Price of Desire

by Goodman, Jo

  Moderately improved in spirit, if only temporarily, Olivia returned to the bedchamber. It was comfortably appointed with a neatly made bed and night tables on either side of the plump pillows. A blue-and-brown plaid wool rug lay folded at the foot of the bed. A fire had been laid and there was a stack of logs on the marble apron. The armoire was sufficiently large to store what belongings would be brought for her and a narrow chest of drawers would hold incidentals and sundries.

  There was only one painting and it hung on the same wall as the door. She would be able to see it when she woke and the thought cheered her. The artist had used the brightest colors in his palette to create a scene of kites flying in the park. It was easy to imagine the dizzying motion of the kites and the children who ran after them, arms stretched, clutching their strings in small fists. She thought it was an odd choice for a room that probably rarely saw visitors, but then it was also safe here, and it was unlikely to have drawn the notice or approval of Breckenridge’s gamers.

  The bedroom’s sole window overlooked the small garden and alley beyond. Olivia tied back the heavy velvet drapes to allow the modest light of an overcast sky to enter. There was but a single chair and it was situated too close to the bed and not close enough to the fire. Olivia changed that, turning it so she could have all the benefit of the flames, then tested it for comfort.

  When she sat down she did not imagine she could fall asleep, or even that she would want to, yet once she had fit herself between the wings of the chair and curled her feet under her it was as if the choice had been taken from her. She did not recall her head tipping to one side or her eyes drifting closed. Sleep came upon her surely and deeply and led her to a place without dreams, without cares, but also without hope.

  “She didn’t rouse easily,” Dr. Pettibone said. “I didn’t know what to make of it at first.”

  “Exhaustion,” Griffin told him.

  The doctor nodded. “I did not assume that she was drugged.” He was slight of stature but had an air of great consequence about him. It was not without reason. His reputation was one of caring and competence, and he confounded his colleagues by his willingness to enter the brothels and gaming hells on Putnam Lane. “That is what she said as well, though she gave me cause enough to wonder if she was lying.”

  Griffin turned away from pouring the doctor a small whiskey. “How so?”

  “She was adamant that she did not want to be examined.”

  “I warned you.” He finished pouring the drink and carried it to Pettibone. “I hope you did not let her protestations sway you.”

  “No, but I was ever mindful of her modesty. I found her to be peculiar in that regard. The ladies here in the lane are rather more indifferent to stripping to their chemises. I’m afraid I expected the same from her. You did not tell me she was no whore.”

  “Bloody hell, Pettibone. I didn’t tell you she was.”

  The doctor knocked back half of his drink. “Yes, well, as I mentioned, I was able to make my examination, though not as thoroughly as I might have otherwise done. You understand, don’t you? I cannot say with complete confidence that she is or is not pregnant. I believe that was your first concern.”

  Griffin actually closed his eyes and put a hand to his temple. “I don’t believe I voiced my concern. I said she became violently ill after breaking her fast. I sent for you so that I would know the cause.”

  The thin line of Pettibone’s lips disappeared as he flattened his mouth. The expression was equal parts defensive and disapproving. “Pregnancy is a cause of such sickness. I had to consider it.”

  “Then give me your considered opinion,” Griffin said wearily. “Not what you know or can prove, but what you think.”

  “That is rather backward from the way one normally arrives at these things, but for you, Breckenridge, I will make an exception. Your guest—and I do take umbrage that neither you nor she saw fit to share her name—is likely suffering from nerves. I concluded this after eliminating drink and opium use as other possibilities. She owned that she has not slept well these last few evenings and that she has very little appetite. She has also had headaches. A small one today; a violent one only yesterday. These are often the physical manifestations of a nervous condition.”

  Pettibone finished his drink and set his glass aside. “She masks it well in some regards, though it is probably not in her best interest to do so. Such anxieties as she has will express themselves whether she wishes it or not. Straightforward or sideways. She cannot hope to contain all her apprehensions without suffering for it.”

  Frowning, Griffin set himself on the edge of his desk. “You entertain the most singular notions, Pettibone.”

  Not at all offended, the physician nodded. “I do not bleed my patients either. You will want to know what is to be done, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “I gave her a small bottle of laudanum. Used sparingly it will help her sleep—which sets the stage for her recovery—and relieve such megrims as she has from time to time. Naturally, you must insist that she eats. Toast and broth at first, I think, then as her appetite improves she may have whatever she likes that her stomach will tolerate.”

  Griffin watched Pettibone shift slightly in his chair, unwittingly signaling his discomfort with what must be said next. “Out with it,” Griffin said. “I am paying you to hear it all.”

  Pettibone cleared his throat. “If I understood correctly, then she is to be your guest for several days. Truss informed me it could possibly stretch a fortnight.” When Breckenridge did not interject information to the contrary, Pettibone continued. “She will not be improved by being confined to a single room. I believe—”

  “Did she complain?” Griffin asked sharply.

  “No. No, not at all. Quite the opposite. She remarked that she found her accommodations perfectly agreeable and was untroubled by your insistence that she should not leave her room.”

  “Then what is the problem?”

