Price of Desire

by Goodman, Jo

  “If you like.”

  “At the risk of encouraging such action as you took this evening, I can still allow that you have demonstrated an error in my thinking. None among my patrons this evening doubted that you were dealing a fair game. There are likely those who would not have cared and considered it a reasonable price for the time spent close to you.”

  Griffin’s mouth twitched as Olivia snorted in a most unladylike fashion. “I doubt even a sound like that would have cleared the table.”

  “You are being ridiculous.”

  “No, unfortunately I am not. You skillfully fended their questions this evening and remained wholly professional in your attention to the game. Still, if you are to continue dealing faro, there will be more inquiries and you will have to say something more than ‘place your wagers’ and ‘all bets are down.’ Even your rather appealing smile will wear on their nerves if you do not throw them a bone from time to time.”

  “Not my bones,” she said stiffly.

  “A figure of speech, nothing more.”

  “What are you proposing? That you will allow me to deal at the table again?”

  “In the event that we can arrive at certain satisfactory arrangements, yes.”

  Olivia was immediately suspicious. “What sort of arrangements?”

  “You are far too transparent in the leanings of your mind. Truly, is the thought of bedding me so distasteful that you would abandon that finely honed sense of responsibility you say you possess to avoid just that end? I can tell you, it is not at all flattering to my person.”

  “Yet you persist in your belief that your attentions should be flattering to mine.”

  His dark eyes narrowed a fraction and pinned her where she sat before he gave up the pretense of outrage. A shout of laughter would not be suppressed. “Bloody hell, but it is that tongue of yours that is finely honed. How you managed to comport yourself with such decorum at the faro table is a fascination to me. I shouldn’t wonder that you bloodied your own mouth each time you stayed your tongue. Your admirers were not subtle in making their feelings known.”

  “Perhaps it is that I am not averse to their attentions.”

  Griffin chuckled, not so easily taken in. “Have a care, Olivia, else I will be moved to take up that challenge.” He observed her prepare to take exception to what he’d said, then suddenly think better of it. “Yes,” he said. “It was indeed the challenge of a practiced flirt, though in your case I will allow that you most likely stumbled into it. You are curiously direct in some regards and in other ways almost painfully artless. I cannot make sense of it, and I don’t suppose that asking you for an explanation will give me one.”

  He shrugged. “It is of no matter. I enjoy a puzzle.” This confession did not seem to ease her mind, thus prompting his most diabolical smile. He thought he probably should not be enjoying himself quite so much, though how he had finally come to this pass was something of a puzzle itself. The threat to beat her may have been mostly an idle one, but he had contemplated turning her over his knee. Now he was amused by her and contemplating an arrangement that might serve them both.

  Griffin decided that the sequence of events did not bear scrutiny. “Allow me to suggest the conditions by which you might deal faro in my establishment tomorrow night.”

  “I am listening.”

  “I insist upon your identity being protected. Your estrangement from Sir Hadrien is not sufficient to suppose that he will not cause me considerable inconvenience if you are harmed while in my care. That includes damage to your reputation and, by the connection of family, to his own. He may not cause trouble for me because he cares about you; he may do it because he decides I have caused trouble for him.”

  “You are afraid of him.”

  Griffin did not answer immediately, carefully considering his reply. “I believe I would admit it if it were so,” he told her. “The truth is more complicated than that. I am afraid of what he might cost me. He is an influential man, your father, and given to standing on the moral high ground. It is why I do not believe your brother will be successful in bending him to advance an allowance misspent on gaming and lady birds. The length of Mr. Cole’s absence seems to bear me out.”

  “Very well, I concede that our father is not the sort of man one crosses lightly. What is to be done?”

  “Changing your appearance is the obvious solution. I will have Mason purchase a wig for you. Several, in fact, of varying styles. Auburn, I think. Different than your coloring but not so dramatic that your eyebrows and lashes must be painted as darkly as you did this evening. You will apply color to cheeks and mouth but with a lighter touch than you used. If you look like a whore, you will be treated like one.”

  Olivia glanced down at her hands. “They did not treat me like one tonight.”

  “I imagine because they thought you were my whore.”

  “Oh.”

  “A consequence of being nearly attached to your side. There was most definitely a line drawn that no one crossed.”

  “I did not draw it.”

  “I did. Do not suppose you could have managed so well without me. You might have cut a few to ribbons with the sharp edge of your tongue, but there always would have been someone advancing. I believe I mentioned they were three deep.”

  He had, and so they had been. “Your mistress used to stand at the tables. I heard someone remark on it.”

  “She is my former mistress, and she didn’t deal. Her mere presence at a table encouraged betting.”

  “Then she was a practiced flirt.”

  “Precisely.”

  “You were not moved to stand by her all evening.”

  “Mrs. Christie knew what she was about. It is clear to me that you do not—at least not entirely.”

  “So you will stand post while I deal the cards.”

  “No.” He sighed. “I must move about the rooms, but you can rest easy that someone will be observing you. At the first sign of trouble, they will come and get me.”

  The thought of constant observation did not make her easy in the least. “It is not in my mind to cheat you.”

