by Lisa Plumley
Or maybe that was grief, doing him in. Because even as Griffin relentlessly strode through Morrow Creek, trying to find a way to leave it, one thought kept dogging his steps. One image kept running through his mind. One sound kept chasing after him.
I’m all but debauched already, came the sound of Olivia’s sweet feminine voice, again and again, circling his thoughts. If you don’t finish the job now, I’ll be deeply disappointed.
Griffin could still envision her, flushed and breathless and smiling as she’d invited him to undress her—as she’d flung her arms onto her sweet, pure bed and all but begged him to love her.
She shouldn’t have done that.
She wouldn’t have done that. Except for him.
Because late last night—far too late last night—Griffin had realized the truth of things. All this time, while he’d been convincing himself that Olivia was changing him for the better, he’d been changing her for the worse. He’d taken a gentle, innocent woman and turned her into an unrepentant wanton. He’d turned Olivia Mouton into the kind of woman who would willingly bed The Boston Beast…and then smile over having done so.
No right-thinking woman wanted The Business Brute. No matter how hard Griffin had tried to convince himself he wasn’t that man anymore, last night was the proof that he was.
He hadn’t changed, the way he’d told himself he had. He hadn’t learned goodness and honor. Instead, he’d ruined Olivia.
It would be better for them both if he left. Olivia deserved more than him. She deserved more than he could ever be.
But Olivia was too kind, Griffin knew, to turn him away. She was too gentle to protect herself the way she ought to. That was why Griffin knew he had to do it…if only he could find a way out of the blasted prison of this town.
Only one option remained for him. Griffin didn’t want to take it. But after spending more time than he wanted trying to secure a train ticket, passage on the stagecoach or even a horse to ride, he was desperate enough to try his last recourse.
He arrived at his private train car, parked on a length of track alongside the Morrow Creek depot, and opened the door.
Sunshine flooded inside, falling on the train car’s luxe furnishings, velvet-upholstered furniture and paneled walls. Griffin’s desk stood beside the window where he’d abandoned it, piled with paperwork, a lamp and a writing set. His cabinets waited with drawers full of papers and ledgers. His personal correspondence overflowed its designated corner of the desk.
Heaving a sigh, Griffin slung his baggage into the train car’s interior, then stepped inside. His old life seemed to surround him as he did, bringing with it all the unsatisfying smells of ink and coal and industriousness. Miles to the east, Boston awaited, ready for him to return to deal brokering and socializing—ready for him to return to compensating for his inborn fault with money and success and striving.
Ironically, Griffin realized, he knew now that his damnable nose—once so torturous to him—had never been the source of his troubles at all, despite what it represented to him.
He had let his appearance matter. He had let it dictate his actions and his attitude. He had let it punish and torment him.
Olivia had cured him of that. She’d made him see that he was more than his detested Turner nose—that he was more than his money and success, too. In the process, though, she’d also made him see that he was less than he’d hoped. In some ways, Griffin knew, he was even worse than he’d feared. He had to be worse, to have taken advantage of Olivia. He had to be worse, to have turned her into someone less like herself…and more like him.
His old life had never felt more superficial. He’d never yearned less to return to it, with all its empty splendor. But faced with the choice of continuing to corrupt Olivia or leaving Morrow Creek, Griffin knew he faced no choice at all.
Olivia came first, now and always.
For her, he would have walked across fire.
Or awakened Palmer Grant when he had overimbibed.
Because that was the particular dragon that Griffin roused when he stepped farther into his train car—nearing the area where the conductor’s information was kept so he could get the train on the rails toward Boston—and found himself staring down the barrel of a lethal-looking pistol…held by Palmer.
Irritably, Griffin nudged away the firearm.
His associate only gawked. Blearily. “Griffin?”
“Go back to bed. You’re hallucinating me.”
“I am?” A blink. The gun wobbled. “Are you sure?”
“Certain.” Griffin frowned. “Where’s the blasted conductor? How long does it take to get this monstrosity on the tracks?”
