"GRIFFIN," RACHAEL said. "What are you doing here?"
In his cousins' Lincoln's Inn Fields town house, Griffin stopped pacing the drawing room and turned to find her leaning against the doorjamb. Even in a simple day dress, she looked entirely too sultry for his comfort. Her lips appeared freshly licked. Her dark hair fell in soft waves around her face. Her eyes looked large and luminous.
And sad.
"I'm waiting for you, as I suspect your butler told you. Why aren't you at the Billingsgate ball?"
"I didn't feel like going," she said.
Her wan expression broke his heart, but he embraced the emotion. Pity was much safer than lust. "You cannot withdraw from life, Rachael."
"I'm not." She scanned his evening clothes. "Why did you leave the Billingsgate ball?"
"To fetch you."
"What if I don't want to be fetched?"
He shrugged and said nonchalantly, "Then I won't tell you my news."
"What news?" she demanded, straightening and coming toward him. "Tell me."
"I'll tell you on the way to the ball," he promised her with a smile—the charming smile that worked on everyone.
But it didn't work on Rachael. Not tonight. "I don't want to go to the ball."
"Then I don't want to tell you my news. I'll stop by again tomorrow."
"Griffin!" Moving closer, she laughingly punched him on the shoulder. "You cannot do this to me!"
He was happy to see her more animated, but that wasn't enough. He wanted her joyful. He wanted her socializing. He wanted to see her dancing with eligible gentlemen and getting on with her life.
"Would you care to bet?" he asked, starting from the room.
She grabbed his arm. "All right, I'll go to the ball."
"Excellent." With any luck, she'd find a love interest tonight. Then it wouldn't matter that she wasn't his cousin, because she'd be taken anyway. "I'll wait here while you change."
"Oh, no, you won't." Still holding his arm, she pulled him toward a sofa. "Tell me what you learned." With both hands, she pushed him to sit. "Now, damn it."
"Has anyone ever told you you're demanding?"
"Most everyone." She sat beside him and licked her lips, kicking his pulse up a notch even though that was the last thing he wanted. "Did the man you hired find my father's parents?"
"His mother is dead, but the man found his father. His name is Thomas Grimbald, same as his son. Colonel Thomas Grimbald—he was a military man, too."
She nodded, looking vulnerable in a way that made him want to hug her. "Is he still living in Yorkshire?"
"Not anymore. He's living at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea."
"So close," she murmured. The Royal Hospital wasn't a hospital for the ill, but rather a government-funded home for pensioned soldiers. "I have a grandfather so close, and I never knew it." She licked her lips again, proving Griffin a pathetic weakling of a man. "I want to see him. I want to meet him and find out if my father really committed treason."
"I'm glad," he said. It was better to know than to stay in denial. "I'll take you Monday. No, Tuesday. I've got a meeting with my solicitor scheduled for Monday. I'm sorry."
"You're entitled to live your own life. I can wait. I've waited twenty-four years already."
"I guess you have. Now I'll wait while you change for the ball."
She sighed. "You're not really going to hold me to that, are you? I don't want to dance, so what's the point in going? I don't feel up to having men paw me."
"They wouldn't dare. I'd issue a challenge on the spot."
"To a duel? Just what I need…your death on my head."
"You think I would lose? You wound me." He playfully clutched his heart. "Get changed. You can dance with me," he offered, vaguely wondering what the devil he was doing suggesting something that would result in clenching his teeth all night. "Nothing but innocent, cousinly dances."