Olivia could not recall that Griffin had ever slept before she did. The novelty of being awake after he’d found sleep gave rise to curiosity. Indulging herself, she raised her head on her elbow and studied his face. In the dim candlelight, the shadows beneath his eyes disappeared. Lines of fatigue lost their definition. He looked infinitely less weary than he had standing before her so short a time ago. The scar that bisected his cheek had the effect of raising one corner of his mouth, his beautiful mouth, just enough to lend the impression of a wry, yet somehow contented smile.
She wondered at his dreams, if he had any. He looked as if he embraced one now, something pleasant and darkly humorous. The thought of it raised her own smile, and she touched his cheek with the back of her knuckles and drew them down ever so lightly toward his jaw. He murmured something unintelligible; it was enough to make her withdraw her hand.
Carefully, she lifted the covers and slipped out of bed, glancing over her shoulder most of the time to see that he was not wakened. She drew on her robe and slippers, took the stub of the candle from the nightstand, and quietly exited.
Her curiosity extended well beyond Griffin’s sleeping countenance. She turned in the direction of her former room, stood outside the door for several long minutes simply listening, then let herself in.
The child lay in the very center of the bed. He slept on his side, one thin arm lying outside the blankets, the other thrust under his pillow so his head was raised at an angle.
Olivia drew closer, raised the candle so its light fell over the dark, tousled hair and narrow face. She had questioned Griffin’s decision to bring the boy to the hell; now she understood it. Features that were so careworn, so drawn even in sleep, had no place on the face of a child, and the child had no place anywhere but with the man who would be his father.
Did he look like his mother? Olivia wondered. Or could Griffin only see those features that set the child apart from the man?
Nathaniel Christopher Wright-Jones. The name was bigger than he was. He was slight of build, with bony joints, sharp cheekbones, and a small, pointed chin. In contrast, the hand she could see seemed too large an appendage for the frail delicacy of his wrist and arm. She imagined him moving about with the charming awkwardness of a pup, trying to negotiate walking and running with hands and feet that he hadn’t grown into.
His lashes were long and dark, but just beneath them Olivia saw the same violet shadows that she’d seen beneath Griffin’s. She lowered the candle, but these shadows were too deep and remained like bruises on his pale skin.
Motherless boy.
Olivia did not assume that what she saw on the child’s face was evidence that he grieved. It was as likely evidence that he’d borne a weight much too heavy for his thin shoulders and for far too long. Perhaps it was evidence of both.
His legs twitched beneath the blankets, and he flopped abruptly onto his back. Olivia sucked in a breath as the left side of his face was made visible to her. The thin white scar bisecting his cheek was the twin to Griffin’s own and no accident or coincidence could account for it. Olivia did not attempt to restrain herself. She leaned over the bed and extended her hand, traced the scar with the very tip of her finger, a touch so light that not even the baby-fine hairs on his face were disturbed.
She let herself out of the room as quietly as she’d entered. This time when she paused on the other side of the door it was to press the sleeve of her nightgown against her eyes and wait for the hot, salty tears to subside.
Olivia pushed herself upright in bed when the Gazette thumped against the window for the second time. Griffin continued to sleep like the dead beside her. Sighing, she rose, found a few coins at the bottom of her reticule, and jingled them in her palm as she went to the window. She unhooked the latch and pushed the window open, then leaned out and waved to the tribe of young ruffians below.
It took three tries, but the smallest among them gave her the pitch that she was finally able to catch. She slipped the paper under her arm, tossed the coins, and waited long enough to make certain the little fellow snagged something for his effort.
“Impressive.”
Olivia pulled the window closed and turned. Griffin was sitting up, leaning against the headboard, and rubbing his bristled jawline with his knuckles. He cocked an eyebrow at her and offered her a sleepy half smile that made her heart trip over itself. She threw the newspaper hard at his head.
Griffin ducked, but late, so the corner caught him on the shoulder. “Bloody hell, Olivia.” He unfolded the paper over the nightstand so that the pebbles the boys sometimes put in the creases to give it a bit of weight didn’t drop, roll, and scatter to the floor. “What was that in aid of?”
“How did you come by your scar?”
He blinked, frowning. It was dawning comprehension that flattened out his mouth and narrowed his eyes. He stopped knuckling his jaw. “Elaine laid open my cheek with her riding crop. We had been married three months, no more, and I’d just confronted her with my suspicion that she’d taken one of the footmen to our bed.” He fingered the scar. “This was her response.” His hand fell away and curled into a light fist at his side. “You’ve seen him, I take it.”
Nodding, her complexion going a little pale at what he’d described, Olivia dropped to the window bench and clutched the edge of it on either side of her. “Last night. After you’d fallen asleep. I went to his room because I was curious. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted benefit of your fresh opinion on it, uninfluenced by my own.”
