Chapter Fourteen
Olivia held her candle high and surveyed the floor so she might carefully pick her way through the battlefield.
Nat had arranged his regiments so they flanked his bed, guarded his window and door, and stood fast on the edge of his night table.
A single misstep would alert him to an intruder—or at least he thought so.
She had promised that she would look in on him, just as she had every night since he’d been moved to the room above the one she and Griffin shared.
He’d made the move to his new room obediently, never questioning the necessity of it, but Olivia had seen the flash of alarm in his eyes and had offered her company to ease his fears.
The first few evenings she’d stayed with him until he fell deeply asleep.
By the fourth night, she was able to ease out of the room shortly after his eyelids began to droop.
Now that almost a fortnight had passed, she left after he said his prayers.
The soldiers, though, remained alert to the slightest disturbance.
Olivia reached the bed and gently pulled back the blankets that were covering Nat’s thickly thatched hair.
She could make out the narrow furrows where he’d pushed his fingers through his hair in perfect imitation of what he’d seen Griffin do.
Her throat grew thick with tender emotion, and she did not resist the urge to put her own imprint upon his tousled head.
Assured that all was well with him, Olivia stepped away from the bed—and onto the raised bayonet of a foot soldier. She was still cursing softly as she limped out of the room.
“A casualty of war?”
Startled, Olivia’s head snapped up. She managed to hold on to her candle, but a fat droplet of hot wax slipped free and spread over her thumb.
Griffin caught her hand, steadied it, then removed the candlestick. “I am most sincerely sorry, Olivia. Are you burned?”
She pulled back her hand and blew on the wax until it was hard enough to peel away. “It is nothing,” she said, showing him the pink blossom on her thumb. “But, really, Griffin, you have a way of simply…appearing. It is disconcerting.”
“And you have a way of simply…disappearing.” He gave her a measuring look. “You said nothing about leaving the faro table.”
“I told Mason.”
“You did not tell me.”
“I was looking in on Nat.”
“You did not tell me.”
Olivia sighed. It was no good telling him she thought the precaution excessive. He did not agree, and in this he would have his way. “I will endeavor to do better. It is not so simple a thing as you would like to believe. I am not accustomed to accounting for my whereabouts.”
“You did just fine when you were confined to your room.”
There was nothing subtle about the threat. “That is unfair, Griffin. I will not be put away.” She held his level gaze and gave no quarter. She would not be moved, and she would not be threatened.
Griffin finally shook his head. “Bloody hell, Olivia, but you define obstinate.”
“I do.” She raised herself on tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth.
His own jaw was stubbornly set and softened only marginally as she pressed the kiss.
“You know something about defining it yourself,” she whispered.
She kissed him again, then set herself back on her heels.
“Did you only come here in search of me?”
“You were half the reason.”
“I thought that might be the way of it.” She reached behind her and opened the door. “Have a look yourself and mind the troops.”
She stepped aside and waited for him at the top of the stairs.
He was gone for several minutes, longer than was strictly necessary to assure himself of the well-being of a sleeping boy.
She imagined him standing at Nat’s bedside much as she had, attending to his breathing, the gentle parting of his lips, looking for some trait in that narrow face that was familiar from the study of his own reflection.
When he returned, she sidled close to him and slipped her arm in his.
Giving him a light squeeze, she laid her head against his shoulder. “He makes furrows in his hair.”
“Does he?”
Olivia didn’t believe he’d never noticed, but she didn’t challenge him. “Mmm. Like you.”
“It doesn’t signify.”
“It doesn’t have to. It’s endearing.”
Griffin thought about that. “He is rather more interesting than I supposed he might be.”
Chuckling, Olivia straightened and began to pull him down the stairs. After the first few, he held her back. She looked up at him, saw the gravity of his expression. “What is it?”
“I was thinking about you.”
“Me?”
He nodded. “When I was looking at Nat, I was thinking about you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You were his age, probably every bit as small and fragile as he, and someone looked at you and decided…” His voice trailed off as words failed him.
