by Goodman, Jo
“Something like a scar, you mean?” Olivia wished she might pull the covers over her head as soon as the words left her mouth. She may as well have added: Like yours?
Griffin drew a forefinger along the length of his scar. One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “Does he?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He let his hand fall. “More’s the pity.”
His ease with this conversation gave Olivia pause. “You don’t believe me,” she said. “You don’t believe that someone came to my room.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Aren’t you thinking it?”
He shrugged as if what he was thinking was unimportant. “What I know is that no one was in your room when I arrived, and no gentleman pushed past me to get to the door.”
“Then he escaped through the window.”
“Without you seeing him?”
“I was occupied.”
“Of course you were. Putting out the fire. I’ve not forgotten.” He sat back in his chair; his head tilted to one side so he could catch her eye again. This time he was able to hold it. “How did it start exactly?”
“Does it matter? You are not doubting there was a fire, are you?”
“It’s no good trying to be defiant. You haven’t the strength for it.” He reached for the folded blanket at the foot of the bed and snapped it open over her. “There. Better? You are not yet warm enough, I think. Should I add a hot brick or two?”
She shook her head.
“Tell me about the fire,” he said again. “What happened?”
“I’m not certain. I didn’t see it begin. I suppose it was when the table toppled.”
Griffin remembered the thud he’d heard. Had it been that? “Go on. How did it fall?”
“I must have knocked it over when I threw myself across the bed.” She observed his raised eyebrow. “To get away from him. He was backing me into a corner. I could think of nothing else to do. I thought if I could get to the window, I could make my own escape. It’s odd that I didn’t think he might take the same route out.”
“Yes,” he said. “Odd.”
“In the morning—when there’s light—you’ll be able to see that I’m telling the truth. You’ll see where he dropped to the roof below and then to the yard.”
Griffin thought of the mattress hitting the roof, then the ground. There wasn’t likely to be a sign left of Olivia’s gentleman. He could not be encouraging, but he offered, “I’ll look at first light.” She seemed satisfied with that, closing her eyes briefly. “Wick said there was someone,” he told her. “A gentleman villain, I believe, were the words he used, so you see, Olivia, I don’t discount what you’re telling me. I’m simply trying to make sense of it.”
She felt the prick of tears and blinked rapidly. “He had a key,” she said. “He showed it to me. How did he come by a key to my room?”
The same question occurred to Griffin, and he had no answer at the ready. “Did you think I’d given it to him?”
She shook her head. “No. Not at all.” She hesitated and answered truthfully, “Not then.”
“But later,” he prompted her gently. “But later you did.”
“Only when I thought you—”
He didn’t allow her to finish. “When you thought I was merely acting as if I didn’t understand. Damned by my ignorance, I suppose. Tell me, what do you think now?”
“The same as I did in the beginning: that you didn’t invite him to attend me, nor even turn your back so that he might do it with your tacit approval.”
“That’s right.” Leaning forward, Griffin rested his forearms just above his bent knees. His regard was steady, unflinching. “Will you know him?”
Olivia nodded. “If I see him, yes. But I do not wish to see him, my lord. In fact, I wish I might never see him again.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t. You cannot possibly understand.”
“Perhaps not,” he allowed. “But if it occurs that your paths cross, you must come to me.”
She said nothing.
“Olivia. I will have your promise.”
“And if I give it? What do you mean to do?”
This time it was Griffin who made no reply.
“There is nothing for you to do,” she said. “I am not your responsibility. In truth, I am little better than your prisoner. You are in no position to defend my honor.” She shifted, sliding an arm under her pillow to lift her head a few inches. “I would have your promise, though. I would have you swear not to tell my brother.”
“He has the right to defend your honor.”
“That is supposing I have any, which I do not.”
Griffin wondered what he might say to that rather singular announcement. He settled on, “You judge yourself too harshly, I think.”
“You know little enough about me to stand on that opinion. Promise me that you will not speak of this to Alastair. You have seen for yourself that he may be provoked to act recklessly.”
“It seems a cowardly tact. He’d have reason to challenge me for failing to protect you.”
“He’d think he had reason. I think he does not. What happened, happened to me. It is my story to tell, no one else’s. I beg you to honor that.”
Griffin plowed his fingers through his hair as he considered what she wanted. “You are not entirely persuasive, but you are persistent. I collect I will have no peace on the matter.”
“You will deserve none.”
Needing to think, and requiring some movement to facilitate that process, Griffin pushed to his feet. His action was abrupt—and in retrospect, threatening—and he glimpsed wariness in Olivia’s eyes as he towered over her. He stepped back, nudging the chair out of the way. “Pardon me. It was not my intent to give you fear of me.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
He turned before she could see the small smile that kicked up one corner of his mouth and did not argue the point. She deserved a measure of pride when so much had already been taken from her. He added wood at the fire and waited until it was a proper blaze before he addressed her again.
“You have my word, Miss Cole. I won’t speak of this night’s work to your brother.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t know that my decision deserves thanks. You might regret wresting that promise from me.”
