‘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.
He wished she would put some real value on herself, he thought. But perhaps the prospect of the gallows made everything else—honesty, virtue—unimportant. She knew too much, including how to lie and how to act, but she was still too innocent for her own good. He could not stay cross with her any longer, even if letting go of his anger made him vulnerable to the physical attraction that had him aching for her. But he would not trust her over anything but the fact she had no idea what had happened to that sapphire.
‘Celina, have you ever desired a man physically before?’ he asked, seeing the pink turn to deep rose as she shook her head. ‘I know you enough to realise that you will be sorry if you waste that first experience with someone you don’t have strong, real feelings for, someone who does not feel like that about you. You are a romantic. I am flattered you are attracted to me, but I do not sleep with romantic virgins.’
He was wasting his breath, wasting the emotion with which he tried to convince her of the importance of what he was saying. She probably thought he was a complete hypocrite, a rake lecturing a woman he had just been with on the importance of romantic love, of chastity and waiting for the right man.
But he could recall what it had been like to feel that the act of love was sacred and he knew the bitterness of romantic youth on having that belief shattered. His entire adult life had been turned around because of one young woman’s lack of honour and the disillusion it had brought. In his anger he thought of revenge on any society female careless enough to put herself in his power, but he knew in his heart he would never do that. But the men who had trapped and traduced him—they would pay.
‘But I am not a—’
‘Yes, you are, in here.’ He touched his forehead as she frowned at him. ‘You had convinced yourself that you could separate whatever happened with Tolhurst from what is inside you, but, believe me, you cannot.’
She looked away, biting her lip.
‘You have my word that I will help you, Celina. I do not need paying with anything—except truth.’
There was no response, just a tiny shake of her head, so Quinn pressed on with the practicalities, working it out as he spoke. ‘Tomorrow I will write to Gregor to expect us, tie up the loose ends here and you will practise with the macquillage until you can fool a lady’s maid into thinking you use it all the time. Then the day after we will leave for London by post-chaise. And I want you to write down every single thing you can remember from the moment you agreed to go to Tolhurst until the moment you arrived back at The Blue Door. Everything, every tiny detail. Describe it as though you had to paint a picture of each scene. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’ Celina nodded. ‘You are looking for clues about the sapphire.’ She yawned hugely, transformed before his eyes from a desirable, beautiful, dangerous creature into a tired young woman with too much to bear on her slender shoulders. ‘Oh, I am sorry.’
‘If you tell me you are sorry one more time, I will turn you over my knee,’ Quinn threatened. He was tired of gratitude, he just wanted honesty. Then he wished he had not spoken, as the image of her squirming in his lap while he stroked that perfect peach-like bottom had the inevitable result. ‘Go to bed.’
Celina scrambled off the bed. ‘Goodnight, Quinn.’ She leaned in as she passed him and dropped a hesitant kiss on his cheek as he was off guard getting to his feet. ‘Thank you.’
Hell. There goes a night’s sleep. He was not certain whether he dreaded the inevitable erotic dreams or the familiar nightmares most.
‘How can you read with the carriage swaying about like this?’ Lina asked, clutching at the strap with both hands as the post-chaise lived up to its nickname of yellow bounder over a particularly rutted piece of road. ‘I would be sick in an instant.’
‘You get used to it. It is worse reading on camelback,’ Quinn said, his eyes fixed on the sheaf of papers she had given him that morning as they set off for London.
‘Really?’ Images of camel trains trekking across boundless deserts filled her imagination. Oh, to be away from here, away to somewhere strange and wild and free. With Quinn.