by Lisa Plumley
Silence. Beneath his hat brim, his jawline hardened. It was a miracle that a few emergent beard hairs didn’t pop right out.
When he spoke, though, his tone was light. “Maybe I would rather be alone,” he agreed. He raised his head a fraction. “Or maybe pestering you has given me something to live for.”
Oh. Poor Mr. Turner. Until now, he’d seemed more brooding than melancholy, Olivia couldn’t help thinking. But overwhelming unhappiness could explain his apathy regarding...well, everything. Conversing. Becoming abstemious. Behaving with a modicum of manners. Experiencing daylight. His avowed downheartedness wasn’t something she could discount. Not if she wanted to reach him, to influence him and—if she was honest—to help him.
“Surely you have a great deal to live for,” she argued, striving to keep her tone as light as his. She didn’t want to ruin this fragile accord between them...or scare him into not confiding in her. “After all,” she teased with a glance to his hiding place, “there are always whiskey and cigarillos to think of!”
“Yes.” His shuttered gaze followed her as she went back to work sweeping. “There are always those. I forgot for a minute.”
Something in his voice, so husky and deep, made her feel breathless. Confused by it—confused by her own burgeoning wishes to help him find something to live for, if he honestly lacked it—Olivia operated her broom with more vigor. Sweep, sweep...
The settee’s cushions creaked. Griffin stood.
His hand clamped on her broom handle, just above her fist.
Olivia jumped in surprise. His shoulder nudged hers as he came to stand more firmly beside her, close enough to transfer his bodily warmth to hers—close enough to envelop her with the heat and assurance and absolute strength he always exuded.
How did a man come to emanate such heat? Such...intensity?
Wonderingly, Olivia glanced up. Way up, into his face. Looking at him—even in three-quarter profile as she was—still startled her. He didn’t allow it often. Usually he minded his hat’s position more carefully than this. But now she could see that although Mr. Turner had not yet found the impetus to give his stubbled jawline a shave, he had decided to club his hair. It lay bundled against his neck, native fashion, tied with a strip of black leather and seeming...not quite as civil as he intended it to. As a concession to polite society, it was...
More successful as a means to emphasize his wildness.
She almost liked his wildness, Olivia thought crazily. It was liberating. It was fascinating. It was unlike anyone else.
So was his strength. Griffin Turner exuded fortitude as readily as he exuded a stony, combative attitude. Just then, though, his attitude seemed more distressed than aggressive.
Evidently, he’d felt her jerk away in surprise, because he shifted subtly. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.”
At his gruff apology, Olivia blinked. She stared at his hand, holding the broom very close to hers, feeling...transfixed. Feeling, she realized belatedly, very much the way she imagined the men who ogled her and tipped their hats to her and proposed to her within moments of their meeting did when she stood near.
Just then, she would have liked a proposal from him.
Instead... “You’re dragging the broom,” he informed her.
That was hardly romantic. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’re dragging the broom.” He nodded at it. “May I?”
“Certainly. Help yourself.” Immeasurably curious, Olivia stepped back to offer him sole control of her broom. “I’m dying to find out what a man like you knows about brooms.”
I’m dying to find out if you’ve ever proposed to a woman, too, she couldn’t help wondering, and was shocked to find herself thinking of him in such a romantic sense. She’d never done that before, not during all the days they’d spent together. Undeniably, Griffin Turner possessed a certain raw dignity, in spite of his unusual appearance, but that didn’t mean...
It didn’t mean she had to think of him in those terms! It didn’t mean she had to consider that his mouth was perfect to look at, even situated beneath his attention-hogging nose. She didn’t have to reckon that, aside from that tremendous nose of his, Griffin Turner did, in fact, have handsome features.
Rugged, expressive, unusual features, to be sure, but...
Appalled, Olivia shook herself. These flights of fancy would not help her cause. Neither would letting herself get carried away. Resolutely, she returned her attention to the matter at hand: a man who was about to demonstrate sweeping techniques to her. She couldn’t help giggling at the idea.
