Price of Desire

by Goodman, Jo

  “How can you say that? You have been my savior, Alastair. You rescued me.”

  “You must stop saying that. You cannot know how I wish it were true, but you have always been willing to give me too much credit, and I have been too willing to accept it.” He stopped her protest by laying one hand over hers and turning in to her. “I am not yet the man you would like to believe I am. That is why I am invariably a disappointment to you. No, do not say it isn’t so. Hear me out, Olivia. I know differently because I am a disappointment to myself as well.

  “I have not had much success at managing my obligations since I left university. London presents one temptation after another, and you have seen for yourself that I am ever drawn to take another bite of the apple.”

  “You are young yet. You should have as many bites of the apple as you wish without having the burden of a sister who has no place in your society. It has been too—”

  “It has been my failure,” he said quietly, squeezing her hand. “Mine. Not yours. I look at you now and I find myself moved to make all manner of promises that I will see to your welfare and keep you safe. I would mean every word right up to the moment that I was distracted by the turn of a card or the turn of an ankle. You are my elder by only three years as the calendar would have it, but we both know who protects whom in this odd bargain we’ve struck.”

  Olivia swiped impatiently at the tears that welled in her eyes. “I am neither as clever nor as resourceful as you would have yourself believe. It simply makes you feel better to think so.”

  “I had not considered that, but perhaps you are right. That should give you pause, Olivia. You would do well not to depend upon me.”

  “I understand.” And she did. Alastair was asking to be relieved of the responsibility of her. She slid her hand out from under his. “I regret making things difficult between you and Sir Hadrien.”

  “Do not even think it. It was perhaps my finest moment, standing toe to toe and telling him that I would have you in my life.”

  She could not manage the careless smile she’d hoped for. Her mouth trembled at the edges. “And now you will not.”

  “Oh, Olivia.” He made to reach for her, but she avoided his arms. He could not blame her. “I have no right to offer you comfort.”

  Olivia stood and moved quickly to the window. Turning away from her brother, she hugged herself. A shiver went through her in spite of it. Her bones felt brittle, aching with cold. Splinters of ice embedded themselves in her chest, crystalized around her heart. If she exhaled deeply she thought she might see frost on her breath. The whole of her was frozen with fear. She could not think, could not act, could not move.

  Aloneness crushed her.

  Olivia did not know how long she stood there staring blindly, dry-eyed, onto Putnam Lane. She was unaware of any movement behind her, never heard any exchange of words. Insensible to her surroundings, made numb by the cold that gripped her, she did not startle when arms slipped around her from behind. She remained perfectly rigid as a pair of hands were clasped and pressed to her midriff. There was a disturbance against the crown of her hair, but she took no notice of it, and when something nudged her heels she stayed her ground.

  Griffin held her, though not as he imagined he might. She stood leaning slightly toward the window, as exquisitely lovely in her still, proud pose as a ship’s figurehead. And like that masterfully carved piece, she was impossible to cradle, impossible to mold.

  He whispered her name, touched his chin to her hair. She did not pull away but neither did she turn her head. He tried to imagine what she was thinking and could not. She seemed wholly unaware of his presence.

  “Come with me, Olivia,” he said against her ear. “Come away.”

  When she didn’t move, Griffin twisted his head and regarded her in profile. Her eyes remained open but unblinking. There was no indication that she’d heard him, so deeply had she drawn into herself.

  Abandoning caution, Griffin released Olivia only in order to lift her. She did not settle easily in his arms, and when he urged her to put her arms around his neck her fingertips fluttered once, then were still. He moved swiftly to take her away, crossing the study easily with his long-legged stride. He had to wrestle with the door handle to exit and narrowly missed stumbling into Foster carrying the tea service. Directing the footman to follow him, he took Olivia to her room and laid her on the bed.

  “Set the tray down,” he ordered. “Then send someone immediately for Dr. Pettibone.”

  “Of course. And Mr. Cole? Shall I have him—”

  “If he cares about his life in any measure, he is already gone.”

  Nodding once, Foster quit the room.

  Griffin tugged at the bedcovers, pulling them out from under Olivia so that they might be drawn up. She curled like a babe as he tucked the blankets around her. He brushed back curling strands of hair that had fallen across her cheek and felt the unnatural coolness of her skin. He left her side long enough to pour a few fingers of tea into a cup.

  “Here,” he said, sitting beside her. “Drink.” Griffin realized he was perhaps too optimistic that she would respond to this order when she hadn’t to any that had come before. He carefully slid one arm under her back and lifted, then pressed the teacup against her lower lip and tilted it ever so slightly. He watched her mouth purse and recognized the suckling response of an infant. She sipped each time he tipped the cup, and it wasn’t long before she’d taken all of it.

  Griffin set the cup aside and lowered her once again to the mattress. Her eyelids fluttered, then closed. Her damp lips parted a fraction; her breathing eased. He arranged the covers again, smoothing them across her turned shoulder.

