Olivia did not ask to see the bruising around his throat to confirm what he told her. Griffin came slowly to the realization that her failure to challenge his story was not merely because she believed him, but because she believed she was capable of just such a thing. Not that she wasn’t distressed by her behavior. There was no mistaking either her deeply felt embarrassment or her even deeper horror.
She remained at the table as long as she could, but he observed the slow drain of color from her face and knew it was only a matter of time before she fled. He didn’t flinch when she jerked the chair out from under her with enough force to make it rock on its back legs and ran into the dressing room, holding her arms crossways in front of her stomach. In spite of her consideration in shoving the door shut behind her, he still heard the sounds of her being sick.
She emerged some ten minutes later, pale but composed. The table was cleared of everything save for the pot of tea and two dry triangles of toast. She sat at the table, her head bent, while Griffin finished his quiet discussion with the footman. She remained that way until the dressing room was tidied and all evidence of her abrupt illness was removed.
Griffin poured her a cup of tea and pushed it directly into her line of sight. “Here. Drink. You will feel more the thing.”
She nodded, grasped the cup in both her hands, and raised it halfway to her lips. It hovered there, keeping her hands warm, but doing nothing at all to settle her nervous stomach. Griffin placed two fingers under the cup and lifted gently, giving her the momentum she could not seem to find for herself. She brought it to her mouth, sipped. While it did not make her feel more the thing immediately, it began to warm her from the inside.
“I am compelled to point out, Olivia, that I have come to no harm.” Griffin nudged the plate of toast toward her. “Your reaction is altogether more than I could have reasonably predicted. Some modest embarrassment might be expected because the behavior is both curious and singular, but it is also clearly not within your control. Your response suggests that you not only hold yourself responsible but that you could command your nightmares to take a different course. If such a thing is possible, I have never heard of it. If you cannot accept that I do not blame you, then you can trust that I will never speak of it again.”
Olivia lowered her cup and raised her head. She searched his face, looking for some sign of the condemnation he denied. It wasn’t there. “You don’t understand.”
“That’s right. I don’t. But neither, I think, do you. I am not afraid of you, Olivia. I’m afraid for you. When you take so much upon yourself, I fear for you more, not less.” He watched her lips part as though she meant to say something. This was followed by an almost imperceptible shake of her head, and he knew she was erring once again on the side of caution for herself and mistrust of him. “You had no idea, did you?”
Her eyes fell on her cup. “I have no recollection of attacking you,” she said carefully.
“That’s not quite an answer to the question I asked, is it?”
Olivia pressed her lips together as much in annoyance as to keep herself from answering thoughtlessly. “There have been times that I’ve awakened to find the sheets twisted like ropes, the pillows stuffed between the mattress and the headboard, my feet at the wrong end of the bed. So, it’s not true that I had no idea something was not right, but with no memory to support what happened I didn’t…” She shrugged uneasily. “I just didn’t know.”
“Something like this has happened before. I had to restrain you. You never woke.”
Olivia set her cup down and quickly placed her hands in her lap under the table before Griffin could see the tremors. “There were bruises. I didn’t know…I thought…”
“You never asked.”
She’d been afraid to. He would know that now. “It won’t happen again.”
“I’m not certain how you can say that.”
Now she looked up at him, her eyes widening slightly. “Because I won’t share your bed again.”
“Well, now, there is where we disagree, because I am quite sure you will.”
“That is a ridiculous notion. Would you take a viper to your bed?”
“I did. In point of fact, I married her. You, my dear Miss Cole, are not a viper.”
Olivia’s response was to reach across the small table and tug hard on the satin collar of his robe. The flesh at the side of his neck was rubbed raw. The mark she’d made did not completely ring his throat but it was not for lack of effort on her part. Her hand flew to her mouth, and the words she might have gasped were smothered.
Olivia dropped back into her chair slowly. “You don’t know,” she whispered from behind her hand. “You don’t know, and I can’t tell you.”
Griffin casually straightened his collar and smoothed the lapel. “You can tell me anything, Olivia.”
She shook her head. “You only think I can. It will be different—everything will be different—once you know.”
Frustrated, but keeping it contained, Griffin sat back in his chair. “Perhaps, but for what you have already suffered at the hands of others, I wouldn’t blink if you told me you’d done murder.”
And as simply as that, he knew he’d tripped over some part of what she kept to herself. He knew it even before her head snapped up and the blood drained from her face. He was slow in reaching for her, and she managed to get away before he caught up to her and steered her away from the dressing room and back to the table. “You can have nothing left in your stomach to retch,” he said quietly.
It was true, but the feeling did not pass easily. “You cannot imagine how it would please me to faint.”
