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.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Let 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.’