  “The problem is that she must leave from time to time. It is critical for her condition that she take regular exercise. That cannot be accomplished by taking a turn about a room so small as the one she is in. Fresh air will do remarkably well for her. Once a day will be sufficient. Twice would be ideal.”

  Griffin had thought the headache he was nursing could not become worse. Here was proof that he was wrong. “She said it was out of the question, didn’t she?”

  “What she said was that she would do whatever I recommended, but that permission for such daily outings was only yours to give.”

  “Good lord,” Griffin said, more to himself than the doctor. “But she can make a thing turn back on itself.”

  “How is that again?”

  Griffin shook his head. “It is unimportant. What else came of your examination?”

  “It is just as critical that she have some means of occupying herself, else she will have no thoughts but the ones that are troubling her. The nervous condition will worsen. She won’t sleep, eat, or—”

  “Yes, doctor, I see the picture you are painting; however, she has already informed me in words plain and firm that she has no interests or accomplishments one might associate with her sex.”

  “She indicated as much to me, though she did mention rather reluctantly that she likes to read.”

  Griffin very nearly rolled his eyes. He remembered her studying his library, tilting her head first one way, then the other, to read the titles of the books he’d stuffed on the shelves on their sides. “She mentioned this reluctantly, did she?”

  “When I pressed, yes. She seemed a bit embarrassed by it.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You might consider allowing her to choose some books.”

  “I’ll choose the books.” With that statement he realized he had given in. Truly, Olivia Cole was proving herself resourceful.

  “I am certain that will be agreeable.”

  “It will have to be,” Griffin said shortly. “I am not feeling in any way charitabl
e toward her.”

  “That did not go unnoticed by me, although I confess I see no reason for it. In spite of her distrust for physicians, I found we were able to establish a mutual regard. Under the circumstances, her affability is remarkable.”

  “Circumstances?”

  “The state of her nerves.”

  Griffin found himself on the receiving end of Pettibone’s rather sharp stare. It was so pointed in fact that the doctor may as well have been wagging a finger at him. Griffin was forced to acknowledge to himself that the state of his own nerves could most politely be described as frayed. It was also no reason to be out of sorts with Pettibone.

  “Is there anything else?” Griffin asked.

  “Not about my patient.”

  Griffin waited.

  “You had news from Paris. You were gone from town, I heard. Did it raise your hopes?”

  Trust Pettibone to examine the open wound. Griffin harbored some regret that he’d ever confided in the doctor. It was not that the scandal that touched his life was unknown in society, only that Pettibone was one of the few privy to Griffin’s own telling of events. “Briefly. And dashed them again. Nothing came of it. Nothing ever comes of it.”

  “It doesn’t stop you, I’ve noticed.”

  “No,” Griffin said quietly. “It doesn’t.” He visibly shook off the feeling of hopelessness, rolling his shoulders and rubbing the back of his neck. His mouth curled to one side, an expression rife with self mockery. “Is it madness, do you think?”

  “A fine one, if it is.”

  He nodded. “As it should be then.” He stood and thanked the doctor. “Truss is prepared to pay your account in full.”

  “Very good.” Pettibone gathered his small black case and was on the point of showing himself out when the viscount called his name. He turned. “Yes?”

  “I was wondering how you learned about Paris.”

  “Mrs. Christie.”

  Griffin showed no surprise because he felt none.

  “Was she wrong to mention it to me, my lord?”

  “No. In some manner it concerns her as well.” Or at least she believed it did. Griffin had not been able to convince her otherwise, and perhaps she wasn’t wrong to disbelieve him, because with this last bit of information from the well-meaning Dr. Pettibone, Griffin resolved he must end his arrangement with his mistress.

  Olivia had not considered how loud and raucous the hell might be with the onset of evening and the tide of patrons spilling in from the street. To be fair, not all of the noise came from below stairs. Even situated at the rear of the house as she was, she could hear boisterous laughter and drunken rough play and challenges coming from Putnam Lane.

  She added more logs to the fire and stood warming her hands. The house vibrated with the steady movement of those below. She felt the tiny trembling of the floorboards under her. Occasionally there was a thump that she liked to imagine was a young man falling on his face from too much drink.

  It was not only the drone of male voices that she heard. Olivia was easily able to pick out the feminine vocals as well. Breckenridge insisted that he did not operate a brothel, but she believed there were gradations of the truth in that assertion. If no money exchanged hands within the establishment it seemed a certainty that money was exchanged elsewhere. Mistresses. Courtesans. Adventurous widows. Eccentric and free-thinking women of a certain age. Olivia supposed these were the sorts of females who accompanied their gentlemen of an evening.

  She was relieved to be well out of it.

  Even as she thought it she heard the tread of footsteps in the hall. One pair light, the other with a distinctive cadence that signified a limp. A man and woman, for that is what she presumed the steps to represent, passed her door after the briefest of pauses, and continued a short distance to the stairwell at the end of the hall. Olivia could hear them climbing the steps, then followed their progress across her ceiling. Silence fell for a few blessed moments, but it was broken with a shudder that rippled her drapes.

