Gregor had selected a pleasant, plain, young woman who had an air of discretion and common sense about her. ‘Prudence, ma’am,’ she said, bobbing a curtsy. ‘This way, please, ma’am.’
The bedchamber, after the Gothic eccentricities of Dreycott Park’s furnishings, seemed modern and airy and luxurious. Lina sat before the dressing-table mirror patting rice powder into her cheeks and touching up tiny smudges of candle black under her eyes while Prudence dealt with loose hair pins. Lina wondered what the girl thought of serving someone who was all too obviously the paramour of her master.
They drank tea in the elegant drawing room, the men exchanging news about business matters, some new publications, domestic trivia that Gregor had dealt with. He was discreet about how he had spent his time otherwise, Lina noticed, although she suspected he would be less inhibited when she was absent.
‘Berkeley Square,’ Quinn said, grounding his tea cup. ‘You would like an ice at Gunter’s, I am sure, Celina.’
And if I said no, I would find myself there anyway, Lina thought, not sure whether to be amused or irritated. The men escorted her punctiliously, leaving her feeling rather like a small prisoner between two large, if unlikely, jailers. She kept her head down, expecting a Bow Street Runner to jump out at any moment and point an accusing finger at her.
‘Nervous?’ Quinn asked as they paused at the kerb, waiting to cross Bond Street.
‘No…yes. Yes, I am,’ Lina admitted.
‘Well, stop looking as though you have something to hide or are going to faint with nerves,’ he said. ‘You are behaving like a girl about to make her come-out dithering on the edge of the dance floor. Remember, you are my mistress and act like it.’
‘But I am not, am I?’ she shot back. ‘So it is quite hard to imagine the role. But I will do my best to act as brazenly as you would wish.’ Gregor, she saw, was biting the inside of his cheek, presumably in an effort not to laugh. What had Quinn told him in the time she had been upstairs? They were as close as brothers—did that mean they shared everything, even her intimate secrets?
Lina tightened her grip on Quinn’s arm, put up her chin and looked around her with frank, defiant, curiosity. In some ways, that was easy to do; she had never ventured this far into the exclusive world of Mayfair and in such a fashionable lounge as Bond Street there was the chance of seeing almost any member of the haut ton, including the Prince Regent.
The shops were dazzling. Lina saw Savory and Moore, where her aunt obtained the fine milled soap she insisted on using at The Blue Door. ‘I would like to go in there, one day,’ she said, slowing down, then saw the advertisement in the bow window: Newly arrived, the renowned Seidlitz Powders, exclusively to be had of Savory and Moore. An infallible cure for every digestive distress or obstruction. Or perhaps not, certainly with a masculine escort.
Quinn turned into Bruton Street. ‘We must certainly shop. You have your image as an expensive ladybird to establish.’
By the time they emerged into Berkeley Square Lina was feeling thoroughly out of charity with Quinn. Ever since they had arrived he had been more autocratic and less sympathetic. Perhaps the full enormity of the problem had only dawned on him as they reached London, or perhaps he was simply regretting taking up her cause. I am a fool to love you, she thought, deliberately pouting at him before batting her eyelashes at a passing gentleman. The young man smiled and slowed, then focused on her formidable escort and hurried past.
It was easy to see where Gunter’s was. Rows of open carriages were drawn up, each with one or more ladies sitting inside, their male escorts leaning against the carriage doors or the railings that enclosed the central rectangle of gardens, while waiters in huge white aprons hurried back and forth with trays laden with ices and sorbets.
‘We will sit under the plane trees, not being in possession of the requisite fashionable carriage,’ Quinn said, walking through the gate. ‘What would you like, Celina? An ice or a sorbet?’
‘Lemon ice, please.’ She unfurled her parasol and stared around while Gregor went to place their order. ‘What is wrong, Quinn?’
‘Nothing,’ he said and smiled. Lina blinked. No, nothing was wrong, he was simply vibrating like a tuning fork with concentration and excitement, tightly reined. He was enjoying this, the danger, the challenge, and his sharpness with her was like the orders of an officer just before battle. She was one of his troops and he wanted her obeying commands and with all her weapons in perfect order. She wondered if he had forgiven her for her lies; she suspected not, but it did not seem to spoil his enjoyment of the fight now they were in it.
Gregor came back, a waiter at his heels. When they were seated, with no-one within hearing, he said, ‘Now, tell me what this is all about, my friend. You give me mysterious instructions, send me to an expensive brothel—I do not complain of that, you understand—and now Miss Celina arrives looking delightful, but not quite as a respectable jeune femme should and with an air as though the devil is after her.’
‘Quinn, if we tell Gregor, then we are implicating him, too,’ Lina said. ‘I should have thought of that.’
‘Indeed. Gregor, do you object to being made an accessory to a capital crime?’
‘Who committed it?’ the Russian asked. ‘You have murdered your husband, Celina? Did he deserve it?’
‘I do not have a husband and I have not done anything wrong. At least,’ she corrected with scrupulous care, ‘I have not committed any capital crimes. I am unjustly accused of one.’
‘Of course. So tell me. I think we are here to prove you innocent, no?’
‘Yes, but if we fail, then you and Quinn will have been seen to help me.’
‘So? There are many other countries in the world where I can live, quite happily. Tell me.’
She should not be happy that yet another innocent person had become embroiled in her troubles, she knew, but the thought that Gregor’s formidable presence would be at Quinn’s back made her feel much safer for both of them.
‘Celina lives at that brothel I sent you to,’ Quinn said. Lina waited for the change in Gregor’s expression. He would think less of her, she knew, treat her differently. But he just nodded and settled to listen as Quinn told the story, including the events as she had described them in her notes. Although he did not spell it out, she knew the Russian would be quite clear that she had gone to Tolhurst’s house deliberately to sell her virginity.
I will not behave as though I am ashamed, she thought. I have nothing to be ashamed of. Except lying to Quinn, embroiling him in this, not telling him I was a virgin and falling in love with him, her conscience reminded her. She made herself concentrate on what Quinn was saying.
‘We need to talk to Celina’s aunt, Madam Deverill, and discover what she has been able to find out and what she has done to clear Celina’s name. She may still be too sick to have done anything—did you see her when you were there?’
‘I did. A lady of great personality,’ Gregor said. ‘In her day, which was not so very long ago, I think, she would have been one who wove magic—an enchantress.’