Louise Allen Historical Collection (82 page)

Lina sat up in bed, her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin resting on top of her knees, and tried to sort out the thoughts and emotions that were assaulting her from all sides.

I want him and he’s an arrogant, insensitive rake. I’m not a scared little mouse any more. I’m brave...I think. He doesn’t care about me, only my body. Does that matter so much if I want him, too? But that makes me wanton. But why doesn’t it make
him
wanton? I can fight now. I stood up to Quinn. If I say
yes
I would risk ending up with my whole life defined by the fact that I’ve lain with a man. But have I got to spend the rest of it without ever knowing what love is?

Perhaps I will go to the gallows without ever knowing.
‘Oh, God, the gallows.’ That was the reality she should be worrying about, not the question of the equality of men and women or whether becoming one man’s mistress would be something she would regret for the rest of her life. Her life might be very short indeed, with little room for regrets. In which case, why not make love with Quinn?

And assume you are never going to prove your innocence?
Lina asked herself, flopping back against the pillows.
Just give up? Never.

Legally, Quinn had to allow her to stay, so stay she would, whether he liked it or not. His lordship could take himself off to Norwich if he wanted to find a sophisticated brothel to deal with whatever urges her refusal was leaving unsatisfied.

She reached out to snuff the candle. The room was lit now only by the moonlight from outside. It cast the old furniture in silver and laid eerie shadows over the strange objects that littered the room. The soft breeze flapped a curtain and sent the elaborate rope trimmings swinging.
Gallows rope.
Lina shut her eyes and made herself think of Bella and Meg. If she tried hard enough she could conjure up a dream of them all together again, of laughter, of happy endings. She felt her lids begin to droop.

Quinn gripped the great carved newel post at the head of the stairs with one hand and hauled off his boots with the other. The uncarpeted corridor creaked like a Chinese emperor’s nightingale floor and Gregor, every bit as alert for assassins as any emperor, had ears like a bat. He’d be out demanding to know what was going on when all Quinn wanted was to go to sleep.

He’d ridden hard and far, through the park, down to the coast road, out over the marshes to the sea. When it was daylight he’d bring Falcon down to the beach again to exercise him in the sea, but he wasn’t risking a strange coast and unknown currents at night, however bright the moon.

Now Falcon was dozing in his stable, the fidgets worked out of him, and Quinn was pleasantly tired, shoulders aching a little from holding the stallion in check and rubbing him down. His mind, finally, was clear. So, Celina did not want him, not for money, anyway, and he was not prepared to pay with any emotional commitment. It was going to be sticky, the next few days, with her bristling like a porcupine every time she encountered him.

Quinn grunted under his breath.
Too bad.
He was going to have to embrace celibacy for a while—somehow he could not find it in himself to ride into Norwich in search of a woman—and she was going to have to live with him watching her for any signs of weakening.

He padded down the corridor, boots in one hand, past Gregor’s room, grinned at the sound of snores rumbling inside, past Celina’s chamber door. And froze.

There were no snores coming from inside, but there was a thud, a choking gasp, the sound of a struggle. Quinn put down his boots, drew the thin blade from the sheath inside the left one and cracked open the door.

The moonlight flooded across the bed and for a moment he could not make out what he was looking at. Then he saw it was Celina, tangled in the sheet, her hands clawing at her throat, her bare legs kicking. He strode to the bed and caught at her hands, realising as he did so that the sheet had wound itself around her throat, choking her.

‘Easy, easy, let me.’ He tossed the blade on to the bedside table and took hold of the sheet, trying to get past her frantic hands to find the corner. She was fighting desperately, her eyes screwed up, deep in her nightmare. Her fingernails tore bloody tracks down the back of his hands and forced a hiss of pain from him.

Quinn dragged at the linen, pulled it away from her windpipe, found the end and yanked it free. Celina fell back, gasping for breath, her hands locked around his wrists. ‘No! You can’t... I am innocent...innocent... No!’

