by Goodman, Jo
Chuckling, he obliged her, though he was not above stealing the occasional glance, sometimes around the paper, sometimes over the top. Once, she caught him out and lobbed the crusty end of her toast at him. He was so surprised it was fortunate he did not capture it in his open mouth.
Olivia was still smiling when she raised her serviette and dabbed at her mouth for the final time. She pushed her plate away and announced that he could come out from behind his paper. “You were very kind to indulge me,” she said. “If you had insisted upon watching me, I might well have choked.”
And there was the segue he needed. “By curious coincidence, Olivia, I also wished to speak of choking…”
Chapter Eleven
Olivia did not ask to see the bruising around his throat to confirm what he told her. Griffin came slowly to the realization that her failure to challenge his story was not merely because she believed him, but because she believed she was capable of just such a thing. Not that she wasn’t distressed by her behavior. There was no mistaking either her deeply felt embarrassment or her even deeper horror.
She remained at the table as long as she could, but he observed the slow drain of color from her face and knew it was only a matter of time before she fled. He didn’t flinch when she jerked the chair out from under her with enough force to make it rock on its back legs and ran into the dressing room, holding her arms crossways in front of her stomach. In spite of her consideration in shoving the door shut behind her, he still heard the sounds of her being sick.
She emerged some ten minutes later, pale but composed. The table was cleared of everything save for the pot of tea and two dry triangles of toast. She sat at the table, her head bent, while Griffin finished his quiet discussion with the footman. She remained that way until the dressing room was tidied and all evidence of her abrupt illness was removed.
Griffin poured her a cup of tea and pushed it directly into her line of sight. “Here. Drink. You will feel more the thing.”
She nodded, grasped the cup in both her hands, and raised it halfway to her lips. It hovered there, keeping her hands warm, but doing nothing at all to settle her nervous stomach. Griffin placed two fingers under the cup and lifted gently, giving her the momentum she could not seem to find for herself. She brought it to her mouth, sipped. While it did not make her feel more the thing immediately, it began to warm her from the inside.
“I am compelled to point out, Olivia, that I have come to no harm.” Griffin nudged the plate of toast toward her. “Your reaction is altogether more than I could have reasonably predicted. Some modest embarrassment might be expected because the behavior is both curious and singular, but it is also clearly not within your control. Your response suggests that you not only hold yourself responsible but that you could command your nightmares to take a different course. If such a thing is possible, I have never heard of it. If you cannot accept that I do not blame you, then you can trust that I will never speak of it again.”
Olivia lowered her cup and raised her head. She searched his face, looking for some sign of the condemnation he denied. It wasn’t there. “You don’t understand.”
“That’s right. I don’t. But neither, I think, do you. I am not afraid of you, Olivia. I’m afraid for you. When you take so much upon yourself, I fear for you more, not less.” He watched her lips part as though she meant to say something. This was followed by an almost imperceptible shake of her head, and he knew she was erring once again on the side of caution for herself and mistrust of him. “You had no idea, did you?”
Her eyes fell on her cup. “I have no recollection of attacking you,” she said carefully.
“That’s not quite an answer to the question I asked, is it?”
Olivia pressed her lips together as much in annoyance as to keep herself from answering thoughtlessly. “There have been times that I’ve awakened to find the sheets twisted like ropes, the pillows stuffed between the mattress and the headboard, my feet at the wrong end of the bed. So, it’s not true that I had no idea something was not right, but with no memory to support what happened I didn’t…” She shrugged uneasily. “I just didn’t know.”
“Something like this has happened before. I had to restrain you. You never woke.”
Olivia set her cup down and quickly placed her hands in her lap under the table before Griffin could see the tremors. “There were bruises. I didn’t know…I thought…”
“You never asked.”
She’d been afraid to. He would know that now. “It won’t happen again.”
“I’m not certain how you can say that.”
Now she looked up at him, her eyes widening slightly. “Because I won’t share your bed again.”
“Well, now, there is where we disagree, because I am quite sure you will.”
“That is a ridiculous notion. Would you take a viper to your bed?”
“I did. In point of fact, I married her. You, my dear Miss Cole, are not a viper.”
Olivia’s response was to reach across the small table and tug hard on the satin collar of his robe. The flesh at the side of his neck was rubbed raw. The mark she’d made did not completely ring his throat but it was not for lack of effort on her part. Her hand flew to her mouth, and the words she might have gasped were smothered.
Olivia dropped back into her chair slowly. “You don’t know,” she whispered from behind her hand. “You don’t know, and I can’t tell you.”
Griffin casually straightened his collar and smoothed the lapel. “You can tell me anything, Olivia.”
She shook her head. “You only think I can. It will be different—everything will be different—once you know.”
Frustrated, but keeping it contained, Griffin sat back in his chair. “Perhaps, but for what you have already suffered at the hands of others, I wouldn’t blink if you told me you’d done murder.”
