by Goodman, Jo
It was a pretty compliment in a peculiarly left-handed fashion, Olivia thought. She gave it the credence it deserved, which was to say she gave it none at all. He might just as well have picked up a stick and poked her with it. The only recourse she had to spite her tormentor was to relax the grip on her bonnet. To remain unaffected in the aftermath of such a casual and demeaning study was the best revenge.
“Please, won’t you be seated?” he asked. “While I applaud your effort, you are not so steady on your feet as you would have me believe.”
Olivia would like to have denied it, but being caught in an obvious lie always had unpleasant consequences. Although her pride was wounded, it was relatively unimportant that he correctly surmised that she had yet to get her feet firmly under her.
“Allow me to take your coat,” he said. “And the bonnet. You are yet wont to crush it.”
Olivia was afraid that even the thought of flinging it at his head would be revealed in her face. She made herself think of jonquils instead, picturing the slim green stems and yellow buds just as they might be moments before flowering. At peace with this vision in her mind’s eye, she released the bonnet and permitted him to help her remove her pelisse. Her kid gloves fell out of the pocket where she’d stuffed them earlier, and she almost collided with him in her haste to pick them up.
It was too much to hope that he would not notice the loose stitching on the seams of the second finger and thumb, or that he would not see the palms were shiny with wear. “I was asked to make a rather hurried departure,” she said by way of explanation for the poor condition of her gloves. “I took what I was given, I’m afraid. A pair of old favorites.”
Olivia watched, vaguely disturbed as he turned them over and touched the back of one with his fingertips. The sensation was such that he might well have been brushing her own hand.
For the second time in the matter of an hour, Olivia dropped heavily into a chair behind her. She followed her host’s progress to the door where he pulled the bell cord. In just under a minute a footman appeared in the doorway. Breckenridge gave him the pelisse, bonnet, and gloves and some instructions that Olivia could not properly hear before sending the servant away again.
She had not given a thought to servants before Breckenridge’s man made his appearance. Although she had no intention of calling upon one to lend assistance in any circumstance, she was moderately calmed by the knowledge that she and the viscount were not alone in the house.
She’d made her own study of the viscount as he’d stood waiting for the bell to be answered. If he’d noticed her stealing glances in his direction, he’d given no indication that he was the least bothered by it.
Olivia was certain that she’d never seen him before, not that there would have been many opportunities to cross paths. Alastair did not introduce her to his friends, or even his amiable acquaintances, of whom she was now sure Breckenridge was not one.
He did not cast his profile in a way that made him an imposing figure, merely an intimidating one. His dark, chestnut-colored hair was longer than was the current fashion and carelessly furrowed by the fingers he’d plowed through it. His eyes were darker yet and given to narrowing so they did not simply gaze upon the object of his study, but secured it. His features were strong, angular, and except for a pale, thin scar bisecting his left cheek from the temple to the corner of his mouth, perfectly symmetrical. The scar saved him from the beauty that was the marble work of master sculptors and lent him something that was at once more striking and more human, the work of God twisted by man.
Olivia judged him to be not yet thirty, though it was a narrow thing. There was a weariness in his expression as he waited that he had taken pains to hide from her earlier. Even as she wondered at its source, it vanished. If it were not for the fact that she’d glimpsed a similar look in her own mirror, she could have been convinced that she’d imagined it. This commonality did not cheer her in the least. There was no conceiving of what harm might be done by two people with these unfortunate dispositions.
She thought he held himself in a posture of such correctness that it was most likely the product of the combined efforts of nannies, tutors, and a martinet of a mother. His stance lent him height and a certain polish. He made to carry himself in a manner that looked supremely natural, without a hint of the tension, superiority, or self-consciousness that she’d had occasion to observe in others of privilege and formidable education. Then, just as if to dismiss Olivia’s notion that he was uncommonly unconstrained, he rolled one of his shoulders and rubbed the nape of his neck with his palm.
The scar was proof that he’d been vulnerable once. His brief massage of corded muscle reminded her that he was vulnerable now. It struck her that it was little enough advantage knowing this fact, but she would accept every scrap he gave her.
When Griffin returned to his desk, he took up a position in front rather than behind it. He pushed aside a stack of ledgers and made room enough for him to rest one hip on the edge. Bracing himself by extending his other leg, he folded his arms across his chest and regarded Olivia Cole with a frankness that had been absent in his earlier scrutiny.
“Have you arrived yet at the reason you are here?” he asked.
“If I am to judge by the interview thus far, I would say it is because you are singularly self-indulgent.”
He actually smiled. The impact of the scar was visible now as the left corner of his mouth lifted a bit higher than the right, tugging his grin at a decidedly rakish angle. “Given your experience, it’s a fair observation,” he allowed. “It is also incorrect, but it is of no consequence to me if you choose to believe differently. Mr. Varah and Mr. Fairley were permitted to give you enough information to secure your cooperation. What did they tell you?”
“Mr. Fairley, I believe it was, informed me it was regarding the matter of a ring and a debt.”
“And so it is, and here you are.” His eyebrows knit slightly as he continued to regard her. “You’re not Alastair Cole’s wife, though, are you?”