“How does he explain the scar?”
“He doesn’t. He says very little. Gardner told me he spoke to no one save his mother on the journey from Bath and every inquiry was to her welfare and comfort. While she was being cared for here, in the same room he now occupies, I might add, he rarely left her side. A room was prepared for him above, but he would have none of it. He went there obediently when I insisted, but by morning he’d found his way back to her bed.”
“She died here?”
“No. She wanted to return to Wright Hall, and as she and I both knew her stay there would be brief, I allowed it. There can be no doubt the last journey hastened her passing. I believe she was depending upon it. I cannot say whether the child blames me for allowing her to have her way. Sometimes I imagine it is accusation that I see in his eyes; sometimes what I see is nothing at all. The latter is far more concerning.”
Olivia became aware of how tightly she was holding on to the bench. She eased open her fingers and let the blood flow again. “How did Lady Breckenridge explain the scar?”
“As the child’s failure to defend himself properly during a fencing lesson.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Precisely.”
Olivia shook her head, pinched the bridge of her nose as she thought. “He could not lift a sword, let alone wield it.”
“That was my thought also.”
Her hand dropped to her lap. “She did it to him, Griffin. Deliberately. She scarred her son. It was what I thought when I saw it, and nothing you’ve told me alters that opinion. I doubt there is anything that can be said that will cause me to believe otherwise.”
“It is the same for me.” He pushed a pillow behind his back. “After the services for Elaine, there were matters requiring my attention that of necessity meant I had to leave Wright Hall. I placed the boy in my sister Juliet’s care as her son is of an age with him, and she had a nanny and tutor already in her household. When I returned for him she reported that he was obedient and mannerly to a fault, and largely silent. Thomas, Juliet’s son, had no success in drawing him out, and my nephew is credited to be up to every trick.”
“So you brought him here,” she said. “I should not have questioned your judgment.”
“Of course you should. His presence here cannot help but affect you.”
“Except for my own experience with childhood, I know nothing about children.”
“You know almost nothing about being a child,” he said quietly. “And neither, I think, does he.”
Olivia felt a sudden ache behind her eyes. She looked down quickly, blinking. The tears she held at bay settled in her throat. Swallowing hard, she took a steadying breath and waited for the pressure in her chest to ease.
“Olivia? Are you well?”
She glanced up, smiled ever so slightly. “It is only that your comprehension touches me. For myself, but for Nathaniel as well. You will call him that, won’t you? Nathaniel. Not the child. The boy. Her son. It will be better, I think. For him, certainly, but for you also.”
“Nat,” he said. “I shall call him Nat, I expect. Nathaniel is too big for him.”
Her smile deepened marginally. “It is, isn’t it?” Another thought occurred to her that she knew she needed to give voice to. “He’s not ill, is he? He’s so slight. I wondered…”
“Dr. Pettibone’s examined him. There appears to be no lung ailment. Elaine was slightly built, so perhaps that accounts for it. He does not eat a great deal, but I anticipate that will change in time.” He raised his hand toward Olivia, beckoned her to come to him. “Have you rung for breakfast?”
Crossing the room, she shook her head. “I only just awakened myself. Shall I ring now?” She paused a step outside of his reach when she read the intent in his eyes. His appetite was for something other than the usual breakfast fare. Her eyebrow kicked up. “You cannot mean to ravish me again.”
“Actually, I do.”
Olivia’s eyes followed his down to the faint rise in the blankets lying across his lap. She sighed. “That was awake before you were, if you must know.”
He chuckled. “That is often the way of it.”
Nothing was served, least of all her own appetites, by keeping him at arm’s length. Olivia launched herself onto the bed, catching him unaware so that he was tipped sideways and she had the immediate upper hand. She pinned his wrists and shimmied under the blankets, a little breathless by the time she had him restrained to her satisfaction.
Griffin grinned up at her. The curling ends of Olivia’s hair tickled his shoulder until she threw her head back and tossed it behind her. “You cannot mean to ravish me again.”
“I do,” she whispered, her eyes darkening. “I certainly do.” She bent her head and brushed her lips against his. She nudged them open, tasted his upper lip with the tip of her tongue, then the lower one. She kissed the corner of his mouth, his jaw, then used her teeth to worry his earlobe.
Her breath was warm, humid, and Griffin felt his pulse quicken as she teased him with her lips, teeth, and tongue. She whispered something he could not quite make out, but what she said was infinitely less important just now than how she said it. How she said it raised ribbons of heat that twisted and curled under his skin.
He tried to catch her mouth when she lowered it a second time, but she darted away at the last moment and turned her attention to the cord in his neck and the underside of his jaw. Her breasts rubbed against his chest, pleasing her, but pleasing him more. She squirmed a bit, balancing the need to find a fit for herself against his frame with delicious discomfort each time she failed.