He moved his chair and sat beside her, then took her hands into his. He forced heat into them with a brisk massage. “Have you killed someone, Olivia?”
“I don’t know.” She removed her hands from his, fisted them, then splayed and stretched her fingertips. She stared at them, unable to meet his eyes. “I don’t know. I think…I think I might have.”
“Then you may as well say all of it. Asking Restell Gardner to discover the truth will put me in his debt for all eternity.”
She risked a glance at him. “Is it so important that you know the details?”
“As opposed to knowing so little that I must sleep with one eye open the rest of my life? Because that is what I’m willing to do.” He watched her, made certain she understood the implication. He meant for them to share a bed for a lifetime, and she would have to accustom herself to the idea. It was clear she did not expect it and had no idea how to respond. It was unlikely she even believed him. “Begin anywhere you wish,” he said. “We will sort it out together.”
Olivia drew in a calming breath and released it slowly. She nodded once, then produced the first words haltingly. “His name was Rawlings. I heard him called that by the others…his friends, I mean, or at least I supposed they were his friends. There were five of them at the table. Two pints of ale. A tumbler of gin. Another of whiskey. Rawlings…he was the glass of port. I served the ale, gin, and port three times over. The whiskey only twice. I imagined they might be students. They were of an age with me at the time, most especially the two pints and the tumbler of gin.”
Griffin listened carefully, trying not to give way to surprise and distract her from her tale. Had she just described herself as a tavern maid?
Olivia caught Griffin’s eye, then found a point past his shoulder to set her gaze upon as she continued. “They were already in fine humor when they seated themselves near the hearth. I supposed it was because they had shared a flask on the coach. It was a bitterly cold evening, and every coach that stopped wanted accommodations for the passengers, whether or not they usually took respite there.”
Not simply a tavern then, Griffin thought, but an inn on a well-traveled coach route. A place where she could be alone among many, a stranger to the guests if she wished, familiar and friendly if she wanted it otherwise.
“We had our fill of travelers that night and were trying to decide how many could be squeezed into a room. Some passengers had already agreed to three and four to a bed and negotiated a fair price. Others were less inclined to make allowances. The students whispered among themselves, drew broom straws, and made plans. I gave it little thought. With so many to look after, they attracted no more notice than the rest. One of them, the gin, I think, produced a deck of cards, and they played long after many of the guests retired for the night.”
Olivia took a sip of tea. Her mouth had become dry of a sudden, the back of her throat uncomfortably tender. “They were not overly attentive toward me as I brought them drinks. There are comments that one expects, but I had had occasion to hear far worse than anything that was said to me that night. Even well into their cups they were most genial. As a whole their temperament was unexceptional.”
“Rawlings?” asked Griffin.
Olivia’s eyebrows drew together slightly. “It did not strike me as odd at the time, but later…afterward…I realized he’d contributed very little.”
“And watched you overmuch.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know.” She added tea to her cup but didn’t drink. Instead she used the cup to warm her hands again. “I had a room of my own in the attic. It was small but entirely comfortable. Because every room was in such demand that night, I gave mine up to a pair of lady’s maids. I was paid handsomely for the sacrifice by their employers and my own, so it was advantageous for me to go elsewhere. I agreed to make my bed in the carriage house, though that is rather too grand a name for the structure. It was more in the way of a stable but large enough to accommodate several coaches and all of the cattle.”
“And the drivers, footmen, and tigers, I imagine.”
“Well, yes. Naturally.” She required a moment to register his disapproving tenor. “It is inappropriate for you to assume they presented the least danger to me. I knew most of them, as they frequently made stops in Royston. I could have expected any one of them to come to my aid.”
“But they didn’t. Or do I misunderstand the turn your story is about to take?”
“If you think they had any opportunity to assist me, then you most definitely misunderstand the situation. I never reached the carriage house. I left by the back door carrying a wool blanket and a lantern. I recall clutching my mantle to keep it from flapping around me. A woolen scarf covered the lower half of my face. The wind was fierce, howling. I had to lean into it to remain standing. Except for my small light, the yard was dark, and by the time I realized I was not alone, I was being pushed hard to the ground. The lantern spilled out of my hand and the light went out. I had no breath to call for help, not that I believe I would have been heard. I was among the very last to retire. The likelihood of waking someone was small, and the wind was banging the shutters against the stone.”
Olivia’s eyes found Griffin’s. He was making no more judgments, simply listening instead. She could hold his gaze now, though why that should be she wasn’t sure. What she had to tell him was more difficult, not less. “You might wonder, with the lantern extinguished, how I knew it was Rawlings,” she said quietly. “But I—”
“The port,” said Griffin. “You smelled port on his breath.”