“No.”
His expression cleared as he nodded. “I wasn’t certain. The note in my possession only references Olivia. When my sources learned that you shared a residence with Mr. Cole, it seemed the most respectful course to assume you were his wife.”
Olivia volunteered no information.
“It occurs to me now that you are also not his mistress.”
“No, I am not.”
“A relative, then. There are similarities of appearance. His hair is a pale imitation of yours, but the proper coloring is there. The shape of the eyes, I think, is also somewhat alike. Yours are green, are they not?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t say that I recall his. Perhaps green also, like the emerald he was wearing.”
Olivia realized she was gently worrying the inside of her bottom lip with her teeth. She released it and affected a calm she did not feel.
“You are rather tall, also like him, though I believe it attracts more attention when a woman is of a certain height, especially when she is of such a narrow frame that a willow branch could hide her figure. When did you last eat, Miss Cole?”
She blinked, startled by the question. Had she taken more than tea at breakfast? And what of supper yesterday?
“Never mind. Your hesitation speaks for itself.” He pushed away from the desk and pulled on the bell cord again. This time his summons was answered by a different servant. He gave instructions for a repast of baked eggs and toast, but before he let the young man go, he asked Olivia, “Do you care for hot cocoa?”
It was an extravagance she rarely indulged. The thought of it made warmth and sweetness settle lightly on her tongue. She had to press her arm against her stomach to quell the rumbling sound.
“Bring the cocoa. Tea as well. Here, take the tray.” He stepped aside to permit the servant to enter and remained there until the lad had carried out the task of collecting the service. After closing the door, he returned to his perch on the desk a
nd assumed the exact position he’d had before. “You look as if a draft could move you from that chair.”
“You needn’t have troubled yourself or your staff,” Olivia said. “I’m not hungry.”
“A matter of no account. It remains that you’ll eat.”
“High-handed,” she said.
“There you have me.” Shrugging, he picked up the conversational thread as if he’d never abandoned it. “Would I be correct that you are Alastair Cole’s cousin?”
“No.”
“His sister, then. I should have trusted my first notion. I gave too much weight to the physical differences.”
Olivia thought he seemed disappointed in himself. A game played and lost. She wondered at it, wondered how much he’d played to amuse himself and how much was done to unsettle her. Perhaps doing both was the point of it all.
“Though why I should have done so,” he went on, “does not make practical sense. I have sisters of my own. Three, in fact, and we could not be more dissimilar in appearance or inclination. I take by your expression that you consider it a fortunate turn for my sisters. You would be right, of course. They are wholly respectable, while I…” He lifted his hands, palms up, to indicate the entirety of his establishment. “While I, for reasons that are obvious to the meanest intelligence, am not.”
As Breckenridge had correctly divined the bent of her thoughts, Olivia decided that saying nothing was the wiser course.
“I should like to hear your opinion on a particular matter, Miss Cole. It is Miss Cole, is it not?” When she nodded, he continued. “I’d like you to tell me in which of these three respects the gentleman is the most complete bounder. He surrenders his wife to a man he owes payment. He gives over his mistress to discharge his debt. Or he sacrifices his sister to spare himself a very bad end. I confess, I cannot work it out myself, but it occurs that you might have a cogent position.”
Olivia realized she was worrying her bottom lip again. This time she didn’t attempt to stop. She drew blood instead.
Her silence did not deter him. “It’s a puzzler, isn’t it? I have been thinking that if I could arrive at some clever answer, it might make an acceptable teaser in society. Riddles are popular with a certain crowd and their parlor games. It would be a thing oft repeated. The wife. The mistress. The sister.” He feigned disappointment when Olivia offered no reply. “It seems nothing occurs to you either. That is too bad. It will have to remain between us, I’m afraid. At least for the nonce. Is your standing in society a concern to you, Miss Cole?”
“I have no standing in society.”
“Then perhaps you are fortunate.”
“I have never thought about it.”
“Truly? Then you are singular. Standing and reputation account for the greatest part of what passes for thinking among the ton.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I believe your brother would, though. He has cut a wide swath in society since he’s finished university.”
“Your sources again, I collect.”
“Yes. I have many at my disposal. Knowing one’s patrons is part and parcel of operating this establishment.”
“If you say so,” she said, her tone carefully neutral.
“I do. There are patrons with deep pockets that will never go owing the house. Others whose pockets are considerably lighter and want credit to compensate. Some enjoy long runs of good fortune, and there are those who seem to take perverse pleasure in losing time and again. Both present problems in their own right. Then there are the cheats. Attention must be paid, of course. The surest way of keeping out the deep-pocketed players is to entertain the cheats. So, yes, I find it important to learn something about the gentlemen who frequent my establishment. Prudence dictates it.”
“You speak only of gaming.”
“And why would I speak of anything else? You do know you’re in a gaming hell, don’t you?”
“I feel certain that is the least of it.”
“Do you? Are your first impressions never wrong?”
“I saw the red lanterns. I know their purpose.”
“You did not see them on my door, did you?”
“No.”