He snagged a breath, held it, as she traced the line of his collarbone with the damp edge of her tongue. She sipped his skin at the curve of his neck and shoulder just as he had done to her last evening, leaving her mark on him, taking possession.
He tentatively attempted to lift one of his hands, but she was having none of it and pressed his wrist back. He thought he let her, but he wasn’t entirely certain that in an earnest battle that she might not emerge the victor. Certainly he’d have bruises for it, much less enjoyable in the making than the one she was giving him now.
“Do I amuse you?” she asked darkly, lifting her head so her mouth hovered a fraction above his. “You chuckled.”
“Chuckled? You are mistaken. I would not.” He cleared his throat, pushed back the laughter that threatened to reveal his lie, and suffered the thorough study she made of him. “A guilty man would confess, you know,” he told her. “You are uncannily persuasive.”
“I am merely looking at you.”
“My point precisely.”
She put her mouth to his, kissed him warmly. “You are kind to flatter me.” She smiled, feeling the rumble of laughter in his chest tickle every one of her nerve endings. Rather than take him to task for it, she deepened the kiss.
Olivia made free with his body. She let his wrists go because holding them only hampered her search and discovery. She welcomed the contrasts between them, the broad plane of his hard chest to the more yielding softness of her own, the spread of his hand against her smaller one, the narrow line of his hip still capable of cradling her curves.
She indulged herself in the taste of him, the scent of him, and finally, the sound of him as he whispered her name in a way that spoke to his pleasure…and later, to hers.
The heat that came upon them made their clothing an irritant. They grappled with her belted robe and his drawers. He bunched yards of her nightgown in his fists as she reared up and released it again when she straddled him. He helped her take him into her, shifted his gaze from the point of their joining to her eyes, watched her and saw his own need and satisfaction reflected there.
She moved slowly at first, arching over him like a water nymph rising from the sea. He held her hips, pressed his fingers against her bottom, but let the rhythm, the pace, be what she wanted. She worked him slowly, but not for long. Frustration overtook her, need overcame her, and she surrendered all of herself to a tidal wave of selfish, primal pleasure.
And took him in her wake.
Neither of them spoke in the immediate aftermath. The tremors were too sweet to interrupt. They lay unmoving, waiting for their hearts to cease hammering. Griffin had one arm flung across his eyes, the other across Olivia’s back. Her face was turned toward his neck, the rest of her lay flush against him. She could not find the wherewithal to push herself away and the arm lying heavily on her back like a paperweight made certain she stayed precisely as she was.
“God.” Griffin made the low, guttural response with feeling.
“Mmm.”
“I am undone.”
“Mmm.”
“Did you crawl inside me?” he asked. “It seemed as if you did.”
Olivia bit the side of his neck gently.
Griffin accepted her chastisement, stopped talking, and in moments was sleeping soundly.
Nat knew nothing about card games. He offered this information in the hope that it would persuade Miss Cole to seek other entertainments. She was not in the least put off by his ignorance, a turn of events that he found altogether disappointing. He was of a mind to remain in his room and play with his soldiers. He had enough for two armies now and intended to re-create the pivotal battle where Alexander met and defeated Darius, the great king of all Persia. He did not explain this to Miss Cole because it was his experience that women found such stories tedious. Battles and bloodshed did not appear to interest them.
It was incomprehensible.
“Shall I teach you Napoleon?” Olivia asked as she shuffled the cards. “Sometimes it is called écarté. Are you familiar?”
“Écarté,” he said, dragging his eyes away from her hands as the cards flew back and forth between her fingers. “I know that word. It means far apart. Lonely.”
“Just as Napoleon was on Elba and later, St. Helena, so it is all of a piece, isn’t it?” She stopped shuffling and passed the deck to him for a cut. When he simply stared at her, she explained what he should do. “It is your choice. Most players prefer to cut. They all do if they are concerned that the dealer may be moved to cheat on the deal.”
He glanced at the cards, then at her.
“I will not be offended if you make a cut. You have no reason at all to trust me.”
He separated the deck carefully, choosing to make two almost equal piles, then restacked them opposite of his cut.
“Very good,” said Olivia. She took up the cards and dealt them each three, then two. She explained the rules and object of the game. “It will become clearer after we play a few hands. As for the scoring, you and I should agree on what we’ll use to make our payments. Have you any money?” At his frown, she shrugged. “No, I didn’t think you would. It’s of no matter. I brought a purse of farthings with me.” She reached for the small leather bag she’d attached like a pocket to her morning dress and laid it on the table. “Go on. You open it and divide the coins between us. What you are able to win from me, you may keep, but what I am advancing you now must be returned. Do you understand?”
He nodded and divvied the coins with the same precision he’d used to cut the cards.