‘Celina.’ He shook her, harder than he meant to, control hampered by her clinging hands. ‘Wake up, you are having a nightmare.’

Her eyes opened, wide and dark in her pale face. Her mouth opened in a scream and, with his hands trapped, Quinn did the only thing he could think of to silence her. He kissed her.

Under him he felt Celina’s body tense, arch up to throw him off; he felt the desperate heaving of her breast against his and then, suddenly, she went limp. Quinn lifted his head and stared down at the sprawled figure. The faint was no ruse, she was unconscious and the bed looked as though...as though he had ravished her on it.

Quinn fought back the feeling of nausea, got to his feet and struck a flame. When he had a pair of candles lit he assessed the damage. His hands, raked by her nails, were already stiffening and her nightgown was marked with his blood. When he lifted the candlestick he could see red grooves where the sheet had wound tight around her throat. The bedding was churned into chaos by her struggles and her legs were bare from mid-thigh down.

He could not call for a maid, not and hope to explain this, but he could not leave her, either. Quinn pulled off his neckcloth, ripped it into strips and bound his hands to keep the blood from staining anything else, then he lifted Celina’s limp form off the bed and on to the
chaise.
He smoothed the nightgown down over her legs and found the blanket, tossed to the floor, and put it over her. Then he made the bed. There was no blood on that, thankfully.

There was nothing to be done about her marked throat and bloodstained nightgown. Quinn eased Celina up into his arms again and turned back to the bed before he realised he could not simply tuck her in and leave her to wake in the morning to find herself in that state. He was going to have to stay until she woke. As he lowered her towards the bed she stirred, murmured and her arms tightened around his neck.

Now what? He could hardly lie down with her; it would be enough to send her into hysterics, waking up to find him in her bed. She burrowed her head snugly into his shoulder and clung, limp and trusting and deep in an exhausted sleep.
Hell.
Quinn sat down on the
chaise,
leaned back, swung up his legs and settled Celina as best he could against himself. It was going to be a long night.

Quinn woke to the sound of a faint scratching. He reached out a hand for his knife, then found he was entangled with a body.
Celina?
The memory of the night before came back with horrible precision as the door opened and an arm appeared, the hand clutching his boots. They were lowered to the floor just inside.
Gregor.
He whistled softly and the Russian’s head appeared, his expression comical as he took in bed and
chaise.
Then he frowned, his eyes focused on Quinn’s bandaged hands.

Go away,
Quinn mouthed.

The other man’s eyebrows shot up, then he grinned.
Goodbye,
he mouthed back and the door closed as silently as it had opened.

Quinn let his head sink back against the curved rail of the
chaise
and stared up at the ceiling in the dawn light. Gregor was off to London now, thinking heavens knew what, but Celina would wake soon. She was already stirring, her lips moving against his throat where his shirt had come open when he took off his neckcloth.

He eased his cramped limbs as best he could, wincing as he flexed his hands.
Damn, but that hurt.
And he had to find an explanation for the injuries too. As he thought it, Celina woke, her first gentle movements stiffening into awareness as she found herself in his arms. Was she going to believe him?

Celina came out of a dream of being safe and protected.
Blissful,
she thought, as she dreamed of arms holding her against a large male body. Then she woke fully and found that there
was
a man and his arms were around her, holding her to his chest, and her hips were curved into a definitely male lap and this was not a dream. She tightened every muscle, tried to wrench free even as she opened her mouth to scream, and her voice croaked out of a throat that felt sore and bruised.

‘Let me go!’ She hit the man’s chest with a clenched fist and he released her, one arm still steadying her as she lurched upright. ‘Quinn,’ she said flatly. ‘I might have known. Can’t you take
no
for an answer?’

‘You had a nightmare,’ he said, his face stark. There was no amusement in it, no lust, only tension and dark shadows under his eyes. ‘The sheet was round your throat and you were choking, struggling—’ He broke off to touch her neck lightly. ‘There are marks.’

