by Mia Marlowe
A few more heartbeats trudged by and Quinn realized he was holding his breath.
“Why?” she finally said.
“For the reason I just mentioned. To protect your reputation.” Quinn dragged a hand through his hair. “Weren’t you attending?”
She looked away from him and furiously rearranged the folds of the gown again. “If you hope for a positive response to your suit, it might behoove you to be less snippy.”
He took heart at that. At least she was sounding more like her gingery self.
“I’m not snippy, I’m . . . oh, Viola, I know I’m not doing this well, but—”
“That’s not the issue, Quinn. I’m not the sort who needs fair words if that’s what you’re worried about. But you still haven’t answered my question.” She stopped fiddling with the gown and fixed him with a stare. “Why would you want to marry me?”
“Do women usually ask that question of the man who proposes to them?”
“I don’t know. I suppose they do if they want to know the answer.” She fisted her hands at her waist. “I bring you no dowry. I was no virgin when we met. We’ve known each other less than a fortnight and the main reason for our association in the first place is because I intended to steal from you. So I’m asking, Quinn.” Her arms relaxed at her sides as some of the fight seemed to sizzle out of her. “Why do you want to marry me?”
He walked around the bed and put his arms around her. She stiffened in his embrace and turned her head away. He took her chin and forced her to look up at him.
“Because I think . . .”
Her stony gaze spilled a bit of wind from his sails.
“It’s quite likely that . . . that I may . . . possibly . . . love you.”
He bent to kiss her, but she covered his mouth with her palm to stop him. “Possibly is not good enough.”
She pulled away from him and returned to the sitting room.
He followed. “I do love you.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, Quinn. Don’t start treating me as if I haven’t a brain in my head. There may be nothing else between us, but I deserve at least that much respect.”
“There’s plenty between us and you know it. What about last night—hell, what about this morning?”
“Do I really need to explain to you that sexual congress is not the same as love?”
“Viola, I—”
“No, stop it, Quinn. We barely know each other.”
After the toe-curling things she’d done to him and with him, how could she say that? It might not be love, but it was something. He knew the shiver of her sighs, the way her brows drew together in need just before she came, the way her eyes darkened when she wanted him. “I know you better than you think.”
“It only seems that way, but you really don’t.” She stopped pacing and went still as a hare. “And I don’t know you.”
“You know me better than most.”
“You have secrets, Quinn. No doubt you shield them with good reason.” She looked sharply at him, but her eyes went strangely out of focus and he got the eerie feeling she was looking right through him. “We barely know each other in mundane matters as well. For example, do you even know if I have any siblings?”
“I know you have no brothers.” That was easy since if she had one, her brother would have inherited her father’s earldom and would have provided for her as her cousin had not. “And I believe you mentioned a sister.”
Her brows shot up in surprise. Score one for a man who listened when a woman spoke.
“Yes, but do you know she’s a lunatic? When her husband ran off with an opera dancer, Ophelia went completely off her head. That sort of thing runs in families, I’m told. Why would you want to run the risk of—”
“You are not your sister.”
“And you’re not your brother,” she fired back. “You haven’t told me anything about him. Why is that?”
“There’s not much to tell,” he said uneasily. “Reggie died when we were children.”
“How did he die?”
Sweet Christ, why did she ask that? “It was . . . an accident.”
“What kind of accident?” she asked, white-lipped.
“The accidental kind.” An invisible fist squeezed his heart and for a blink he thought he smelled a whiff of the algaescummed lake.
“Your brother’s death changed your life forever. Tell me about it.” Tell me, Quinn. Oh, God, please tell me I’m wrong. Give me anything that will make sense of the vision. Anything but what I think I saw.
Her belly writhed like a bucketful of eels. She wanted so badly for him to say something—anything—to wipe away the image that burned in her mind. She realized she’d likely believe him if he lied, simply because she wanted so desperately for the vision not to be true.
She waited, suspended between heaven and hell, barely able to draw breath.
“It happened so long ago. There’s . . . nothing to tell really,” he finally said. “I fail to see what this has to do with my proposal of marriage.”
Her last bit of hope wilted.
“Quinn, if you cannot speak to me of something that must have been a major event in your life,” she said softly, because she had hardly any air to put behind her voice, “there is obviously very little you have to say to me. I will not have a marriage full of deadly silence.”
“It’s not that.” He grimaced with frustration. “You’ve twisted things all around. I’m offering you marriage because I can see that I’ve created difficulties for you and I want to help you avoid scandal.”
“Not a very solid foundation for matrimony. Nor a very flattering one.”
“Then let me offer a practical reason for us to marry,” Quinn said coldly. “We were careless. You may very well be carrying my child.”
“That’s possible.” Neville had withdrawn the one time they were intimate. She had no idea if she were the sort of woman who quickened easily. “I would not force a child to bear the stain of bastardy. If I find I am increasing, perhaps we’ll discuss this matter again.”
Her belly churned uneasily. Were there really any circumstances in which she could marry a man who’d murdered his brother?
He narrowed his eyes at her. “What changed you toward me, Viola? Between breakfast and now, I hardly recognize you. It’s as if you’re a different person.”