“If you bid that you can take all five tricks,” Olivia explained, “that is called a nap. Upon succeeding, I will have to pay you ten. But if you fail to make your nap, then you must pay me five. Bid a Wellington, and it means you bid to take all five tricks but have to give me ten farthings if you fail. Bid a Blücher, and the payout is twenty for one of us.” She paused, picking up her cards to examine them, then encouraged him to do the same. She stole a glance at him as he studied his cards. His small mouth was no longer set in the grim line that was his usual mien. Earnestness had caused his expression to take a different shape, and the point of his pink tongue peeked out from one corner of his lips. “You know who Wellington and Blücher are, don’t you? I didn’t think to explain.”
“Waterloo,” he said.
“I wonder if they know their names are now attached to a card game,” Olivia said, “and if they’re honored or find it lowering.”
He did not venture an opinion about Olivia’s musings, but said instead, “Wellington should pay more than a Blücher.”
“Ah, an Englishman through and through, aren’t you?” When he did not respond, she did not pursue and directed him to bid his hand. She was surprised, and not a little pleased, when he did so without hesitation. “I can do better than your three hearts, so let us see how you play out the deal.”
He won four tricks handily, while she managed to take the last. She settled a farthing on him and watched a glimmer of a smile surface. Satisfied, Olivia showed him how to make the deal and the play continued.
“He won twenty-three farthings from me,” she told Griffin at tea. “Can you imagine? And never played the game before. It was quite astonishing. I think he must possess a formidable intelligence.”
Griffin chose a slim slice of pound cake from the tray and slid it onto his plate. “I cannot say anything about his intelligence. What I imagine is that you pushed some very good cards on him.”
She made a face. “Oh, very well. In the beginning. Just to give him confidence to make a bid, and that has nothing at all to do with his cognitive powers. He still could have offered no bid, but he took the risk, and I found that reason enough to hope.” She wagged her fork at him. “Have you visited him today?”
“No.” A shade defensively, he added, “Other matters required my attention.”
Olivia merely raised a brow and let him make of it what he would before she tucked into her own serving of pound cake.
“I intend to speak with him later.” He took a bite of his cake, then washed it down with tea. “Did you find it awkward?”
“Conversing with him, you mean? A bit, yes. He was not so impolite as to ask me to leave him, but it is a certainty that he did not want me there. I am stubborn, though, and meant to have my way.”
“It cost you twenty-three farthings.”
She smiled, shrugged. “It is money well spent, in my opinion. He has kindly offered me an opportunity to win it back.”
“Thus the lamb is led to slaughter,” Griffin said, shaking his head. “I am all admiration.”
“Thank you. It does seem as if it may go well.” She regarded Griffin over the rim of her cup. “Did you have tin soldiers as a child?”
“Yes. A legion of them. Why?”
“There looked to be two or three score of the little men under Nat’s bed. I saw them when I was sitting at the table. Were they a present from you?”
“No. I have never seen them. It is doubtful my nephew shared his own. Did you ask him about them?”
She shook her head.
Griffin shrugged. “He had a small trunk and several cases when he arrived from Bath. I suppose he could have brought them with him.”
“Did you prize your legion?”
“Most definitely. I set up battlefields in my room, across my desk, on the bed, under it. Played at it for hours at a time. Boys do, you know.”
“No. I didn’t.”
She was a cunning strategist, he thought, in the way she could arrive at her point by any route. His acknowledgment of her aim was something less than gracious. “Oh, very well, I suppose it presents an opportunity for young Nat and me to find common ground.”
Olivia hid her smile behind her teacup. It was a beginning.
The hell was particularly crowded that night. Word of mouth in and around Putnam Lane was all that was necessary to fill the halls and gaming rooms. Patrons came as much to pay their respects to Griffin as they did to make their wagers. The betting books were opened, the faro table attracted gentlemen three deep, and the tables where cards were played had onlookers waiting for a turn in one of the chairs.
Griffin politely accepted the condolences of those regular patrons who were little more than acquaintances. Those who knew him better had already expressed their regrets in missives that arrived at Wright Hall soon after the announcement appeared in the Gazette. Tonight, they simply made certain they caught his eye and conveyed their concern for him.
Griffin could have done without any particular attention being paid to the passing of his wife. He made no attempt to follow any mourning customs, knowing the effort would be regarded as hypocritical in as many circles as the lack of the same was regarded as disrespectful. Rather than try to do right by a society that could not be satisfied, he elected to please himself.
He was wending his way in the direction of the faro table when a movement on the upper stairs caught his eye. Turning quickly, he spied Nat ducking back into the hallway. Griffin decided against going after the boy and waited to see if he would reappear as soon as he thought it was safe to do so. When he judged sufficient time had elapsed for Nat to have returned to his room, Griffin waited just a bit more and was rewarded when a shock of russet-colored hair showed itself at the top of the stairs, followed by a pair of equally dark eyes.