“But you concluded you were being escorted to a brothel anyway.”
She had. “It was not an unreasonable assumption.”
“Perhaps not, but it is not my business. Did someone tell you otherwise?”
“No.”
He nodded once, satisfied that he had impressed the truth of the matter upon her. “Do you want to know the size of your brother’s debt?”
“If you’d like to tell me. In truth it doesn’t matter if it’s one pound or one thousand. I have no money of my own to compensate you.”
“As it happens, it is £1,000.”
Olivia felt herself in the grip of a chill as color drained from her face. She wished she had chosen a chair closer to the fire.
“If you think you might faint,” Breckenridge said, “lower your head to the level of your knees.”
She thought people were inordinately worried about her fainting today. “I am not going to faint.” She noticed he was as skeptical of her assertion as Varah and Fairley had been.
“My sister Jenny requires almost no provocation to swoon. It’s fascinating, really, how she has mastered the art of it. The physicians say they can find nothing to account for it, but then they are forever examining her without her corset. Her husband shares my opinion that she instructs her maid to pull the strings too tight.”
“She would not thank you for imparting that information.”
“It is by way of educating you. Jenny approves of education. She has a prodigious intellect.” One side of his mouth twitched. “Which we all support since she has little in the way of common sense.”
“It must gratify her,” Olivia said dryly. “Your support, I mean.”
The grin deepened momentarily, then was gone. “As it is now a certainty that you will not faint, let us return to the problem of the £1,000. Your brother volunteered that he could pay the debt with an advance on his allowance. I knew that such a large advance would not be forthcoming. Your father is by reputation a clutch-fisted individual, and there appears to be support for the rumor that Alastair has fallen out of favor with him.”
“You think you know rather quite a lot.”
“I do not require that you confirm or deny anything I am telling you, so ease your mind on that score. I merely present the whole of it as a caution. You will be pleased, I think, to know that as much as I learned about Alastair, I never once received any particulars about you. The most surprising thing to learn about you being Alastair Cole’s sister is that it makes you Sir Hadrien Cole’s daughter. I wonder that it is not common knowledge.”
“I fell out of favor with my father some years ago.” Olivia offered Breckenridge this small bone to keep him from digging for a bigger one. She was careful not to hold her breath as she waited to see if it would be enough for him.
“Perhaps that is why your brother came to the conclusion that he could offer you in his stead.”
Olivia was on the point of seizing this opportunity to inquire after Alastair when the door opened and the lad who’d removed the tea service appeared on the threshold with a large tray laden with the repast the viscount had ordered.
Griffin Wright-Jones pushed aside more items on his desk and dropped a short stack of account books onto the floor. He pointed to the clearing and removed himself, then he indicated to Olivia that she should take up the chair behind the desk. When she didn’t move quickly enough to suit him, he said, “I will not hesitate to put you in it.”
Olivia saw the young man bobble the tray on his way to setting it down as he regarded his employer with surprise mixed with wariness. She took that as an indication that the viscount was not in the habit of making threats. She wished she might know better if it was Breckenridge’s habit to carry them out. Olivia came to her feet in what she hoped was a dignified manner. It was important to h
er that her host did not mistake cooperation for intimidation. She had a kind smile for the bearer of the tray as she skirted the desk, but she waited until he was gone before she took her seat.
Aware of Breckenridge’s narrowed gaze, Olivia picked up a fork before she was ordered to do so and stabbed at the yellow curds of baked egg. “To spare you from feeding me as well,” she said before placing the egg in her mouth.
Griffin slipped into the chair she had occupied and watched her eat. She had no enjoyment of the food, of course, but that was not the point. The point was that she truly looked as if a sudden draft would lift her off her feet.
She wore a shawl about her shoulders, but it had slipped when he’d helped her out of her pelisse and he’d seen the unnaturally prominent line of her collarbones. It was true that her figure did not lend itself to the fullness of sensual beauty, but judging by the bruised shadows beneath her eyes, she had recently acquired an appearance that suggested starvation.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“Am I?”
Of course he was, and he knew it. “Yes. Has anyone commented that it’s impolite to do so?”
“I find that women are glad for the attention.”
Olivia thought she might choke on the bite of toast she’d just taken. She managed to push it down with a sip of the cocoa. “You find that…” She stopped, unable to repeat the whole of it even to be certain she had not mistaken the words. She simply shook her head and took another sip of her hot drink, nearly closing her eyes with the pleasure of it.
“I may have overstated it,” he allowed. He observed that she was not proof against the sweet cocoa. A thin mustache of liquid chocolate appeared just above her upper lip, and even as he wondered if she would raise her serviette or lick it away the tip of her tongue appeared to do the deed. He knew himself to be most grateful. “There are naturally exceptions.”
“I wish to be in the category of exceptions.”
Griffin gave in easily, but only because the fire was in want of tending and he’d already witnessed the flicker of her tongue along her lip. He rose and crossed to the fireplace where he poked at the coals, then added more from the scuttle. He stood there wondering what he might reasonably expect from Olivia Cole while she cleaned her plate and tipped her cup to swallow the last mouthful of cocoa.
