Page 14 of When the Scoundrel Sins

He leaned over her shoulder and warned, “But one way or another, I will get the truth from you. Even if I have to tie you up and torture you.”

Her breath caught in a silent gasp. Before her befuddled mind could come up with a proper response tothat, he’d already moved away to take his own seat. She stared after him, but the infuriating pest didn’t so much as glance in her direction so she could give him the cutting glare he deserved.

Belle chewed her bottom lip and stared at him across the table as the footman carried in the first course. Oh, he was certainly not happy at finding himself coerced into helping her acquire a husband. From the trapped expression on his face as he turned to speak to Lady Ainsley, Belle suspected that he might not be any more receptive of the scheme she now turned over in her mind. But there was no other way to keep her home, not without the possibility of bringing down upon her head the same sort of miserable marriage her mother had.

Lady Ainsley was right. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and she could think of nothing more desperate than what she had in mind. Because she now knew what had to be done.

She needed to marry Quinton Carlisle.

***

Quinn’s eyes narrowed on Belle across the drawing room, where they’d gathered after dinner.What was really going on with the Bluebell?

Dinner had been pleasant enough, he supposed, except that he’d spent half of it wondering about Belle’s situation and the other half contemplating how much fun it might be to actually tie her up, given the glimpse of her he’d had at the pond.

His aunt’s announcement that Annabelle had to get married had stunned the daylights out of him. He’d heard of similar stipulations by members of the quality to force their children into doing their bidding, especially to second- or third-born children, who didn’t have the restraints of entailments and the pressures of continuing peerages that the heirs had. One way to ensure that sons and daughters married suitably and settled down into respectable adulthood was to control their purse strings.

But for Belle, it made no sense. That a proper gentleman from a respectable family would ever attach himself to her was highly unlikely, regardless of how sizable her dowry. Surely his uncle had realized that. What the late Lord Ainsley should have done was give her the property outright, to establish a home and living for her in case she remained unmarried.

What Uncle Charles had actually done, however, was force her into the very real possibility of falling prey to a fortune hunter. Which gave veracity to Aunt Agatha’s explanation for why she wanted him here.

But it didn’t begin to clarify everything.

Whatever Annabelle was hiding, he would discover it eventually. And she knew that, too, based on the way she’d kept her distance ever since they’d gone through after dinner. As if she couldn’t trust herself near him. Even now, she played at the pianoforte on the far side of the room, pretending to ignore him and missing half the notes in her lack of concentration.

The butler slid open the double doors, and a footman carried a coffee tray inside. He set it on the sideboard and retreated from the room.

“Ah, the coffee’s arrived,” Aunt Agatha commented as she picked up a discarded ace in the card game she’d taken up with Robert. “All of you help yourselves. We don’t stand on formalities in the evenings here at Glenarvon.”

Ferguson’s heavy sigh said otherwise, but the butler dutifully arranged the coffee for service, then stood to the side and waited to pour cups.

Belle rose from the pianoforte and crossed the room to request a coffee.

And so did Quinn. As Ferguson reached for the coffeepot, he stepped up beside her. “Belle.”

Her pink lips parted in a peculiar mix of nervousness and awareness that reminded him for a moment of a hare who knew it had stumbled into a snare but couldn’t flee for falling deeper into the trap. She stared straight ahead, unwilling to look at him. Which made him only more determined to discover the truth.

Ferguson finished pouring and held out her cup.

As she turned to walk away, Quinn took her elbow and stopped her, forcing her to remain at his side unless she wanted to cause a scene. She tensed with a shallow gasp, and he felt that soft breath shiver through her beneath his fingertips.

“A coffee for me, too, Ferguson,” he requested, although he didn’t have a taste for it tonight. But it gave him a good excuse to remain at her side.

The butler nodded and reached to pour a second cup.

“The truth now, Belle,” he pressed. “Why do you really want my help?”

She hesitated, and for a moment, he suspected she might tell him. But her eyes flicked with uncertainty at the butler. “I cannot say right now,” she answered quietly. “There are too many ears in the room who might overhear.”

Ferguson bristled at the comment, caught in his eavesdropping. Quinn thought he heard a softhumphsound beneath the butler’s breath.

“You can’t avoid me for long,” he warned. “I deserve answers.”

“I told you—”

“You’ve told me practically nothing.” He took the proffered coffee from Ferguson, who turned away with a sniff of pique and politely put several feet between them. “Except enough to raise my suspicions.”

She scowled. “Now you’re just being dogged.”