No, she thought with a leaden heart. She was the same. He was the one who was different. Unnatural. Damaged.
But why couldn’t she stop caring for him? Why did he still make her body thrum with his nearness?
Perhaps Quinn wasn’t the only damaged one in the room.
“Then you prove my point,” she said, wishing she didn’t see something like hurt in his gray eyes. “You don’t know me as well as you thought.”
The latch of the door rattled.
“Oh, there’s Sanjay with tea.” She bustled over to hold the door for him, relief at his interruption washing over her. If Sanjay didn’t know about Quinn’s brother, perhaps he’d prove a useful ally when she found a chance to escape. He might even protect her from Willie if she flattered him properly. “Quinn, pull up an extra chair for His Highness. Surely he’ll join us for tea. You will? Oh, good. Now I want to hear all about Amjerat.”
CHAPTER 15
Quinn had never felt less like dancing, but he was obligated to circulate throughout the embassy ballroom. He collected the partner he’d been assigned to before the upbow for each new piece of music. He shuffled each lady around the floor in the prescribed pattern of steps, then thanked her politely and took his leave before she could initiate conversation.
How could he make small talk with strangers when the only woman he wanted to talk to wouldn’t hear him?
He’d tried to engage Viola in another discussion about his proposal after Sanjay had left them yesterday, but she’d deflected him at every turn.
And rejected him utterly when the time came to seek their bed. She complained the violent headache she’d suffered was threat
ening to return. He offered only to hold her till the weakness passed, but she said she couldn’t bear to disturb him in the night with her restlessness.
So he scrunched himself into a pretzel shape and bivouacked on the diminutive sofa in their suite.
He’d slept on rocky ground with the breath of the Himalayas sweeping over him with more cheer.
It was one thing for Viola to reject his suit. It was another for her to be so changed toward him. After a night of earth-shattering passion, he had no idea what he’d done to deserve this . . . shunning.
His gaze followed her about the dance floor. Nimble and light, she was like a faery queen gliding among mere mortals. Spellbinding and unobtainable.
A new adornment sparkled on her wrist. Sanjay had brought her a silver and jet bracelet and connected ring just before they left for the ball. The delicate fancy draped over the back of her upraised right hand, a net of black stars descending from the base of her middle finger and expanding around her hand.
“It belongs to my favorite wife,” Sanjay had confided. “She sent it with me because jet and silver have protective properties. Since you will shortly handle Baaghh kaa kkhuun, you are in more need of its shield than I. I beg you to wear it this evening, Lady Viola.”
As she slid it on over her long opera gloves, she’d smiled at Sanjay. “Somehow, I don’t think it would have fit your finger.”
He grinned wickedly back at her. “No indeed. Fatima wanted me to drape it over another part of my body to protect me while I sleep. Alas it will not fit there, either.”
They’d shared a laugh and Quinn found himself on the outside of their little circle of two, a street urchin pressing his nose against a bakery windowpane. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what he’d done to fall so far from her good graces. Why did Viola favor Sanjay with her smiles and hold herself so guarded with him?
“My dear boy, you forgot to collect me for this gavotte.” Lady Wimbly’s warbling tone interrupted his thoughts. She swatted his shoulder with her closed fan. “Mooning about after one’s own wife is not at all the done thing, you know.”
“My apologies, Lady Wimbly. In my defense, we have not been married long.”
She chuckled indulgently. “Maintain the same level of attentiveness to your bride after you have been married long and you shall show true quality, young Ashford.”
“Excellent advice. We’ve only missed a few bars.” He held out his arms. “Shall we?”
“No, my bunions are simply beastly this night. Let us sit this one out and you can keep an old woman company. It’ll be amusing to keep count of how many times my Wimbly steps on your young wife’s toes.”
Without giving him an opportunity to decline, she took his arm and led him from the dance floor.
Viola watched Quinn from the corner of her eye. Why did he have to be so damnably handsome? Her chest ached at the sight of him. She missed a step and nearly stumbled.
“Careful, madam.” Lord Wimbly held her up with a tight grip. The old gentleman was a pleasant dancer. Viola much preferred him to some of the other gentlemen who couldn’t keep from staring at her décolletage as they twirled her about the floor.
She was also pleased to discover he was an amiable fellow when his wife wasn’t about to monopolize the conversation. And without Lady Wimbly around, his hearing seemed to improve. It occurred to her that as lord of the neighboring estate, he would have known Quinn from a young age. Perhaps he could shed light on Quinn’s brother’s accident.
“You’ve known my husband for a long time, I collect,” she said as they dipped in a bow and answering curtsy.
“All his life. Many’s the time I chased the young scallywag out of my orchard. Him and his brother both.”
“So you knew Reginald, too?”
“Oh, yes. A good boy, that one. A gentle boy, you understand. One got the sense that he was sickly often, him being smaller than his younger brother, you know.” He narrowed his eyes and Viola suspected he gazed into the past. “Why, Greydon topped him by almost a head that last summer even though he was a couple years the younger.”
Viola’s heart sank to her toes. Quinn’s brother was smaller than he. Weaker. Vulnerable. It made what she’d seen even more hideous somehow.