  It occurred to him that he could easily be moved to thrash her brother within an inch of his life. He would take a certain pleasure in it, too, landing the blows with forethought, aiming for those places that would cause pain but not immediately lay him out. The kidneys. The ballocks. The soft spot below the heart and between the ribs. And when Alastair Cole was weaving on his feet, Griffin imagined delivering the final blow to the younger man’s other soft spot, driving his nose sharply between his eyes and into his brain.

  Yes, that would be satisfying.

  In contrast to his violent thoughts, the fingers that touched Olivia’s cheek were infinitely gentle. There was a hint of warmth where there’d been none before, a bit of rosy color where she’d been almost as white as the pillow beneath her.

  He recalled his first glimpse of her standing at the foot of the staircase. The black velvet bonnet had shielded her glorious hair and shaded her eyes until she lifted her face in his direction. There hadn’t been the least fear in them. He remembered that, remembered thinking that she was unnaturally composed. She should have run, and now he supposed he understood more completely why she hadn’t.

  Even then there’d been some part of her that suspected she had nowhere to go.

  All of her protests to the contrary had been for form’s sake. She had been too proud then to admit, even to herself, that she truly had no place to return to. When she climbed the stairs to his study, it was because she believed she owed it to her brother. If she’d known with certainty that Alastair would abandon her, she still would have made the climb.

  Duty prompted her first steps. Desperation kept her going.

  Griffin eased himself off the bed, careful not to jostle her. He removed himself to the wing chair by the fireplace and waited for Pettibone’s arrival.

  Olivia came to wakefulness slowly and much against her will. It was no gentle thaw that she experienced, no gradual melting of her frozen self. What she felt was an ice pick driving deeply, relentlessly, chipping away at her thoughts, then her feelings, and finally her senses, until she lay bare and a bit bloody.

  She winced, whimpered, tried to shield herself from the hammering point of the pick, and still it found her.

  “Olivia.” Her name came to her as though carried over a great distance. A weight settled on her shoulder. There
was warmth there also. She shook a little with it. “Olivia.”

  She looked through the veil of her eyelashes first and recognized it was Griffin at her side. It was his voice then, his hand on her shoulder. When he shook her again, she cast off the last dregs of sleep and opened her eyes.

  “Go away.”

  It was relief that provoked Griffin’s smile. “Not just yet,” he said, humoring her. “Dr. Pettibone is here.”

  Olivia turned her head and saw the physician standing near the foot of the bed. She frowned. “Has he come for me? Why?”

  “He has come for me.” When she lifted an eyebrow, he added, “Because I want him to examine you.”

  “You persist in the belief that you are amusing. You are not.”

  Griffin glanced over his shoulder when Pettibone chuckled. “She is returning to form. It is perhaps best not to encourage her overmuch.”

  The physician was wholly unrepentant. “Encouragement is precisely what she needs.”

  “What do you know?” He returned his attention to Olivia. “Pettibone still bleeds his patients.”

  A smile edged Olivia’s lips. “Go,” she said. “Leave us.”

  Griffin found her hand, squeezed. “She thinks she will have her way with you, Pettibone. Encourage her if you must, but, pray, do not indulge her.”

  Olivia waited until Griffin was gone before she pushed herself upright and gave the physician her wary, narrow-eyed regard. “You and I will deal well together if you remain where you are. I will also take it as the greatest favor if you never open your little black satchel.”

  Pettibone made no promises. “I suppose that depends on what you tell me, but have a care, Miss Cole, for I have been known to recognize a lie.” He lifted his medical bag, dangling it as the proverbial carrot, and said pointedly, “I will take it as the greatest favor if you do not prevaricate.”

  Griffin had a drink waiting for Pettibone when the physician came to make his report. “Well?” he asked. “What is your verdict?”

  Pettibone set his bag down and accepted the tumbler of whiskey. He sipped, sighed with pleasure. Among all his patients, Breckenridge had the finest stores of liquor and was the most free with it.

  “Verdict?” he asked. “You mistake me for a judge mayhap.”

  “Most days I mistake you for a doctor. Give over, Pettibone. How is she?”

  “Composed. Cautious. Afraid. She would never admit to the last, of course, but neither can she fully conceal it. Nothing was to be gained by pressing that observation, so I did not. She is correct, though, Breckenridge. There is nothing I can do for her. Laudanum might help herself sleep restfully, but it will not change her circumstances. She wonders what your intentions are toward her brother.”

  “Her brother? Did she never once wonder what my intentions are toward her?”

  “She did not mention it, no. Have you intentions?”

  “I would not speak of them to you, now would I?”

  Pettibone shrugged, sipped his whiskey.

  “What does she imagine I will do to Mr. Cole?”

  “I don’t know. She did not elaborate.”

  “That is too bad. I would welcome ideas. At the moment, I am all for thrashing him.”

  “A pedestrian solution. I expected better.”

  “It is all in the execution, Pettibone. I could make it last a very long time and hardly bloody my knuckles.”

  Impressed, Pettibone raised his glass in salute. “There is no reason she should know.”

  “No reason at all.”

  “He really left her in your hands?”

  “So it appears. As I told you earlier, he only returned because I insisted.”

  “She seemed to think it was because you threatened him.”

  “That would be another way to characterize it.”

  “And at one point you physically restrained him.”

