough? There was wax and a heavy old seal, which, when she looked at it, did not resemble the Dreycott coat of arms. That would give no clue if the letter was intercepted. She melted two blobs of wax and pressed the seal into them, then went to ask Trimble to have one of the grooms bring a gig round. She would have him drive her into Holt, not Cromer, which was closer, and then she could post her letter at a safe distance. Soon, she prayed, she would have news.
Four days passed uneventfully. Without Gregor’s assistance Quinn spent longer in the library and Lina, with his blessing, threw out all the most motheaten and disintegrating stuffed specimens. The chemicals were packed up and dispatched to the nearest pharmacist’s shop for safe disposal after Quinn’s cautious investigations had revealed arsenic, antimony and sinister purple compounds. They went to church on Sunday and were comprehensively cut.
Gregor wrote reporting that both houses were in good order, a section that Quinn read out at breakfast. He then read the rest of the letter to himself, grinning in a way that led Lina to the conclusion that Gregor had been exploring London’s pleasures with enthusiasm.
There was no letter for Lina. Perhaps, she consoled herself,
there was much to report and Aunt Clara was writing at length, but by the fifth day following the one when she had posted the letter, she was finding it hard to keep her spirits up, and Quinn noticed.
Teasing failed to raise a smile; she responded to outrageous flirting by snapping at him and she was so distracted that once or twice she was halfway downstairs before she remembered to run back and wrap a scarf around the fading marks on her neck.
‘His lordship’s compliments, and would you join him for tea in the study, Miss Haddon.’ Lina looked up from her sewing to find Trimble in the doorway and managed a smile for the butler.
‘Thank you, yes, I will.’ That was new; perhaps he wanted help with the papers, she mused, folding the sheet and following Trimble out.
She poured tea, cut cake and produced at least three intelligent questions about the progress of the memoirs. She thought she was doing rather well until Quinn said, ‘What is wrong? You were so happy a few days ago. Is it your sisters? Was the letter to them?’
‘No.’ Lina shook her head, touched that he had even remembered about Meg and Bella. ‘Nothing to do with them. I am just rather low in my spirits, that is all.’
‘I am sorry—’ Quinn broke off at the sound of carriage wheels on the gravel outside. ‘We have a visitor.’ He went and opened the study door a crack. ‘Let us see if we want to be At Home or not.’
Trimble could be heard greeting someone and from his voice it was not someone he knew. ‘I will ascertain if his lordship is receiving. Who should I say is calling?’
There was a deep rumble, then, quite clearly, ‘…from Bow Street. My warrant…’
Lina dropped the cake slice with a clatter as she stumbled to her feet. Quinn swung round from the door, closed it and strode across the room to catch her arm. ‘Do not faint on me! Are they here for you?’
She nodded, her mouth too dry to even whisper yes. There was nowhere to escape to, not with Quinn’s hand hard on her forearm, the Runner on the doorstep.
‘Behind that screen.’ He jerked his head towards the back of the room and the battered old folding screen of tooled Toledo leather that he had pinned maps and lists to. As she stood there staring at him, he grabbed his cup, saucer and plate and shut them in a drawer, then moved to the small table she had been sitting at and sank into the deep armchair. ‘Go.’
‘Thank you,’ Lina whispered. ‘Oh, thank you.’
He shook his head at her, his face grim. The door began to open and she ran.