“Their father, Lord Kilmaine, often said those two were born out of order. Greydon ought to have been the elder by rights. He was always the stronger and the one in the lead. Leastwise, he was when they pilfered my garden.” Lord Wimbly laughed good-naturedly. “Poor Reggie was a bitter disappointment to Kilmaine. I suppose if Reginald had been a second son, he might have been more acceptable. He’d have made a good scholar or a vicar, perhaps.”
“And then he died.”
“Ah, yes, sad business that.” Wimbly led her through the gavotte steps without conscious effort. He was evidently used to squeezing his gossip into his dancing time. “And sad for your husband most of all, for he was there, you understand.”
“Quinn is not one to dwell on the past.”
“Oh, yes. Quite sensible, what?”
He seemed to think she’d given him a signal to stop talking about the topic, so she gave him a gentle nudge. “I’d rather not bring up such a painful subject with my husband. Would you tell me what happened?”
“All my information is secondhand, but it came straight from Lord Kilmaine, so you may rely upon it. Seems Greydon had been teaching Reggie how to swim. He was always very protective of his brother, you know. Lord Kilmaine could be . . . harsh. Never seemed to bother Greydon though. Stoic as a Swede, that one. But Reggie took it very much to heart.”
Lord Wimbly turned his lips inward for a moment as if he’d said too much. “Well, a man has to be firm with sons, doesn’t he? Spare the rod and spoil the child and all that. Can’t mollycoddle one’s heir, can one?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Of course not. At any rate, Greydon left his brother at the lakeside and went to fetch their father, so Lord Kilmaine could see how well Reggie was progressing. When they arrived back at the dock, Reggie was in the water by himself and going down for the third time.”
“Quinn’s father was there?” She hadn’t seen an adult in her vision at all. Only Quinn running along the dock as fast as his young legs could carry him.
“Told me himself, poor man. Beastly business.”
If Reggie hadn’t seen his father, that would explain why Viola hadn’t. The vision was unlike the other visions she’d received from gemstones. Usually, she watched a scene from a detached, almost godlike space. This Sending had pulled her into the frantic mind of a dying child. She was bound to have missed a few details.
But wouldn’t Reggie have noticed his father’s presence? Especially since it seemed he was desperate for Lord Kilmaine’s approval.
“Quinn jumped in and pulled his brother out,” Lord Wimbly said.
That wasn’t true. At least not according to what she’d Seen. Quinn had leaned over from the safety of the dock and reached for his brother.
“But by then, it was too late.”
A hand had closed over Reggie’s crown and held him down till he spewed the last of his hoarded breath. Viola’s belly churned afresh.
The last strains of the gavotte faded. She dipped a low curtsy while Lord Wimbly sketched a florid bow that belonged to the previous century.
“And now give me your hand, my dear—Gracious me! You’re pale as a sheet! We shall rescue your husband from the clutches of my wife and find a place for you to sit. I see she has him cornered near the punchbowl.” Lord Wimbly led Viola off the dance floor as the string quartet set aside their instruments for a quarter hour break. “She means well, but honestly, my Euphegenia could talk the ears off a donkey.”
“There you are, my love.” Quinn bussed his lips over her temple as she drew near. He frowned at her with concern. “You look rather blown. Would you like some fresh air?”
It was the signal they’d agreed upon and her pallor at least made his statement plausible
. The embassy ballroom was on the topmost floor of the building. A few rooms on the second story had balconies open to the night. It would provide the perfect excuse to venture down the long staircase.
The ambassador’s office happened to be on that level as well.
“That would be lovely, thank you.” Viola took Quinn’s offered arm and excused herself from the Wimblys. Once clear of the ballroom, she dropped his arm and picked up the pace. The fabric of her gown swished with each step. Oh, how she wished she was wearing her male attire. It was ever so much more conducive to speed and stealth.
“Steady on,” Quinn said, grasping her elbow as she reached a broad landing on the marble staircase. “We aren’t in a race. Are you all right?”
“I’ll do”—she tried to shake off the lingering memories of her vision of the lake—“but we need to move with purpose.”
“Not necessarily. If we’re noticed wandering about, we need to appear casual, not driven.”
“But if we are quick, we have less chance of being noticed at all,” she whispered furiously. “I don’t know how long the lock will take. The more time we waste in the hall, the less time I’ll have to work the tumbler.”
When they neared the second floor, Quinn brought a finger to his lips and slowed their descent. He glanced around the corner, checking the hallway for guards.
He took her hand and led her down the dim corridor. Only one in three of the gas wall sconces were burning to discourage unwelcome visitors. When they rounded a corner, Viola caught a whiff of tobacco.
A guard.
Quinn grabbed her and pressed her against the wall.
“What are—”
“Kiss me,” he ordered and his mouth descended to cover hers.
Viola expected the knowledge that he had done murder to alter her perception of Quinn, but he tasted the same. When his tongue demanded entrance, her lips parted for him. He groaned into her mouth. Wet suction bound them together in a kiss tinged with desperation.
She wrapped her arms around him, stroking his back. His grip on her waist tightened and his body pressed against hers, his hardness making her soften even more.
