But now he certainly appeared well able to resist whatever it was about her that had so aroused him when he thought to make her his mistress.
Of course he could. She had lied and had put him in a position where he had to lie, too, or betray her. And then she had let him make love to her believing she was a woman of experience, a woman who had been married. Instead he finds himself deflowering a virgin and that obviously outraged his honour even more than the lying. It is a good thing I was already ruined by my association with The Blue Door or he might have felt honour bound to—to marry me?
Oh, yes, that is likely, Lina mocked herself. It was better to jeer at the thought than to take it seriously, even for a moment, for the pain of dreaming was just too great. The daughter of an obscure country vicar marrying a baron? Even if she had been utterly respectable, it was highly unlikely. But now, she was quite impossible. Quinn had enough of a problem with his own reputation and retrieving that, without involving himself with her. He would need to make a careful, well-judged, marriage to someone of the utmost respectability who would not mind when he took himself off on his travels for months at a time.
‘Don’t sigh,’ he said without looking up. ‘You must not get despondent or you will lose your will to fight and you need every drop of that.’
‘I’m not despondent, exactly,’ Lina said. ‘But how is getting into The Blue Door going to help?’
‘One thing at a time.’ Quinn tapped his teeth with his pencil and frowned at her notes. ‘You told your aunt that you could not recall whether Tolhurst had been wearing the ring when you arrived, but now you think he was?’
‘I was in such a state when I got home that I could hardly think straight,’ she admitted. ‘But writing everything down like that, I began to recall. He made me undress and he was… I tried not to look at him but he was taking off his own clothing and I saw a blue flash, which must have been the ring catching the light.’
‘Which side?’
‘The left side. And it was the left hand that Reginald Tolhurst, his son, lifted to feel for a pulse. But I must have been wrong, imagining things, because the ring was not there then. He laid his father’s hand back on his chest and his fingers were in plain sight.’
‘I see. Reginald is not the heir?’
‘No, his elder brother George has inherited. He was away, I think.’
‘Good,’ Quinn said, as though that confirmed something he had been thinking. He folded the papers and set them aside. ‘Do you play chess?’
‘No.’ Lina watched apprehensively as Quinn removed a small box from the valise on the seat beside him and opened it to reveal a travelling chess set. ‘I do not expect I will be any good.’
‘No, Celina.’ Quinn shook his head at her as he put the board on the seat and began to set out the pieces. ‘No defeatist talk. You can do anything. Now, this is a pawn…’
Chapter Fifteen
Chess lessons were one way of taking her mind off her troubles, Lina thought, even if one of those troubles was sitting opposite her maintaining a scrupulous distance and patiently explaining for the fourth time what the difference between a rook and a knight was.
They were in London now, rattling over cobbled streets she did not recognise, working their way south towards Mayfair. Quinn had told her the address: Clifford Street. Not one of the great squares, but a very respectable, obviously fashionable, street running east off Bond Street. Just how wealthy was Quinn? she wondered, eyeing his plain breeches and coat. He had gems and silks, business affairs in Constantinople and now there was the house they were drawing up in front of, which, if it was not rented, had cost him a pretty penny.
‘That is Gregor’s next door.’ Quinn nodded to an identical portico with plastered hood and elaborate ironwork.
‘You both bought one?’
‘Yes. Seemed a good investment,’ he said, helping her down. ‘Now I am going to spend time here, then I will buy more property. London is expanding by the day.’
‘Welcome.’ Gregor stood on the top step of his own house, grinning at them. ‘You have brought me some excitement, just when I was getting bored with London.’ He ran down the steps and joined them on the pavement, his eyebrows lifting comically as he took in Lina’s changed appearance. ‘Madame! A masquerade?’
‘Good afternoon, Gregor.’ She dropped a slight curtsy, making his grin spread wider.
‘No, this is not a masquerade,’ Quinn said and she saw the Russian’s eyes narrow at the edge to the words. ‘Come, we will walk and talk where we cannot be overheard.’
‘I would like to go inside first,’ Lina said. The idea of walking, in broad daylight, without checking that her disguise was intact gave her palpitations. In fact, she was not certain she had the nerve to do it even then.
‘Of course, I should have thought.’ Quinn obviously thought she needed to retire for more intimate reasons.
‘Shall we all go in and have a cup of tea and then go out?’ she suggested and to her relief the men followed her past the butler and through the front door, almost cannoning into her as she stopped dead in the front hall. ‘How wonderful!’
And it was. A lofty hall with a great hanging lantern, a dramatic sweep of stairs with wrought-iron banisters and an array of massive panelled doors. ‘So large and grand.’
‘I am intending to entertain,’ Quinn said, much as he might have announced he was about to declare a small war. Lina cut a sideways glance at him and saw his expression; he looked grimly amused.
Now
what is that about? she wondered as Gregor introduced the new butler, a middle-aged man called Whyte, to Quinn. ‘I’ll speak to the rest of the staff later,’ he was saying. ‘Tea in the drawing room now and please send Miss Haddon’s maid to show her to her room immediately.’