In return, he delivered her a censorious, seemingly arrogant look. He accepted the broom from her. Olivia watched in amusement, expecting him to wield it hilariously wrong, the way men typically tried to hold babies or sewing needles. If she was inexperienced with expert cleaning, menfolk in general were oblivious to it. Men, she knew, were not natural tidiers.
She couldn’t wait to see him get started.
He surprised her by first leaning nearer. Up close, what Olivia could glimpse of his face was startlingly masculine and oddly compelling. Maybe she was...getting used to his appearance?
She was certainly getting used to the unique scent of him—although not to the untoward impulse she felt to inhale deeply of it. Griffin Turner used a clove-oil soap, she’d learned, that was custom blended for him by a Boston apothecary. Palmer Grant had brought in a whole box of it from the East. The combination of its soapy spiciness, Griffin Turner’s manly aura and the toasty notes of tobacco that clung to him was intoxicating.
He caught her stealing a lungful. She gave a sheepish face.
At least she’d learned to stop gawking at him. Olivia knew that was progress. But he seemed unaware of her improvement.
“Try not to root for my failure quite so obviously,” he instructed with a wry expression. “Eagerness is unladylike.”
Oh. He wasn’t alert for her to stare at him at all. Or for her to make herself tipsy on masculine clove-oil essence. He was on the lookout for her to behave inappropriately. Just like everyone else had been for as long as she could remember.
Eagerness is unladylike. Well. That was probably true.
For an instant, Olivia felt duly chastened. Then she got over it. “I don’t care if it is,” she said, dizzy with a newly reawakened sense of rebellion. “Who are you going to tell? You never leave this suite or speak to anyone except me.”
“I speak to Palmer Grant.”
“Do you give him broom lessons?”
“You mean sweeping lessons.”
Olivia waved away his specifics. “Do you?”
To her amazement, another smile tilted his mouth. It made Griffin Turner appear downright boyish. The sight of him looking that way made her wonder...had he ever been truly boyish?
Somehow, she doubted it. The thought broke her heart...and kindled a fresh desire to help him experience the youth and innocence and sense of playfulness his life may have lacked.
Doing so might awaken his kinder impulses, too. It might, aside from helping him, cause him to relinquish The Lorndorff.
“The important thing is, your ‘cleaning’ is sheer madness,” he intruded into her thoughts to say. “I can’t sit idly by and let it continue any longer. You are clumsily dragging this broom when you’re meant to repeatedly push it. Like this.”
To her further amazement, he demonstrated the motion. Using his strong hands and his big, burly muscles, he swept.
Olivia couldn’t help being impressed. At this, Griffin Turner was remarkably adept. He made the act of sweeping seem as natural as breathing. Further, he made himself seem positively endearing while doing it. That was a trick, to be sure.
“That, Miss Milky White, is how you sweep a floor.” He propped himself up on the broom handle—as though it was his stumpy partn
er in an otherwise elegant ballroom dance—appearing immeasurably pleased with his efforts. “Here. Now you try.”
“Why should I, when you’re doing so well?”
“Because it’s your job. You volunteered for it.”
“Volunteered? How do you know I don’t need this job? How do you know I don’t do this every single day?”
His gaze swept over her, cataloguing her features and her figure. “Your soft hands say you never do anything more taxing than needlework. Your stylish dress says you prefer fashion to mop buckets. Your pink cheeks say you spend time outdoors, not stuck inside a hotel. Your ineptitude at dusting, scouring, and bed making suggest you have more refined interests at heart.”
He was right. She did. Except her interests lay more with intellectual pursuits than refinement. She was still reading the book she had pinched from him. She was fascinated by its chapters regarding Bentham and Rousseau. In fact, she was hoping to discuss it with him sometime soon. There was no one else she could converse with about philosophy in Morrow Creek. Regardless of those hopes, Olivia couldn’t defend her housekeeping abilities. She knew they were deplorable.
