by Goodman, Jo
“The six of spades,” she said.
Griffin lifted one edge of the tray and slipped the card free. He glanced at it before pushing it across the table toward her. “The six of spades.”
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Did you suppose that if you examined it beforehand you might give it away? I should very much like to see what expression of yours hints at the six of spades.”
He scowled at her.
“Really? I confess I would have mistaken that for one of the knaves. A diamond, mayhap, or a heart.”
“Amusing,” he said in a tone that communicated the opposite.
Olivia tried to school her smile but it would not be tempered. It was only when she realized that she was enjoying herself that it faded. Her hands grew clumsy again and she lost several cards. She flinched, turning her head and raising one shoulder a fraction, then dropped a small curtsy and offered an apology for her awkward handling of the cards.
“Why did you do that?” Griffin asked.
“Do what?” She attended to her shuffling and did not look at him.
“Make that bow and apologize.”
“Did I?” Olivia divided the deck and nimbly worked the halves between her fingers, passing them back and forth between her hands. “I didn’t realize.”
“Yes, when you dropped the cards.” He inclined his head to one side to try to catch her eye and was left with the impression she was purposely ignoring him. “Just after you drew back.”
“I couldn’t say,” she told him. “I don’t recall doing it.”
Griffin chose not to press. He knew what he had seen and did not question the accuracy of his perception. She had anticipated a blow. That was the only reason people started in the manner she had. The lift of her shoulder was instinctive, a protection against a strike that was aimed at a more vulnerable point, perhaps her chin or cheek.
He returned his attention to her manipulation of the cards. She was remarkably smooth given the dog-eared condition of the deck she was using. There was rarely a hesitation; her initial stiffness was gone. She now was able to look away from her hands and still complete the cutting and turning of the cards without mishap. She had the sort of dexterity that would have enabled her to force any card on him that she desired. What she did, however, was slide the deck forward and ask him to make a cut.
Olivia took back the deck and laid out thirteen cards in two rows, ace through king, all of them spades. In the first row the ace was on her left, the six on the right. The seven of spades lay at the head, perpendicular to the two rows, and the remaining six cards, the eight through the king, had a one-to-one correspondence with the cards in the first row.
“That is the layout of a faro table,” Griffin said.
“It is. I assume you have one in your hell.”
“Of course.”
“With a spade suit like this glued to the table?”
“Painted, actually. It is a very fine table. Antique, and in excellent condition.”
Olivia nodded. She’d expected nothing less. “Without a traditional table here, we’ll have to pretend these cards are permanently fixed.”
“Very well.”
“Would you like to make a wager?” She drew the remainder of the deck to her and looked around for something that might be used as a marker.
Griffin picked up one of the toast triangles and tore it in half. He placed one half on the three of spades and ate the other.
Olivia chuckled. “It is an unusual token, but one supposes that as owner you are able to establish the house rules.”
“Precisely.”
Olivia paused a moment, waiting to see if Breckenridge wanted to rethink his wager or add another. When he simply resumed drinking his coffee, she said, “All bets are down.” She turned over the top card on the remaining deck. It was a five of hearts. “The house wins on all bets placed on the five.” Sighing, she feigned disappointment that he’d placed his wager elsewhere. “I should have liked to eat the winnings.”
“Then you would be stealing from the house,” he reminded her.
“A most excellent point.” She placed the losing card on her right and turned over the next card, a seven of diamonds. “The house pays on all wagers on the seven. It appears you do not win either. Do you wish to make another wager or allow your toast to stand on the three?”
“I’ll allow it to stand.”
“As you wish. All bets are placed.” The next card she turned over—the losing card—was a three of clubs. As the suit in faro was unimportant to the play, it only mattered that the card was a three. “The house wins on all wagers placed on the three. Oh dear, that means you’ve forfeited your toast.”
“How fortunate for me that I am also the house,” Griffin said, picking up the bite-sized piece and dropping it in his mouth. He made a show of enjoying it, too. “Did you force the three so the house would win?”
Olivia took exception to that. The entire line of her body stiffened. “You are asking if I cheated, and the answer is no.”
“But you could.”
She simply stared at him.
“But you could,” he repeated. He picked up his last piece of toast and divided it. This time he made a wager with each half, placing one on the queen and the other in the space above and between the nine and ten, thus splitting that bet. “The next card you draw is the winning card for the punter. I want to win on the queen.”
Olivia’s mouth flattened. She wondered that she had allowed herself to expect something different from him. Her disappointment was sincerely felt, but when she reflected on it, she realized she was more disappointed in herself for lowering her guard than in Breckenridge for taking advantage.
“On the queen,” she said without inflection, looking away. She covered the deck briefly with her palm while she idly stretched and contracted the fingers of her other hand. Lifting her palm, she tapped the deck once with a forefinger then turned over the top card. The queen of diamonds was displayed. “Punter wins on the queen.”