She nodded. “That is it exactly. Few others drank it that night. His height. The shape of his frame. It was not hard for me to determine that he was my attacker. He spoke very little. A few words to direct me, to tell me in most explicitly vulgar terms what he wanted me to do for him. I could not do it, Griffin. I couldn’t. I fought back. He was hampered by the blanket that was caught between us, my heavy mantle, and my strength.”
Griffin offered a gently wry smile. “I don’t suppose he considered that carrying tray after tray weighted with drink made you as strong as most dock workers.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t suppose he did.”
“You used your scarf?”
She nodded. It was easier now that he was able to draw inferences from all that she’d told him. “He was so intent on his own attack that he failed to notice mine. I managed to unwind the scarf from my throat and loop it around his. I caught him high on his neck, just under his chin, and I pulled…” She returned her cup to its saucer and stared at it. “And pulled.” The slight tremor was once again in her fingertips. The tea rippled. “I twisted the scarf and pulled for as long as I was able….” Her voice drifted off. She held herself still and found composure. “They came then…all four of them. Gin. The whiskey. Both pints of ale. I never heard them above the sound of my own breathing. I don’t know what drew them from their beds or what they saw. They tore Rawlings away from me, dragged him off into the night. He never protested, never struggled. Whiskey stayed behind long enough to make certain I could rise, then he hurried off to join the others. They went in one direction away from the inn. I went in another.”
Griffin understood then that Olivia’s dreams were not merely nightmares, but hauntings. She was visited by specters as she slept, every choice she made that evening came at her again, and she was helpless to make them any differently.
“Is it so important what I think, Olivia? Will it truly ease your doubts to know I think you acted as nature intended you should? The sort of peace you seek isn’t conferred on you by others. It seems to me that we make that peace within ourselves.” He shrugged lightly. “But even that is only my opinion.”
“Have you ever done murder?”
“No, but defending oneself is not murder.”
“Perhaps that is so among gentlemen. You have your peculiar rules. But I believe society will judge me differently.”
“Rawlings’s companions didn’t. They took him away, not you. You don’t know that he’s dead by your hand. You don’t know that he’s dead at all.”
“I know what I felt.”
“Killing such as you described is not a thing done quickly,” Griffin said. “His friends may have saved his life by coming upon you when they did.”
Olivia could sit no longer. She rose and went to stand at the window. Across the way, the front door to the brothel opened and the pair of whores she knew only by their taste in outrageously adorned bonnets emerged. Hugging herself, she stepped back so they wouldn’t see her when they looked up. “No better than I ought to be,” she said softly. “No better at all.”
Griffin turned in his chair. Olivia’s back had a steel rod where most people had a spine. Nothing would come of taking the opposing view. He chose a different tack. “What happened afterward? Where did you go?”
“I fled. It seemed all that was possible for me to do, though running away surely damned me. I had a bit of money saved that I was able to take, and I made my way from one town to the next, found work now and again. I eventually took a coach to Cambridge. I knew my brother was there. Alastair set up a house for me there while he finished his studies.”
As an explanation, it left much out. Griffin was far from satisfied. He continued to regard her stiffly set shoulders and spine. A few moments of silence was all that was required to prompt her to turn. Her chin was thrust a fraction forward as though she meant to challenge him. The slight quiver warned him she didn’t have the strength for an interrogation. It was not what he wanted in any event.
“Alastair doesn’t know,” she said quietly. “I could never bring myself to tell him. Whatever you might think of him, you must know that he took a great deal upon himself when he offered me a place to stay. He did it knowing that our father would not look kindly upon him for it. Indeed, in the first round of sparring Sir Hadrien threatened to cut him out of his inheritance. He settled for reducing his quarterly allowance instead. Because I was at the source of the conflict, even his mother could not be prevailed upon to make up the difference.”
Griffin’s gaze remained on hers. “Do you blame yourself, Olivia, for Alastair’s gaming? Come, be honest. Is there yet some part of you that holds yourself responsible? After all, if you had not sought him out, he would have his full allowance and no need to seek some manner of supplementing it. You were a financial burden to him, there’s no denying the truth of that.”
Olivia was reminded that Griffin understood too well the sharp turns her mind took. “My presence caused him difficulties,” she said carefully. “And he made decisions as to how he would deal with them.”
“So he did. You would do well to remember it. Far from being a burden, you were a convenience to him. Your presence gave him an easy excuse for gaming. In all likelihood, he would have taken it up regardless of his financial circumstances and lost sums in excess of whatever his father gave him. Many young men do; most survive the experience and come out wiser for it on the other end. I imagine your brother will too. What is required is time.”
Olivia remained silent for a long moment. She was conscious of Griffin’s study, the way his head tilted as he waited her out, but he advanced no pressure, only patience, and the ache she carried when she thought of her brother was eased because of it.