Those eyes widened with the realization of having been neatly caught out.
Griffin held up his forefinger in a gesture that could signify a great many things but in this case meant stay. He did not expect Nat to bolt, but neither was he prepared for the fear he saw in the child’s eyes as he climbed closer. Because of that, he did not place his hand on Nat’s shoulder when he directed him to return to his room, but fell into step at the boy’s side instead.
Once they were inside the bedchamber, Griffin took up a chair so he was not towering over the child and motioned Nat toward the bed. Griffin chose not to be insulted when Nat responded rather too hastily.
Deciding to go at the matter directly, Griffin asked, “Do you think I mean to strike you?”
Nat blinked. His mouth was dry and his tongue cleaved to the roof. He tried to swallow but the lump in his throat was firmly in place and the sound that left his lips was an embarrassing gagging noise.
Regarding him warily, Griffin asked, “Are you going to be sick?” Nat’s quick shake of the head was unconvincing. “I have some experience with this. Much to my regret.” Griffin rose, went to the dressing room, and returned with the basin from the washstand. He set it on the bed beside Nat and went back to his chair.
“Perhaps it will be more productive for me to say some things rather than put questions to you.” Griffin did not wait for any sort of response, only gauged that Nat was listening, and went on. “I flatter myself that I am not strictly bound by the conventions of society. It is not always a wise choice to fly in the face of what is expected, but it is my choice. If you do not comprehend what I’ve just said, it is of little matter. It is merely a preamble to what I will say now, and in time, I think, you will appreciate it.
“I do not hold to the notion that sparing the rod spoils the child. Whether that benefits you remains to be seen. You may be confident that I will not lift a hand against you nor take up a cane. You may also be confident that I will not permit you to show such willfulness that you endanger yourself or others. That is what you did this evening by placing yourself at the top of the stairs. I appreciate curiosity, but it is misplaced in this instance. You may ask questions about this establishment, and you will receive answers, but you may not wander from your room while there are patrons about.”
Griffin’s left eyebrow lifted a fraction while his gaze remained frank and assessing. It seemed to him the boy grasped most of what he’d said well enough, but he had to be sure. “Do you understand?”
Nat nodded. When that response appeared to have been judged inadequate, he found enough spit had formed in his mouth to permit him to speak. “Yes, sir. I understand.”
“Good. Then perhaps you can tell me what it is you hoped to learn by visiting the top of the stairs.” As Nat was dressed in his nightclothes, Griffin thought he could safely assume the boy had not meant to leave the hell. Also, the servants’ stairs would have been more the route to take in that event.
Nat was not proof against the long, expectant silence that followed. “I could not sleep for the noise.”
“It is frequently noisy. A cup of warm milk at bedtime will help you sleep. I will instruct Cook to make you a posset. You might have rung for it yourself, yet the noise drew you out of your room. How did you imagine that would help?”
Nat flushed a little and for the first time his eyes darted away. He pressed his lips together until they all but disappeared.
“Did you wish to find Miss Cole?” asked Griffin. When Nat offered up a single shoulder shrug, Griffin realized he’d hit close to the mark. He tried again. “Were you looking for me?” When the boy’s head shot up and the most alarming expression took shape on his face, Griffin realized his question had missed the target entirely. “Very well. You were not looking for me. I can surmise that you were not in need of one of the staff else you would have used the bell, so that brings us round to Miss Cole again. As much as I appreciate the challenge to my gray matter, it would be ever so much better if you would simply speak on your behalf.”
Nat said nothing.
Griffin sighed. “As you wish. I will have the posset sent to your room. Drink it all.” He stood. For the first time since entering the room, he felt awkward and uncertain of what should be done. “Nanny Pritchard used to tuck me in. When I was your age or thereabouts, I pretended I wanted none of it, but she managed the thing anyway. Do you…” He hesitated, wondering if Nat would make his own feelings known. He was encouraged when the boy neither blanched nor shied away and decided to save both of them from asking the question. Instead, he approached the bed and indicated that Nat should remove his slippers and robe. He took away the basin and held up the covers while the boy crawled under them, then made a neat cocoon around every part of him but his head.
“Good night.” He tousled Nat’s hair. The texture was fine and silky. “You may sit at breakfast with me and Miss Cole, if you like.”
Nat stared up at him. “Do you mean it, sir?”
“Yes, of course. I find it less confusing if I say only what I mean. I am also appreciative when others do the same.”
“Then I should like it, sir.”
Griffin nodded. He was on the point of leaving the room when he caught a hint of Nat’s small voice adding, “Above all things.”
There was no breakfast room or family dining room in the hell. The rooms that had been intended for such use had long been turned over to gaming. So it was that Griffin, Olivia, and Nat took their breakfast in Griffin’s study at a table carefully cleared for just that purpose.