She looked down and saw her nightgown, streaked in blood. ‘Oh, my God—’

‘It is mine.’ He held up his hands, the makeshift bandages stained, too. ‘You fought me.’

He did not resist when she pushed herself away, took the few steps to the edge of the bed and sank down on it. Her hands were stained, too, she saw, all around the nails. She had clawed at him. ‘A dream?’

‘You must have thought someone was trying to strangle you,’ Quinn said, sitting with his elbows on his knees, his bandaged hands held away from contact with his body.

Lina put her hands to her throat.
No, not strangling, hanging.
She had dreamed she was in Newgate, in the condemned cell. They were leading her out, taking off the shackles, taking her to the scaffold, pushing her off into space to jerk and dangle...

‘Celina!’ He launched himself at her, caught her by the shoulders and held her as the room spun sickeningly.

‘I’m sorry, I am all right.’ He let her go, the absence of his strength a wrench. ‘Yes, I remember. Did I call out?’ She must have screamed if Quinn had heard her from his own room.

‘I was coming back from a ride. I found I was not sleepy,’ he said without emphasis, but she felt herself colouring. ‘I heard noises from your room and thought someone was attacking you. But you were entangled in the sheet, clawing at your throat. I tried to free you. You—’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘You came round and then fainted. I tried to put you back to bed, but you clung on, so we ended up on the couch instead. I did not think you would want to wake in bed with me.’

In the fog of the fading nightmare she remembered another dream. It had slid into the first in the weird way dreams had: a man. Was it Tolhurst? Only this time he was holding her, kissing her, his weight was on her and she could not get free. And yet it was not all unpleasant. There was something sweet, something she could not quite grasp as the wisps of memory faded.

‘Your hands,’ Lina said, her voice rasping sore in her throat. ‘Let me see.’

‘No. it is all right.’

‘It is
not
all right. I hurt you and you were trying to help me. And just now I leapt to conclusions, I assumed the worst.’ Doggedly she got to her feet, walked to the washstand and poured from the jug into the wide basin. ‘Cold water will be best. Come and put your hands in it, soak off those bandages.’ When Quinn made no move to join her, she turned and looked at him. ‘I am sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’ He got to his feet and came across. ‘And do not make me into some sort of scrupulous gentleman just because you passed the night safely in my arms. I prefer my women conscious.’

‘Are you trying to shock me?’ Lina asked, finding she could smile. ‘Because after yesterday evening... Oh, my goodness, look at your hands! Quinn, I am so sorry. That is going to scar—and whatever will you say caused it? People will assume—’

‘That I was attempting to ravish a woman?’ He stared down into the water, picking the makeshift bandages loose. ‘I went for a ride last night, found a fox in a snare, tried to free it and was savaged for my pains. Will that do?’

‘Yes,’ Lina agreed, rummaging in a drawer. ‘That will be convincing. I have some salve and lint here. If you can dry your hands, I will dress them and then find an old soft sheet to tear up for bandages.’ She threw on a wrapper, startled to find that she had been unselfconsciously talking to Quinn dressed in nothing but a flimsy nightgown, and went along the corridor to the linen cupboard. There was a pile of laundered sheets too thin for use, kept for bandages and patching.

When she got back with the softest, Quinn was drying his hands, dabbing at the raw tracks where her nails had scored across the tendons. ‘Here. Sit down.’ She smoothed salve on the lint, then took his right hand and pressed it gently over the wounds, then repeated it for the left.

It was an accident,
she told herself, but it was hard not to blame herself. It must be exquisitely sore and the scars would disfigure hands that were long and elegant, despite their strength. Lina bandaged as lightly as she could to keep the dressing in place. ‘There, you should be able to hold reins or a pen and even get gloves on if you have some large ones.’

‘And what about you?’ Quinn reached out and tipped up her chin. ‘You have some interesting marks and my imagination fails to come up with any innocent explanation for them other than the truth, which no one will believe.’