“I think you must be right,” she said finally, softly. Her shoulders rose and fell on a small sigh as her breath came without any accompanying tightness. “I don’t know when I should have come upon the truth of it myself.”
“In time.” A wry smile edged his lips. “I suspect you are rather more accustomed to accepting fault than assigning it to others.”
“Perhaps.”
Sensing her wariness, Griffin did not underscore the point. “Will you finish your tea, Olivia?” He leaned forward, touched the side of her cup. “It has not yet grown cold.”
Olivia dragged her eyes away from his and glanced at the tea service and uneaten toast points. For once, the rumble in her stomach was pleasant, not ominous. A bit self-consciously, she pressed one hand to it, then returned to her chair.
“What did you mean about Mr. Gardner?” she asked.
The abrupt shift in subject tugged at Griffin’s mental balance. “Pardon?”
“Earlier you said that asking Mr. Gardner for information about me would put you in his debt for all eternity. I wondered what you meant.”
“Oh.” He felt as if he were once again righted, though it was a narrow thing. “Gardner has a faculty for discovery, I suppose you’d call it. One can apply to him to set all manner of things right again.”
“Such as finding Lady Breckenridge.”
“Yes. That is one example.”
“Why did you not ask for his help at the outset?”
“Because I have only recently learned of his peculiar talent. He does not seek out his clientele; indeed, he does not assist everyone who applies to him. Word of mouth brings people to his door, then he decides what he will do.”
“And he agreed to help you.”
“Yes.”
“Now you are in his debt.”
“Yes, and he trades in favors, not currency, so I have no idea when or how I might be asked to return it.” Griffin did not miss Olivia’s flash of disappointment. “There is something you would like to ask of him?”
“I’m not…that is, no…no, I don’t think so.” She shrugged. “In any event, what favor could he possibly gain from an association with me?”
“That is for him to decide.” When she said nothing, he prompted gently. “Why don’t you ask it of me? Perhaps it is something that does not require Gardner’s extraordinary skills. Is it outside all possibility that I might be of service?”
His rather obvious cajolery raised her smile. “I cannot decide if you mean to be modest about your own talents or wounded that I did not apply to you first.”
“Which approach will have the greater chance of disarming you? Tell me, and I shall refine it.”
Olivia was not proof against his honesty. Her smile deepened as she shook her head. “I am disarmed. Completely. I do not thank you for it, nor for making me admit it.”
It was only fair, Griffin thought. He should not be the only one without weapons at the ready. Suspecting that she would not believe him, he held his tongue and waited for her to name the service he might do for her.
“Do you recall the four gentlemen who came here together awhile back, all of them so deep in their cups that you were forced to show them the door?”
He did not require further clarification. “I do, indeed. There was one that—” He stopped, rubbed his chin with his knuckles. “Whiskey. Gin. Two pints of ale. Am I right?”
“I think so. It’s been some years.”
“And the one who spoke to you? Tried to place your face? Which one was he?”
“The whiskey. Or I believe he might have been.”
“You could have told me then.”
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t have. I denied the truth to myself.”
Griffin understood well enough how that was done. “What is it you want?”
“As you said, peace of mind, I suppose. They know what happened afterward. I never have.”
“If they meant to come forward, they would have by now. Years ago, in fact.”
“I thought so, yes. I listened wherever I went, hoping to hear something as much as I dreaded the same. I could never learn what had become of Rawlings, but then I might have mistaken his name. I was too afraid to return, so I kept going. I believe what you said about defending myself…most of the time. It is what I did when I was confronted by the intruder in my room. It was as if Rawlings was given a second chance and I…” She fell silent, shaking her head. “There is guilt, though, that I left Rawlings to others and fled, and fear of what is still unknown.”
Griffin understood her vulnerability. “How were you called when you were employed at the inn?”
“Livvy. Livvy Cole.”
“Would they have learned it that night?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you never think of taking another name? That you opposed the idea when I suggested it seems to fly in the face of common sense.”
Olivia touched her fingers to her temple and pushed back a wayward strand of hair. “I suppose we see it differently.”
“But when you were at the inn, weren’t you hiding from your father?”
“In hiding? No. What a peculiar notion. It is truer that throughout my life he hid me away.”
“How?”
“At school, of course. There are such things for girls, you know, if one’s parents aren’t inclined to employ a governess. As you have mentioned, my father likes to take a position on the moral high ground, so it should not surprise you that confession and repentance figured largely in my education.”
Griffin’s eyes narrowed as he considered what he knew about the schools available to young girls. If Sir Hadrien was determined to put his daughter away, then the school would be isolated and have little in the way of interference from the outside. “A convent school,” he said, looking to Olivia for confirmation. “Confession and repentance. I’m right, aren’t I? You were educated in a convent school.”
