by Louise Allen
‘You’re just doing your job,’ Quinn said, his eyes cold and steady on the other man. ‘I have no quarrel with that. Just so long as you don’t exceed your authority and you know when a trail’s gone dead.’
Inchbold nodded, clearly understanding the message he was being sent. ‘I’ll be off back to London tomorrow, my lord. You’ll not be troubled by us again.’
Quinn waited until the front door shut, then rang for Trimble. ‘Trimble, send Jenks to me, would you? And, if you could intimate to the staff that Miss Haddon’s state of dress and behaviour is in the nature of a masque? The Runner was on a false trail, but it was hard to prove it without some subterfuge. There will be gossip.’
‘We do not listen to gossip, my lord,’ Trimble said loftily. ‘I’ll send for Jenks.’
‘Thank you—’ Lina began, but Quinn held up one hand for silence. ‘Not here.’ He began to walk around closing windows until the groom knocked and came in.
‘There’s two of them, my lord. The other’s been in the village and up along as far as Cromer. Interested in comings and goings here, by all accounts. I’ll have a word with Tomkin and get him and the underkeepers to keep an eye out round the house, shall I, my lord?’
‘Yes, do that. If anyone asks, it is a case of mistaken identity, but there is no need to go out of your way to volunteer anything. Thank you, Jenks, goodnight.’
Quinn was looking at her, Lina realised, pulling herself together. Inchbold had gone, her letter to Aunt Clara had not been intercepted, she could breathe again.
But not, it seemed, for very long. ‘Upstairs, I think,’ Quinn said in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘I do not want to be overheard.’
He held the door for her, allowed her to precede him up the stairs with perfect courtesy and then took her firmly by the elbow, steered her into his bedchamber and turned the key in the look.
‘Now then…’ Quinn put the key in his pocket ‘…did you take that sapphire?’
‘No!’
‘Did you have anything to do with the man’s death?’ He began to undo the knotted-silk buttons down the front of his long tunic.
‘No—I—’ Lina broke off, honesty warring with the desire to just forget every detail. ‘He got very excited. I think he had a stroke. Or a heart seizure.’
‘Did he, indeed?’ Quinn threw the tunic on the chair and began on the shirt buttons. ‘You lied to me.’ His eyes slid over her, cold and detached. ‘I do not like being lied to. You told me you were married and hiding from a husband who abused you.’
‘You guessed that, I did not correct you. I did not think you would believe me if I told you the truth.’
The shirt joined the tunic and Quinn sat down on the end of the bed and began to tug off his boots. ‘Yes, you were in a state, that first night, weren’t you, Celina? Trying on roles until you found the one that fitted. Efficient housekeeper, meek young lady, flirtatious demi-rep.’
She bit her lip. It was difficult to look away from the muscled, bare torso. She had seen him naked, she reminded herself, but that did not help; in fact; it merely inflamed the confused feelings of fear and desire.
‘I must admit, when you settled down to fugitive wife, you did it very well,’ he said with the air of a man awarding praise for style. ‘You chose something that you realised would gain my sympathy. What lies did you tell Simon?’
‘None. I told him the whole truth. He knew my aunt, a long time ago. I think he may have loved her in his way.’
‘And who is your aunt?’ Clad only in his trousers, Quinn stood watching her, his hands on his lean hips, his bare feet flexing slightly in the deep pile of the carpet. She dragged her eyes away from them and up to his face.
‘She is Madam Deverill, the owner of The Blue Door.’
‘Not a pious spinster sewing hassocks, then.’ His face was so expressionless that Lina knew he was furiously angry. ‘She has imprisoned you there? You want to escape from her cruelty?’
‘No, she has been everything that is kind to me, I love her—’ She could not make Aunt Clara out to be the villain of this, even though that would perhaps win his sympathy. But if she could just get a word in, explain about Makepeace—
‘You were under my roof, enjoying my protection. I do not like being made an unwitting accessory to a crime, Celina. Especially not a capital crime. Do I look like a man who would tolerate being lied to? Being forced to lie?’
