Innocent Courtesan to Adventurer's Bride (20 page)

That is another reason for not marrying him
, she concluded, curling up in a chair while Gregor and Quinn
played a hand of cards, passing time until the hour when Quinn had arranged to meet Reginald Tolhurst in the Pickering Place hell. Could he possibly ever be faithful if he married without love?

 

They set out at last. St James's Street was busy with men moving between club and gaming house, chop house and brothel, some alone, more in convivial groups. In amongst them the women moved, some elegant, refined, accompanied by a maid on their way to an appointment. Others were coarser, more obvious as they caught at sleeves and made their offers.

Gregor and Lina remained in the carriage as Quinn got down, put on his tall hat and sauntered down the passageway next to Berry Brothers and Rudd's shop. Even this late Lina could smell the coffee wafting from its cellars.

‘Now we wait,' Gregor said, settling back. They sat in silence for a while, watching the crowd. Lina felt her eyelids droop; even the anticipation of what the evening would hold was not enough to counter inaction and an almost sleepless night.

‘Why will you not marry him?' Gregor asked suddenly.

‘Because he thinks he should wed me,' Lina said, startled out of her doze and speaking before she thought. ‘He doesn't love me.'

‘And you love him?'

‘No, of course not!' she lied, hating denying how she felt to this man who was so close to Quinn and who must understand him so well. It would be wonderful to talk to Gregor about him, but she knew she could not do so without betraying herself. ‘I am quite unsuitable for a man of his rank, and he knows it. But whether I was or not, I
believe in love in marriage and I do not want to end up wed to a man who will feel shackled for ever as a result.'

‘You think you could shackle Quinn?' Gregor gave a snort of laughter. ‘I would like to see a woman try.'

‘So he would marry me and then carry on doing just what he wants, would he? He would spend most of his time abroad travelling, taking lovers while I sat at home like a good little wife? Forgive me, but I do not call that marriage.'

‘Many women do,' the Russian pointed out.

‘I am not
most women
,' Lina retorted. ‘I would not tolerate infidelity for a start!'

‘He is a man of passion,' Gregor remarked. In the lights from the street she could see he was amused.

‘Then he could be passionate with me,' she snapped. ‘He would have to come home if he could not be celibate.'

‘Ah! I would like to be a fly on the bedchamber wall,' Gregor chucked.

‘Gregor! Of all the outrageous things—'

‘It is time I went in. Are you coming or do you stay here?'

‘I am coming.' She just hoped her blushes were not visible under the paint on her face.

‘Follow me closely then.' Gregor strode off into the mouth of the passageway, Lina on his heels.

The courtyard was lit by flambeaux and the door to the gaming club stood open, noise and light spilling out of it. At the doorway Gregor shed his outer garments, snapped his fingers at her and wandered into the room.

It took her a minute to see Quinn, sitting at a table in the middle of the room. Her heart contracted in panic as she saw the man opposite him: Reginald Tolhurst. The
last time she had seen him he was shouting that she was a thief, that she would be hanged, that—

The hot, smoky room swam before her eyes.
I shouldn't have come. I can't do this.

Quinn looked up and saw her and she knew she was about to confirm all his doubts about bringing her. She was not capable of being an equal partner in his adventures, she was just timid Lina again, terrified of her own shadow. She dragged a panicky breath down into her lungs and braced herself to run.

I
must get out of here. Tolhurst will see me, he will know…

Quinn's eyes held hers, then something changed. She did not understand what, his expression remained aloof, focused, and yet those hard green eyes softened, looked directly into her and she seemed to hear his thoughts.
It is all right. You will be all right.

Lina gave a shaky nod and he looked back at his opponent and the cards and the panic ebbed away, leaving her shaken but determined.
He believes in me.

