Louise Allen - Innocent Courtesan to Adventurer's Bride

He caught her meaning immediately. ‘No, no brothers or sisters. Quinn is for my mother’s maiden name, not short for Quintus.’ They sat back while the soup plates were cleared and the fish brought in. The steady green eyes came back to her face and she dropped her gaze immediately. Sensitive and intelligent, certainly, but also disturbing. When she caught that look she felt very aware that she was female. ‘Have you brothers and sisters?’

‘I had two sisters, Margaret and Arabella,’ Lina admitted. ‘But Meg left the country with her husband, who is a soldier in the Peninsula, and I do not know where Bella is now.’

‘So you are quite alone? What about this aunt?’ He did not appear shocked by her absence of family. Of course, an interrogation about her antecedents was only to be expected.

‘She fell ill and can no longer give me a home.’ Ashley poured white wine into her glass as the whitebait were served and she took a sip, surprised to find it tasting quite light and flowery in her mouth. It was positively refreshing and she took another swallow. She was unused to wine, but one glass could not be harmful, surely?

‘I see.’ For a moment she wondered if he was going to ask what she intended doing once he employed a proper housekeeper, a question to which the only answer was I have not the slightest idea, but Ashley simply nodded and reapplied himself to his food, which was disappearing at a considerable rate.

‘More fish, my lord?’ Michael proffered the salver.

‘Thank you. Forgive my appetite, Celina, we did not stop for more than bread and ale since London.’

She could not help glancing at the impassive man standing behind him.

‘We can try,’ Quinn Ashley said, apparently reading her mind. ‘Gregor.’

He growled something in a language Lina could not understand and Ashley said, ‘English, please, Gregor.’

‘Lord?’

‘Eat.’

‘No, lord.’ It was said with neither insolence nor defiance. ‘Later.’

Quinn shrugged. ‘Stubborn devil.’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘If the housekeeper can sit down to dinner with you, I do not see why your companion may not,’ Lina said. The silent man made her uneasy, but she hated the thought that he was hungry, and if he would not leave the baron to eat in the kitchen, then there seemed only one solution. ‘Michael, please lay a place for Mr Gregor.’

It was Lord Dreycott, not she, who should say who ate at his table, but the new baron was so unconventional that the words were out of her mouth before she could bite them back.

‘You hear, Gregor?’ He did not seem offended that she was giving orders. ‘The lady wishes you to dine with us. Will you insult her by refusing?’

The man muttered something in his own language that made Ashley laugh and took the seat opposite her. ‘Lady.’

Michael began to serve the lamb cutlets. She only hoped they had enough to go round, now that a second large hungry male had been added to the table. Trimble slipped out, doubtless to warn Cook.

‘I must send for my uncle’s lawyer tomorrow. I assume the will has not been read?’ Ashley moved away her half-empty wine glass and filled another with red wine.

‘No. Mr Havers said they must first locate you. He seemed to think this would take some time. Your great-uncle certainly said it would.’ He’s off somewhere in Persia, lucky devil, were the old man’s actual words. Seducing his way through harems and getting into fights, I have no doubt. Presumably the fights came as a result of making an attempt on a harem and its occupants. Images of silks and sherbet and tinkling fountains came to mind. Dare she ask him about them?

No. This man was just as steeped in sin as the clients at The Blue Door, Lina reminded herself. And probably considerably more sophisticated and devious, she added. She should be on her guard, she thought; not all wolves had bulging blue eyes and unpleasant manners. Lina took a sustaining mouthful of red wine. It slipped down, warm and soothing.

‘My uncle had sent for me and I came as soon as the letter reached us. A message to go to Mr Havers first thing, Trimble, asking him to call at his earliest convenience.’ Ashley returned to his cutlets. Across the table Gregor had silently demolished the remains of the fish and was now eating meat with the air of a man who expected there to be wolfhounds to throw the bones to. A footman came in and added a dish of stewed beef to the table.

‘He sent for you? But he died in his sleep, and despite his age, it was unexpected.’ The doctor had actually muttered that he’d expected the aged reprobate to live to be a hundred.

‘He wrote a year ago to say I must return to pick up the pieces, as he put it. The letter took ten months to find me and then I had to travel back here. The old devil had his timing almost right, in the end.’ He paused and picked up his wine glass, looking into the claret as though it was a seer’s scrying glass. ‘I would have liked to have met him once more, I owe him a lot, but neither of us would have wanted me kicking my heels around the place for long.’

‘But it is so beautiful here,’ Lina protested. She had fallen in love with the wild grey sea just over the wooded hill that sheltered the house; the steep walks up through the woods on the opposite side of the valley or through the park; the wide expanse of sky that seemed to reach for ever.

‘Beautiful? I hope that there are many of your opinion, for I intend to sell it as soon as possible.’

‘Sell it? But you cannot—oh, I beg your pardon.’ She cut her gaze away as Ashley lifted his head to look at her. ‘It is none of my business.’ She had not meant to speak so passionately or draw attention to herself like that. Her nerves must be all over the place. Lina took another mouthful of wine and felt a little better.

‘You seem very attached to the place,’ he remarked.

He thought her anguish was for the estate, of course, not for her own position. Lina had thought that it would be several months at least before affairs were settled, time for her to find some way out of this impasse, or for her aunt to send news that the real culprit had been apprehended. But now, if Quinn Ashley meant to close up the house and sell at once, she could be without a home within a few weeks.

‘I think it lovely,’ she said colourlessly.

‘And you are wondering what will become of you,’ he said, his voice dry. He had not been deceived about her reaction for a moment. ‘My great-uncle has left provision for all the staff, he wrote that he had discussed it with them. I am sure he 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?