“Also,” he went on, “your father owns this hotel. So it’s unlikely he’d enlist you for menial labor.” He gave her a keen look. “In fact, I’d wager he doesn’t even know you’re here.”
He didn’t. Not precisely. So far, Olivia had managed to keep her plan inconspicuous. Henry Mouton’s overall distractedness had helped with that. So had the staff’s willingness to help her bluff her way into her chambermaid’s duties. But she definitely didn’t want to discuss that.
What if she did—and he requested a more competent maid?
No. If she was to make inroads with her plan to make Mr. Turner surrender The Lorndorff, she had to have access to him. She had to continue befriending him. She had stop him from any further contemplation of her past, her relationship with her father...and her reasons for behaving as a chambermaid.
As far as Mr. Turner was concerned, she was merely being friendly. And industrious. Later, she’d ask him to give over control of The Lorndorff again. Later, when he liked her.
She’d never had such a difficult time making a man like her. If only Annie was right, and all she had to do was bat her eyelashes and swoon appropriately. But since she couldn’t...
She’d simply have to go on as she’d begun. While first making sure Griffin Turner didn’t delve too deeply into her motivations. Searching for a suitable distraction for him, Olivia came up with, “Please don’t call me Miss Milky White.” This wasn’t the first time he’d done so. “My name is Olivia.”
“I know.” He gave an amiable nod. “Yet your claim to fame is evident on those patent remedy bottles downstairs. It’s—”
“It’s really not very relevant to my life these days,” she interrupted crisply. “I hope you’ll remember that.”
“How can I not, when you keep reminding me?”
“You seem to be managing capably so far.”
“Mea culpa.” He laid his hand over his heart. “It won’t happen again.” A thoughtful look. “Speaking of names—”
“I’d better get back to my work.” Satisfied that she’d deterred him, Olivia grabbed the broom. Or at least she tried to. “Mr. Turner, please. I think you’ve proved your point. I’ll try harder to sweep properly from now on. So if you’ll just—”
Her next tug had little effect. He held fast to the broom.
He appeared apologetic again, too. For a man who’d seemed a latecomer to the sentiment, he was mastering it ably now.
“You’re offended. That’s why you’re so eager to sweep.”
“I’m your chambermaid. That’s why I’m eager to sweep.”
He didn’t believe a word. “I’m sorry if I upset you by talking about your involvement with that complexion tonic.” He seemed troubled—and perceptive in a way that no one else in town had ever managed when it came to her lithographed twin and all it represented to her. Contritely, he said, “I didn’t mean to.”
“Thank you. But I should still get back to work.”
She gave a nod to accept his apology. And another yank to snatch the broom from him, too. It was no good. He held fast.
“Before I give this back, I want something from you.”
Guardedly, Olivia peered up at him. “More cake?” she guessed. “You seemed surpassingly fond of that spice cake from Molly Copeland’s bakery.” She’d brought it yesterday as a deliberate ploy to soften him toward her. It had obviously worked. “If you do, I can have more delivered within the hour.”
“No. Not more cake.” His eyes actually sparkled at her.
Unexpectedly moved by that miniscule show of good cheer—because, after all, it meant she was making inroads at befriending him—Olivia tried again. “More cigarillos?” she asked next. “I don’t approve of them, of course, but I noticed they’re the same brand that the town blacksmith, Daniel McCabe smokes. I could probably fetch you more of them from the mercantile.”
“No. I just decided to quit.” Still holding the broom handle in tandem with her, he stepped a tiny bit closer. “Someone I know doesn’t approve. I want to please her.”
He meant her. Spurred on by that further proof that she was having an influential effect on him, Olivia felt her spirits soar. “Good for you,” she said with a nod. “I’m proud of you.”
“There’s no need to get carried away. It’s a minor effort.”
“Still, it’s an effort.” Encouragingly, she smiled at him.
