“Well, you should have thought about that before you arranged an assignation with your lover and then had the bad sense to get caught!” Adrian snapped.
“If I were a man, I could take all the lovers I wanted, and no one would bat an eye!” Allison cried, the unfairness of it all infuriating her. “If I was your little brother, and you’d caught me out late at night with a beautiful woman, you’d pat me on the back and congratulate me!”
“Well, you’re not my little brother,” Adrian snarled. “And forgive me if I don’t find your... deflowering something to pat you on the back for!”
“I’m still a virgin,” Allison proclaimed indignantly. “Not that it’s any of your business!”
“Stop, both of you!” Vanessa inserted, putting her arm around Allison’s shoulders in comfort as the carriage rocked forward. “Allison, why don’t you tell us what happened?”
Allison took several deep breaths, trying to calm down. Somehow, she had to convince them that things were not as bad as they seemed. She had to get Adrian on her side so that he would speak to Lucien on her behalf.
“Quinn and I became very good friends when Lucien sent him to bring me back from Paris.” Seeing the look on Adrian’s face, she rushed to clarify, “He was a perfect gentleman, but I was frightened and alone, so I suppose he became a hero of sorts to me. Since then, I’ve always enjoyed seeing him, but it wasn’t until Polly’s murder that we began to see each other more often. I was so upset by that, by what I saw, and it comforted me to have him there that night.”
Adrian sighed. “O’Brien is a good man. I don’t doubt that. But none of what you’ve said explains why you were alone with him tonight.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, to be honest, I did want him to be my lover. I found out where he lived and went to see him—”
“Are you insane?” Adrian cried, all the progress she’d made toward calming him down evaporating. “You went to Bethnal Green alone? In the middle of the night? To seduce Quinn O’Brien?”
Even Vanessa looked aghast.
“He explained to me what would be involved, the risks such a thing would incur, and in the end, I decided that I was not willing to take them. Then he offered to escort me home so I would not come to any harm,” Allison explained, her cheeks burning as she gave this highly edited version of what had been going on between her and Quinn over the past few weeks.
Her explanation seemed to mollify Adrian somewhat, and he even gave a huff of a laugh. “I almost feel sorry for O’Brien. It makes me less inclined to want to kill him. But that doesn’t change anything. Far too many people saw you with him. Your reputation will be in ruins if he doesn’t marry you.”
Allison waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t care about any of that. What do I care what the ton thinks of me? I’m not on the marriage market, and I don’t care about going to any of those ridiculous parties.”
A little of her panic began to abate. Perhaps everything would be all right after all.
“It really doesn’t matter what I think,” Adrian said, his manner gentling. “In the end, it’s really up to Lucien.”
Her panic returned ten-fold. Why should her entire future be in the hands of her brother?