Palmer set aside his weapon. “What monstrosity?”
“The train car.” With his patience at an end, Griffin deepened his frown. He didn’t usually have to manage these kinds of details. Typically, these were the sort of specifics Palmer handled. All Griffin knew was that maneuvering his private train car onto the tracks and in motion would take longer than boarding another train, catching a stagecoach or hiring a horse would have. That was why he hadn’t come here first. “You’ll be happy to know that we’re going home. Today. Now.”
“Oh.” Palmer frowned, too. “Wait. I’m not going home.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve been itching to get back to Boston. Now you’re getting your wish.” Griffin cast a puzzled glance at Palmer’s clothes, which he’d plainly slept in. “And a bonus.”
A cash incentive would sweeten the deal. And expedite it.
Except it didn’t. His associate only shook his head.
“I’m not leaving. I proposed to Annie last night—”
Griffin groaned. He did not want to hear this.
“—and she accepted!” Semidrunkenly, Palmer beamed. “We were up late celebrating. I met her family. They’re farmers.”
“You’re not marrying into a family of farmers. I won’t believe it.” Griffin strode toward the compartment’s nearest built-in cabinet. He wrenched it open, then riffled through the papers, looking for the information he needed. “Help me find the train schedule. Or help me circumvent it. I don’t care which. Everyone in this town seems to be conspiring to make me stay, and I won’t have it.” He swore. “Where the hell is the—”
“They are conspiring to make you stay,” Palmer said.
Griffin scoffed. “See? I knew you hated it here. You’re not even above concocting crazy stories about the townspeople.”
“I don’t hate it here. Not anymore. Not since Annie.” His friend gave a besotted grin. “Also, it’s not a crazy story. They are conspiring to make you stay. At least some of them are. Unless you’ve proposed to Miss Mouton. Because if you have—”
“What does Olivia have to do with this?” Griffin demanded. Except for bringing me back to life…then making my heart feel as though it’s splintering. He clenched his fists. He couldn’t have Olivia anymore. For her sake, he had to get used to that. “Of course I didn’t propose to Miss Mouton. I haven’t lost my mind.”
“Are you suggesting I have? I take exception to that.”
Griffin ignored Palmer’s pugnaciously raised fists. “Get to the point. Please. Who is conspiring to make me stay?”
If he could get to the bottom of this quickly, Griffin reasoned, maybe he could still catch a regular train—and avoid steeping himself in Palmer’s lovesickness for an entire journey. His friend’s happiness only made him feel sadder and more alone.
“It started with Jimmy. The bellman at The Lorndorff.”
Griffin remembered him. But… “What started with Jimmy?”
“The bets.” Expansively, Palmer gestured to the train car’s settee, indicating that Griffin should take a seat. “On you.”
Feeling suddenly overwrought, Griffin did sit. “Explain.”
His terse tone did not intimidate Palmer. His associate merely gave him a satisfied nod, executed an unsteady swivel, then began pacing. “Everyone in town knows that Miss Mouton is the most sought-afte
r bride. When you and she started spending so much time together…well, that’s when the betting pool began.”
Darkly, Griffin regarded him. “I don’t like this so far.”
“You’ll like it even less when you hear the rest,” Palmer promised him. He pressed together his palms, appearing to sober up a little as he continued pacing. “You see, most of the men in town have proposed to Miss Mouton. At one time or another—”
“I’m aware of that part,” Griffin cut in. He did not feel eager to contemplate which man might win her when he’d gone.
“—they’ve all suggested marriage to Miss Mouton,” Palmer went on, undeterred, “and they’ve all been very kindly refused. When Jimmy understood his own offer of marriage to have been rebuffed by Miss Mouton, he decided to make the most of it.”
Griffin remembered when that had most likely happened—on the day when he’d first toured Morrow Creek with Olivia.
“He ‘made the most of it’ by instigating a betting pool?”
