In the past sennight, Quinn had come to know Belle quite well. The woman she’d become was simply amazing.
And one in desperate need of his help.
He reached into his jacket breast pocket and withdrew several bank notes. “I want to hire you, Bartleby.”
The sight of the blunt instantly sobered him. “As I said, sir, I cannot help with—”
“To find a legal loophole in that clause you helped Lord Ainsley write into his will.”
His face paled, but his eyes stayed on the money. “’Fraid it cannot be undone. I wrote it to avoid all loopholes.”
“Divorce,” Quinn bit out.
The man blinked. “Pardon?”
“Divorce is a loophole, isn’t it? If Belle marries a man who agrees to not protest a divorce and contracts the estate into her dower.”
“Well…I…” For once, the solicitor was at a loss for words. “I cannot imagine anyone who would willingly…And—and then the Church, of course…”
“But it is possible,” Quinton pressed. “And she would get to keep Glenarvon.”
Bartleby paled. “Yes, I suppose she would.”
“If that loophole exists, then there must be others.” Quinn placed half the notes onto the middle of the cluttered desk. “Find one.”
“I—I cannot guarantee anything,” he stammered out. “In fact, I doubt I can find—”
“But I’m sure you’ll try.” He set another note on top the stack. “Hard.”
“Of course, sir.”
Quinn nodded toward the money. “Failing that,” he added, putting down another note, “then I want you to find out how to go about buying the estate back from the Church. Who will be responsible for assuming responsibility for it.” Another note. “And how to go about approaching the man to purchase it.” One last note. “Understand?”
“Very well, sir.”
Quinn had no doubt that he did. But as he settled back in his chair and began to return the remaining notes to his jacket pocket, a new concern struck him. “It’s my understanding that Lord Ainsley put in that marriage stipulation in order to protect Annabelle from her father.”
The man hesitated. “From Marcus Greene, yes.”
“Find him.” He placed one last note onto the stack. “I want to know where he is.” The very last thing Belle needed right then was for her father to arrive on Glenarvon’s doorstep and cause even more problems for her.
“Yes, sir.” Bartleby reached for the stack of blunt.
Quinn raised his glass to his lips. He wasn’t any more optimistic about finding a solution now than when he’d stalked out of Glenarvon. But at least now the cogs were in motion. And when it came to Annabelle, he would take his victories wherever he could get them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
One Short Week Later
(Only Two Weeks Until Belle’s Birthday)
Belle stepped out of the predawn shadows at the edge of the pond and breathed a long sigh, expelling all the pent-up tension she’d carried on her shoulders for the past two weeks.
Since Quinn and Robert arrived, she hadn’t been able to sneak away for her usual evening swims, instead having to remain at the house to help Lady Ainsley with hostess duties before dinner. So after yet another restless night, when there was no point in lying in bed any longer and trying for sleep that wouldn’t come, she’d decided to selfishly enjoy the peace and quiet of a dawn swim before her day began. Before she had to face Lady Ainsley’s plans to marry her off. Before she had to deal with all the estate’s ongoing problems.
And before she had to suffer the continuous exasperation that was Quinton Carlisle.
Despite Lady Ainsley’s close watch, the audition process for future husbands—and truly, wasn’t that what it had turned into?—was off to a less than auspicious start. After the first week, the score was Gentlemen Callers 2, Carlisle Brothers 28. Quinton was resolved to protect her, yet as equally resolved to never marrying her himself. And they had yet to find a way for her to keep Glenarvon except through marriage.
Her only consolation was knowing that Glenarvon would be hers and that she would never have to leave her home. Instead of being relieved, though, she felt trapped.
She removed her half boots and stockings, then walked to the edge of the pond to dip a bare toe hesitantly into the water to test it. A weary sigh escaped her. If only she could test the temperature of men this way, how much easier her life would be!
She reached behind her back to unfasten her dress—
“So you ventured out of the library,” a deep voice drawled behind her. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
Quinton. She rolled her eyes. Of all the people to interfere with her one moment of solitude…“Books don’t sneak up on people uninvited,” she threw back pointedly.
He gave her a half smile as he walked down the sloping bank toward her. “Then invite me to swim with you.”
She shot him her best ice-cold glare, knowing the answer before she even asked. “Will you behave yourself?”
His smile blossomed into a full-out grin. “Have I ever?”
“No,” she answered earnestly and reached again for the back of her dress. “So you’d better go back to the house.” She’d come here for a swim, and she wasn’t going to let him stop her from taking this bit of solace. “After all,” she muttered dryly, “you have a herd of husbands to prepare for.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you gave up this notion of marriage.”
“You’re right,” she agreed with a heavy sigh. Her fingers worked free the half dozen buttons down her back. “You’re not behaving yourself.”
“Then I’ll keep misbehaving until you come to your senses.”
“What other choice do I have?” she challenged. “You’d rather I remain unmarried and lose Glenarvon?”
“I’d rather you be happy.” His voice was quiet on the morning air, curling around her in the blue-gray shadows with its sudden seriousness. “Wherever you live.”
Her throat tightened with emotion. “Now you’re playing dirty.”