Olivia watched with amusement as Nat’s eyes darted about the room. The child was evidently impressed that so much in the way of clutter was tolerated. He had been gently warned upon his entry that he should not touch anything, and to his credit, his hands had not left his sides. He’d made one slow, but complete circuit of the room, gazing at the books with something like yearning in his face, making a cursory examination of the porcelain and jade figurines crowded together on the drinks cabinet, and finally pausing to study his own narrow face in the mirror above the mantel. Olivia did not think she would ever forget how he’d turned his head, just so, to better make out the line of his scar. Her own attention had darted to Griffin then, and she saw that he had been riveted by the very same.
“I imagine you are wondering how Lord Breckenridge finds anything,” Olivia said. “It remains a mystery to everyone, including his lordship, but if he wants a particular item, he knows precisely where to go.”
Nat bit off a piece of toast and chewed thoughtfully. “The Castle of…” He paused, his tongue working around a word he didn’t know.
Griffin set his cup down and arched one eyebrow sharply. “Otranto. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Otranto. Yes. That’s the one.”
“That is too easy.” He pointed to the stack of books to the right of the chaise. “Third up from the bottom. It is not a particularly good representation of a Gothic novel, but it helps support the candelabra nicely.”
“He is rather too confident,” said Olivia, finding her voice after a moment’s astonishment had left her without words. “I would not trust him. It is all right if you wish to look.”
“No, that’s where it is. I remember.”
Olivia looked from Nat to Griffin. Her accusing glance took in both of them. “You arranged this. I have never heard of The Castle of Otranto.”
“Horace Walpole,” they said as one, but Griffin was looking at Nat oddly while Nat was sinking his small teeth into a muffin the size of his fist.
Olivia excused herself from the table and went to the stack. Dropping gracefully to her haunches, her gray morning dress wreathing her like smoke, she counted three up from the floor and tilted her head to read the spine. “You are both unnatural.”
She returned to the table and regarded Nat with an expression only marginally less surprised than Griffin’s. “You have read the book?”
“Only the side of it.”
Griffin found he could only shake his head. “He is a quick study, I think. What else did you observe, Nat? Can you tell me, for instance, where I might find The Vicar of Wakefield?”
Nat licked at the muffin crumbs above his lip as he applied considerable thought to this challenge. He closed his eyes, scanning the room in his mind’s eye, and said slowly, “Bottom shelf. Left side. Between four and eight from the far end, I should think.”
“Six, actually,” said Griffin as Nat opened his eyes and looked at him expectantly. “Now, have you seen a deck of cards with a blue backing?”
“No, sir.”
“That is too bad. Neither have I, and I was most particularly fond of them.” He dipped the point of his toast into the yolk of his soft-boiled egg. “Miss Cole?”
“They are in your desk drawer. I put them away.”
Griffin sent Nat a look that put them on the same side against the sole female in the room. “You see? She has put them away. It is an annoyance, but one that must be occasionally suffered if one wants—”
“Wants?” Olivia asked pointedly when Griffin suddenly fell silent. “Wants what, exactly?”
“Harmony,” said Griffin, inspired to respond in this fashion by Olivia’s look, as well as the tines of the fork she was pressing into his thigh. “There are certain advantages to harmony, Nat.”
“Does it hurt, sir?”
“Harmony? Why, no, it is—” He stopped this time because Nat was shaking his head. “Oh, you are referring to the fork in my leg.”
“Yes, sir.”
Olivia removed the fork and stabbed a thin slice of ham with it. “How did you know?” she asked Nat. “I am not always so easily caught out.”
Nat was uncertain he could explain it. He’d seen it in their faces—one pained, but more as a pretense than fact, and one grim, but slyly so. There was also the matter of a missing fork and the hand that had held it, as well as the exchange they’d made in which no word passed between them. It was not easily explained when he understood almost none of it. He’d simply said what came to his mind.
“It just seemed you might be moved to take a poke at him,” Nat said. “I think he meant to push you to it.”
“Sometimes his lordship doesn’t require a push. He just steps into it. I acquit him of cruel intent.”
“You are too kind,” Griffin said dryly. He glanced at Nat. “Miss Cole tells me you won twenty-three farthings from her yesterday.”
“Yes, sir. It was her money.”
Griffin considered that. “Yours now, though I understand what you mean. Would you like to have some money of your own? Like it enough to earn it?”
Surprised, Nat still did not hesitate. “Yes, sir.”
“We had a boy here, a few years older than you. Beetle. Do you recall seeing him about?” When Nat shook his head, Griffin went on, remembering how the child had rarely left his mother’s side. “He’s gone now, moved away with his family. There are things he did for me that you could do.”
“Griffin,” Olivia said softly.