“You are rather too proud for coming to it on your own when you only had to ask. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
He could imagine that she had been required to learn and recite a great many proverbs. “How old were you when you were sent away?”
“Six.”
He owed it to her, he thought, not to let pity creep into his expression. “And when you left?”
“Twelve.”
Griffin nodded slowly. He knew what to make of the half dozen years between her sixth year and her twelfth. Only the most depraved mind could reconcile what she’d learned at the school as part and parcel of a young girl’s education.
“You are thinking the whole of it must have been terrible,” she said quietly. This time it was Olivia who slid her hand across the table and beckoned him with an open palm. He fit it in hers and her fingers closed around his. “It wasn’t. Or if it was, I choose to remember it differently. There were kindnesses. I was well educated, sheltered, and fed. There were games. Giggling. Silly gossip. We had books and instruments. Some girls played; others sang. We had prayers, of course. You will not be shocked that there was an extraordinary amount of praying. Also lessons in deportment. In drawing and sewing and conversation. French and Italian were spoken. Latin, also. History. Geography. Penmanship. Poetry. There were riding and dancing lessons. We learned such things as to make us comfortable companions. There was no hardship in that, save for my own lack of interest in all but the books and conversation.”
Her brief account was not so different from his own experiences at Hambrick Hall, but he would not have described the purpose of such things as to make him a comfortable companion. Had she realized even at so early an age that she was being prepared for something that was perhaps beyond the pale? He decided not to turn the conversation in that direction but asked instead, “What sort of student were you?”
“Can you not guess? A diligent one. Most desirous of pleasing. In the beginning it was to please my teachers, but in the end it was to please me. There was no way to avoid all punishment, but I was not called forward as frequently as others. A palm lashing was common. Canings were relatively rare. The punishment chair was the most feared.”
“Punishment chair? What is that?”
“It was not used at your school?”
“Until you tell me what it is, I have no idea.”
“It’s simply a chair with the center of the seat removed. There were several of different heights so that as a girl grew taller there was always a chair sufficiently high enough to cause her feet to dangle just above the floor.”
Griffin began to have a picture of it in his mind. “Her legs would have become numb,” he said. “Swollen as well, I imagine.”
“Yes, if she had to sit in it long.”
“I should think twenty minutes would be long enough to get the desired effect. How long were girls required to sit?”
She shrugged. “Half an hour for minor infractions. An hour or more for the important ones.”
A muscle jumped in Griffin’s cheek. The line of his scar became pronounced. “No one could possibly stay on their feet after so long in the chair.”
“Not easily, no. I imagine that’s why they applied the strap when a girl faltered and fell. How long it took to rise from the floor depended on her strength of character and will.”
Griffin wondered if his face was as cool and colorless as it felt. He was careful to speak quietly, certain she did not deserve to hear his thoughts at the volume he heard them in his own head. “Bloody hell, Olivia. Strength of character and will be damned. That is nonsense. You are describing an abomination. Torture, not punishment, and in no wise discipline.”
She blinked. “It has never been done to you?”
“God, no. The dons, house masters, and proctors at Hambrick Hall were strict and embraced the efficacy of the rod, too much so for my tastes, but even they would shy from what you are telling me. Who stood over you while it was being done? The sisters?”
“No. Oh, no. They prayed for us. They could not…would not…no, the sisters had no part in that.”
They had also deliberately turned their heads, but Griffin did not say so. “A priest, then. Was it a priest?”
“Sometimes.” She could not be certain when she ceased to hold his hand and he began holding hers.
“Sometimes,” he said softly. It meant there were other tormentors. “Olivia, who were the men that forced themselves on you?”
Olivia flinched a little, but he held her fast. She had wanted him to know that she had memories of light and laughter that were separate from the darker recollections and that she was shaped by both experiences, not one exclusive of the other. “I should not speak of them.”
The childlike tenor of her voice startled them both, but it was Griffin who frowned. She had spoken the words as though she had learned them by rote and was now obliged to recite them.
As if testing the waters, she said them again. “I should not speak of them.”
“Is that what you were told, Olivia?”
“I don’t remember. It seems as if it must be, doesn’t it?”
He squeezed her hand gently. “Perhaps it is something that one cannot come at directly. It’s possible you never knew their names. What can you speak of?”
“Not all of us were chosen. The girls, I mean. I remember that. We were not all selected to go.”
“To go where?”
“To wherever it was that we went.” She drew her hand back and chose one of the cold toast points. “I was a child. I cannot say more than that. I don’t know where I was or where I was taken. It was a very small world and was not made significantly larger by being taken beyond the convent walls.”
“Did you go alone?”
