‘Yes, but—’
‘Then we make sure you don’t look like an innocent any more; we’ll find the real Celina under the mask of virtue. Sit down.’ He pushed her into an upright chair at the dressing table by the window and went to rummage in the dresser, coming out with a small box. He opened it and Lina saw the inside was fitted out with tiny pots, tubes, brushes and sponges.
‘Macquillage?’
‘From time to time we find ourselves in situations where looking like respectable Westerners is dangerous,’ Quinn said, opening jars and lining a selection up on the table. ‘Sit still.’ He began dabbing and brushing, taking tiny amounts from different pots.
Lina sat like a dummy, obediently turning her head this way and that, opening and closing her eyes as she was told. She felt sick, she felt terrified, as bad as she had in the hours after Tolhurst’s death. The danger was real now, not the faraway horror she had managed to turn it into. She could almost hear the creak of the gallows steps.
‘Don’t cry,’ Quinn said sharply, a fine brush an inch from her left eye.
‘I’m not,’ Lina said, swallowing. He was so angry with her. Of course he was, he had every right. What would they do to him if his deception was discovered?
‘There,’ he said at last, taking her by the shoulders and turning her to face the mirror.
Lina gasped. The woman who looked back was her, and yet not her. Subtle shading had narrowed her face, heightened her cheekbones. Her nose looked shorter, her eyes darker. ‘I look older,’ she said, momentarily distracted from her anxiety by the altered image.
‘You look different enough, but not too different. It makes a misunderstanding possible,’ Quinn said. Doing something seemed to have reduced his anger from boiling to simmering point. He was still frowning, but at least, Lina thought, he did not look as though he was tempted to pitch her straight out of the front door.
‘Jewellery.’
‘I don’t have much,’ she ventured.
‘I’ve noticed.’ He produced a leather-covered box. ‘Left it all behind when you ran, did you? There should be something in here that is ornate enough to be convincing. Here.’ He handed her pendant earrings with large misshapen pink pearls dangling from them, a pair of golden bangles set with more pink pearls and a fine gold chain.
‘They are beautiful,’ Lina said, holding up an earring and staring at the strange pearl. ‘But they look wrong with the blue.’
‘Exactly. They will look thoroughly vulgar,’ Quinn said, fastening the chain around her neck and twitching it until it fell sinuously between her breasts. ‘They are Baroque-set freshwater pearls and ought to be worn with something subtle to show them off. If you wear them now it will give the impression of a woman determined to flaunt her lover’s latest gift regardless of taste.’
‘I understand.’ Lina nodded; she had seen women like that on the arm of their lovers as they strolled in the park or drove in their new barouches, scandalising passers-by at the fashionable hour for the promenade. ‘I cling, I flirt with you, but I also assess Inchbold rather obviously, then dismiss him as beneath my notice. I pout if I do not have your attention all the time and I have no idea what is going on.’
‘Exactly,’ Quinn said with a sardonic glance. ‘One would think you did this all the time.’
‘I do not,’ Lina began. Quinn silenced her with a wave of one hand.
‘Of course, your speciality is playing the virgin, is it not? Don’t forget, I saw how you experimented with flirtation at the beginning—innocent one moment, knowing the next—until you settled on the part you were to play for me.’
That was close enough to the truth to make her blush, and he saw it. ‘Quinn, I need to explain—’
‘You can try later, if we aren’t in the local lock-up by midnight,’ he said as the dressing gong sounded. ‘I need to get changed. You had better go and do your hair, as differently from that day as possible, and then go down to the salon—and don’t talk to the staff; I do not want them implicated in this.’
Lina opened her mouth to argue, to somehow make him understand. But Quinn was already unbuttoning his waistcoat with one hand and yanking at his neckcloth with the other. She gave up the attempt and left.
Trimble blinked at her as she descended the stairs and Michael frankly goggled before he got his face back under control. Tight-lipped, Lina swept into the salon and sat down, trying to understand what Quinn was doing.
He did not believe her and yet he had not handed her over to Inchbold. Why not? She fought the urge to get up and pace like a caged cat and told herself that she had to trust in Quinn. He was not cruel, she knew him well enough now to believe that. Her safety depended on a man who felt angry and betrayed, and with good reason, and on her own ability to hold her nerve and act in a way that was utterly alien to her.
You are observant and intelligent, she told herself. Think about those women, think about what the girls taught you of flirtation. Become a courtesan in your head.
When Quinn entered the room she got to her feet with a smile and went to him. ‘How handsome you look tonight,’ she said, looking up at him from beneath her candle-black thickened lashes. She laid her right hand on his forearm, stroking along the thick green silk of his coat. ‘Inchbold will never have seen anything like it.’
Quinn turned to walk with her back to the sofa and the long skirts of the coat parted for a moment. There was a dagger in the sash that cinched tightly around
his waist. Lina glanced down and saw the small knife he always wore in his boot was still there and as she bumped against his side she felt the bulk of a pistol.
‘You are armed?’
‘Yes. The woman you are playing would have made a suggestive remark at this point, complimenting me on my magnificent weaponry,’ he added.