‘Here.' Gregor thrust a bottle into her hands and wandered vaguely in the direction of Quinn's table, taking a swig from his wine glass as he went. A rowdy group was playing a game she did not recognise with much slapping down of cards and exchange of money; Gregor stopped close by and watched along with several other men. Lina pressed up behind him, careful not to knock into a table beside them where two sombre men were engaged in a silent game.

She shifted her position so she could see the table from the shelter of Gregor's shoulder and found that Quinn was
close enough for her to overhear. He had a sizeable pile of guineas and banknotes on the table in front of him and Reginald Tolhurst was sweating.

‘Mine, I think.' Quinn swept the stake money towards himself. ‘Another hand? You'll be wanting to win some of this back, I'll be bound. Your luck must change sooner or later; I'm amazed at how well I'm doing. We'll have a new pack, shall we?' He sounded almost naïvely enthusiastic.

‘Yes. My luck's bound to change.' Tolhurst opened the pack and shuffled.

‘Double or quits?' Quinn said. ‘I've always wanted to be in a position to say that!' He took what appeared to be an incautiously large swig of wine and waited.

Is Tolhurst the fool Quinn thinks he is?
Lina wondered, seeing how he was luring the man into taking one giant incautious gamble.

He was, it seemed. ‘I'll have to give you a vowel,' he said. At Quinn's nod he scrawled
IOU
and paused. ‘What's the sum?'

Quinn made a show of adding up the money in front of him. ‘Four hundred.'

‘Eight, then.' Tolhurst's hand shook, but he tossed the note into the middle as Quinn pushed his winnings and a further four hundred pound notes out.

‘Good thing I went to the bank this morning,' Quinn remarked.

There was silence as they began to play. Gregor turned and strolled up to watch over Tolhurst's shoulder and Lina shifted to keep behind him and to one side so she could see both men's faces. They were playing whist, she saw, the hands falling reasonably equally at first. Then Quinn began to win and, as he did so, Tolhurst became visibly more anxious, his judgement clearly affected by the tension.

When the last card fell he stared at the tally of points, white-faced. ‘Your…your game.'

‘So it seems.' Quinn raked the money towards him, stowing it away in his pockets. ‘I must thank you for an entertaining evening. The only thing is…' he picked up the IOU between thumb and forefinger ‘…I'll need to ask you for this in a day or two—I'm going over to France for a bit. Could I have your direction?'

Tolhurst stared back white-faced. ‘I… By the end of next week?'

‘No, sorry. As I said, I'll be leaving. There's no problem, is there?' Quinn let the mask of amiability he'd been wearing all evening slip as he stared at Tolhurst and Lina shivered. She would not want him to look at her like that.

‘Goodness, no!' Tolhurst pulled out his card case and handed one over. ‘No problem at all.' His hands shook.

Quinn stood up, ignored Gregor, nodded to Tolhurst and walked out. As he went out of the door Gregor shifted so he was alongside Tolhurst. Lina ducked further into the shadows to watch. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose while apparently gazing with interest at the next table. With the handkerchief came a ring that landed on the baize, spinning in the candlelight. Tolhurst's hand shot out, flattened over the gem and drew it back. He looked around, his gaze sliding over Lina as she watched him from the corner of her eye. Gregor, apparently bored with the game, stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket and wandered over to the door, Lina scurrying behind like a servant who has been taken by surprise.

‘He's taken it,' Gregor said as they moved out of the door and into the small courtyard of Pickering Place.

Quinn came out from behind a pillar. ‘Now he'll need to get it off his hands fast. It is too big and too distinctive to take just anywhere, if he fenced the sapphire, he'll take
this to the same place.' He led the way back down the passage and climbed into the carriage. ‘Now we wait.'

Lina wished they were alone. She wanted to confess how frightened she had been, how the message in Quinn's eyes had steadied her and given her courage, but she could not say that in front of Gregor and after a moment she realised she could not say it to Quinn, even if they were alone—he would take it as encouragement, a sign that she was weakening. She swallowed the words, clasped her hands together tightly around the wine bottle against the urge to reach out and touch him, and closed her eyes.

