The pungency of Quinn's cheroot filtered through the room, and Noelle poured another glass, despite the fact that her head was now floating and her fingertips growing numb. Taking a deep swallow, she closed her eyes in a silent, intense prayer to a God whose existence she had so often questioned in poverty and then forgotten in prosperity. Please, she prayed, give me the strength to go through with this. I have to prove to him and to myself that I'm not a coward. Don't let me be humiliated again.
The room seemed to tilt as she willed her feet to move to the bed. She slid in, encased in her flannel cocoon. Don't let yourself think about it, she admonished. Don't look at him. Just shut your eyes and imagine you're somewhere else. She pulled the quilt up to her chin and clenched its top edge between her fingers to keep the room from moving.
"I'm ready now," she managed, her tongue cumbersome from the alcohol.
Whatever she had expected, it was not the sardonic bark of amusement coming from across the room.
"Save your sacrifice, Highness. I'm going to sleep in the stable, I prefer women who enjoy lovemaking, not one who has to fortify herself with a bottle of wine before she has the courage to get into bed."
Noelle tried unsuccessfully to raise herself up on one arm. "I have pl-plenty of courage. Don't have to fortify myself to find it. Said I would do my duty." The words would have been more defiant if they had not been slurred.
Quinn walked over to the bed and looked down on her. "Your 'duty' doesn't interest me. I don't take unwilling women, but I'll be damned if I'll put myself to the test by sleeping next to you at night."
"Since when have you developed scru-scruples?"
"It doesn't have anything to do with scruples. I just don't have a talent for rape."
"That's not how I remember it from our wedding night!"
"That was different, and you know it."
"Why? Because you thought I was a whore?" A large, wine- induced tear slid from the corner of her eye as she remembered her mother. "Whores are people, too. They have feelings."
"Oh, for Christ's sake! Go to sleep." He pulled his coat back on and headed for the door. "And don't wear that damned braid to bed anymore."
Dimly aware that she was not thinking clearly, she pulled herself up with as much dignity as she could manage. "If you don't like it, husband, then I shall take it out immediately."
With great difficulty, she put her feet over the side of the bed and stood, her stomach queasy at the sudden movement. "Whatever you say, I'll do. You're my lord, my master. Wives must please their husbands, mustn't be cowards." She stumbled across the room toward him, unbraiding the single plait with clumsy fingers as she moved.
Her stomach lurched, and she realized with horror that she was going to be sick. In that instant, Quinn picked her up and carried her outside. By the time the spasms overcame her, he was holding her head over the back of a clump of bracken. When her stomach was finally empty, he carried her back into the house and put her to bed. Then he left her.
Noelle lay wakeful for some time. The embarrassment she would normally have felt at being sick in his presence was somewhat tempered by her realization that he intended to leave her alone. She had made her gesture; he had refused it. Now she could live with herself. Her eyes began to feel heavy, and when she finally fell asleep, it was in the middle of the bed, her arms stretched luxuriously above her head.
Chapter Twenty-three
"Wake up, Highness. That scurvy little mare of yours is ready to be ridden." Quinn's voice was bright with good humor. "Put on your breeches and let's get started."
"No," Noelle moaned as she brought a limp palm to her forehead, trying to soothe away the throbbing reminder of last night's wine. "Not today. Maybe tomorrow."
"Out of that bed before I drag you out!"
Painfully she inched her eyes to narrow golden slits and saw him standing at the foot of the bed. A lazy smile parted his lips, but the determination in his eyes made it clear that he would do as he threatened if she defied him.
With a protracted groan, she rose from the bed and staggered toward her clothes. She pulled her breeches on under her nightgown and then, as Quinn turned his back to go to the fire, hastily took off the enveloping garment and slipped into her shirt. After she had finished a bitter cup of coffee he thrust into her hand, she felt somewhat better. For the first time she noticed a package on the table. "What's this?"
"Open it and see."
Inside was a pair of riding boots, the same warm, chestnutbrown as the mare he had given her yesterday. Noelle stroked the soft, pliable leather regretfully. "I know your gift is kindly intended, but I won't accept any more presents from you."
If she expected him to be upset by her refusal, she was disappointed. "My intentions weren't kind at all. Just practical. Or were you planning to ride in those silly slippers? Now, be outside in five minutes. I'll bring your horse around."
Five minutes later, conspicuously clad in her new boots, a sullen Noelle was waiting in front of the cottage. Her foul mood vanished, however, as soon as her mare came into sight.
She extracted an apple from her pocket. "Good moming, Chestnut Lady. Pretty Chestnut."
"Hold it out with your palm flat," Quinn told her. "Otherwise, she might take a few fingers with it."
Noelle did not bother to inform him that an animal with Chestnut's obvious intelligence was perfectly capable of distinguishing between fruit and fingers.
"When you're back in London, showing yourself off in Rotten Row, you'll undoubtedly insist on riding sidesaddle like the rest of the foolish women there, but here you'll ride astride," Quinn declared as he checked the girth and lowered the stirrups. "Riding sidesaddle is the easiest way there is for a woman to break her neck. It's a stupid custom."
Privately Noelle was delighted, but her capitulation in the matter of the riding boots made her perverse. "No gentleman would actually expect a lady to straddle a horse."
"You're probably right. But since I'm not a gentleman, I expect you to do more than sit on her back like a pretty ornament. Unless you ride astride, you'll never really feel the power of the animal or know the excitement of control."
He looked down at her wryly. "Or are you afraid you won't be able to manage her?"
Noelle's small nostrils flared defiantly. "Teach me to ride your way. Then ask me if I'm afraid."
By early afternoon, when Quinn finally called a halt to her lesson, she was making confident circles around the cottage with her spine straight, stomach tucked in, and arms close to her sides. Noelle was quick to point out that the formal riding style he insisted she adopt was markedly different from his own easy slouch in the saddle.
"Americans ride differently," was the only explanation he offered, but she suspected that he was as capable of riding in the English manner as the best horseman in London.
Their time together was markedly free of strain. Quinn patiently explained each new step and willingly answered all the questions her fertile mind produced. He was unfailingly charming as well as generous in his praise of her accomplishments, and Noelle, lulled by his amiability and basking in the approval of so demanding a teacher, wondered if she had misjudged him.
Before Quinn fell asleep that night he thought back over their day together. For some time now he had been aware of her intelligence, but it was not until today as they had eaten lunch at the edge of the tarn that he had taken the time to probe its dimensions. What he had discovered amazed him.
In a short period of time, she had acquired an education that was vastly superior to that which most women acquired over the course of a lifetime. He knew of only one other female with such intellectual scope, and, in Noelle's remarkable education, he detected the fine hand of Constance Peale.