Widening his stance, he crossed his arms over his chest, in his best impersonation of an unmovable mountain. “Whatever it takes, Annabelle.”
Her shoulders sagged as the suffocating frustration she’d been living under once more settled over her. The moment of peace she’d hoped to have vanished like the morning fog. “I don’t want to argue about this anymore.” Shaking her head, she freed the last button and let her bodice sag loose. “So unless you’ve found a way out of this for me, there’s nothing more to talk about.”
She pulled down her sleeves, the bodice dropping around her waist and leaving her modestly covered in her stays and shift from the waist up.
His eyes flared, and his voice grew uncharacteristically hoarse as he demanded, “What are you doing?”
She paused, and beneath the curious warmth of his attention, a knot of nervousness tied in her stomach. But something deep inside her thrilled to it, too, that she’d caught him by surprise and inverted whatever bluestocking—and false—notions he held about her. She might be forced into marriage, but she certainly wasn’t a mouse. And she’d never wanted to prove that to anyone more than she did at that moment to Quinton.
She forced down her rising nervousness and casually shrugged a shoulder. As if she removed her clothes in front of men all the time. “Undressing.” And hoping to make you leave.
But when he didn’t move, she gathered her courage, resigned what little dignity she had left, and dropped her dress to the grass around her bare feet.
“Annabelle, stop.” He ran a shaking hand through his blond hair and looked away.
He was…nervous? She gave a soft laugh of disbelief. “I’m surprised that you’re offended by the sight of an undressed woman.”
“I’m not offended,” he assured her. Then, as if to prove it, he let his gaze travel languidly over her. Everywhere he looked, heat prickled over her skin. “Quite the opposite, in fact,” he murmured, and she fel
t a ribbon of heat slowly thread itself through her, from her breasts down to between her legs. “I’m only concerned about your reputation.”
She laughed at the absurdity of that. Her life as she’d known it was ending, and he was worried about her reputation? Not one of the gentlemen calling on her cared whether she behaved properly, not as long as Glenarvon remained in her dowry. It would take more than getting caught taking a morning swim—even a naked one—to run them off. “My reputation be damned!”
Not caring if she’d shocked him with her outburst—good if he was!—she untied the front lacings of her stays and let them fall away to join the dress at her feet. Lifting her chin in defiance, she reached her hand up to the shoulder of the shift, preparing to push it down and remove even that last bit of clothing if she had to in order to chase him away…although she sent up a silent prayer that she wouldn’t have to. Not in front of those blue eyes which now stared at her as hungrily as a tiger contemplating the best way to devour a gazelle.
“I’m going swimming, just as I always do. So go away if it bothers you.” Her fingers trembled as they slipped daringly beneath the neckline of her shift. “If not, then…”
He crooked a brow at that, and she could read on his face the question of whether she was about to issue an invitation to join her for her swim. Oh, she should do just that! It would serve him right to have all his preconceived ideas about her destroyed.
She would enjoy it, too. God help her, even now her heart raced beneath his intense gaze, staring at her with such obvious arousal that she shivered from the heat of him. To have the full attention of a man like him on her, to know that he wanted her as much as he’d wanted those London ladies with their Parisian silks and well-practiced flirtations—
And destroy what little dignity she had left.
No matter how tempting, she wasn’t ready yet to go quite that far. She still had her pride, albeit a dwindling amount of it each unmarried day that drew nearer to her birthday, and she wasn’t willing to cast it aside. Not even for Quinton Carlisle.
“Then turn around,” she finished, her shoulders sagging.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, he turned his back to her and looked instead at the cover of thick bushes and trees surrounding the pond.
She slipped out of her shift and dived quickly into the pond, the cold water engulfing her heated body and quenching the fires he’d started beneath her skin. With her quiet strokes through the water rippling the mirror-like surface, she swam out several yards as she always did, to that place where she could just barely reach the bottom of the pond with her toes and the water cooled up to her neck.
He turned around then to watch her.
“You should leave now,” she told him, her voice quiet on the soft morning air.
He shook his head. “I’m staying until your birthday.”
That wasn’t what she meant, but her belly tightened into a knot of gratitude just the same. Quinn was irritating and bothersome, but he was also her ally. Of a sort.
“My wedding, you mean,” she corrected, hiding the bitterness in her voice by dipping beneath the surface, then rising to smooth back her wet hair.
“Your birthday,” he countered firmly, “by which time we’ll have discovered a way for you to keep Glenarvon without having to marry.”
The conviction behind his words showed her in spades how much he’d matured since the last time she’d seen him. The brash man she remembered who thought he could prove his manliness by cutting a swathe through London by drinking, fighting, and bedding every merry widow who smiled at him was gone, and in his place stood a man of resolve and ambition.
She stared at him through droplets of water clinging to her lashes. It wasn’t hope that now warmed her belly and tickled at the backs of her knees. But something just as good.
He bent down to yank off his boot and dropped it to the grass beside her discarded dress.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, a prickling unease rising inside her.
He reached for the second boot. “Going for a swim.”
“But you can’t!” she protested with a soft gasp. “It’s scandalous!”
