‘It is like being on a ship in a swell. It rolls back and forth and side to side at the same time and you are a long way off the ground,’ he said, his eyes still fixed on the page as he removed a pencil from behind his ear to make a note. ‘Is this Makepeace a man of means?’
‘He’s a crocodile,’ Lina said, the camels merging into a vision of the River Nile, its banks covered in evil, grinning reptiles. ‘Have you ever seen the Nile?’
‘Yes. And the crocodiles,’ Quinn added, looking up and smiling. ‘But has he money?’
‘I have no idea. He is very anxious to get his teeth into The Blue Door and to do disgusting things that would make higher profits. Why? Surely he could not have stolen the sapphire?’
‘I agree. I don’t think he would risk alienating a good client by staging a theft while one of his girls was on the premises.’
One of his girls. That is me, Lina thought, trying not to be hurt by Quinn’s choice of words. She had to accept that he classed her as a courtesan. He had taken her virginity and that, she knew, put her on the wrong side of the wafer-thin line that divided decent women from their fallen sisters. One thrust of that hard body and she was ruined, but for him she had been lost before that, ruined from the moment when she had chosen to stay and not flee from Makepeace.
It was strange being shut up with him in the post-chaise. Yesterday’s flurry of activity had given her little time to reflect on the events of the previous evening, yet now she was alone with the man who had taken her virginity, the man she still wanted with a passion that she knew she did not have the vocabulary of words, or actions, to express.
The rake had vanished. So had the man amusing himself by playing the country gentleman. This was the traveller and the adventurer now, planning an expedition, heading into danger. And she could see the scholar, too, in the concentration on her story, the search for clues, the precise notes.
‘I need to get inside The Blue Door and talk to your aunt,’ he said, frowning at the page. ‘I imagine that will not be difficult?’
‘It will not be, provided she is well,’ Lina agreed. ‘But she suffers from a stomach complaint that sometimes lays her low for days at a time. She was ill with that when I left.’
‘Then you must tell me how to reach her rooms. Makepeace will want to help clear the smear from the name of the establishment, but I am assuming he does not know where you have gone and we cannot risk him deciding to ingratiate himself with the authorities by betraying you.’
‘So you accept I have reason to fear him?’
‘Of course.’ Quinn raised one eyebrow. ‘Brothel keepers are rarely people of finer feeling or elevated moral standards.’
‘I had better come with you,’ Lina said, pushing away the logical conclusion that he classed her, and her aunt, in the same category. ‘The house is a maze.’
She expected him to refuse, point blank. Instead he looked at her, while he pushed a lock of tawny hair back behind one ear. ‘It would be dangerous. Besides the risk of you being captured, there is a strong probability that I will run foul of the doormen and you could end up in a fistfight.’
‘I have no doubt that you would deal with them.’ And without hesitation, either. He was used to living where violence was an everyday occurrence and, even if she had not overheard Michael’s awestruck comments about the training sessions in the barn, she knew he was hard and fit.
‘Do I frighten you?’ Quinn asked, startling her out of her recollections of his naked body.
‘Yes,’ Lina said. ‘Yes. You are outside society, outside convention. You are free in a way I do not understand.’ And I love you. The realisation drove the breath from her lungs and the blood from her face. In all her daydreams it had never occurred to her that her true love might be utterly out of her reach.
‘I would never hurt you,’ Quinn said as he reached for her hands, obviously thinking her reaction was alarm
. ‘Not more than I have already,’ he added under his breath.
‘I know.’ Lina let him take her hands, curled her fingers within his for a second before freeing herself. She must not indulge her need to touch him, for she was frightened now with the vision of their parting all too plain in front of her. What was she going to do, feeling like this about a man who would be gone from her life within months? ‘I…’ Love you. I will always love you. ‘I trust you, Quinn.’
‘Then rest, relax. We will defeat the dragons together.’ He went back to reading her narrative for what, she was convinced, was the fifth time. Dragons. My knight, set on a quest to rescue a very tarnished damsel. And he said together. Does he really mean that? Can he possibly mean to treat me as an equal partner in this when he does not entirely trust me?
‘Of course we will,’ Lina said. ‘Although I am not very experienced with adventures,’ she added. ‘Or dragons.’ It was only fair to warn him. ‘My sisters always said I was the timid one.’
Quinn stared at her. ‘Timid? I hardly think so. You ran away from home and got yourself to London. Had you ever travelled by yourself before?’ She shook her head. ‘Then you climbed out of a window to escape from Tolhurst’s house and got to Simon. You coped with the shock of his death and my arrival.’
Lina bit her lip at the satirical tone in his voice when he said that. Her subterfuge was not forgiven. ‘I—’ Well, yes, she had done those things. Perhaps she was not totally lacking in courage.
‘You stood up to the Runner, too, even though you were so frightened. That takes nerve.’
‘I did not do it very well,’ Lina muttered, thinking how utterly she had relied on Quinn. Without him she would have simply collapsed, she was certain.
‘Rather too well, perhaps,’ Quinn said, his eyes on the papers. One corner of his mouth twitched, just a little.
What would he do if she changed seats, curled up next to him and kissed that provoking hint of a smile? He would probably pick her up and deposit her firmly back where she was now, she concluded, not certain whether that was a good thing or not.
His actions had meant that, even though she had lost her virginity, it was, perhaps, not as bad as it sounded. There was no risk that she was with child, she had acquired none of the experience of a lover, even though he had seemed to find her attempts to caress him convincing. If there ever was another man, perhaps he would believe her a virgin still. More lies. And besides, she could imagine wanting no other man but Quinn, ever.