Page 15 of When the Scoundrel Sins

He let that insult slide, knowing she wanted to make him angry enough that he’d leave her alone. Not a chance. He hadn’t believed one word of that sentimental cock and bull story she gave earlier about wanting the help of an old friend.

“I plan on hounding you until you give in and tell me the truth,” he warned. With a self-assured grin playing at his lips, he added as rakishly as possible just to goad her, “And I always get my way with women.”

“Notwith this one,” she replied haughtily and pulled her elbow away, but not before her cheeks pinked. Shaking her head, she muttered beneath her breath, “I had absolutely nothing to do with bringing you here. That was all your aunt’s doing.” Then she paused, her lips parting in soft hesitation, as if considering what to say, how much to divulge…“But I do have an idea for how to get us out of this mess.”

Interesting.He leaned in closer—

“Come join us, you two,” Agatha called out, interrupting them. “We need more hands to play at whist.”

“Of course.” Belle smiled at his aunt as if she and Quinn were discussing nothing more important than the evening’s weather. But as she turned to join the game, she paused to briefly rest her hand on his arm and lowered her voice. “Meet me in the library at midnight.”

A midnight meeting in a room only a bluestocking would pick. Not the kind of midnight assignation with a woman he usually found intriguing, but the Bluebell had pricked his interest. In more ways than one.

And he couldn’t resist teasing her about it. “A midnight tryst?” He faked astonishment. “Why, Belle, I’m shocked at you.”

For a heartbeat, she froze, astounded at his insinuation. “It isn’t like that at all!”

When he grinned at her, her shoulders slumped in irritation. She blew out an aggravated breath, knowing she’d risen to the bait exactly as he’d wanted.

“Someday, Quinton Carlisle,” she seethed, “you’re going to regret all the childish torment you’ve done to me over the years.”

Not as long as he could glimpse the fire he raised inside her. Like now. It was simply too delicious to avoid. “Perhaps,” he agreed, then walked away to join the card game, chuckling low as her blazing eyes followed after him. He murmured to himself, “But today is not that day.”

“Annabelle,” Aunt Agatha called out to her, “we need you.”

He had to give her credit as she plastered a carefree smile on her face and slid onto the chair at his elbow, partnering with Aunt Agatha against the two brothers and appearing for all the world as if nothing untoward had passed between them. Still, he placed his coffee safely out of her reach just in case she decided to fling it at him.

Ah, the Bluebell! Always so unpredictable and challenging, always so much fun to fluster and tease. And so much more interesting than those society ladies he associated with in London.

Robert dealt the cards, and as the tricks played out and trumps were taken, they fell into easy conversation. Aunt Agatha asked for details about Sebastian and Miranda’s wedding, right down to what kinds of cakes were served at the breakfast. She guffawed loudly when Quinn described how Edward and Kate Westover’s daughter Faith, who had been the flower girl, hit little Stephen Crenshaw, the ring bearer, over the head with her petal basket.

“The boy was born a marquess.” Aunt Agatha laughed. “Best he get used to abuse while he’s young. Especially that which involves irate females and flowers— Don’t trump my ace again, dear.”

“Apologies.” Belle bit her lip and frowned at her cards, as if she wasn’t certain which ones she still held in her hand. Her mind clearly wasn’t in the game.

“I’m a great fan of flowers and women myself,” Quinton murmured lazily as he counted the point in his and Robert’s favor on the marker.

Belle’s gaze slid sideways at the private innuendo, narrowing murderously on him. But his comment went right over the heads of Aunt Agatha and Robert, who paid it no mind.

Agatha shuffled the cards and dealt out the next hand. “And how is Elizabeth?”

Quinn frowned and answered quietly, “Mother’s much better now.”

But for the past two years, she’d been through hell. Richard Carlisle’s unexpected death had nearly taken her, too, in her grief.

No, it was more than mere grief. It was an inconsolable anguish that devoured her from the inside out, such pain and desolation that she’d barely survived it. In those first black weeks after his father died, Quinn had sat at her bedside and held her hand for days at a stretch, begging her to drink some water or broth, to eat anything in order to keep up her strength. Instead, she’d wasted away, until Dr. Brandon called him and his siblings together to tell them that he now worried that she might also perish.

So Quinn returned to her bedside and begged her again, this time not to die. Not to leave him and the family alone without her.

She’d heard him through her grief, and slowly, she’d recovered. Eventually, she’d moved out of her mourning and returned to society, going so far this past season as to sponsor Miranda Hodgkins and help with the wedding when his brother Sebastian fell in love with the girl. But even now she wasn’t nearly the same vivacious and energetic woman she’d once been. A light had dulled in her with Father’s death, one Quinn wasn’t certain would ever shine as brightly again.

“I was worried about her,” Aunt Agatha murmured. “I regret that I wasn’t able to go to her during her mourning, but it was so close on the heels of my own dear Ainsley…” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t look up from her cards, but Quinn could see the glistening of tears in her eyes, and his heart tugged for her. His aunt was another widow whose loss of a husband had nearly ended her, as well.

Andthatwas why he planned on remaining a bachelor. What good could come of marriage? All the marriages he knew were either ones made as advantageous matches for acquiring property or position, in which both spouses grew to detest each other—if they’d ever liked each other in the first place—or love matches. But in the end those were just as bad, if not worse. Because love always ended.Always.And nothing was left but grief.

Marriage might be fine for other people, those like his sister and brother, who needed their spouses the way flowers needed water to bloom. But not for him. He’d never let himself need a woman that much, or ever let a woman need him so much that she’d come to grief over him.

Besides, there was no room in his life for marriage anyway, now that his future was settled in America, where he looked forward to years of long days and hard work to prove himself successful.