Griffin did not give any indication that he’d heard. “Everyone here does something, Nat, and earns a wage for it. What do you think of that?”
“Would I be a servant, then?”
“You would be Nathaniel Christopher, I believe. Nothing about working for sixpence a week makes you more or less than that. I will speak to Truss about what he can expect. You will have to make time for your studies, of course, and what you get by way of compensation there is a head full of peculiar things that someone else thinks you should know. As fine a memory as you possess, you will take to it admirably.”
“I shall have a tutor?”
“As soon as I can secure the services of one. Later you will go to school, but not just now, I think. You’ve had a tutor before, haven’t you?”
“Mother taught me.”
Griffin tried to imagine it and failed. “Then she did well by you,” he said vaguely.
“She did not know about battles, sir. History was tedious, she said.”
“And you like it?”
“Yes. Very much. Comte DeRaine liked it also, and he had books and maps. Do you have maps, sir?”
“No, but that is easily rectified.” Griffin might have imagined the smile that tugged at the boy’s pinched mouth, but he was quite certain he did not mistake the wistfulness in his eyes. Satisfied, Griffin finished the last of his coffee. “Did I tell you, Miss Cole, that Nat left his room last evening?”
He had told her all about it, but she feigned ignorance. “You did not, my lord. What was that in aid of, Nat?”
Nat fought mightily to refrain from squirming. Beneath the table, he gently swung his legs. “The noise,” he said. “It woke me.”
A slightly different version, Griffin thought, than he’d heard the night before. He’d thought Nat hadn’t been able to fall asleep. He said nothing, allowing Olivia the opportunity to learn what he had not been able.
“The voices from below rumble through the house,” Olivia said. “Sometimes you can feel it when you’re lying abed. Did you?”
Nat nodded.
“You probably didn’t notice when you stayed before. I’ve been told you were very attentive to your mother.” She regretted causing the flash of pain she saw in his eyes. “When I slept there, I could sometimes hear shouting from the street. It is hard to imagine anyone could be so loud, but there you have it. The hours on Putnam Lane are rather different than what you’re accustomed to, I expect.” She watched him closely, trying to divine what it was that she saw in him. There was a reserve in his demeanor, a sense that he was holding something tightly to his chest. She imagined herself lying in that bed again, alone, hearing and feeling every strange sound, and then she imagined herself at his age.
At not yet quite six.
“I was afraid,” she said. “Deeply so. And I am ever so much older than you.”
“You are a girl.”
“True, though I am not certain that alone accounts for it. I know I didn’t show your courage, because I stayed in bed with the covers pulled up around my head, while you went off on your own.”
Nat’s eyes dropped to his plate, and he bit his lip. He thrust out his chin, but it still wobbled.
Olivia felt very much like weeping herself. She didn’t dare look at Griffin. If he was in any way sympathetic, she would most certainly cry, and if he wasn’t, she would be provoked to stabbing him again.
“Tell us about the noise you heard,” Griffin said. His tone was quiet and firm and did not invite refusal. He put his hand over Olivia’s when she would have answered on Nat’s behalf. “I think Miss Cole and I have mistaken the matter. You must set us right.”
Nat nodded ever so slightly. His feet stopped swinging under the table.
Griffin and Olivia found themselves actually holding their breath.
“The window,” he said.
Now Griffin and Olivia exchanged glances. They realized as one that Nat had not gone to find the source of the noise that had disturbed him, but fled from it.
“What sort of noise was it at the window?” asked Olivia. “Tapping? Scratching? Rattling?”
He nodded again.
“All of that?” asked Griffin.
“Yes, sir.” Nat finally looked up, his features set as stoically as a Spartan’s. “It was my mother come for me. She said she would come for me.” The remains of his muffin crumbled between his fingers. “I do not want to go with her, sir.”
Griffin stared at Nat. Throwing a few coins to the urchins every morning, sending Wick on an errand, exchanging words with Beetle as he handed over his boots, none of that prepared him for dealing with this child, or this child’s fears. “It was the wind,” he said. “Or a tree branch. Many things can cause noises such as you heard. It was not your mother.”
Rather than mollifying the boy, Griffin saw Nat’s large, dark eyes well with tears. Before he could speak and make right whatever he’d made wrong, he felt Olivia trod hard upon his toes. Relief far surpassed the pain.
“Of course you will not go with her,” Olivia said. She gently removed the mangled muffin from between Nat’s hands and used her serviette to briskly dust off his palms. “Lord Breckenridge will not allow it. It is his wish that you will remain here, and no one, not even your mother, can gainsay him. He will also not allow her to disturb your sleep, so you can be certain that when you hear a noise at your window, it is naught but one of nature’s moody tricks.”
Nat regarded her uncertainly.
“Look to his lordship, Nat, and see for yourself that what I’m telling you is true.”
Nat’s attention swung to Griffin. “Is it so, sir?”