  “And it is not in my mind to allow you to be tempted. Nevertheless, the trouble I was speaking of is a gentleman’s unwelcome advance that puts you at the center of a brawl. Someone will be moved to proposition you and someone else will be moved to speak up on your behalf. I will have to eject half my patrons if I cannot put a period to the thing quickly.” His mouth twisted in a bit of a smile as he thought of Lady Rivendale hoping for some pugilistic entertainment. “Although there would be those willing to step aside so they might wager on the outcome.”

  “So I will wear a wig and some modest paint and you will see to it that nothing untoward occurs. Is there anything else that must be done?”

  “You must have another name, of course. I noticed tonight that you did not offer one.”

  “I thought mystery served.”

  “One night, perhaps. You cannot go on in such a fashion else some enterprising rascal will set his mind on the truth and have at it.”

  “Then what do you propose?”

  “You do not wish to choose a name yourself?”

  “No.”

  He regarded her with consideration, lingering on her splendid green eyes. “Emerald, I think. Miss Emerald Hepplewhite.”

  Olivia pursed her lips. “Oh, very well, if you are going to be silly about it, I shall be Ann Shepard.”

  “Ann Shepard. Just like that?”

  “My nanny.” She was unaware that a shadow crossed her face. “Do not concern yourself. She is long dead now. A vague memory even to me, though I wish it were not so. I called her Honey, a childish corruption of Nanny, I suppose.” Olivia shook her head slightly, her slender smile a bit winsome. “Or perhaps it is only that I thought she was sweet.” The smile disappeared. “They did not like her, though, and she was sent packing. I recall that well enough.”

  Griffin did not ask Olivia to identify who “they” were. He slipped
this morsel of information into the pocket of his mind that he’d constructed exclusively for all things Olivia Cole. It still had very little in the way of content.

  “So, shall I call you Ann or Honey?”

  “You may call me Miss Shepard.”

  He nodded, tempering his smile. “You should think of a story for yourself, some tasty bits of information that you may drop from time to time to calm your suitors.”

  “Is that really necessary? They are at the table because they want to win at faro.”

  She seemed to genuinely believe that. “Humor me then. I don’t care what you say to them, but you should be prepared to say something.”

  “Where I live, for instance, and how I came to be dealing faro at your hell. Are those the sort of things I can expect to be asked?”

  “I imagine. How will you answer such posers?”

  “I suppose I shall have to put the speculation to rest and make it clear that I have replaced Mrs. Christie in your life.”

  “Yes, that will end the speculation,” he said dryly.

  “Really, my lord, if there is another more suitable explanation, I am unaware of it.” She raised an eyebrow as he shifted in his chair. “Have I discomfited you? You have only to recall that you were the one to suggest it.”

  “I do not believe I suggested it precisely. I merely pointed out that the gentlemen playing faro were likely to have believed as much.”

  “What is that if not a suggestion? I certainly hadn’t thought of it. I supposed they believed you were protecting your investment. Not me, I mean, but the money in the bank. In any event, it is Honey Shepard who will be your mistress, not Olivia Cole.”

  “Honey. I can’t say that I particularly like that. It makes my teeth ache.”

  “Then it is good that you shall only address me as Miss Shepard.”

  “Ann is a fine name.”

  “Perhaps I will give you leave to use it on occasion.”

  Griffin chose once again not to press as they both knew he would call her anything he pleased. He stood instead. “I will speak to Mason in the morning about the wigs. It might be necessary to add more gowns to your wardrobe. A few items of jewelry, too. As my mistress, it will be expected.” He saw her frown. “Do not worry. I shan’t allow you to keep the pieces.”

  She nodded, relieved. He could not precisely force her to wear them. “You have said nothing about my wages.”

  He smiled. Olivia Cole did not disappoint. “I was thinking that a percentage of the winnings at your table would be in order. Say, half of one percent.”

  “How much do you usually draw in at the faro table?”

  “Four hundred quid.”

  “And I brought you six hundred.”

  “Five hundred ninety-three.”

  “Of course. Five hundred ninety-three. And you would give me—”

  “Three pounds,” he said. “I rounded up. I am prepared to be generous.”

  “That is in no way generous. Five percent.”

  “One.”

  “Four,” she countered.

  “One and one-half.”

  Olivia shook her head. “Two percent.”

  “Done.” It was a perfectly outrageous sum that he was promising her, but he reasoned it was far less than Mrs. Christie had been regularly stealing from him. “You have made a good bargain.”

  “Five percent would have been a good bargain,” she said. “Two percent is only what is fair.”

  Griffin chuckled. He inclined his head, saluting her. “I should take my leave before I am persuaded to offer you three.”

  The faro table was crowded, just as he’d known it would be. Griffin had been wandering in and out of the room where Olivia was working since the hell opened its doors, and he’d never seen less than a dozen young bucks vying for a place at the table. As soon as one of them lost enough to force a move, another slipped into the vacated seat. If she simply managed to bring in the house at only a one percent profit, he estimated that the winnings would well exceed what she’d accomplished the previous evening.