“Alone. In pairs. Never more than three. I told you once that I went willingly that first time. Do you remember?”
“I remember.”
“My greatest shame is that I wanted to be chosen. There were presents afterward. Sweets. Ribbons. Gloves. Lace. Pretty bonnets and slippers. I was envious of what I saw other girls receiving. I had nothing from home. No letters. No packages. I learned quickly that I should never expect to receive anything from my family, so when girls returned from their carriage rides and showed the gifts they’d been allowed to take, I wanted the same.”
Griffin thought of his sisters. He imagined them elbowing one another out of the way, leaping across prostrate bodies to reach the waiting carriage first. They would have been eager, even greedy, and they would have been made to pay dearly, just as Olivia had been made to pay. But for the grace of God, there went Jenny, Kate, and Juliet. “You did nothing wrong.”
“I know it, and yet it does not always seem so.”
“That is because when you reflect upon it you think you had a choice. You didn’t. Never once. Not even at the first.”
Griffin’s implacable features were softened by Olivia’s tears. She knuckled them away impatiently. She required him to be uncompromising in the position he took and in the position he took it from. She wanted to be—needed to be—convinced. “How can you know?”
“You would know it as well but for the fact that it happened to you.”
“I was called out to one of the carriages many times.”
“Do you say that to punish yourself?”
“I say it so you will know what I am.”
“I know what you are, Olivia, and it is not what you think they made you. You said you were not a whore, but I am no longer certain that you believe it.”
“Their gifts paid for me.”
“Their gifts paid for your silence. That is what they purchased. They could have had you for nothing.”
Olivia simply stared at him. As often as she’d drawn back the curtain on her past, she had never seen it in such a light before.
Watching her, the left side of Griffin’s mouth edged upward. He had managed to trip her up in the best possible way. He could see her taking in the view, examining it from this new perspective. Her splendid green eyes were narrowed just enough to sharpen her glance, and her mouth, her very tasty mouth, remained parted on an indrawn breath. A curling tendril of flame-red hair fell over her brow and dipped low enough to hook her lashes. She thrust her lower jaw forward and blew up, the action a mixture of irritation and impatience, and dislodged the curl. It settled at the corner of her eye and she allowed it to remain there.
“It makes an awful sort of sense when I hear you say it,” she told him. “It makes me think that the time will come when I’ll be able to speak of them.”
“I would not be at all surprised.”
Olivia prepared to choose another piece of toast and saw that her plate was empty. She could not recall that she’d eaten any of it. Similarly, her cup was drained.
“Hungry?” Griffin asked, divining her thoughts.
“Ravenous.”
He stood. “Then attention must be paid.”
Olivia did not anticipate that Griffin would want to accompany her on her walk. She was standing at the front door, fastening the frog closure on her mantle while she waited for Mason to reappear with his gloves in hand, when Griffin came down the stairs dressed for the out of doors. Her eyebrows rose in tandem. Too late she realized that her expression was not simply one of surprise but hinted at the fact that she found him indecently handsome to look upon. His quick half-grin made it clear that he’d had a hint of her thoughts and approved of the turn they’d taken.
Olivia pivoted, giving him her shoulder. He had a cheval glass in his bedchamber and therefore no need to view his reflection again in her eyes. She thought she heard him chuckle as he came abreast of her, but when she cast him a suspicious sideways glance he was perfectly stoic.
It was no good. She sighed. “You have the profile of a Roman god,” she said, “and that is all I am prepared to say on the matter of your exceptionally fine countenance.”
She was already on the lip of the second step by the time Griffin caught up with her, and this time she was quite certain he was laughing. A smile edged her mouth, deepened, and in another moment she joined him.
They walked to Moorhead Street, turned, separated briefly as they dodged a stack of crates that indicated a move to or away from the district, then made a diagonal crossing in the direction of the park. Griffin helped Olivia adjust her sable-trimmed hood as the wind kicked up and gave her the lee side of his body. Thus sheltered, she was able to speak without the accompaniment of chattering teeth, though she liked their companionable silence well enough. He was the one who finally breached it.
“I went to see my sisters yesterday,” he said. “After I spoke to Gardner and we agreed that he would bring Elaine to London, I decided that calling upon my sisters was in order.”
“To inform them?” asked Olivia.
“To warn them. They do not know the particulars of why my marriage collapsed, but they have supported me in their own way. That means they make free with such criticisms and advice as they believe will help me and form a protective phalanx about me when anyone outside the family is wont to do the same.”
“I do not suppose they could demonstrate their great affection for you in any better manner.”
“I suppose not, no.”
“Nor you for them. You show considerable tolerance. What could very well be an annoyance becomes a source of amusement.”
