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 she 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.”