  “She observed only one,” Griffin said, and let it end at that. “Did you leave her with another vial of laudanum?”

  “She had enough left from my previous visit.”

  Griffin nodded, not surprised. “I thought she might. There is nothing physically wrong with her, then.”

  “Not a thing.”

  “She was so cold.”

  Pettibone nodded. “You were right to send for me.”

  “You will always say that. You enjoy my whiskey.”

  “Guilty.” He made the pronouncement in judge-like tones. In a less stentorian fashion, he went on. “The manner in which you described finding her after her brother left, well, it put me in mind of some of the soldiers I had occasion to observe in the aftermath of battle. What they had seen, or heard, or learned, created a disturbance so profound that they could no longer communicate. They lay like the dead, often staring out at nothing the rest of us could see. I do not know where Miss Cole’s imaginings took her, but it was not a journey, nor a destination, for the faint of heart.”

  “What is to be done?”

  “You mentioned intentions toward her, I believe.”

  “Yes.”

  “May I assume they include caring for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then that is what is to be done.”

  Griffin nodded, sighed. “It frequently troubles me that I pay you for such advice.”

  Griffin quietly let himself into Olivia’s room. His caution was unnecessary. She was sitting at the table, playing solitaire. Wisps of steam rose faintly from the cup of tea near her elbow. Three fingers of toast lay on a plate beside the cup, one with evidence that a bite had been taken from the crusty end. Crumbs littered the plate, giving him hope that the toast had once numbered four fingers.

  “Winning?” he asked. He noticed that his voice had not startled her, proof that she’d sensed his presence even though he knew his entry had been silent.

  Olivia shrugged and did not look up. “When I cheat.”

  “Doesn’t that belittle the achievement?”

  “It is solitaire, my lord. Just now, I merely want to win.”

  He understood the need. “You are feeling more the thing?”

  “I was never unwell.”

  Griffin did not argue the point. It was a matter of perspective, he supposed. “May I join you?”

  “You already have.”

  Because there was no other chair in the room similar to the one in which she sat, Griffin drew the wing chair closer to the table, turned it sideways, and perched on the arm. He stretched his legs diagonally under the table and folded his arms comfortably across his chest.

  She glanced up as she gathered the cards. “You have nothing you wish to say?”

  “Not just at the moment, no.”

  Olivia considered and accepted it. She shuffled, laid the cards out, then began to play. She made her moves quickly, seeing the whole of the game at once and recalling what cards would be turned over as she went through the deck three cards at a time.

  “Your hands are lovely,” he said.

  Whatever she had expected he might say, it wasn’t that. “I chew my nails sometimes.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  Of course he had. He noticed everything. She continued playing.

  “I’ve noticed, too, that you cannot accept a compliment.”

  “How kind you are to say so.”

  Griffin chuckled. “My point exactly. You embrace what you perceive as criticism and throw off compliments as if they were hair shirts.”

  “It is a peculiarity, I admit, and one that is unlikely to change.” She saw she had come to the last of her plays. If she was to continue, she would have to cheat, and it was simply too lowering to do so in front of Griffin. She found she did not want to win as badly as that. Sighing, she drew in the cards and began again.

  Griffin watched her in silence a while longer. When he judged her receptive to matters of import, he said, “You are welcome to remain here, Olivia. I do not have it in my mind to turn you out.”

  Her eyes on the cards, she nodded.

&
nbsp; Suspicious of her easy acceptance, he said, “You have heard the like before, I collect.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what happened?”

  “I was turned out.” She shrugged. “Do not imagine that I think you are lying. I know you are sincere. It is my experience that everyone is sincere until they are…not. Whether it is changed by circumstance or condition, I have reason to know that what is in one’s mind on any given day may be quite different on another. I fully appreciate that it is not a promise, and I thank you for not phrasing it as one. That I would not believe.”

  He had meant it as a promise, though. Now, knowing how little faith she had in such things, he could not speak of it. “Do you wish to stay?” he said instead.

  “Yes.” There was no hesitation in her answer; she paused only in the reflection of it. Her fingers lay still on top of the card she meant to turn over. “What will you require of me?”

  “Does it matter?”

  It was perfectly humiliating to admit that it did not. “No,” she said finally.

  “Then let us not discuss it now.”

  “All right.” She turned over a ten of diamonds and made her play on the jack of spades.

  Her compliance, perversely, did not cheer him in the least. He was rather more alarmed by it. “Pettibone informed me that you wondered what is to become of your brother.”

  She smiled, though there was no joy in it. “I don’t believe my question was as philosophical as you have made it out to be. I think I know what will become of Alastair. I only wondered what will become of him at your hands.”

  “He’ll live.”

  “I hope so. He can never repay his debt if you kill him.”

  “His debt? Bloody hell, Olivia, I care no more than this”—he flicked a card from one of her stacks—“for his debt. Do you think I don’t know that I have the better of the bargain in you than his £1,000?”

  “Then he’s settled with you.”

  Griffin ground his teeth until a muscle jumped in his cheek. He forced himself to relax, work out his jaw. He blew out a breath. “Yes. Something like that, though I would not go so far as to say that all is settled.”