“It is difficult to imagine. After all, I can tell him myself if I judge it is the proper thing to do.”
Griffin conceded her point, although he did not make too much of it. The tea and whiskey arrived, drawing his attention until it was served and the footman had departed. Olivia, he noted, was looking more the thing now that she was sitting up in bed. The footman had arranged a veritable throne of pillows for her warmth and comfort, and she fostered the impression of royal privilege with the grave dignity of her expression, in spite of the fact that her face and throat were still streaked with soot and his nightshirt was likely to swallow her whole.
Olivia held her cup and saucer carefully in one hand as she raised the other to allow her sleeve to slide down her arm. After transferring the cup, she did the same with the other arm. A bit of tea sloshed onto the saucer when Griffin suddenly appeared on the periphery of her vision and sat on the edge of the bed. Before she knew what he was about, he’d set his drink aside and was neatly rolling up the sleeves of the nightshirt.
“Better?” he asked, retrieving his drink.
Olivia managed to hum her approval. She quickly raised her teacup to her lips to hide the fact that not a single word could be pushed past the lump in her throat. She sipped, swallowed, and felt the ache ease. For all the defenses she had in place, she had never been able to guard herself against an unexpected kindness.
Griffin removed himself from the bed and returned to his chair. He held his whiskey between his palms and stretched his legs so the toes of his boots were just under the edge of the bed.
Olivia was struck again by the impression of
weariness. It was masked to some degree by his casual posture, but it resided there just beneath his skin, a peculiar tension that held him together even as it stole his strength. He had the look in his dark eyes of someone who rarely rested even when he slept, perhaps most especially when he slept. It was not her place to ask after him, so she tucked the thought away for examination later and continued to sip her tea.
“I should like to hear the whole of what happened in your room,” Griffin said. “If you are prepared to tell me, that is.”
Olivia appreciated that he framed it so carefully but wondered if she truly had the right to refuse. She caught the glimmer of his smile as he waited patiently for her response. How was it that he seemed to know what she was thinking?
She indulged in a deep breath and released it slowly. “He did not rape me, if that’s what you want to know.”
“You are telling me what did not happen. I’d hoped you’d be able to tell me what did. How was it that Wick came to know that you were in danger, for instance?”
“I was able to reach the window. I threw it open and managed to get my head out before I was dragged back. I think I screamed. I must have, else Wick would have had no cause to raise the alarm. I certainly didn’t know he was in the yard.”
“Sent out on the cook’s errand, I believe. It was difficult to make out most of what he was telling me. Excitement did not lend itself to clarity of his expression.”
Olivia could well imagine. “Poor Wick.”
It was her perfect sincerity that made Griffin cock his head to one side and study her in this new light.
“You are staring,” she said.
“Am I?”
“You are. Have I a smut on my nose?”
Laughter rumbled deep in his chest. “On your nose. Your cheeks. A crease of it on your brow.” Because she held the cup and saucer she hadn’t the means to hide her face behind her hands. Taking pity on her, though not necessarily because he regretted pointing out the blackened state of her complexion, Griffin relieved her of her tea before she upended the cup. He set her drink and his aside, then disappeared into his dressing room.
“Stop rubbing,” he said upon his return. “You’re making it worse. Hold this.” He placed a basin of water in her lap and soaked a flannel in it. “I’m sorry, but this will be cold.” He wrung out the flannel as he hitched his hip on the edge of the bed and turned to her. “Close your eyes.”
She blinked several times before she obeyed, then the damp flannel was against her cheek. She could feel the gentle pressure of his fingers on the other side of it, washing her face like velvet.
“Go on,” he said. “Tell me the rest of it.”
It took her a moment to realize he meant that she should go on with her story. It seemed oddly intimate, uncomfortably so, yet there was ease here, too, because he’d seen to it that her eyes were closed.
Griffin prompted her. “You were telling me that he pulled you back into the room after you called for help.”
“Yes. I hit my head on the sash hard enough to see a flash of…” She frowned slightly. “No, I don’t suppose it was that hard after all. I think what I saw was the fire.”
Griffin put his fingers at the back of her head and probed gently. He found a bump. Even a gingerly exploration caused her to wince. “Hard enough.”
She waited until his hand dropped away before she spoke again. “He…he pulled me down. The towel I’d been using to dry my hair was on the floor where I’d dropped it. I thought there might be some use for it. There were no other weapons at the ready.”
“No, I don’t imagine there were.” Griffin applied the cloth to her left cheek. “So did it prove helpful?”
“After a fashion…That is…It is difficult to…” Her voice trailed off as she considered the words in her own mind. There was no bow she could put on the thing to make it pretty. She’d almost strangled a man. That was the truth she could tell him, but it was the truth that he would hear that troubled her more. The truth that she felt not a whit of remorse. “I don’t think I want to say.”
“Very well. You don’t have to.”
Olivia felt compelled to offer something in its place. “The noise you made at the door distracted him.”