No, he does not. No wonder he hates lies—look what that girl did to him with her falsehoods. Honesty in a woman must have become a very sensitive thing for him. ‘I told you, I haven’t committed a capital—what are you doing?’ His hands were at the fastenings of his loose trousers.
‘Undressing. We are going to bed.’
‘We? I am not going to bed with you, Quinn.’ She backed towards the door, realised too late it was locked and began to edge towards the pile of discarded clothes. Which pocket did he put the key in?
‘You want to make even more of a liar of me? I told Inchbold that you were my mistress.’ The heavy black silk fell to the floor and Quinn stepped away from it. Naked. Lina closed her eyes, but not before she saw just how aroused he was. This was no overweight middle-aged man, red in the face and groping for her. This was what she had been pretending to herself for days that she did not desire: a fit, handsome, athletic man in his prime. Liquid heat coiled in her belly. Simple, instinctive lust, Lina thought, dizzy with desire.
‘I am sorry,’ she protested. ‘I do not want to be your mistress, I told you.’ Liar, liar.
‘Oh, yes, I recall now. You do not want to be bought, you want to be loved for yourself. Money is so sordid, is it not?’ He had not moved, she realised, listening to his voice, fighting the urge to simply open her arms and give in. And she wanted to give in. Why? Because she desired Quinn, or because she wanted him to go on protecting her and if she became his mistress she was buying that protection?
That was an uncomfortable thought, that she could barter her virginity for a bodyguard. And if I am not a virgin I have no value to Makepeace. Another reason to give in to what she so desired.
Then I will be ruined. But I am ruined now. Or I might get with child—I could ask him to be careful…
‘Tell me, Celina. When I kissed you after dinner, were you hating it? Did you want me to stop? Was I forcing you?’
‘No,’ she admitted, dragged out of her confused thoughts. She could not lie about that. He had known she was responding, known she was aroused.
‘Tell me you do not want me to make love to you and I will open that door. I told you, I do not force women, even ungrateful, lying demi-reps.’
The silence stretched on. She could hear her own breathing, hear the blood rushing in her ears. ‘I…I cannot tell you that.’
She thought she heard him make a sound, a sigh perhaps. ‘This is your profession, Celina. You cannot afford to lose your nerve because of an unfortunate experience with one client. I’m not an overweight old man who needs help to perform and I do not need you to pretend to be a virgin. I would like you to enjoy yourself, too; it is not much fun for me if you do not.
‘But don’t stand there looking like a martyr waiting for the lions to come into the arena. I realise that is what you usually have to do and that you cannot relax and enjoy yourself under those circumstances, but you do not have to gull me into thinking you’re a virgin by screaming the place down and using pigeon’s blood and alum.’
‘I cannot tell you that I do not want you,’ Lina managed to say at last, focusing on the one thing that mattered to her, hardly hearing the cynical words about manufactured virginities. She opened her eyes.
Quinn walked to the pile of clothes and dug in the tunic pocket. ‘Here.’ He came closer and held out the key to her. ‘Take it and then tell me again what you want.’
‘You,’ Lina said baldly, holding out her hand. Quinn laid the key on her open palm, she twisted her wrist and let the key slide to the floor.
‘I warn you,’ Quinn said, c
losing the space between them and laying his hands on her shoulders. ‘I am angry with you, Celina. I am not sure still if I forgive you. I am not in the mood for sweet nothings, for wooing, for games. I need a professional and no frills. You understand me?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Lina lied with no idea what he meant. ‘I am yours.’ She smiled, and felt as though she had stepped from the top of a tall tower into space. She was falling, but there was no terror, only the consciousness that she had made an irrevocable decision.
If I am not afraid, if I don’t show fear, he will not know, surely? she thought. No, that’s another lie. I must tell him.
‘Quinn, you ought to know, it isn’t what you think, I really am—’
‘Later,’ he said, his voice husky as he began to unfasten her gown. ‘Now is not the time for talking.’