And as simply as that, he knew he’d tripped over some part of what she kept to herself. He knew it even before her head snapped up and the blood drained from her face. He was slow in reaching for her, and she managed to get away before he caught up to her and steered her away from the dressing room and back to the table. “You can have nothing left in your stomach to retch,” he said quietly.
It was true, but the feeling did not pass easily. “You cannot imagine how it would please me to faint.”
He moved his chair and sat beside her, then took her hands into his. He forced heat into them with a brisk massage. “Have you killed someone, Olivia?”
“I don’t know.” She removed her hands from his, fisted them, then splayed and stretched her fingertips. She stared at them, unable to meet his eyes. “I don’t know. I think…I think I might have.”
“Then you may as well say all of it. Asking Restell Gardner to discover the truth will put me in his debt for all eternity.”
She risked a glance at him. “Is it so important that you know the details?”
“As opposed to knowing so little that I must sleep with one eye open the rest of my life? Because that is what I’m willing to do.” He watched her, made certain she understood the implication. He meant for them to share a bed for a lifetime, and she would have to accustom herself to the idea. It was clear she did not expect it and had no idea how to respond. It was unlikely she even believed him. “Begin anywhere you wish,” he said. “We will sort it out together.”
Olivia drew in a calming breath and released it slowly. She nodded once, then produced the first words haltingly. “His name was Rawlings. I heard him called that by the others…his friends, I mean, or at least I supposed they were his friends. There were five of them at the table. Two pints of ale. A tumbler of gin. Another of whiskey. Rawlings…he was the glass of port. I served the ale, gin, and port three times over. The whiskey only twice. I imagined they might be students. They were of an age with me at the time, most especially the two pints and the tumbler of gin.”
Griffin listened carefully, trying not to give way to surprise and distract her from her tale. Had s
he just described herself as a tavern maid?
Olivia caught Griffin’s eye, then found a point past his shoulder to set her gaze upon as she continued. “They were already in fine humor when they seated themselves near the hearth. I supposed it was because they had shared a flask on the coach. It was a bitterly cold evening, and every coach that stopped wanted accommodations for the passengers, whether or not they usually took respite there.”
Not simply a tavern then, Griffin thought, but an inn on a well-traveled coach route. A place where she could be alone among many, a stranger to the guests if she wished, familiar and friendly if she wanted it otherwise.
“We had our fill of travelers that night and were trying to decide how many could be squeezed into a room. Some passengers had already agreed to three and four to a bed and negotiated a fair price. Others were less inclined to make allowances. The students whispered among themselves, drew broom straws, and made plans. I gave it little thought. With so many to look after, they attracted no more notice than the rest. One of them, the gin, I think, produced a deck of cards, and they played long after many of the guests retired for the night.”
Olivia took a sip of tea. Her mouth had become dry of a sudden, the back of her throat uncomfortably tender. “They were not overly attentive toward me as I brought them drinks. There are comments that one expects, but I had had occasion to hear far worse than anything that was said to me that night. Even well into their cups they were most genial. As a whole their temperament was unexceptional.”
“Rawlings?” asked Griffin.
Olivia’s eyebrows drew together slightly. “It did not strike me as odd at the time, but later…afterward…I realized he’d contributed very little.”
“And watched you overmuch.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know.” She added tea to her cup but didn’t drink. Instead she used the cup to warm her hands again. “I had a room of my own in the attic. It was small but entirely comfortable. Because every room was in such demand that night, I gave mine up to a pair of lady’s maids. I was paid handsomely for the sacrifice by their employers and my own, so it was advantageous for me to go elsewhere. I agreed to make my bed in the carriage house, though that is rather too grand a name for the structure. It was more in the way of a stable but large enough to accommodate several coaches and all of the cattle.”
“And the drivers, footmen, and tigers, I imagine.”
“Well, yes. Naturally.” She required a moment to register his disapproving tenor. “It is inappropriate for you to assume they presented the least danger to me. I knew most of them, as they frequently made stops in Royston. I could have expected any one of them to come to my aid.”
“But they didn’t. Or do I misunderstand the turn your story is about to take?”
“If you think they had any opportunity to assist me, then you most definitely misunderstand the situation. I never reached the carriage house. I left by the back door carrying a wool blanket and a lantern. I recall clutching my mantle to keep it from flapping around me. A woolen scarf covered the lower half of my face. The wind was fierce, howling. I had to lean into it to remain standing. Except for my small light, the yard was dark, and by the time I realized I was not alone, I was being pushed hard to the ground. The lantern spilled out of my hand and the light went out. I had no breath to call for help, not that I believe I would have been heard. I was among the very last to retire. The likelihood of waking someone was small, and the wind was banging the shutters against the stone.”
Olivia’s eyes found Griffin’s. He was making no more judgments, simply listening instead. She could hold his gaze now, though why that should be she wasn’t sure. What she had to tell him was more difficult, not less. “You might wonder, with the lantern extinguished, how I knew it was Rawlings,” she said quietly. “But I—”
“The port,” said Griffin. “You smelled port on his breath.”