“So is standing here, so close to you,” he said, “and not standing even closer. But I don’t want to scare you again.”
“I wasn’t scared before,” Olivia fibbed. “Just startled.”
Rightly, Griffin Turner didn’t appear to believe her. As though challenging her assertion, he slid his hand a few inches higher along the broom handle. Their fingers touched. At that unexpected contact, a jolt raced through her. She shivered.
He raised his eyebrow. “How about now? Are you scared now?”
“No. Not scared.” That was an even more outrageous stretcher. With effort, she asked, “What favor did you want from me? I promise, I’m all ears.” And wobbly knees and shaky hands...
How could a mere touch be so affecting?
“What I want,” he said, making his request last a lifetime, “is for you to please call me Griffin.” His smile surfaced again, seeming strangely...rusty, but all the more affecting for it. His hand convivially covered hers. He squeezed, boldly holding her. “Now that I’ve performed cleaning duties in front of you, I believe you owe me that small intimacy. Don’t you?”
In that moment, all Olivia could believe was that she might topple without the support of the broom in her grasp. Griffin Turner was holding her hand. He was gazing at her in a decidedly hopeful fashion. He appeared open and amenable, and he was definitely, definitely softening toward her. She was winning.
She tried to tell herself that was all she wanted...and failed. Because he was the most enthralling man she’d met in her life, and it was impossible for her not to yearn for more from him.
“Very well.” With effort, she moistened her lips—and happened to catch him watching. “Thank you very much. I will.”
Griffin. It did seem intimate. But not half as intimate as the contact of their fingers, as the warmth spreading slowly from his body to hers, as the fact that their bodies were close enough to make their clothing overlap. Dazedly, Olivia glanced down to see her skirts pooling against his black trouser legs—to see her dress sleeve outlined in flouncy pastels against his black suit coat and woolen vest—and knew she’d overstepped.
This was a part of her experiment she hadn’t counted on.
Neither had she counted on her own untoward reaction.
“Griffin.” She tried to say it w
ith a polite smile, but the pounding of her heart seemed to make it impossible to smile normally. Olivia tried a nod instead. It felt jerky. “You must call me Olivia, of course. Please. I insist you do.”
But her invitation came too late. Griffin gazed into her face, saw something there that was not to his liking and yanked away his hand. She felt its loss like the coming of winter.
“Fine.” His tone sounded harsh. “Olivia, it’s time you left me. This place is as clean as it’s likely to get for today.”
“What? No!” she protested. “I haven’t finished yet.”
“You’ve finished.” Closing himself off from her, Griffin wheeled his way back to his bedstead—and the single bottle of whiskey hidden beneath it. He slugged some. “I assure you.”
Oh, no. She’d done something wrong. She was losing.
“I’m sorry!” Olivia cried, searching her mind for what she might have done. “Men don’t usually hold my hand. I wasn’t—”
His sardonic snort cut her off. “Men would give their hands to touch you. Tell me another tall one, Miss Milky White.”
Hurt, Olivia clutched her broom. “I already asked you—”
“Why don’t you give up this pretense?” Griffin demanded suddenly, pointing his liquor bottle at her. The amber liquid inside it sloshed. His scowl looked fearsome. “You know you’re not a chambermaid. You’re not truly friendly with me, either.”
His suspicion wasn’t unwarranted. Guiltily, Olivia bit her lip. She didn’t want him to isolate himself from her. Not just because she needed his cooperation, but also because...it pained her, somehow, to see him this way. To see him suffering.
“I truly am intrigued by you!” she protested. “I honestly—”
“‘Intrigued’?” He made it sound like a filthy insult. “People are ‘intrigued’ by curiosities. By sideshow freaks.”
“No!” Oh, my. How had this gone so wrong, so quickly? “I don’t mean it that way.” Determinedly, Olivia strode to the bed. “I don’t see you that way. Yes, I was alarmed by you at first,” she confessed, “but only because—”