‘But—’ And then the gown slid from her shoulders and he bent his head and took her right nipple in his mouth, sucking through the fine lawn of her shift and Lina felt her protest vanish in a gasp as sensation lanced through her from breast to groin. Quinn’s fingers were busy with her laces even as he switched from one aching bud to the other, tormenting, licking, soaking the lawn until it moulded to her breasts.
Her stays fell away and he lifted the chemise and once again she was naked in front of an aroused man. Panic seized her, then she looked up and met his eyes, clear, green, intent, and the fear changed into a quivering apprehension laced with need and desire. Not quite naked, she thought, biting her lip against the wild laughter that was bubbling up, trying to escape. I still have my stockings, my garters, my shoes.
Quinn knelt, took her left foot and eased the soft kid slipper off, then took the other and removed that too. Lina caught her breath as she looked down on the dark head, bent so that the long hair parted, exposing his nape. He looked curiously vulnerable and she touched his head, a feeling of tenderness she had never experienced before sweeping away the shocking urgency of her desire.
This is why women yield, she thought, no longer trying to understand why she was doing this. Expediency, desperation, the need for protection all vanished in the overwhelming need to be touched, to be loved, by this man. Then he leaned in, kissed her right leg above the garter, his hands stroking down over her hips to hold her, and any trace of tenderness melted into the desire.
The bare skin was sensitive where it was constricted by the garter and Quinn’s questing mouth felt scandalously intimate as he licked upwards. Lina groped behind her and found the bed post, seized it gratefully and hung on, waiting for him to stand. But the soft kisses, the wet, luxurious licks, kept travelling higher, higher until she gave a little scream as his tongue flickered into the moist secrets between her thighs.
She had seen pictures of this in the wicked little books that were scattered around at The Blue Door, but she had never imagined that a man would do that to her the very first time they were together. Nor had she imagined it to be anything but embarrassing and strange.
It was strange, yes. Her head fell back against the post as her hands reached out to cradle Quinn’s head, to hold him, to prevent him ever stopping this shameful, wonderful thing that was turning her into a quivering, liquid creature of flame and passion.
‘Yes!’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, standing up in time to catch her as her knees gave way. ‘But time for that later. Show me, Lina. Show me those skills you have been keeping so secret.’
Chapter Thirteen
He wants me to make love to him? Lina closed her eyes on the sudden alarm. I want him, I want to pleasure him…but he will guess, surely? Or would he? Could she counterfeit enough skill from what she had heard, observed, read in those explicit little pillow books? She had begun to understand her own body now, what pleased her, what made her shudder with terrified delight. Could she use that understanding to make love to Quinn?
He was standing there, his hands supporting her, waiting. She opened her eyes and studied him under lowered lashes. He was beautiful and she wanted to touch him, to taste him. She licked her lips and saw his eyes following the movement, saw the effect that whatever was in his imagination had on his arousal.
Lina turned, bringing him with her until his back was against the bed post, then she caught his hands and put them behind his back, making a pretence of shackling his wrists with one hand. She was so close that their bodies rubbed together intimately, sending heat spiralling through her. She was wet with desire for him already, she realised, trembling with daring at what she was doing.
Quinn’s eyes on her face burned with desire, with demands she could only guess at. Trembling, Lina bent her head and swept her tongue over the flat muscles above his right nipple, tasting salt and musk and man. The kick of delight surprised her, then the tip of her tongue found his nipple and she teased it, closing her eyes at the sensation, feeling it knot under the laving strokes.
He groaned, deep in his throat, and his hands shifted as he gripped the bed post as though she had truly tied him there. She licked her way across to the other nipple, tormented that until he was shuddering, then slowly slid to her knees, her tongue trailing down to circle his navel.
Lina put her hands on his narrow hips, more to steady herself than to hold him and Quinn shifted his feet apart as she realised where she was going, where this was leading, what he expected. Her shyness, her fears, seemed to have vanished. Lina stroked her cheek against the hot, hard length of him, fascinated at how soft the skin was, intrigued to feel the reaction to her slightest touch.
