Innocent Courtesan to Adventurer's Bride (23 page)

The nagging feeling that he was probably running a fever pursued him through Wymondham and into Norwich. He was not thinking logically, he could not seem to
plan, and his emotions felt painfully raw. Where was she? Was she safe? How unhappy had he made her that she had to flee?

 

It was almost noon before the chaise drew into the yard of the Maid's Head, hard up against the walls surrounding the cathedral close. This, the postilions told him, was where the stage from the Belle Sauvage set down its passengers and it was also a most respectable inn, so with any luck Celina had decided to put up there. Quinn climbed down, favouring his arm, which was giving him hell. He set his teeth and walked towards the door, then had to catch the young woman who hurried out of it into his arms. ‘My lord!'

‘Prudence.' The realisation that he had found them swamped the pain in his arm and sharpened his voice. ‘And where, might I ask, is Miss Shelley?'

‘Up…upstairs, my lord. Third door on the right, my lord. A private parlour.'

Thank goodness for that.
He had feared finding her in some common tap, her pocket picked, at the mercy of every rake and petty criminal in the place.

He flung the door open, all reasonable thoughts forgotten as the anger of relief took over. She sat by the window, looking out on to the busy street below, but she spun round on the chair as the door crashed back against the panelling.

‘Quinn.' There were tear tracks on her cheeks and that only infuriated him further.

Why do you want to leave me if it makes you cry? Am I so bad that this is preferable?
Quinn threw his hat and his gloves away from him. ‘What the devil do you think you are doing?'

‘Starting my new life,' she said with a calm that took
him aback until he saw that her fingers were pleating the fabric of her skirts into tight creases.

‘I have come to take you back.' He strode across the floor, pulled her to her feet and shook her.

‘Don't do that!' she shouted at him. ‘You will hurt your arm, you idiot man.'

‘My arm be damned.' The fact that it was agony, and he suspected that he had burst a stitch, did nothing to calm him. ‘
I
am an idiot? What do you call careering about the countryside by yourself like this?'

‘I was on a perfectly respectable stagecoach with a perfectly respectable maid and I am now in the best inn in Norwich. I am safe, I have money in my pocket and I do not need you.'

The last five words sank in as they glared at each other from a distance of perhaps a foot.

‘Then why are you crying?'

‘Because I am tired, and I have left my aunt, and it is just beginning to sink in that I am not in danger of being hanged and because I need peace and you will not let me have it.'

Celina twisted in his grip and he felt another stitch go. He should free her. Part of his mind knew that, but not the part that was in pain, and confused and needing…needing something he did not understand.

And it was there in her eyes, too. A question, a yearning. Conflict and desire. Quinn yanked her hard against his chest and took her mouth in an open, brutal kiss. Celina struggled, kicked him, drummed her fists on his chest and he ignored every blow, fixed only on the heat of her mouth, the taste of her, the erotic struggle of her tongue against his.

Without breaking the kiss he bent and lifted her off her
feet, an ungainly, struggling bundle of skirts and furious woman. He shouldered open the inner door and dropped her on the bed, falling beside her without care for boots or his arm or the fact she was trying to knee his groin.

He pinned her hands above her head, using his weight to subdue her and stared down as she lay panting beneath him. It was still there, the heat that was not anger, the trembling that was not fear. He kissed her deep and hard and without mercy. When she stopped struggling he lifted his head. ‘Tell me you do not desire me. Tell me you do not want this.'

‘How dare you force me?' she spat. ‘How could you?'

‘Was I forcing you?' he asked. ‘You know how to bite me. You could have told me to stop. You could have screamed. Look.' He pushed himself up, bringing her with him. ‘Look in the glass on the dressing table.' Their reflections stared back, his intense, his face pale, his mouth swollen, as hers was. She was wide-eyed and panting and the hard peaks of her nipples showed against the fine fabric of her gown.

‘Fear,' Celina said. ‘Anger.'

‘Desire,' Quinn replied, brushing his hand against her breast. ‘Need.'