“Is that right?”
She ignored the thread of skepticism in his voice and nodded. “And…and I was able to throw him off.” It was not a complete lie. “I ran to the door, but you couldn’t open it from your side either, and I was afraid he might take me down again if I tried to take the key from him.”
“A perfectly reasonable fear,” said Griffin. Acid churned in his stomach.
“Was it? I felt the coward.”
Griffin dropped the flannel in the basin and placed two fingers under Olivia’s chin, lifting it. “Look at me, Olivia.”
She knew herself to be compelled by the softly spoken command. She opened her eyes and found herself mirrored in the dark reflection of his own.
“You beat out a fire that might have consumed every one of us. That is not the act of a coward.”
“It was easier to fight it than him.”
A smile tugged at one corner of Griffin’s mouth. “Sometimes it does not matter which enemy you choose to fight. What matters is that you fought. It is my opinion that you acquitted yourself admirably against both.” He watched her stir uneasily, though whether she was discomfited by his praise or his proximity he didn’t know. He drew back and removed the basin from her lap. The water was gray with the sooty residue from her face. He tilted the bowl a bit, drawing her attention to it. “You haven’t a smut left.”
She smiled faintly and made to touch her cheek. He caught her wrist when it was halfway to her face and shook his head. Olivia examined her hand and saw that his good work would have been for nothing if she’d touched any part of her face. When he cast his eyes at the basin, she obligingly dipped her hands in the water.
“It seems that a bath was wasted on me this evening,” she said as he cleaned her fingers.
“What do you mean?”
“The lads prepared a bath for me tonight, though I suppose Truss or Mr. Mason supported the idea of it. I fear I am dirtier now than I was before my first soaking. Still, it was a bit of good luck to have so much water nearby.” She glanced at him. “How did you imagine I was able to put out the fire?”
“I didn’t imagine. It was almost entirely out by the time Truss and I entered. It didn’t occur to me to wonder how you’d done it. I’m afraid I was more concerned that you survived it.”
She nodded. “The £1,000. Yes, it’s understandable that you would want to protect Alastair’s marker.”
“Bloody hell,” he said feelingly. “My concern had nothing to do with the debt.” He finished wiping down her palms with brisk, almost agitated swipes, then stood and carried the basin back to the dressing room.
“You’ll sleep here this evening,” he said when he returned. He staved off her protest by lifting a hand. “There really is no other room available. I will stay in my study, of course. Did you have any supper?”
“No, but—”
“I’ll send Foster with it. I have to see to my other guests. My paying guests, I suppose you’d say.”
Olivia had quite a lot she’d like to say, but she was ignored when she called out to him. She knew better than to suppose he hadn’t heard her. Her voice was still hoarse and husky from the effects of the smoke, but she’d seen the slight hesitation in his step and did not mistake the cause of it.
She’d poked at a tender spot and he’d dismissed her because of it.
It was gone three when the last of the patrons were finally steered from the gaming hell. Footmen cleared the rooms of empty glasses and sneaked a sip now and again from the ones that weren’t quite so empty. Wick and Beetle swept the floors and kept an eye out for stray coins. The drinks cabinet was refilled, the wine cellar locked, and the tables cleared of the detritus of gaming: ashes, snuff, unclaimed markers, dice, and cards. It fell to Mr. Truss to sort t
hrough the cards to make sure none had been marked. Each time he found one with a suspicious crease on the corner, he tossed it, then made up new decks to be used the following evening.
As was his habit at the end of each evening, Griffin carried the money box to his study. While his staff worked to set the hell to rights, he counted the night’s earnings and recorded it in his account book, separating the income into columns based on the origin of the revenue. The roulette wheel did well for him most nights, and this one was no exception. His earnings for vingt-et-un were steady, a fact that he found interesting as Mrs. Christie was no longer a presence at the table. She always managed to draw in players, so he had expected to see less income once he released her from his protection. That this was not the case merely underscored the other damning revelations about her involvement in his business.
The competitive card games between players, either as individuals or partners, brought him no money. The drink that these players consumed, though, brought him a great deal, and it was not unusual for a player who’d had a good run of luck to leave some of his winnings on the table for the house. He noticed that that particular column showed a marked increase, as it had every evening since Mrs. Christie’s departure. He’d been right to suspect that she regularly helped herself to the winnings when she’d cleared the tables. She’d also been pleased to accept a modest percentage of the winnings she gave him each night. Alys Christie had taken her share, then taken it again. The figures he recorded now were sufficient to prove her cheating to his satisfaction.
Griffin closed his eyes briefly, rubbing them with a thumb and forefinger. He stifled a yawn and the figures in the ledger blurred. He shook off the fatigue and added the columns again. When he arrived at the same sum three times over, he replaced his quill, stoppered the inkwell, and sat back in his chair waiting for the page to dry before he closed the book.
He was all for his bed.
That was when he remembered that Olivia Cole was sleeping in it.
He had several thoughts concerning that turn of events, none of them particularly gallant or charitable.