The cast of Griffin’s features was solemn. “It is.” Griffin expected his word to be the end of it, but he watched Nat’s eyes dart to Olivia again, this time settling on her hands, both of which were resting lightly on the tabletop. “You are perhaps looking to see if she has a fork in my side?”
Nat offered a guilty, watery smile.
Under the table, Olivia carefully removed her foot from Griffin’s instep.
Griffin simply nodded to each of them in turn, affecting lordly condescension to indicate his satisfaction with the morning’s work. He was pleasantly surprised when Olivia’s hands and feet remained where they were, although he suspected her show of restraint was for Nathaniel.
The child’s presence at their table was not without its benefits.
“There are no tree branches close enough to scratch at his window,” Olivia said when she and Griffin were alone. “And no wind at all to speak of last night.”
“I know. The same occurred to me.” He closed the book of accounts, pushed it to one side, and leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps Truss and Wick can engage the boy…Nat, that is…in some activity so that I can have a look without alerting him. He will have no confidence at all in me if he thinks I am looking for evidence that it was his mother.”
“I think we mistook the matter there. He is not grieving her absence as much as he is fearing her return.”
Griffin pushed his fingers through his hair. “God’s truth, but she was ever a piece of work. It is little wonder he was so attentive to her. How frightened she made him of her passing.” Shaking his head, he blew out a large, noisy breath. “It does not bear thinking the kind of things she must have told him about me.”
“Nat will come to his own opinion. He is as bright as a new penny and will only require time to put order to what he’s been told and what he sees for himself.”
“Time with me, you mean.”
“You would not begrudge him that, would you?”
“Begrudge him? No. But that does not mean that I know what to do with him. You tried to caution me when I began to offer him an opportunity to earn a few coppers.”
“And it was well done of you to ignore me. You did right by Nat, giving him a purpose and such dignity as a child can manage. You have a deft touch.”
Griffin was not as certain. “Do you think he’s my son?”
“I don’t know. But I think it is the wrong question.”
“Oh? What is the right one?”
“Do you want him to be?”
Frowning, Griffin rubbed the underside of his chin. “Bloody hell, Olivia, but you force me to look at a thing sideways.”
She came around the desk, bent, and kissed his furrowed brow. “It is not a punishment,” she said, chuckling. She tugged on his wrist. “Come, I want to see for myself what might have been at Nat’s window. Set Truss and Wick on him so we may have done with it.”
Nat obediently trotted after Wick when the older boy came for him and announced Truss had work for them below stairs. As soon as they disappeared from the hallway, Griffin and Olivia went to Nat’s room.
Griffin pushed open the window. Foster was already in the yard, making a survey of the ground. He looked up when he heard Griffin call to him.
“Footprints all around, m’lord. Can’t say whose they might be or when they were made. There are an uncommon number of them at the corner. That doesn’t seem right. Can’t think what anyone’s doing there.”
Griffin eased himself out of the window and dropped a few feet to the porch roof. Olivia immediately thrust her head out the opening. He gave her a cautionary glance.
“I am not coming out,” she told him with some asperity. “I am here to make certain you do not break your neck.”
He did not inquire how she meant to do that. He stepped carefully on the steep incline of the porch roof, looking for evidence that someone else had recently done the same. He found it at the edge, two small dents where the gutter had been pushed in. Leaning over as far as he dared, he caught Foster’s attention. “Look for a place where he might have set a ladder.” He pointed to the approximate location on the ground. “There and there.”
“Right you are. Just so. Two gouges, an inch or so deep.” He bent, examined them more closely. “Made recently. No rainwater collecting in them.”
“Where is our ladder, Foster?” The footman was already on his way to the outbuilding where such things were stored.
Griffin straightened and climbed the slope back to the window. By the time he reached it, Foster was emerging from the building.
“Looks to have been our ladder that was used,” the footman announced.
Not surprised, Griffin merely nodded. He waved Foster back inside and turned to examine the window. Olivia pointed out the scrapings she had already seen.
“Someone was trying to get in,” she said.
“Mmm. I thought we might put it down to a bluey-hunter, but that does not seem to be the case.”
“Bluey-hunter?”
“A thief who steals lead from the tops of houses. It is common enough around here.” Griffin checked the sturdiness of the window frame. It would hold, though nothing would stop a glass cutter. “I think we would do well to suspect it is the work of the gentleman villain.”
Olivia helped him back inside, closed the window, and set the latch. “We will have to move Nat to another room.”
“Of course. I will depend upon you to arrive at a suitable explanation.”
Nodding absently, Olivia asked, “If it is the gentleman, do you suppose he came for Nat?”
Griffin cupped the side of Olivia’s face. “You know that is unlikely, and while I appreciate your desire to protect him, I think we must apply ourselves to protecting you.”