Innocent Courtesan to Adventurer's Bride. Louise Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ will also have thought of you, Celina.’

      She could only smile and nod. Of course he has not! He did not know I existed when he wrote to you and, even if he did, I have no call upon him, none whatsoever. But she had to hide her alarm somehow—if he saw how desperate she was he would become suspicious.

      ‘I will take care of you, Celina,’ Ashley said, the deep voice giving the statement the weight of an oath, the faint foreign accent adding a suggestiveness that had her looking up warily, then away as she found he was studying her in return. It was only that hint of an accent that made her uneasy, surely? He was an English gentleman, after all, and she was a guest under his roof.

      She should protest that he was too kind, demur at accepting assistance from a complete stranger, but she bit back all the polite responses. What she should do, she decided rather hazily, was to charm him. Why had she not thought of that before? Lina took another mouthful of wine. It was quite delicious and really rather relaxing. Things seemed so much clearer now.

      Attempting to charm the baron was dipping her toe into dangerous waters, though—how far was just enough to make him feel chivalrous and responsible, but not amorous towards her?

      One stormy winter evening when business had been slack, Katy and Miriam, the closest to her in age and her particular friends amongst The Blue Door’s courtesans, had amused themselves by trying to teach her how to flirt with a man.

      ‘Don’t think we can’t act like ladies if we have to,’ Katy had said. ‘It isn’t all wiggling your bottom and hanging your boobies out, you know. Lots of gentlemen like to pretend they aren’t paying for it, that they’re just getting very lucky indeed with some well-bred young lady. So Madam drilled us all in genteel flirting. You can’t stay here for ever, can you? You need to find yourself a gentleman and learn how to wind him around your little finger in ever such a nice way.’ Just as Mama did, Lina had thought with a pang of alarm. Was that what she must do to secure her future?

      The girls had gone off into peals of laughter, then sobered up enough to spend the evening teaching Lina how to use her eyes, her fan, her voice, to entrap a gentleman.

      She had never had reason to use that lesson, but she could try out some of the hints now. The sideways look from under the lashes was supposed to be enchanting. She tried it. ‘Thank you, I am sure you will look after me.’ Gregor made a noise deep in his chest, a laugh perhaps. She felt herself blush and looked down at her plate.

      ‘Count upon it,’ Ashley said, his voice deepening in a way that had shivers running down her spine, then, in an altogether different voice, ‘Is that by any chance a trifle?’

      ‘It is,’ Lina said, ready to jump to Mrs Bishop’s defence. ‘I imagine she has added it to the desserts when she realised that there are three of us at table.’ It was not the most sophisticated of confections and, from the way the custard on the top undulated, hinting at lumps lurking below, the poor woman must have been desperate for something to send up. The plates for the earlier courses had all returned downstairs scraped clean, even the beef casserole, which had probably been the footmen’s dinner, had vanished.

      ‘I haven’t eaten one of these for years,’ Ashley observed, helping himself and Gregor lavishly.

      Lina took a rather more dainty almond cream and consumed it in tiny spoonfuls, wishing she had not challenged her nervous stomach with anything sweet. She smiled and nodded and laughed at any minor witticism they made and made play with her lashes until finally the men, having eaten the trifle, lumps and all, and a frangipane tart, appeared sated.

      ‘I will leave you gentlemen to your cheese and port,’ she said, getting up. The room seemed to shift a little. ‘I trust you have a comfortable night. I will see you in the morning.’ She met Ashley’s eye, then wished she had not. Somehow the atmosphere had become close, intense, loaded with an emotion she did not understand. All she wanted was the sanctuary of her own room and the privacy to worry about whether she had the skills to manipulate a man like Quinn Ashley.

      Chapter Three

      ‘What do you make of the little nun?’ Quinn lounged on his great canopied bed and watched Gregor checking doors, windows and hangings in his usual obsessive search for assassins and escape routes. ‘Do stop that, Gregor. If there’s a fire, I will climb out of the window. I do not expect any other danger in this house except from the hazards created by my late uncle’s collection. And when we get to London it is likely to be pistols at dawn, not knives at midnight.’

      ‘Nun?’ The other man turned back from the wardrobe he was investigating. He spoke English with a heavy accent, but no reluctance, nor was there any sign of subservience in his manner now. It amused Quinn to observe his friend changing roles as the fancy took him or circumstances demanded. Gregor was enjoying teasing the servants and he was baffled by Quinn’s indifference to his new title. ‘That is no nun.’

      ‘No?’ Quinn sketched the scraped-back hair, gestured down his body as though to show the plain black gown, then mimed a wimple over his head. ‘What is she, then, because I am damned if I can tell?’

      ‘Trouble,’ Gregor grunted. Satisfied with his search, he settled into a huge carved chair. ‘A virgin. They are trouble always.’

      ‘You think she’s an innocent?’ Quinn stirred himself enough to lever his long body up on his elbows and peer down the length of it to look at the other man. He was not so sure. Those sidelong looks from under the heavy lashes, the pretty shows of deference combined with a slight pout—those were not the little tricks of an innocent.

      ‘She looks at you as though she has no idea what to do with you, but she would be quite interested to find out, if only she dared,’ the big Russian said.

      Quinn snorted and flopped back on the pillows. ‘Jupiter and Mars, but I am tired. She is worried I am going to throw her out, that is all. And she is not used to the likes of us, my friend. I should not have fed her wine.’

      ‘You do not want her? I would like her.’

      ‘Offer her your protection, then.’ Quinn closed his eyes and told himself that it was too late, and he was too tired, to go downstairs and start rummaging in the library. Those books would still be there tomorrow. As for women, the blonde intrigued him, stirred certain fundamental male responses, but she would still be there tomorrow as well. Women usually were, and this one was not going anywhere.

      Now was a good time to enjoy being clean, fed, relaxed. It was a couple of weeks since he had last had a woman, but deferred pleasures were usually sweeter for the contemplation. Like revenge. The urge for that was stronger here, in his great-uncle’s house.

      London would give him both.

      ‘She is frightened of me, although she tried to hide it,’ Gregor’s deep voice observed, cutting through his attempts to doze. ‘Her eyes, they have fear in them when they look at me. I like my women willing.’

      ‘And she is not afraid of me?’

      ‘She is aware of you. And what is the word, almost the same?’

      ‘Wary?’

      ‘Da. Wary. Puzzled. You are not what she expects a nobleman to be like. And, of course, you are prettier than me, so she looks more at you.’

      Quinn reached out a hand, took hold of a pillow and slung it in Gregor’s direction. It was hurled back with considerable accuracy. ‘Go СКАЧАТЬ