‘Lina.’ It was a plea and a gasp and a groan and she reached for him, took him in both hands, felt him shudder. ‘More…’
There was that book that had shown… Dare she? Her grip tightened as she thought it, drawing a groan from Quinn’s throat, and she tried a tentative stroke, up, down. It was so arousing, so overwhelming. Yes, she dared. Lina bent her head to him and let herself drown in the sensation of pleasuring a man. This man.
His hands came to grip her head, she could feel his whole body shuddering with the effort not to thrust, then he freed her, bent and caught her up. Lina felt herself being laid back on the bed. The mattress dipped, his hands slipped under her buttocks, raised her and then, before she had time to understand what was happening, Quinn entered her with one long thrust.
It was shocking, so much faster and harder and more than she had been expecting. Lina, even as aroused as she was, gasped, ‘Quinn!’ Her body arched beneath his, fighting to accommodate him, searching instinctively to make the joining possible. But the shock was not the pain—she had expected that and it was fleeting, unimportant. The shock was the pleasure. She had not realised how he would feel within her, how she would be completed by his body, how the sensation of being filled almost to the point of endurance could be so terrifying and so wonderful all at once.
Her body quivered and almost instantly she felt it yield, to begin to caress him, to open to him. Sensation flooded her, even through the lingering discomfort, the consciousness of her own clumsiness as she tried to mould herself to Quinn’s long body and the drive of his hips.
‘Hell!’ Lina’s eyes flew open as Quinn pulled away from her, out of her, the heat and weight of his body vanishing to leave her bereft and confused. He flung himself to one side of the wide bed and lay there breathing like a man who had run hard and fast.
‘Quinn?’ Lina reached for him and he rolled away and off the bed to stand with his back to the wall as though she had gone for him with a knife.
‘Quinn?’
Quinn fought his way past the string of swear words that was all his brain seemed able to produce and managed to articulate. ‘You were a virgin.’
He had just taken a virgin with the briefest of caresses, hard, fast, without care. Dear God, I have ravished a virgin. His mind filled with the nightmare images that still tormented his dreams: the huddled, bleeding figure in rags that flinched away when he tried to touch her, her eyes glazed over in pain and anguish. He had bought the girl when he bought Gregor,
two broken, abused pieces of human wreckage. Gregor had fought back to life, had tried to help him with the girl—they never discovered her name—but men, any men, simply terrified her. The fourth night she killed herself as they slept.
For weeks afterwards Quinn had not been able to bring himself to lie with a woman. Gradually the revulsion against his own desires became rational again. He did not behave like that to women and he had done his best for her. But the experience had left him, he knew, with reservations that were not shared by most men of his age and class. He had paid for a night of frustration before now when he had realised that the apparently willing professional in his arms was being forced by a pimp. The idea of buying a virgin nauseated him.
And now, because he was aroused and angry, he had taken Celina as he would have an experienced Cyprian. He had expected her to behave like one, she had taken him in her mouth as a result of his demands. How could he have done that, how had she managed to overcome the revulsion she must surely have felt? What had he become if he had not even realised?
She was lying there just as he had left her, Quinn saw as he turned his head. As he stared at her, the image of the slave girl cleared, replaced with Celina’s slim, pale body. His brain struggled with the confusion: she admitted she came from The Blue Door, that her aunt was a Madam, that she had been with a man, intimately, before he died of what sounded like a stroke brought on by excitement.
But she was a virgin. Don’t make excuses. There are no excuses for what you have just done. Celina looked back at him, her eyes wide and dark with questions and confusion.
‘You were a—’
‘Don’t you want me?’
They spoke together and answered together. ‘Yes,’ Celina admitted.
‘Yes,’ Quinn said between clenched teeth. She looked vulnerable and soft and infinitely desirable and he wanted, more than anything, to take her back into his embrace and love her—love her gently and sweetly and with skill, as a virgin deserved from her first man.
