She shrugged lightly, unconvinced that it mattered. “I cannot say when Honey Shepard made her discovery or how long she might have held on to the secret before she approached my stepmother. You comprehend that so much happened out of my sight, out of my hearing. I suppose my sense of what must have occurred came to me over time, first in the convent school, and later still after I was sent to Miss Barnard’s Academy in Crawley. They are a constant companion, those memories, but I try to keep them at my side so they do not creep up behind me or block my way.”
Her gaze had drifted away from his, but now it returned. “Honey was dismissed. My stepmother’s doing, I am sure. I don’t suppose she thought she had any other choice. Knowing the nanny was in possession of such a secret, it would have been difficult to tolerate, so she removed her from the house. It was a great loss to me, but I had little time to accustom myself to her absence. In very short order, I was sent away.”
Olivia fell silent. Griffin’s hand anchored her, kept her from moving. Her heart hammered wildly, and she waited for it to calm. “You know what came to pass while I was at the convent school. I don’t know how it was chosen, though I have always believed it was my father’s doing. I told you I learned to expect nothing from my family while I was there. No visits. No gifts. That wasn’t entirely…”
Griffin waited, watched her swallow hard. He kept his gaze steady, patient, but not urging her on. Finally, he finished what she could not. “He was one of them.”
She nodded slowly, grateful that he could finish it. “After so long a time, you would think I’d be able to say the words. I cannot. What you said about them buying my silence, I suppose that is true. My father certainly did. I kept the secret, and he never tired of telling me how proud he was, just as if I had accomplished something important. I suppose that is how he thought of it, so perhaps it was not entirely a lie. I was not his only little girl. I knew that. But I also knew I was his favorite.” She swiped at the tears that hovered on the rim of her lashes. “He gave me to them, Griffin. He sent me to them when it pleased him to do so. To sit at their table while they played cards, to deal for them as I’d been taught, perform on command, and later…as any one of them was struck by a fancy…” Olivia shuddered once, then was still. “I was a present on some occasions…his marker on others.”
This last squeezed Griffin’s heart. He could not help but think of his own role in re-creating the ugliest scenes of her childhood. It hardly mattered that he’d known none of it. Alastair, also. They’d opened a door to her past and pushed her through it.
He swore so softly it was hardly more than an expulsion of air. He would have pulled his hand from hers, but this time she was the one who held fast. It made him remember that he’d told her he was prepared to hear all of it, and now he knew the cost. The full weight of what he’d done bore down upon him.
“You didn’t know,” Olivia said.
“I’m not sure that should matter.”
“Of course it does. I am no longer a child, Griffin, and I did not have to accept becoming Alastair’s marker. Do you think I didn’t realize I could have left this place? All of your words to the contrary, you would have allowed me to go. Alastair’s life and reputation would not have been worth tuppence, but you wouldn’t have made me account for his debt.”
“I’m not certain that’s true.”
“And I’m certain it is. I was an inconvenience to you, one more item in your expense column. From the very first, you understood better than I that Alastair would likely leave me behind. You were prepared. I wasn’t.” Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “You did not come to my room. I went to yours. There was no force, no coercion. You never asked it of me. Never once.”
“Neither did I turn you away. I wanted you there, Olivia, and it served my own interests to have you come to me.”
Olivia inched closer. She leaned forward and touched his lips with her own. “I didn’t understand it then. Couldn’t. You wanted something more than what I gave you that night. Credit both my extraordinary experience and my impoverished imagination. I didn’t know what could be.” She kissed him again, sipped the breath from his mouth. “I’m learning, though. I’m learning that everything is possible.”
Griffin abandoned his sprawl in favor of making room for Olivia beside him. He lifted himself on one elbow and laid his other arm across her midriff. “What happened at twelve?” he asked.
The abrupt shift made her frown. “Twelve? I was at the faro table then. You know that I—”
He stopped her by placing a finger to her lips. “Not twelve o’clock. Twelve years. Your twelfth year, to be precise. Why were you moved from the convent school to Miss Barnard’s Academy?”
“My first course.” She saw that he did not immediately understand that she was not speaking of her studies. “My firstmonthlycourse. I supposed then that it made me unattractive to them, and that was true after a fashion, but I came to understand later that the possibility of carrying a child was a risk they were not prepared to accept. There were no expectations of the carnal kind at Miss Barnard’s. I continued my academic studies as if those carriage rides away from the convent had never happened.”
“And then?”
She raised her hand and touched the side of his face. “You know,” she said. “You always know when there is more.” When she saw the observation would not turn him from his question, she continued. “And then it was time to leave. I had been prepared all along, you see, to take my place at some gentleman’s side, or perhaps at the side of a succession of gentlemen. There certainly would have been a marriage arranged for me, but there would have been certain expectations in it that are not part of the vows one usually makes, and there also would have been expectations outside of it. That was all clearly explained to me. Better to make my own way, I thought. I demanded to be allowed to go.”
“It is difficult to believe Sir Hadrien let you go easily.”
“He didn’t, but I have always credited my stepmother’s touch in bringing the thing about. It is supposition only, gleaned from things my father said the last time he spoke to me. I barely remember her, never saw her again after I was sent away, and I have no illusions that whatever her objections might have been, they had little enough to do with me. She was protecting what was hers by marriage, most particularly her son. She wanted all ties to me severed—afraid, I think, that I might exercise some unsettling influence on Alastair. Though my father would never admit to any vulnerability, he feared exposure. I had no such power over him because he knew I would remain silent. The same wasn’t true of my stepmother. In the end, I think he believed he had no choice but to do as I wanted.”
Griffin caught her wrist. His thumb brushed back and forth across the fine blue-veined web on the underside. “Was there no compromise possible? My God, Olivia, to set out on your own…A young woman with no protection…” He fell silent as he realized how absurd his protest was. “I’m sorry. You never had benefit of anyone’s protection, did you? Your confidence in your own resources was not misplaced.”
“Sir Hadrien arranged a teaching post for me. I stayed a few months, long enough for him to suppose I was satisfied and would not be difficult, then I left. I went as far as my small savings would take me, then I found employment at an inn and disappeared into comfortable anonymity, greeting passengers, serving food and drink, making myself useful through industry. It is where I learned the rudiments of managing accounts. The facility I had with cards made me a favorite with the students traveling between university and town. The innkeeper and his wife were hard-working, pleasant folk, glad enough of my contribution to their enterprise that they looked after me.”
“You are speaking of Mr. and Mrs. Romney.”
Olivia’s eyebrows drew together. Her eyes darkened as her gaze narrowed. “I am, but I’ve never told you their names. What have you done, Griffin?”
“Spoken to them. No more than that. After Elaine died, I made a rather circuitous journey returning to London. It occurred to me that I might learn something about Mr. Rawlings.”
“Without asking me?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “I presumed you were yet at Jericho Mews. The hell would remain closed, and arrangements for Nat to stay with my sister were easily made. I seized the opportunity.”
Olivia was slow to give up her annoyed expression. “Why am I only learning of it now?”