‘Nervous, Celina?' Quinn asked, his voice sounding like a caress to her ears. ‘I will not let him hurt you.'

‘Just apprehensive,' she said.
Just wanting you.
‘I have been so frightened, it is hard to believe this could be the end of it.'

‘It is.' His voice was deep and certain and she was conscious for the first time in many days of the slight foreign intonation.
He is the adventurer again, not the English gentleman.
‘Why are you clutching that bottle?'

‘Gregor gave it to me.'

‘Then let us all have a drink.'

She passed it to Gregor, who tipped it up for a good swallow, wiped the neck and gave it to Quinn. He drank more moderately, wiped it in turn and handed it to Lina. She put it to her lips and drank a little, imagining she could feel the heat of his lips on the neck, remembering with sudden and shocking vividness how it had felt when she had taken him into her mouth.

It was such an outrageous thought that she choked. Gregor grabbed the bottle before she dropped it and gave her a firm buffet on the back.

Lina let her spluttering coughs last far longer than necessary, aghast at her own wanton imaginings and glad of
an excuse for being red in the face. The door opened and the two sombre men who had been sitting at the card table next to Quinn's opened the carriage door and climbed in. She swallowed, braced for action, but they were obviously expected.

‘He is leaving,' one said without preamble. ‘He made no effort to declare that he had found a lost ring. I think he waited to see if you came back, Mr Vasiliev, and now feels safe.' He seemed to register Lina's presence as he spoke. ‘Who is this, my lord?'

‘My servant, Hassan,' Quinn said. ‘Ah, here comes Tolhurst.' Lina was left in ignorance of their companions, but she supposed Quinn could hardly be expected to introduce them to a servant, whoever they were.

Tolhurst emerged from the passage, hailing a hackney as he did so. Quinn rapped on the roof and after a moment their carriage moved off, down St James's Street and left into Pall Mall.

‘A bad business, if you have the right of it, my lord,' the man observed.

His companion nodded. ‘That is very true, Sir James. His elder brother is a fellow magistrate which makes it all the worse. If he proves to be responsible for this, it will be painful to ask Sir George how he wants this handled.'

‘I would rather think you should ask the unfortunate young woman who has been falsely accused,' Quinn said with a sharpness that had the magistrate staring at him.

‘When Mr Trevor here approached me as your attorney with this accusation and your novel suggestion for testing it, I did not ask what your concern with the case is, my lord,' Sir James said. Lina forced herself not to shrink back. Not that there was anywhere to go—she was wedged between Gregor's shoulder and the side of the carriage.

‘I am acting on behalf of Miss Shelley's aunt. I am part-owner of The Blue Door.'

‘Indeed!'

‘An unusual investment, I agree,' Quinn said. ‘But one that gave me an interest when it was obvious an injustice had been done.'

‘And where is the young woman at the moment, might I ask?'

‘I have every reason to believe she is in London,' Quinn said readily. ‘Certainly that is where I last saw her.'

‘We are going into the City,' Gregor remarked and Lina made herself breathe.

The carriage stopped and the driver got down and came to the door. ‘The other 'ackney's stopped—what do you gents want me to do now?'

‘Wait here,' Quinn said, passing something that clinked. ‘There'll be more when we return and we may be a while.' He turned back to his silent companions. ‘Now, very quietly, there are a lot of us to go falling over each other's feet.'

They got out, staying in the shadow of the carriage. Peering around Quinn, Lina saw a figure descend from another hackney and walk off down an alleyway. Quinn followed, Gregor soft-footed at his back, the attorney and the magistrate behind them. Lina stayed on the magistrate's heels; if she was out of his sight she might also be out of his mind, she thought, wondering just how perceptive he was.

The alley opened out into a narrow street. There was a public house on one corner, brightly lit and busy. A little further along the light reflected on three golden balls. ‘Pawnbroker,' Quinn said with an air of satisfaction. Tolhurst was standing at the door and they could hear his knocking from where they stood.