She nodded. “That is it exactly. Few others drank it that night. His height. The shape of his frame. It was not hard for me to determine that he was my attacker. He spoke very little. A few words to direct me, to tell me in most explicitly vulgar terms what he wanted me to do for him. I could not do it, Griffin. I couldn’t. I fought back. He was hampered by the blanket that was caught between us, my heavy mantle, and my strength.”
Griffin offered a gently wry smile. “I don’t suppose he considered that carrying tray after tray weighted with drink made you as strong as most dock workers.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t suppose he did.”
“You used your scarf?”
She nodded. It was easier now that he was able to draw inferences from all that she’d told him. “He was so intent on his own attack that he failed to notice mine. I managed to unwind the scarf from my throat and loop it around his. I caught him high on his neck, just under his chin, and I pulled…” She returned her cup to its saucer and stared at it. “And pulled.” The slight tremor was once again in her fingertips. The tea rippled. “I twisted the scarf and pulled for as long as I was able….” Her voice drifted off. She held herself still and found composure. “They came then…all four of them. Gin. The whiskey. Both pints of ale. I never heard them above the sound of my own breathing. I don’t know what drew them from their beds or what they saw. They tore Rawlings away from me, dragged him off into the night. He never protested, never struggled. Whiskey stayed behind long enough to make certain I could rise, then he hurried off to join the others. They went in one direction away from the inn. I went in another.”
Griffin understood then that Olivia’s dreams were not merely nightmares, but hauntings. She was visited by specters as she slept, every choice she made that evening came at her again, and she was helpless to make them any differently.
“Is it so important what I think, Olivia? Will it truly ease your doubts to know I think you acted as nature intended you should? The sort of peace you seek isn’t conferred on you by others. It seems to me that we make that peace within ourselves.” He shrugged lightly. “But even that is only my opinion.”
“Have you ever done murder?”
“No, but defending oneself is not murder.”
“Perhaps that is so among gentlemen. You have your peculiar rules. But I believe society will judge me differently.”
“Rawlings’s companions didn’t. They took him away, not you. You don’t know that he’s dead by your hand. You don’t know that he’s dead at all.”
“I know what I felt.”
“Killing such as you described is not a thing done quickly,” Griffin said. “His friends may have saved his life by coming upon you when they did.”
Olivia could sit no longer. She rose and went to stand at the window. Across the way, the front door to the brothel opened and the pair of whores she knew only by their taste in outrageously adorned bonnets emerged. Hugging herself, she stepped back so they wouldn’t see her when they looked up. “No better than I ought to be,” she said softly. “No better at all.”
Griffin turned in his chair. Olivia’s back had a steel rod where most people had a spine. Nothing would come of taking the opposing view. He chose a different tack. “What happened afterward? Where did you go?”
“I fled. It seemed all that was possible for me to do, though running away surely damned me. I had a bit of money saved that I was able to take, and I made my way from one town to the next, found work now and again. I eventually took a coach to Cambridge. I knew my brother was there. Alastair set up a house for me there while he finished his studies.”
As an explanation, it left much out. Griffin was far from satisfied. He continued to regard her stiffly set shoulders and spine. A few moments of silence was all that was required to prompt her to turn. Her chin was thrust a fraction forward as though she meant to challenge him. The slight quiver warned him she didn’t have the strength for an interrogation. It was not what he wanted in any event.
“Alastair doesn’t know,” she said quietly. “I could never bring myself to tell him. Whateve
r you might think of him, you must know that he took a great deal upon himself when he offered me a place to stay. He did it knowing that our father would not look kindly upon him for it. Indeed, in the first round of sparring Sir Hadrien threatened to cut him out of his inheritance. He settled for reducing his quarterly allowance instead. Because I was at the source of the conflict, even his mother could not be prevailed upon to make up the difference.”
Griffin’s gaze remained on hers. “Do you blame yourself, Olivia, for Alastair’s gaming? Come, be honest. Is there yet some part of you that holds yourself responsible? After all, if you had not sought him out, he would have his full allowance and no need to seek some manner of supplementing it. You were a financial burden to him, there’s no denying the truth of that.”
Olivia was reminded that Griffin understood too well the sharp turns her mind took. “My presence caused him difficulties,” she said carefully. “And he made decisions as to how he would deal with them.”
“So he did. You would do well to remember it. Far from being a burden, you were a convenience to him. Your presence gave him an easy excuse for gaming. In all likelihood, he would have taken it up regardless of his financial circumstances and lost sums in excess of whatever his father gave him. Many young men do; most survive the experience and come out wiser for it on the other end. I imagine your brother will too. What is required is time.”
Olivia remained silent for a long moment. She was conscious of Griffin’s study, the way his head tilted as he waited her out, but he advanced no pressure, only patience, and the ache she carried when she thought of her brother was eased because of it.
“I think you must be right,” she said finally, softly. Her shoulders rose and fell on a small sigh as her breath came without any accompanying tightness. “I don’t know when I should have come upon the truth of it myself.”
“In time.” A wry smile edged his lips. “I suspect you are rather more accustomed to accepting fault than assigning it to others.”