Griffin whistled softly. “You can indeed.” He picked up the piece of toast and set it back on the tray. “The house wins on the next turn. Since I split the bet, you can do it with either the nine or the ten.”
“You do not even make it challenging,” she said coolly. “Choose which card you wish me to show you, the nine or the ten.”
“The nine.”
With no enthusiasm for the task, Olivia laid her palm over the deck again while she absently fiddled with the sleeve of her gown. Out of view her thumbnail fanned the corner of the stack of cards. She lifted her hand.
“Wait,” Griffin ordered. He reached across the table and did what no player would be permitted to do during a turn at faro: He revealed the top card himself. “A four,” he said.
“So it is.”
“You weren’t able to do it that time.”
“That’s the card you lifted,” she said.
“It was on top.”
“Perhaps it was when you reached for it, but when I choose the top card, it looks like this.” She turned it over and displayed the nine of hearts.
“God’s truth, but you’re adept at it.” Griffin’s tone was all admiration as he sat back and rubbed his chin with his knuckles. “You told me you possessed no happy talents.”
“Obviously we define that differently.” She swept her hand across the table, gathering all the cards, including the faro layout, then set the deck in front of him. “You appear to have an understanding of my usefulness. I should like to begin as soon as possible, tonight if you will. I imagine it will require some time for me to acclimate myself to the routine everyone else in the hell abides by, but I shall endeavor to do so as quickly as possible.”
Taking a short breath, Olivia went on quickly before Breckenridge could insert a comment. “While I remain hopeful that my brother will return soon, I recognize that I must also be practical. I have expenses and no means of meeting them. There are debts I must repay, and I am depending on yo
u to appreciate that. If you will not allow me to leave, then it remains that I have to find some manner of supporting myself here. You would not deny me that opportunity, would you?”
Griffin poured a second cup of coffee. This time he ignored sugar and cream. “I find myself staring up at you again.”
Olivia dropped to the wing chair behind her, resuming her perched posture as Breckenridge rubbed the back of his neck. He let his hand fall away, sipped his coffee, and made a disagreeable face. “You take cream,” she said. “You forgot the cream.”
He grunted softly, added cream, and tasted the coffee a second time. The crease between his eyebrows softened. “You said quite a lot,” he told her. “Shall I begin anywhere or is there some particular you would like addressed first?”
Olivia felt as if her chest were being squeezed. If he was going to allow her to work at his faro table, he would have just said so. She prepared herself to hear his objections and prayed she would not humiliate herself by showing the depth of her distress. “Begin where you like,” she said, and was glad of the confidence in her voice.
“Tell me about these expenses you say you have. What are they?”
“I have a home in Jericho Mews,” she said. “Or rather, I live with Alastair there. Or did.” Impatient with herself, she blew out a puff of air. “The household staff needs to be paid. So does the greengrocer. Mr. Fox will not extend any more credit for meat if I do not pay the bill in full this time. Even in my absence there are things that must be done. The servants—and there aren’t so many of them as you have—need to eat. I cannot simply ignore them because I’m here.”
“Your brother does not seem to share your finely honed sense of duty, else he would be seeing to their wages, their needs, and your honor.”
“If he were able to do anything differently, he would.”
Griffin noted that what she offered was neither a defense nor an indictment. It was, in truth, a simple statement of fact. “I could arrange for you to close up the house and let the servants go.”
Olivia could not help herself. She recoiled. “No!” When he stared her down under arched eyebrows she remembered herself. “No,” she said, this time with considerably less heat. “It would not be a simple matter for the staff to find other employment, and I…I like the house and would not want to see it empty.”
“Then your brother owns it?”
She shook her head. “You cannot recoup the debt he owes by taking it from him. He rents it.”
“So there is rent to pay as well. You did not mention that. Now I understand why you do not want it empty. You would lose it.”
“Yes.”
“I begin to see why your brother wanted you here. It seems he meant for you to have a place to live when he took himself off.”
Olivia did not try to deny it. She was no longer certain that Breckenridge was wrong.
“What are you proposing again?” he asked.
“That you permit me to work for you.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Of course it’s possible. I showed you that I know faro. I can deal vingt-et-un also, and I know when the house must stand or take another card.”
“I’m quite sure you do, but I run honest games here, and you, my dear Olivia, are a most excellent cheat.”
Confused, she asked, “If you have no use for the skill, then why did you insist on knowing if I could force the cards?”
“Because it intrigues.” He shrugged. “And entertains. You are perhaps the best I have ever seen.”
“I thought you wanted me to cheat, else I wouldn’t have shown you.”
“Yes, well, now you know I do not, and it is your misfortune to be so very good at it that I could not possibly trust you. You may not credit it, but my reputation, such as it is, is important to me. For all that I am something of a pariah in certain fashionable circles, in the underworld of gaming hells, I am credited to offer a fair deal. However one wishes to interpret that phrase, it remains true. I expect the same in return, and that is known as well, particularly by those who’ve crossed me.”
“Like Alastair.”
“Exactly like Alastair.”