He smiled because she understood so completely. It astonished when one considered that she had so little experience with family herself, but she had neatly defined the workings of his. “Jenny was rather less disagreeable than Kate or Juliet upon hearing my news, but she is the one who will insist that they meet to strategize. Jenny favors strategy. Kate and Juliet have a tendency to simply charge into the fray, so she must save them from themselves. At least that is how she explains the fact that she has always been their leader.”
“They sound formidable.”
“Amazons. Brave men have been known to quiver in their presence.” He drew Olivia closer as they stepped aside to make way for a nursemaid with two young children in tow. The children, rosy-cheeked and giggling, seemed oblivious to the elements, while their nurse walked with her head down and shoulders hunched, oblivious to everything else.
“Have you nieces and nephews?” Olivia asked when the trio moved on and they resumed walking.
“Five. Kate has twin girls; Juliet, a boy and an infant girl; and Jenny, another girl. I had not seen any of them since Mathilda’s christening. She’s Juliet’s baby. It seemed like a good idea to spend time with them yesterday. With Elaine’s arrival imminent, it is unclear when the opportunity will present itself again.”
Olivia knew it was foolish to think they could not speak of his wife, but she was in a foolish frame of mind and wanted to enjoy it awhile longer, damn the consequences of dreaming while she walked, and please herself by stealing glances at the man who’d been her fierce and tender lover this night past.
She did not fail to notice that he had fallen silent also, and the cast of it was darker than her own. She let him have at the problem that set his mind to brooding so that she might indulge in her selfish, simple thoughts a few moments longer.
“I instructed Gardner to escort Elaine directly from Bath, where she has been residing, to the hell,” Griffin said as they began their second circuit of the park. Like an army of foot soldiers waiting for inspection, the tall oaks stood at attention on either side of the promenade path. He gave them no heed, turning to gauge Olivia’s reaction instead.
“Is that wise?” Aware of his regard, Olivia schooled her features and strove for a tone that was more neutral than indifferent. “She will not thank you for it.”
“There is no arrangement I can make that will garner her approval. I am under no illusions that she will return willingly. I have prepared Gardner to anticipate the very worst sort of behavior from her.”
Olivia could only imagine how lowering that must have been for him. She nodded jerkily, understanding. “Perhaps Mr. Gardner will not be tempted.”
“Oh, I am quite certain he will be tempted, but more in the way of wanting to stuff her in a trunk and shove it from a bridge. Gardner has the good fortune to be firmly set in his marriage and deeply in love with his wife.” He paused, frowning as an unpleasant thought occurred to him. “But then Ulysses had Penelope waiting for him when he succumbed to the call of the sirens.”
Olivia laid her hand gently on his forearm. The restraint was not to stay his steps, but to stay his thoughts. “He will not return to Bath alone, will he?”
“No. I have some concerns for the men who accompany him, but he assures me none of them will be alone with her.” He looked down at her gloved hand, then at her. “You think I am making too much of it.”
Her faint smile was gently chiding. “You alluded to Homer.”
“I did, didn’t I?” He sighed. “It was kind of you not to pick up a stick and beat me with it.”
She let her hand fall away. “I was confident of your good sense returning.” She rubbed the underside of her chin. The soft kid leather of her glove was like the caress of his fingers against her skin. “Lady Breckenridge’s arrival presents me with the opportunity to take my leave. We should discuss that. I am not certain when—”
“Take your leave?” That brought him up short. He watched her walk on, then closed the distance quickly with a few long-legged strides. “What do you mean?”
“Are we discussing it?” asked Olivia. “I have the distinct impression you mean for us to have a row.”
That observation had the effect of cooling Griffin’s heels. “Do you imagine I want you leave?”
“No. The opposite, in fact, but I am hoping you will agree that this is not one of those times when you should have your way. I will be a distraction at best; at worst, a target for Lady Breckenridge and a shield for you. You can comprehend, I hope, that I have no wish to be any of those.”
“Do you believe I hold you or myself in so little regard that I would use you as a shield?”
“Of course not. It is the sort of thing that happens in spite of one’s intentions that it should be otherwise. I believe you will deal more fairly with your wife—and she with you—if I absent myself.”
It was the reasonableness of her argument that undid him. It didn’t matter that he had no liking for what she was proposing; he knew she was right. “I can set you up in a house,” he said finally. “I should have made the offer earlier.”
“It’s all right. I wouldn’t have accepted. In fact, I won’t now.”
“You mean to be difficult.”
“I hadn’t thought so, no. I was hoping we might reach a compromise.”
Griffin had the sense that what she was calling a compromise was merely getting what she wanted all along. He was set on telling her so, but heard himself asking to hear it instead.
“I thought I would return to Jericho Mews.”
“With your brother?”