  Olivia supposed it meant the couple had found the bed.

  She closed her mind to it, glad for the books one of the servants had delivered earlier in the day. She’d permitted herself a small smile when they arrived, though with her back turned to the man who’d carried them in. It seemed the cautious thing to expect that Breckenridge might quiz him. Certainly, given the titles the viscount had provided, Olivia had reason to question his generosity and his motives.

  Thomas Brown’s “Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind,” the selected essays of T. R. Malthus, and a slim volume of three plays by Shakespeare—all of them tragedies—seemed to suggest that Breckenridge was getting a little of his own back or providing her with the means to sleep without benefit of Pettibone’s laudanum.

  Olivia plucked the wool rug from the foot of the bed and carried it and the Malthus essays to the chair. In very little time reading acted as a barrier against all the distractions of her surroundings. She ceased to hear the rhythmic thumping of the bed above her, or the cries of the coupling participants as they urged each other on. She did find it darkly humorous that by the time they would come to crisis, she would be deep into reading the edifying “Essay on the Principle of Population.”

  “You permitted them to go up to the rooms?” Griffin demanded. “I thought I was clear on that point, Mrs. Christie. I do not want my patrons coming upon her on their way to the private rooms.”

  “You told her not to leave her room, didn’t you? I fail to see that it’s a cause for so much displeasure. The gentlemen expect to have a private place for an interlude if they’re so inclined.”

  “And I am not inclined to provide it at the moment. That is cause for displeasure.”

  Alys Christie’s nostrils flared. She was never served well by an angry countenance as it flushed her complexion unevenly and creased her brow. Because she had good reason to know it, she strove mightily to tighten the reins on her temper. It was never an encouraging sign when Breckenridge called her Mrs. Christie. It not only meant that he was put out with her, but that he was once again contemplating ending their arrangement. Hanging on seemed to be what she’d done these last two months, and after nearly a year under his protection, and the experience of having three previous gentlemen protectors and a husband besides, she knew the signs that she was about to be cast aside.

  Arguments over trivial matters were the death knell, she had learned, and there could be no subject as inconsequential to her as the offended sensibilities of one Miss Olivia Cole.

  Chapter Three

  It was still dark when Olivia awakened. Snugly coccooned in the bed as she was, she allowed herself the luxury of remaining there a few minutes longer. The fireplace was cold and the stub of a candle she had placed on the bedside table had extinguished itself while she slept. She had wondered if she would wake disoriented to her new surroundings, but this was not the case. She knew immediately where she was and found some comfort in that, though it was short-lived. It was tempting to mistake this sense of familiarity for a sense of well-being. She could not do it, of course. The circumstances of her life were such that the moment she believed she was safe she was at her most vulnerable.

  Olivia turned on her side and faced the window. She’d pulled the drapes closed before she retired but was careful to leave a sliver of an opening between them. As she lay watching, a crease of morning light slowly filled the space. The diffusion of the light, as though it were being filtered through frost flowers that had formed on the window, made her think it might have snowed overnight. She hoped it had. There was no part of London, from the tenements in Holborn to the palace at St. James, that was not improved by a blanket of snow. While fog had the ability to shroud the city’s landscape and make every distinction of architecture disappear, it seemed to Olivia that snow both illuminated and softened it. The townhomes along Putnam Lane would look just as respectable as those bordering the park once they were iced like party tea cakes.

  The impulse wa
s upon her to take in that vision, but she resolutely quelled it. If she had awakened in her own bed, she would have already thrown off the covers and completed her morning ablutions. Molly Dillon would have arrived in her room—a bit sullenly perhaps because she so disliked early risings—and helped her dress and arrange her hair, then Olivia would have asked for her pelisse, bonnet, and gloves and left the house for a morning stroll before the snow was trampled and made black by the smoke and soot rising from thousands of chimneys.

  Olivia snuggled deeper under the covers. She was struck anew by the silence of the residence. Now that she had experienced the din of activity that filled the hell at night, she imagined this quiet was greatly prized by Breckenridge and his staff. She had an appreciation for it as well, finding these moments were to be savored if one could concentrate on one’s breathing and not on the thoughts spinning like dervishes in one’s mind.

  It was inevitable, though, that one thought would demand attention above all others.

  Alastair.

  Now that it seemed he had not come to physical harm, she could permit herself to be furious with him. And disappointed. He should have told her what was toward rather than attempt to settle his debt in this havey-cavey fashion. More to the point, he should not have been making wagers, especially when he knew he was extending himself beyond his means.

  Olivia realized that Alastair had not considered he would lose, certainly not to the degree that he had. A loss now and again was inevitable, and he would have anticipated that, but his general optimism, and yes, his naïveté, would have blinded him to the reality of the deep losses he was sustaining. His good fortune would return because he believed it would, because it always had. He did not see what she saw, or rather he did not draw the same conclusions that she had.

  It was Olivia’s view that her entry into Alastair’s life had turned the tide of his fortune, beginning with his falling out with their father. It was inevitable, she supposed, that Alastair would eventually come to it, and she did not want to think what his response would be.