It was as though all the fight had gone out of her. Celina turned from the betraying glass, turned from him. ‘Whether I desire you or not has nothing to do with it. Nothing. Nor does the fact that it would not be a wise marriage for you to make. I do not want to marry you, Quinn, for reasons that are all to do with me, not you. Please.' She turned to him, imploring, and his heart turned over in his chest. ‘Please let me go.'

L
et her go? It was impossible. Quinn stared at Celina and the world came back into focus. Crystal clear, sharp and as painful as a shard of glass. It was impossible and that was why he had to do it.

‘Yes,' he said and got off the bed. ‘Yes.'

‘You will let me go?'

It did not seem to give her much pleasure, he thought, struggling to read her face, realising that he had understood neither her, nor himself, for days.

‘Yes,' Quinn repeated and finally understood why. He sat down again. He could feel blood soaking into his shirt under this coat sleeve, but it did not seem very important now. ‘I love you. I cannot force you to do what I think is right. You mean too much to me.' He watched her face in the mirror, unable to look at her directly, as though her rejection would turn him to stone. ‘I love you and so I will let you go.'

‘Oh, Quinn.'

‘Don't cry,' he said, helpless. It seemed even freeing her could not make her happy. ‘Tell me what you want and I will do it, only do not cry.'

 

‘Marry me? Please,' Celina said and saw the fact that she was smiling through the tears register at last. ‘Quinn, I love you.' She knelt up and put her arms around his neck and finally he turned to look into her eyes.
There it is: love. Can he see it in my face, too? How did I ever hide it?

‘You love me? But why would you not marry me when I asked you?' He seemed more baffled than angry

‘I could not bear to marry you, live a polite, civilised lie, knowing you were only doing what you thought you must,' she said, cradling his face between her palms, looking deep into his eyes. ‘If I did not care it would not matter—I suppose we could have rubbed along, you would have your mistresses and your adventures, I would have comfort and security. But loving you—it would have broken my heart.'

‘Celina.' He said her name like a vow as he kissed her, a feather touch, a caress. ‘I did not understand what I was feeling. I have never been in love before. All I knew is that I wanted you so violently—I am sorry if I frightened you.' She shook her head. ‘I told myself I must marry you for your own good and then, just now, I realised that if I really cared for you, and not for myself and my pride, then I must let you go. Because I love you.'

‘I knew when you brought me to London,' she confessed. ‘I realised on that journey. And I knew I had to hide it because I could not bear for you to have to pretend, or be kind or pity me.'

‘Why did you stop trying to prevent me duelling?' he asked as he traced her brows with his finger, followed the whorl of her ear as though discovering her all over again.
My explorer. My adventurer and I am his new found land.

‘I almost tried moral blackmail, pretending I would marry you if you did not fight. I realised I could not do that to you, not if I loved you. Because your honour told
you to challenge Langdown and your honour is everything to you.'

‘
You
are everything to me,' he whispered, his voice husky. ‘You have my heart and my soul and my honour in the palm of your hand. I have the licence. I told them at St George's that we would marry in a month because I thought you would want to buy bride clothes, plan properly. But we can wed where, and when, you want.'

‘St George's,' Lina said, leaning in to touch her lips to his. ‘The first of June and there will be roses everywhere.' She felt suddenly shy through the happiness. ‘Quinn, do you want…now, I mean?'

‘To make love to you? Yes, I do.' He caught her back and kissed her hard, possessively. ‘But shall we wait for our wedding night? I made love to you once before, lay with you. That filled me with guilt, but now I can remember those few moments when we were one with wonder—and anticipation. There has been no-one for me, since that moment, and now there never will be. Only you.'

‘Only you,' she repeated, awed by what she saw in his face, the need for her, the control he would exert if she wanted that. ‘Yes, I would like to wait, Quinn.'

‘I love you,' he said as he lay back on the bed, arms flung wide, his face smiling and full of joy.

‘Quinn! Your hand!'

‘What?' He held out his right hand, grimacing at the blood. ‘Damn, the stitches have gone. That must have been when I picked you up.' His grin was rueful as she jumped off the bed and ran to pull the bell cord. ‘Perhaps it is as well that we are resolved on patience, I suspect I would not be able to do justice to just how I feel about you, my love.'