“I doubt he is spending any more time there than he ever did. That is why it suits. Do you think he will not allow me to stay?”
“Temporarily? He will be pleased to have you. You will relieve him of all the responsibilities that have plagued him these last weeks: the staff quarrels, the budget, the creditors, the rent. Yes, he will most certainly welcome you.”
“I intend to be his guest, not his mother.”
Griffin shrugged. “I am not sure that matters. It is the sort of thing that happens in spite of one’s intentions that it should be otherwise.”
She recognized her own words being turned on her. “It seemed more pertinent when I was talking about you.”
“It frequently does.” His glance was wry. “This is what you want, Olivia? Jericho Mews?”
She caught the sleeve of his greatcoat and held on, raising her face to his when he felt the tug and turned. “No, it’s not what I want, but it is right for now.”
“Tell me what you want. Give me that at least.”
Her hand slid upward from his sleeve and ruffled the capes on its climb to his shoulder. It did not linger there long, but came to rest at the left side of his face. Her thumb made a light tracing along the path of his scar and stopped at the corner of his mouth.
“I want to be with you,” she said. “With you, not apart from you. I don’t want a residence that is purchased for my shelter and your convenience. I don’t want to wait upon you or your visits. Neither do I wish to serve at the whim of my brother, nor to be dependent upon him for my keep. You will have to think carefully about that before you invite me back to the hell. You will have to be certain that there is a place for me in your life.” She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips hard to his just once before she settled back on her heels. Her hand fell to her side, and she was gratified to see that she had surprised and alarmed him. “Don’t mistake that I mean you must have me for your wife or not at all. That is not an arrangement that could possibly suit either one of us. I will accept a place in your life without marriage; in fact, I am certain I prefer it.”
It was rather a lot to take in, especially when she’d muddled the thing by kissing him as if she’d been compelled to do so. The impression of her mouth on his remained even as she began walking away. Griffin glanced around, saw that while they were not alone in the park, no one else was giving them notice, and lunged forward to catch Olivia by the elbow. Her feet did not quite touch the ground as he half-carried, half-dragged her to the sheltered side of an enormous chestnut. He shackled her wrists in his hands and drew them as high as her shoulders, then urged her back against the trunk and followed with the press of his hard frame. There was time enough for her lips to part, but no time to draw a full breath.
His capture was complete when his mouth slanted across hers. Hungry as he was for the taste of her, he gave no quarter. His lips worked over hers, his tongue speared her mouth, followed the ridge of her teeth and the sensitive underside of her lip. He stole a soft moan from the back of her throat and savored it as another man might savor smuggled brandy. The fact that there were risks in the pursuit and possession made it all the more dear.
He drew back just enough to reposition his mouth. He nudged her lips at an angle, worried the bottom one between his teeth as she so often did, then ran the edge of his tongue across the tiny indentations he’d made.
Olivia was boneless, held up by his hands on her wrists, the trunk at her back, and the knee he thrust between her skirts. She might very well faint if he let her go; she might very well faint if he didn’t.
His will was not a simple thing to ignore. It was like his kiss—coaxing, teasing, gentle and fierce by turns, insistent. He did not always get his way, but he knew what he wanted. Just now he wanted her.
He made her want him in return.
Even as Olivia thought it, she knew it wasn’t quite right. He had not made her want him, he’d simply laid bare her need. She wanted him of her own volition, and her will was every bit as firm and fast as his own. It was equally difficult to ignore.
She wrestled free of his hands and threw her arms around his neck. Her hood fell back, exposing her hair first to the wind that came in small bursts around the tree trunk, then to his fingers. She lifted herself against him and wished that he could take her inside his coat, inside his skin if such a thing was possible.
His kiss was as rough as the bark at her back, but she returned it measure for measure, wanting him now in no other fashion than this. Her grip around his neck and back tightened.
Her eyes flew open when she felt the vibration of his groan against her mouth. She drew back so quickly that her head bumped the trunk. Careless of the thump to her own head, her eyes focused on his face first, then on the hold she had on him. “Did I hurt you?”
Griffin bent and touched his forehead to hers. “Not until this moment, and it’s not because you have a lock on my neck.” He eased her hands down. “Come. We can’t remain here. Someone will see us. We should—”
He stopped because Olivia had shifted her head and was no longer gazing into his eyes. The point of her attention was somewhere past his right shoulder. Apparently they had already drawn attention. He straightened, turned to seek out the same view she had, and caught the young gentleman in the act of replacing his hat. His posture suggested he had recently doffed it, and the smirk on his lips suggested it had been done with a certain insolence. Griffin’s eyes were drawn to the shock of fair hair cropped and curled close to his head.
He turned his head sharply toward Olivia. She was pale as salt. No other confirmation was required. Griffin took off at a run.