There was only a faint glimmer from the shop, but the light wavered and intensified as someone within approached the door. It opened, there was a low-voiced conversation and then Tolhurst went inside.

Quinn waited until the light had vanished again before leading his four companions forwards over the greasy cobbles. ‘Locked,' he murmured as he tried the handle. Gregor stooped to the lock. ‘I suggest you look elsewhere, Sir James,' Quinn added.

‘I am sure he is merely checking it as a concerned passer-by,' the magistrate whispered back. ‘And look, it is open. I feel it our duty to investigate.'

Gregor eased the door wide and went in, followed by Sir James and Mr Trevor. Quinn bent to Lina's ear. ‘Stay behind me. When he finds himself cornered, he may be dangerous.' She looked up and he kissed her suddenly, pulling her to him, his mouth fierce and possessive on hers.

When he released her his eyes held hers for a long moment. It was a look of possession, she recognised, the look of a warrior about to go into battle, fired up, needing to assert his ownership of his woman before the fight began. She found herself responding to it, her blood heating, her tension and fears swept up into that one focus of mouth on mouth, the primitive claiming.

They stared at each other, Quinn seeming as shaken as she was, before he gave himself a shake and followed the others to the back of the cluttered shop.

Lina stood for a moment, her hand pressed to her lips, everything—the shop, the danger, the closeness of a magistrate—all swept away by that one kiss. When she managed to regain her focus she saw that the others were grouped on either side of a door that stood slightly ajar. Light spilled
from inside and the smell of someone's supper perfumed the air with a rich aroma of onions.

‘…if it's another of those bloody sapphires, you know what you can do with it, Tolhurst,' a voice said. ‘I haven't shifted the real one yet, need to get it to Amsterdam once the heat's died down. And as for that paste ring—if you expect more than the guinea I gave you for it, think again. Best I can hope to do with it is sell it to some travelling theatre troop!'

‘This is real, I'm sure of it,' Tolhurst said. ‘A diamond, for all that it's an odd cut.'

‘Oriental,' the other man said with a grunt. ‘Give it here.' There was silence. Lina could hear several clocks ticking, the crackle of firewood. Something brushed her ankle and she started, reaching out for Quinn without conscious thought. He caught her hand and grinned as the battered tabby cat abandoned her and went to twine around his legs.

‘It's a diamond, I'll give you that. But it's another flaming stone that'll have to be recut before I can sell it safely. Why can't you nick something simple for once?'

‘How much?' Tolhurst demanded. The other man was muttering, apparently working the price out. ‘What? How much? I need more than that! I was taken by some damned sharp I mistook for a pigeon to the tune of eight hundred tonight and the bastard wants paying on the nail like some merchant. He's no gentleman.'

Lina saw the flash of Quinn's teeth as he grinned.

‘Another twenty-five then, and that's your lot. And don't bring me anything else until I've got those sapphires off my hands.' There was the sound of a key grating in a lock. Quinn nodded to Gregor, let go of Lina's hand and the two men shouldered through the door, pistols in their hands.

‘What the—'

‘You are under arrest on suspicion of the theft of the Tolhurst Sapphire and of a diamond ring belonging to Mr Vasiliev. I am Sir James Warren, magistrate. Do not attempt to resist.'

Squashed behind Mr Trevor, Lina could see the pawnbroker throwing up his hands, his face bitter with anger as he glared at Reginald Tolhurst. ‘You cack-handed idiot!'

Tolhurst looked around wildly then, to Lina's amazement, sank down on a chair, buried his face in his hands and burst into sobs. ‘Where is the Tolhurst Sapphire?' demanded Sir James.

The pawnbroker rummaged in his safe, which stood with the door swinging open, and came out with a small bag. He tipped it out into the magistrate's hand and they all stared at the deep blue stone burning with cold fire in the palm of his hand.