‘I suppose there is no point in asking you to take care, is there?' Lina asked. Life with Quinn would always be
like this—she must just become used to it. A tamed wolf was only a lapdog; she wanted hers wild and free.

A maid put her head around the door. ‘Find my servant, if you please, and have hot water sent up and the doctor called.' She turned back to the bed and helped Quinn off with his coat. ‘Thank goodness you chose swords; at least it is a clean cut and not a festering bullet wound.'

 

Worrying about Quinn's wound helped bring Lina down to earth for the rest of that day and into the next morning. The doctor came and went, Quinn refused to be sensible and to rest, which she assumed was likely to be the pattern for their married life, and instead swept her out shopping, his arm in a dashing black sling. Prudence followed at their heels, organising packages to be sent back to the Maid's Head, carrying the precious Norwich silk shawl he insisted on buying.

They ate dinner in the private parlour, hardly speaking. Lina found herself reaching out to touch his hand, looking up to meet his eyes. It all seemed too wonderful, too precious to need words.

‘I must go and find my room,' Quinn said at last when the clock struck ten. They had been sitting in the same chair, Lina curled up on his lap, her head on his shoulder. They were learning to be at peace with each other, she thought. ‘You must sleep: we have an early start tomorrow.' It still took another half-hour of kisses before he left.

At the door he turned, laughter in his eyes. ‘Do you think Simon was matchmaking when he added that codicil to his will?' he asked. ‘I do, the clever old devil.'

 

Now, sitting in the chaise, with the luxury of four horses in the traces eating up the miles back to London, Quinn seemed more inclined to talk.

‘Do you want me to keep the Park?' he asked.

‘I really do not know. The people were so hostile. I do not want to run away, and I do love the place, but it will be hard to put that day in church behind us.'

‘We can lease it out, make it part of the inheritance for the children,' Quinn suggested.

‘Oh. Children.' She had not thought of that. ‘You would like children?'

‘The thought of yours is rather pleasant. One of each to start with and see what we think after that?'

‘You cannot order them up.' She shook her head at him, amused. ‘You have to accept what arrives. But two would do nicely to start.' He would make a good father, if hair-raisingly inclined to involve the children in dangerous exploits, she feared. How old would a child have to be to begin riding on a camel? she wondered. She imagined a miniature version of Quinn outfacing a crocodile.

‘I have to get down to finishing Simon's memoirs and getting a publisher,' Quinn continued. ‘Is the London house all right or would you like to find something else? You must furnish it as you see fit, of course. It is yours.'

‘It is perfect,' Lina said, a small doubt, like a puff of cloud across the sun, making her uneasy. ‘How long will the memoirs take?'

‘I must get back to Constantinople before the autumn storms make the Mediterranean difficult,' he said. ‘I need to get my business out there organised. But actually, I doubt it will take me beyond the end of August if I employ a secretary and copyist. There was lack of order and linking passages are needed, that is all.'

So he was going abroad three months after the wedding. A three-month honeymoon in the company of old Simon's memoirs and then she would be alone again. ‘How long
will your business in Constantinople take?' Lina asked, trying to sound bright and interested. And she
was
interested only…
Naval wives manage
, she told herself.
This is what he does, who he is. Do not try to make him someone else, someone less. Remember the wolf and the lapdog.

‘How long would you like?' Quinn asked her.

Lina stared, puzzled. She did not want him gone a moment longer than he must, of course. And then she realised what he was asking.

‘I may come, too?'

‘You thought I would leave you? You thought I
could
leave you?' It was his turn to stare now. ‘Celina, I love you. That means I want to share my life with you. And you must tell me where you want to go, what you want to do. Constantinople is business, but after that, the entire world is ours. Do you want to see the crocodiles and the Pyramids? Cross the desert on a camel or buy silks in Samarkand? Do the Grand Tour or sail to America?'

‘Everywhere, anywhere,' she said, laughing with relief. ‘Anywhere that you are.' A sudden thought struck her. ‘What about Gregor?'

‘Gregor can find his own camel,' Quinn said, catching her in his good arm and kissing her until her smart new bonnet fell off.