A nod. “And by stacking the odds in his favor, given the inside information he had,” Palmer confirmed. Reluctantly, he added, “I’d told him a time or two that I was eager for you to return to Boston. Jimmy knew you had urgent business there—”
“I don’t like the sound of this, either.”
“—and he became convinced that you’d leave Morrow Creek before you’d enacted a successful engagement.” Palmer gave Griffin a direct look. “So he bet against you. Gleefully, in fact. Essentially, I believe his words were, ‘Turner’ll run off lickety-split after Miss Mouton shoots ’im down, too.’” Palmer grinned. “You can imagine for yourself the smug tone.”
“But we were friends!” Griffin protested. “I liked him.”
“Jimmy liked you, too,” his associate told him. “But he also likes money—and with your chowderheaded takeover of The Lorndorff in the works, Jimmy was afraid for his job. He wasn’t sure what would happen. He didn’t think Miss Mouton could persuade you to give up your plans and surrender the hotel—”
“I already have!” Griffin broke in, indignant on her behalf. He couldn’t believe her own friends had so little faith in her ability. “I left a note for Henry Mouton. I signed over the deed to The Lorndorff. It’s his from now on, free and clear.”
Palmer raised his eyebrows. “Well. Jimmy didn’t know that.”
“He didn’t know a lot of things,” Griffin grumbled. “If I had proposed to Miss Mouton—” She would have accepted, he thought, remembering the loving way Olivia had looked at him…and he was instantly thrown back into his current predicament.
He had to get out of town. Now.
Otherwise, he might weaken and go back to her.
“If you had proposed…?” Palmer aped him cheerfully. “Then?”
Griffin stood. “I hope you laid in a heap of cash on the side that wanted me to leave before I proposed,” he said, “because I’m clearing out of here today, one way or the other.”
“Hmm.” Idly, Palmer stared out the window. “How does leaving in an undertaker’s wagon suit you?” he asked.
Griffin made a face. “You’re still soused. You’re not even making sense anymore. This whole imbroglio is probably—”
“No.” His associate pointed out the window. “Look.”
Griffin did look. He saw that Morrow Creek residents had begun assembling near the railway depot. They were drifting en masse toward his train car. “Mmm. They don’t look very happy.”
“They’re not very happy. I think they’re an angry mob.”
Griffin scoffed. But then he took another look. The peculiar tableau before him divided into two fairly distinct sides. One was composed of male Morrow Creek residents. The other was composed—largely, at least—of female Morrow Creek residents. “Is that the suffragist, Mrs. Murphy?” he asked.
Palmer confirmed that he thought it was. “At the lead.”
“But why are they here?” Griffin aimed a baffled look at his friend. “Are they here to make sure I’ve gone? Or to make me stay? I thought the men were betting I was leaving town.”
“They have been. But all the women have been betting you’d stay.” Palmer looked at their accumulated numbers with something akin to admiration. “I’ll wager they’re a sight better than the men at coordinating a joint effort to keep you here—at least long enough for you to propose to Miss Mouton, that is.”
That explained a great deal about Griffin’s difficulty leaving town this morning. Miss Hartford, the railway depot clerk, had likely bet on his staying and proposing. The clerk at the stagecoach office had been a woman, too, he recalled. Only…
“The stableman, Gus, isn’t a woman,” Griffin said, feeling weirdly pleased to have jabbed a hole in Palmer’s cockamamie theory. “Why would he want me to stay in town and propose?”
“He’s fond of Miss Daisy Walsh, who’s staying with the Coopers above the livery stable.” Palmer gave him a disbelieving look. “Owen Cooper won the bride raffle a while ago, and—well, the upshot is, Daisy Walsh wagered for you to stay.” He shook his head. “Don’t you listen to any of the town gossip at all?”
“I’ve been busy.” Distractedly, Griffin peered through the train-car window. He ran his hand through his long hair, feeling uncomfortably exposed. He wished he still had his hat. He’d lost it forever—along with his heart, to Olivia—on the day of the baseball game. “None of those people appear ready to accept defeat,” he told Palmer, absurdly. “I have to do something.”
