‘No. I should not say it, but I wish we were.’ What had happened between them did not count, she told herself. ‘He is angry with me for not telling him the truth from the start, for putting him in a position where he had to lie to the Runner.’
‘He does not show it. Are you sure, my dear?’
‘Yes,’ Lina admitted. ‘He hates lying. And liars,’ she added. ‘I should have seen that I could trust him, but I did not. He is doing this for me because I think he would never stand back and see an injustice. He bought Gregor when he was a slave, almost dead, and nursed him back to life, gave him his freedom. I think he is a very fine man,’ she added, appalled to find herself almost in tears. ‘I just do not think he values himself so much.’
‘You are in love with him. That means only heartbreak for women in our world, my dear.’ Her aunt came and sat beside her, putting her arm around her shoulder.
‘Am I of this world? I suppose I am and society would condemn us all and never see the good in you, in the girls here,’ Lina said, all the excitement of the evening, all the hope, draining away. ‘I love him. I dream of marrying him, and I know how impossible that is. And he will not take me as his lover, so I cannot even have that.’
Quinn lounged against a pillar, smoking one of Reginald Tolhurst’s inferior cheroots, and let the man talk, looking for his opening.
‘Only thing wrong with this place is that there’s no gaming room,’ Tolhurst observed.
‘You know, you’re right. What’s your game?’
‘Whist, piquet, whatever’s going,’ Tolhurst drawled. ‘I’m a fair hand at all of them.’
No, you are not, or you’d not boast of it, Quinn thought. ‘Friend of mine recommended a place just round the corner. I haven’t played there myself, mind, which makes me a trifle wary.’ He looked uncertain and saw the interest in the other man’s eyes. ‘I’m not used to town hells, if the truth be told—I’ve been abroad too long.’
Tolhurst smiled patronisingly. ‘I fancy I’m up to snuff. Why don’t we try it tonight? If you’re finished here, of course.’
‘I’ll be right with you,’ Quinn said, all eagerness. ‘Just let me go up and drop off a note for the fellow I came with.’
We both believe we’ve caught a pigeon, Quinn thought as he went upstairs and knocked on the door of the room he had left Gregor in. After a moment it opened a crack and Paulette peeped out. ‘Give this to Gregor, will you? And make sure he reads it.’ He scribbled on a page from his pocket book—Easier than I thought. Going to the hell now. Be there in two hours, send C. home in a hackney—and handed the note to the girl. Then he went to tap on Madam Deverill’s door.
When she opened it he saw no sign of Celina. ‘You’re being careful, I see. Gregor will come and collect Celina shortly and send her home in a carriage.’
‘And you?’ Celina appeared just behind her aunt. Her eyes were red, he noticed.
‘I am going to play cards with Tolhurst, who thinks he is going to rook an innocent from overseas.’ Celina’s eyes widened in alarm and he grinned. ‘I didn’t tell him I learned to play cards in the Palais Royale.’
When he saw Gregor stroll through the salon at the discreet little hell in Pickering Place, Quinn was just throwing down his hand in disgust. ‘Damnation! Well, that’s me for the evening. Good sport, Tolhurst—I hope you’ll give me the opportunity for my revenge another day soon.’
‘But of course, my dear fellow.’ Tolhurst was raking in the bank notes and coins with ill-disguised delight. It seemed the intelligence that Gregor had gathered, that the man was near bankruptcy, was correct. ‘My card.’ He handed over the rectangle
of pasteboard and accepted Quinn’s in return. ‘Goodnight to you.’
Quinn got up and went to the door to collect his coat and hat, then waited in the small courtyard of Pickering Place until Gregor came out. ‘That’s got him. He thinks I’m a pigeon for the plucking and he’ll be far less wary next time.’
‘Can he play?’ Gregor followed Quinn through the narrow alleyway and out into St James’s Street. To their left the great Tudor palace blazed with light. They turned right and began to walk uphill towards Piccadilly.
‘He’s superficial. He isn’t good at calculating odds and once he starts to lose he throws more money after it in a panic. I can have the shirt off him. We’ll give him a couple of days to convince himself that he’s better, and I am worse, than he recalls and then…’ Quinn slammed his clenched fist into the other palm. ‘We’ll have him.’
‘Celina has gone home,’ Gregor said. ‘I had a very good time with her friends—such nice girls!’
‘Yes.’ Quinn felt a jolt of guilt. He had been avoiding thinking about it, but there was no escape from the fact that he had not believed Celina when she told him that she had been forced to go to Tolhurst. She had accepted his apology with grace, which was like her, but he suspected he had wounded her deeply and that disturbed him.
The fact that he had taken her virginity was even more of a disaster now. He had not simply reduced the value for which she could sell herself, he had ruined her. When the shadow over her was lifted and she was cleared of the theft, then, with the legacy from old Simon, she could establish herself respectably. But if a man came into her life, courted her, wanted to marry her, what did she tell him? Did she lie and hope her husband did not notice that he was not the first or did she tell him the truth when he proposed and have him almost inevitably leave her?
‘She does not belong there,’ Gregor said abruptly. ‘Those are nice girls, but not good girls. Celina is a good girl.’ The sideways look he gave Quinn was as close as he had ever come to a criticism.
‘I spent the night on the chaise with her,’ he said, trying not to sound defensive. ‘She was having a nightmare.’ Gregor was silent. ‘Hence my hands.’ He did not tell him about the night that Inchbold came.
They stopped at the kerb, the traffic in Piccadilly heavy, even at that late hour. ‘A thousand pounds is a fine dowry for a young lady, I think,’ Gregor remarked.
‘Yes.’ Quinn strode out into the road, ignoring the shouts of the hackney-carriage driver who had to steer round him.
‘That is good.’ Gregor caught up with him as he turned into Old Bond Street. ‘Will you find her a husband?’