Quinn opened his eyes. She wished he would smile, but he still looked grim as he put his hands around her waist and lifted her out.
‘Quinn, are you tired?’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘I am not sure how to take that—I will try not to feel insulted.’ Lina felt herself blush; he was talking about their short-lived lovemaking. ‘No, I am not tired.’
‘Then let me tell you who I am, how I came to be at The Blue Door, what happened at Sir Humphrey Tolhurst’s house. Everything.’
‘Get dry, then, and put on your robe.’
When Lina emerged Quinn had lit the fire and tidied the bed. The room looked innocent and comfortable and safe. ‘Curl up on the bed,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll sit here.’ She wondered whose protection that distance was for. ‘Now, tell me it all. Honestly.’
‘I was brought up in a vicarage in the Suffolk countryside,’ Lina began, flushing at the implication that she would tell him any more untruths. The pillows were soft yet firm and smelt of Quinn as she tried to make herself relax. ‘I have two sisters—Arabella and Margaret—and our mother died when we were children. Our father is very strict, very puritanical…’
Chapter Fourteen
‘…and Lord Dreycott took me in,’ Lina finished, perhaps half an hour later. ‘I have heard nothing from my aunt, so I wrote to Cook, who lives out, the other day, but there has been no reply from there either. Now I do not know what to do.’
‘So this man Makepeace forced you to go to Tolhurst?’ Quinn was looking decidedly sceptical.
‘Yes! What choice did I have?’
‘Run away.’
‘Where to?’
‘Back to Suffolk,’ he said as though it should have been obvious.
‘My father would have thrown me out.’ She was not convincing him, she could see. ‘And my sister had gone, too.’
‘And you say Makepeace told you that and you believed him?’
She had not thought that the man had lied, Lina realised. Of course, that was the sort of lie he would tell. Then the way Quinn was phrasing his questions hit her. He thought she was telling another pack of lies.
‘Your father is a vicar,’ he persisted. ‘Am I to believe he would be seen to throw you out? He would be angry, I have no doubt. Had he ever struck you?’
‘No,’ she admitted. He had whipped Meg, but never her or Bella. ‘But he shouts—’
‘Are you telling me that being shouted at by your father is worse than being deflowered by Tolhurst?’
‘No, of course not. But Makepeace was demanding the money. If he didn’t get it, he would do all those dreadful things at The Blue Door.’
‘He would do them anyway. You are an intelligent woman, you would know that.’
‘You do not believe me, do you?’ she demanded.
‘I believe that you are being groomed as your aunt’s successor by both her and her business partner. You would not welcome the encounter with Tolhurst, but you accepted it as a necessary evil. After that, yes, I believe that you are not responsible for the theft.’
‘Why should I lie to you now?’ Lina wanted to weep. She thought that she had Quinn’s support. Yes, he was right: her story was full of holes if it was looked at objectively, in cold blood. But how to convince a confident, courageous man that at the time she had felt terrified, trapped, without any option but to submit?
Perhaps if she had thrown herself on his mercy right at the beginning, he would have believed her. But now she had lied to him, deceived him, shown herself less than chaste.
‘For the same reason you wanted to be my lover once I had heard Inchbold’s story—because you need me.’
‘I see.’ Lina felt too miserable even to protest. She lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes. ‘So, what happens now?’ He could not throw her out because of the will. They were tied to each other.
‘We must both go to London,’ Quinn said, startling her so much she sat bolt upright. ‘Letters are too dangerous.’
‘We? You will take me? You will help?’