He sent her a lazy grin. “My reputation be damned,” he repeated, throwing her words back at her as he unbuttoned his waistcoat.
Fuming to hide the rush of nervousness, she slapped her hand on the water’s surface. “Don’t you dare!”
Ignoring her, he shrugged away his waistcoat and let it fall to the ground.
“Fine,” she bit out, forcing herself not to care that he was undressing. Not one whit! “When we’re found together like this, you’ll be forced to marry me after all, and all my problems will be solved.”
He drawled in a deep voice that wound a ribbon of heat all around her, even in the cold water, “Have to be caught together first.” He pulled off his neck cloth and let it trail away to the ground. His eyes locked with hers across the surface of the pond. “And I don’t see anyone in sight to catch us, do you?”
Anger flared through her. “You scoundrel!”
His only reply was a slow, wolfish grin.
She slammed her mouth closed. Oh, this was all her fault! She should never have agreed to let him help her find a husband, should never have proposed to him—she was mad to have thought of it, madder still to think she could trust him.
Yet when he stripped his shirt off over his head, she watched shamelessly. Her eyes traced over the hard muscles of his shoulders and along the trail of golden hair that dusted his chest and down across the ripples of his stomach, to disappear at his—oh my.
Working on the estate, she’d seen many shirtless men before, but never one who looked as mesmerizing as Quinton. Not just muscles, not just the golden look of him in the fading shadows, but all of him drew her, exactly as he had six years ago for that kiss beneath the roses. Exactly as he had last week among the ruins for something far more than only a kiss. And just as he did now, despite her knowing better.
With a crook of his brow, he silently dared her to keep watching as he reached for the fall of his trousers. Her breath caught in her throat at his audacity, but a throbbing blend of tempting curiosity and tingling excitement jolted through her as she watched him loosen the first button—
Dear God, what was she doing? With a gasp, she spun around and squeezed her eyes shut.
His laughter rang out across the quiet dawn. Humiliated anger burned in her cheeks. Oh, blast him, blast him, blast him! God had never created a more antagonizing creature.
A loud splash echoed against the trees as he dove into the water. She didn’t dare turn to look, no matter how much she wanted to. Her heart pounded furiously at the soft splashing as he swam up behind her.
All kinds of sensations swirled through her at knowing he was standing right behind her in the water, as naked as she was…nervousness tinged with excited anticipation, an electric giddiness that left her light-headed, a craving to be kissed and knowing that if he slipped his arms around her, she wouldn’t refuse. But not one of those emotions was embarrassment. Having him here with her like this, surrounded by the stillness of the pond and the blue mountains rising in the distance as the shadows of night faded into the golden hues of sunrise, felt right.
“Lucifer’s balls, it’s cold!”
She bit her lip to keep from laughing.
“Good God!” he exclaimed. “How can you stand this?”
She looked at him over her shoulder, a sly smile playing at her lips. “Can’t handle a little cool water?”
“Cool water?” He grumbled, “There’s an ice flow near the bushes!”
“Southerner,” she mocked, fighting back a laugh.
He chuckled, the deep sound rippling to her through the water and tickling at her bare back. “If you can stand it,” he declared, although his voice lacked conviction, “then I can stand it.”
And also standing awfully close for a naked man. But she didn’t have the willpower to step away. Not with the way her heart raced at having hi
m so close. It was wholly improper, downright scandalous…and too thrilling to stop.
“Don’t worry,” she teased, despite her nervousness. For once she’d turned the tables on him and was enjoying it immensely. “I’ll let you know when your lips turn blue.”
“Well then.” He drawled playfully as he stepped forward and slipped his arms around her waist beneath the water, “How can any man resist such a welcoming invitation as that?”
She gasped at the unexpected contact, sucking in a deep breath. His mouth lowered against her bare shoulder.
“Mmm…mermaid,” he mumbled against her skin. “My favorite kind of seafood.”
She laughed. Quinn was always a charmer, even when wet up to his ears.
Then his mouth brushed back and forth across her shoulder, sending her heart pounding as he took increasingly bolder kisses.
She tensed in his arms. The playful teasing between them had instantly changed. An electric throbbing blossomed between her legs when he brushed her wet hair aside to nibble at the back of her neck. When his hands spread out across her belly, heat flared through her and curled her toes into the mud at the bottom of the pond.
He took another step forward until his body pressed against hers. Her back rested against his bare chest, and her bottom nestled against his…oh my.
“Annabelle,” he murmured as his hand slid over her hip.
Beneath his caresses, the world and all her problems disappeared, until she no longer cared about anything except the wicked sensation of his warm hands on her water-chilled skin.
Yet she felt compelled to protest, albeit extremely weakly. “Maybe we shouldn’t…”
“Can’t help it,” he admitted in a husky murmur, keeping himself pressed against her. “You’re too tempting.”
She was tempting? Impossible. Yet he didn’t back away, didn’t stop his hand from trailing down her bare leg—
She jumped, startled at the boldness of his touch.
“Relax,” he murmured reassuringly against the back of her neck.
Relax? Was he daft? How on earth was she supposed to relax?
When the Scoundrel Sins Page 15