  He observed that her gown would not have been out of place at the theatre or a ball. If her dress lent her a certain elegance, then she lent it grace. The movement of her arms was fluid, her deft touch with the cards something to behold. She was a confection perfectly suited to a tray of iced tea cakes in a celestial blue satin gown with an overlay of tulle. The rounded bodice left her shoulders bare and her fine skin reflected the play of candlelight from the wall sconces. Her auburn wig fit her head snugly and was curled in a fall of clever ringlets that lightly brushed her neck whenever she turned. The hair was dressed with copper combs and seeded with pearls, the latter matching the pearls sewn in the bodice of her gown.

  Her throat was bare and Griffin thought he should correct that oversight soon. She would wear pearls well, but he thought of her eyes and decided that an emerald would also do.

  Her white elbow-length gloves were her most exquisite accessory. Although they fit her as well as her own skin, even she could not manipulate the cards with satin-covered fingertips. He was the one who had removed them and instructed Mason to cut the fabric back to her knuckles so her beautifully tapered fingers were free to do their very best work.

  On impulse, after he’d helped her slip back into the gloves, he had lifted her hands to his lips and kissed those bare knuckles, watching her as he did so. Except for the soft parting of her lips, there had been no reaction that he could discern. No surprise. No tender fury. No resignation. She’d simply waited for him to be done, eased her hands from his light grasp, and brushed past him to make her way to the gaming rooms.

  It might have been lowering if his heart had been attached to the gesture, but it was not that organ blinding him to good judgment. The blood pooling in his groin was a reliable indication of where the impulse had been born.

  Griffin smiled politely in response to a tip of the head by one of the patrons, then moved to Foster’s side to prevent being pulled into a conversation for which he had little interest and even less time. The footman stood at attention at his post just inside the doorway. As Griffin had instructed on the day of his hiring, his eyes constantly roamed the room, alert to the shifts in the crowd and the first inklings of untoward behavior.

  “What is your view, Foster?” Griffin asked. “Is she able to handle them?”

  “As deftly as the cards, my lord.”

  Griffin’s gaze drifted to the faro table, then past it. “What have you observed about their interest?”

  “Respectful. She draws them in but keeps them at a distance. Not one among them has seemed to mind. Johnny Crocker played at her table for a while.”

  “Was he now?” That the rival hell owner deigned to step outside his own establishment was hardly the usual thing. “He didn’t ask for me?”

  “No. Came in and went straightaway to the faro table. I stood close by, just to make certain he didn’t trouble her.”

  Griffin wasn’t certain what to make of Crocker’s interest, though he supposed it was possible that word had already spread regarding his new faro dealer. Perhaps Crocker wanted to estimate the potential damage to his own profits. “You’ll let me know if he returns, won’t you?”

  “Immediately.”

  “Good man.” He stepped away. “I’m going downstairs to observe the play at vingt-et-un.”

  “Very good.”

  Griffin chatted with several of his regular patrons in the hall and on the stairs before he reached another of the hell’s gaming parlors. The dealer for twenty-one was Drummond, another of his household staff with multiple duties, though in Drummond’s case it was generally acknowledged that he was a much better dealer than he was a footman. Truss tended to assign him the tasks that could not possibly be mismanaged.

  Griffin watched the game for a while, congratulated Mr. Harvey’s good run of luck and better skill, then moved on to roulette. The wheel was not favoring any one patron this evening and Griffin realized his own attention was wande
ring. When a quartet of young bucks, all turned out in matching scarlet waistcoats, spilled through the entrance, Griffin backed away from the table to watch them. Clearly from the volume of their speech and the color of their waistcoats, they were bent on making themselves a spectacle.

  As soon as he saw they had fixed themselves on reaching the stairs, Griffin moved as quickly as the press of patrons around him would allow. He was familiar with their set, though not these four in particular, and found them to be essentially harmless and easily managed without incident as long as they were not too far gone in their cups. It was difficult to know at a glance how foxed they were. Their high spirits could be attributed to their anticipation of adventure, the relief of arriving at Putnam Lane unscathed, or the natural self defense of young men playing at something outside their experience. Perhaps their exuberance was rooted in all three, but Griffin suspected it was strongly supported by several rounds of hard drink.

  He knew a moment’s unease as they rushed the stairs before him. He followed at a more seemly pace, unwilling to call attention to them beyond what they had called to themselves.

  Olivia gave no outward sign that she was aware of the rowdy and slightly ribald laughter that was drifting in from the hallway. She turned over the top card on the deck in front of her. “House pays on four.”

  She smiled at the collective groan that rose from the punters. Only one among them had a marker resting on the four. Showing sympathy for the losers, she paid out even money to the winning player and allowed all of them time to decide on their next wager.

  “All wagers are down,” she said. She hardly heard the words herself as successive waves of deep male laughter rolled into the room. Heads turned toward the full tide of sound, but Olivia remained attentive to the game. She showed the top card. “House wins on seven.”

  After listening to some good-natured protests from the losers, Olivia briskly collected all four of the markers resting on the seven of spades. It was a splendid return for the house. While new wagers were being set, she glanced up to see four gentlemen advancing toward her. She knew a moment’s alarm at the rate of their approach, afraid their momentum would push the tide of gentlemen upon her.