Chapter Ten #5
“Do you suppose my brother knew the rumor attached to you?” she asked.
“I tend to believe everyone does, so I am no judge. You didn’t. Why do you ask?”
“Because if he knew, that means he gave me over to someone who was thought to be capable of murdering his wife. That does not speak well of him, does it?”
“Pray, you do not mean I should answer that. There are already so many things he’s done that do not speak well of him.”
Olivia drew up her knees. The fabric of her chemise stretched tautly across them. She opened her mouth to speak, said nothing, and closed it again.
“What is it, Olivia?”
How had he known? “Nothing.”
He let the lie pass. She would tell him eventually; he believed that. Trust first, he thought. She could not give over herself without it, and in that way they were no different. “Go to sleep,” he said.
Olivia had not thought she was so tired, but she yawned abruptly and realized she was only trying to deny it. She was asleep before she set her thoughts in order, snugly fitted to Griffin’s body, extending to him all the confidence she could not during her waking hours.
The sweet lethargy in the aftermath of their lovemaking made Olivia’s violent attack all the more unexpected.
Griffin woke struggling to draw a breath.
One twisted corner of the sheet was pulled taut around his throat, and it was Olivia who gripped it with a strength that defied his first effort to loosen it.
He managed to slip two fingers between the sheet and his neck and give himself enough leverage to fill his lungs and grind out her name.
He could not make out her features clearly but his earlier experience made it unnecessary.
He knew she was sleeping, that her eyes would be vacant and unfocused, that her profound terror would be masked by the strain of her struggle.
He said her name again, less urgently this time as he felt her begin to weaken.
Circling one of her wrists tightly, he pressed the pulse point as hard as he could until her fingers spasmed, then opened.
He tore the sheet out of her hand, unwound it, and sucked in a deep breath.
He was not prepared for her second attack any better than he had been prepared for the first. He raised his forearm too late to block both of her hands.
She sunk the fingernails of one hand into his chest and would have drawn blood if he hadn’t slapped her away.
As it was, he felt her nails scrape his skin sharply enough to raise welts.
He used measured force to take her by the upper arms and push her onto her back.
She twisted, kicked, managed to make a few blows connect with his shin.
She should have yelped in pain; instead, he was the one who grunted.
He stayed her hammering toes by throwing one leg across hers, then pinned her arms down at the wrists.
She fought on, but there were peaks and valleys in the struggle and each successive bout was weaker than the one before.
It was only when she finally lay still and her breathing quieted that Griffin determined he could safely release her.
He touched her face, felt the heat in her cheeks and the beads of perspiration across her upper lip and brow.
When he shifted his shoulder, firelight glanced across it and cast her features in a pale, golden glow. He saw her lick her lips.
Griffin rolled out of bed and padded to the dressing room where he poured a glass of water for her.
He wet a flannel as well, wrung it out, and carried it and the water back to the bed.
He debated the best approach, then decided to cool her flushed skin with the damp flannel first. She murmured something that might have been a protest as he gently wiped her brow, but she also turned her face to the cool relief he provided.
He went on as he was, carefully placing it against her cheeks, her upper lip, and finally her throat.
When he was done, he slid one arm under her back and lifted her enough so she could take the water without choking. As soon as he pressed the rim of the glass to her lips she began to sip. It was when she stopped, coughed, and pushed his hand away that he knew she was awake at last.
“What are you doing?” she asked, suspiciously eyeing the glass in his hand. “Do you mean to drown me in my sleep?”
Griffin set the glass aside. “I think we can agree that tossing you in the Thames would be a more effective method.” He crawled over her, straightened the covers, and made himself comfortable on what he thought of now as his side of the bed. “You had a nightmare.”
“I did?”
“Mmm.” He punched his pillow, set it against the headboard, and leaned back. “You don’t remember?”
“I don’t dream,” she said. “I never do.”
“Not true. What you don’t seem to do is remember them.”
Olivia was cold. She didn’t know how Griffin could be sitting up in bed, his bare chest exposed above the turned-down blankets. She inched closer to the warmth that came from him and slipped her toes under his calf. He was in all ways better than a hot brick.
“Your feet are like icicles.” In spite of that, he didn’t try to escape them. He found her hands and gave them a quick rub. Her heartfelt sigh made him smile. “Do you recall even a little bit?”
Because she didn’t, she closed her eyes to see if that would help bring the thing to mind. “No,” she said, tilting her head up at him. “Not a thing. Did I speak, ask for water?”
“No. You were feverish, or at least it seemed so.”
She placed the back of her hand against her forehead. “It appears to have passed, but perhaps it’s why I am so chilled now.”
Griffin decided to act as if she’d issued an invitation.
He slipped under the covers and drew her against him.
Her arm slid across his chest as her head fit neatly in the curve of his shoulder.
Her knee rested on top of his thigh. “Better?” he asked.
He smiled, satisfied, when she hummed her agreement. “Will you be able to sleep now?”
“I thought I was sleeping before.”
“After a fashion, I suppose you were.”
“I disturbed you. I’m sorry.”
Seemingly of its own volition, Griffin’s hand went to his throat.
“Not so much,” he said. “We’ll talk in the morning.
” The thought that she might not let him live so long was more amusing than the opposite, though why that should be escaped him.
He let his hand fall from his throat to her hair.
He sifted through curling strands with his fingertips. “It must be the fire in your hair.”
Olivia nodded sleepily, though she had no idea what he was talking about. Her head was muzzy, and it occurred to her that she might be dreaming now. She hoped she would recall it later, for the whole of it was very pleasant indeed.
She had planned to rise before him, but when she opened one heavily lidded eye, she saw Griffin was already sitting at the table enjoying his coffee and reading the paper.
She’d slept through the children calling to him from the street and the thump of the paper against the window.
Perhaps the morning ritual had been managed in silence, the urchins’ aim truer than it usually was, but she doubted it. She’d slept as if drugged.
“Will you join me?” he asked, putting down the paper. “Or shall you take your breakfast in bed? There is a tray here for just that purpose.”
Olivia thought she spied a certain gleam in Griffin’s eye.
She suspected he was confusing serving her in bed with servicing her in the same.
More alert of a sudden, she pushed herself upright.
“I’ll join you.” When a sly grin lifted one corner of his mouth and he chuckled, she knew she’d been right to assign him less than honorable motives.
Still, she deliberately passed directly behind him on her way to the dressing room, then surprised him by sliding her arms around his neck and bussing him on the cheek.
She was already dancing out of his reach by the time he recovered.
She joined him a few short minutes later wearing one of his warmer, brushed velvet robes. She’d rolled up the sleeves and wrapped it tightly with a belt, but the hem swept the floor with her every step.
“I must say, you improve the look of the thing.” Griffin handed her the platter of eggs.
“Thank you, though I like it on you well enough.” Taking the dish, she spooned herself a generous serving, added two sausage links, three fingers of toast, a small bowl of porridge, and a cup of tea with cream and sugar.
She looked up just as she was prepared to tuck into her eggs and saw Griffin was regarding her with equal measures of amusement and disbelief.
In defiance of his expression, she speared eggs and half a link of sausage with her fork and managed to put the whole of it in her mouth, then proceeded to talk around it.
“I hope you do not mean to stare.” She waggled her fork at his paper. “By all means, return to your reading.”
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…”