“I have no intention of crossing you, my lord.”
“Don’t you? Again, I say, how will I know? I was looking for your sleight of hand and could not see it. You will amaze my patrons as you did me, then you will make them wary. Whether or not you cheat is almost beside the point. If they suspect you are, they will not play.”
“You’re wrong,” she said quietly, but with conviction. “Though I don’t suppose you will give me the opportunity to prove it.”
“Just so.” Griffin took another sip of his coffee. “Is your brother so skilled?”
“I believe the answer to that is he owes you £1,000.”
“You have me there,” he admitted. “Does he know about your talent?”
“We’ve never discussed it.”
“No? Why not?”
“It did not seem prudent.”
“You mean he would have wanted you to teach him.”
Olivia’s hands tightened in her lap. “I suppose that’s what I meant.”
“How is it you learned and he didn’t?”
This was the question she’d been dreading. He’d been circling around it long enough to make her dizzy from the anticipation of it. She didn’t know until the words were out of her mouth that she would tell him the truth. “Alastair and I were not raised in the same home.”
Griffin had suspected as much. “He lived with Sir Hadrien?”
“Yes. And his mother.”
So Olivia and Alastair were half siblings. He’d wondered. “And you lived…?”
“Here and there.”
“That is rather less than specific.”
“Forgive me, my lord, but you are not entitled to more.”
He was not deterred. “With your mother?”
Olivia said nothing.
“It is not the worst of all things to be a bastard,” he said.
Her eyes darkened, and before she thought better of it, she said, “You know this from experience, I collect.”
Griffin sucked in a breath. He was not accustomed to being spoken to in such a fashion, even when he deserved it, and he supposed he deserved it now. “I spoke out of turn. I am not a bastard.”
“And neither am I. The truth is more prosaic. My mother died in childbirth and my father remarried.”
There was much more, of that Griffin had no doubt, but because he could not justify his interest, most especially to himself, he asked for no other particulars. He addressed the problem of her home and staff instead. “Let us agree that you will compose a letter to your housekeeper expressing your need to be away some weeks longer. You will include sufficient funds to pay your servants and your outstanding bills.”
“I haven’t such funds.”
“I’m well aware. That is why I shall make them available to you. Your housekeeper? Is she trustworthy?”
“Yes. She will carry out my wishes.”
“Good. You will give me an accounting of what you need and I shall arrange it. I will want to see the letter, naturally.”
“Naturally,” she said dully.
“Come, there is no cause for you to act defeated. You cannot seriously have supposed I would permit you to work the faro table when I do not even employ a single female on my staff. It is dangerous, as you have good reason to know.” He could not imagine that she needed to be reminded of the assault.
“This is different.”
“How so?”
“I would be engaged in my work in front of you. It does you no credit if I cannot not be safe with you in the same room.”
God’s truth, but there was some logic to her argument, although he wondered if she had any sense that he might pose the greatest danger to her. He’d meant what he’d said about not wanting another mistress, but he was not entirely opposed to a less formal arrangement, one that brought her around at his whim, not he
rs. He had been thinking of it of late, unable to ignore the fact that she was sleeping in his bed—without him.
The carnal thoughts were not easily dismissed, and in truth he had not put forth much effort to do so. Olivia Cole was appealing in an otherworldly fashion. Her ginger hair would not be tamed by combs or braids and the wildness of it made him think she had walked through fire. It was a vision supported by the fact that she had survived one.
Her eyes, with their faintly exotic slant and emerald coloring, invariably aroused his interest. On most occasions she offered a direct, even impudent, stare that he appreciated simply for its novelty. When she avoided his gaze, it was not because she was shy of a sudden, but because she was unable to shutter strong emotion. She hid it behind long lashes as she glanced off to one side, an expression that might easily be misconstrued as demure, but was in fact a response to fear.
It was difficult to know with any degree of certainty what made Olivia Cole afraid. She’d remained clear-eyed and level-headed facing her attacker and didn’t panic when fire began to consume the room. She’d been willing to incur his displeasure by not only leaving her room this morning, but presenting herself at his door. If he had to advance a theory, Griffin would say that the thing she feared most was herself.
That also intrigued, drawing him in when perhaps the wiser course would be to increase his distance.
He finished his coffee, set the cup aside, and rolled the stiffness from his shoulders. Too many more nights on the chaise, he decided, and self-preservation would dictate that he present himself at her door.
“You are in expectation of a reply,” he said, studying her, “as if I might be inclined to change my mind. I am not so inclined. When your brother’s debt is finally settled to my satisfaction you will thank me that I did not permit you in the gaming rooms. You have some sort of society to which you will return. Your life will proceed more smoothly if it is not rumored that you were once the faro dealer at Breckenridge’s hell.”
“You know nothing about my society. It is not a consideration.”
Griffin thought he might throw up his hands in frustration. What kept them at his side was a suspicion that they might find their way to her throat. “You are relentless, Miss Cole.”