Palmer agreed with a nod. “Annie told me all about the women’s point of view. Evidently, no one’s more adept than Mrs. Murphy at inspiring the womenfolk on behalf of a good cause.”
Griffin knew that already, given the well-known fable of her contraband baseballs. “My…courtship…of Miss Mouton is not ‘a good cause’!” He could scarcely believe this was happening. He had woefully underestimated both the depth of his feelings for Olivia and his urgency to protect her from himself. He eyed the still-assembling mob. “Someone brought a picnic lunch!”
“And a banjo,” Palmer added, brightening. “Listen.”
Griffin groaned, fully at his wit’s end. Banjo music was playing outside now. Perversely, he would have preferred raucous fiddles. “What kind of town is this anyway?”
“A close-knit one, I reckon.”
“You ‘reckon’?” Griffin exhaled. “Damnation. You’re a lost cause, too.” He gestured outside. “Go ahead. Pick a side.”
“I might. I could probably make a pretty penny.” Blithely, Palmer squinted out the window. He pursed his mouth in thought. “Whatever you do, at least half the town will be happy.”
“No. This is madness!”
His friend shrugged. “I guess that’s love for you.”
His sappy tone did not make Griffin feel better.
Neither did what he said next.
“It could be worse,” Palmer mused aloud. “Miss Mouton could be out there herself, waving greenbacks and taking bets.”
Appalled, Griffin swerved his gaze out the window, suddenly fearful he’d see exactly that. He wasn’t sure he could withstand it. To know that their time together had been a joke to her…
“It wasn’t like that between us!” he yelled. “It was—”
“Yes?” Palmer asked in a silky tone. “Go on….”
Frustrated, Griffin stared him down. “It was special,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand,” Palmer disagreed calmly. “I understand that you appear to have thanked Miss Mouton for your ‘special’ relationship by giving her father a hotel.”
Griffin frowned. That remark made his generous resolution of the situation sound so…dastardly. In reality, it had been practical. So, mulishly, Griffin refused to comment. Palmer’s gross misunderstanding of the situation didn’t warrant it.
“It seems to me,” Palmer plowed on relentlessly anyway, “that that strategy is something your curmudgeonly former self would have considered s
ufficient.” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s not, however, a response befitting the man you are today.”
Griffin arrowed him a deadly recalcitrant glance. Olivia had, technically, gotten what she wanted, he knew. She’d won the game she’d set out to play with him by impersonating a chambermaid—by trying to make him relinquish The Lorndorff.
“Bribing someone with a hotel to assuage your guilty conscience is not an action that’s in keeping with the man you are today,” Palmer repeated laboriously, unaffected by Griffin’s ire, “after being with Miss Mouton for all these weeks.”
Bribing? Guilty conscience? Infuriated, Griffin paced.
No one else would have dared speak to him this way. If he knew what was good for him, Palmer Grant wouldn’t have, either.
“I know where I’ve been these past weeks,” Griffin bit out, unwilling to discuss any of this. “And with whom. And I know where I am now—which is facing an angry mob!”
“Well, it will only be half an angry mob, eventually,” Palmer pointed out. “Once you make your decision, that is. And evidently, you don’t know where you’ve been these past weeks. Or you haven’t been paying attention during them.” He gave Griffin an exasperated look. “Can you truly not see the changes in yourself?” He raised his arms in vexation. “By now, you should have threatened to wallop me at least three times. You should have fired me once, maligned the reputations of my grandfathers twice and then stormed off to drink some whiskey.”
“I might yet,” Griffin growled. “Wait and see.”
But his associate only laughed. “You are different, Griffin! You are different because of Olivia.” At his casual use of her first name, Palmer softened his tone further. “Don’t let her slip away from you. You will regret it forever if you do.”
Obstinately, aggrievedly, Griffin contemplated that.
“You might have said the same thing of Mary,” he said.
At that, silence fell in the train car. At least it did, as much as was possible between the increasing shouting coming from outside and the banjo music wafting on the breeze.