He cupped the side of Olivia’s face in his palm.
“It is incomprehensible to me.” What he glimpsed in her eyes told him it was the same for her.
“Was there no one, Olivia? No one who stepped forward to offer protection?”
“There was.” The memory raised a bittersweet smile. “Honey Shepard.”
“Your nanny?”
“Yes. You look surprised.”
“You were packed off to school. How could she have known what was happening?”
“She didn’t. I have always imagined she thought I was well out of it there. It would have been a reasonable assumption.”
Griffin frowned. The implication was that she had not been safe at Coleridge Park. “Well out of it?” he asked. “Or well away from it?”
“The latter, I suppose.” Olivia shook her head as he would have posed another question.
“This is no place for it, Griffin, and you should be very certain you want to know because there is nothing you can do as a consequence of it.” She tugged lightly on her arm and was released, then pivoted on the step and hurried off.
Olivia lingered in the gaming rooms after the hell’s patrons had taken their leave, completing her own duties with something less than her usual efficiency.
It was only when she began to find reasons to be dissatisfied with the work of others that she realized what she was about.
Griffin, also, would be aware of her delay and know the reason for it.
She recalled how he’d tested her that first day, standing imperiously at the top of the stairs, pinning her back with that dark, remote glance of his, then walking away as if he were indifferent to what he saw.
It had been a pretense, but she hadn’t known it. He was not indifferent then, and he was certainly not indifferent now.
And that made her fear for him.
She found him stretched out on their bed, his head cradled in his palms, his feet crossed casually at the ankle.
He’d removed his frock coat and waist coat, loosened his cravat, and tugged at the tails of his shirt so it was bunched negligently about his waist. She imagined him in such a pose on a grassy bank, dappled by sunlight and disturbed by a light breeze.
His fishing pole would be resting beside him, the hook merely dangling above a swiftly running stream.
His face would be similarly set in contemplation, but the nature of his thoughts on that occasion would be far less troubling.
Griffin lifted his head a bit to acknowledge Olivia’s entrance.
His eyes followed her to the dressing room, then he closed them again as he heard the familiar sounds of her washing away her painted face and removing her auburn wig.
He said nothing when she took longer than usual to make her ablutions and dress for bed.
Some evenings he played the lady’s maid for her, but tonight she did not ask for assistance and he offered none.
It was not her way to avoid him for long, so he respected her unspoken wish to be permitted these private moments.
When she came to the bed, he held out his hand and invited her to sit.
His occupation of the mattress on the diagonal gave her room enough on the edge.
She turned sideways, drawing one leg up under her and supporting the other by hooking her heel on the frame.
His thumb absently brushed the back of her hand.
“You are certain you want to know?” she asked quietly, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation.
Griffin nodded. “It will not change what I think of you, feel for you.” He held her eyes. “You were a child, like Nat. Remember that when you suppose there was something you could have done. Think of him and know you were without weapons.”
“I am not without weapons now,” she said. “And neither are you. Promise me, Griffin. I would have your promise that you will take no action on my behalf.”
He considered her words carefully, then his own. “As you wish.”
Olivia took a deep breath and released it slowly.
“Very well. I feel certain you understand more than you let on, but since you cannot yet know the whole of it, it is this: Sir Hadrien regularly came to my room at Coleridge Park. I do not know how old I was that first time. I am not even certain I recall it. He didn’t hurt me, though, I am sure of that.
What I have come to remember is there were many occasions that I was simply invited to crawl into his lap.
That was pleasant enough, or it seemed so at one time.
Later, I was invited to touch him. It was a game, the touching.
Tickling. Squeezing. He touched me also, praised me warmly.
Such a good girl. My own dearest girl. I might have invited him to touch me as well.
I don’t know. It is difficult to know now what was my idea and what was his.
I know I wanted to please him. It was important to me.
There was his wife, my stepmother. And Alastair.
My family had changed and my place seemed secure only as long as I was in my father’s lap. ”
“It was his idea, Olivia. All of it was his idea.”