“Because he needed to. It is a matter of self-respect.”
“That is a seed you planted and nurtured, not something that came to him on his own.”
“You had some part in it also.”
“How is that?”
“Alastair likes you. More to the point, he respects you. And, pray, do not say it is my imagining that makes it so. He told me. That he returned the ring speaks more to your influence than mine.”
Griffin snorted lightly. “He is yet a child. Nat has more in the way of good sense than your brother.”
Olivia did not disagree, nor did she feel obliged to defend Alastair for form’s sake. “However it came about, you now have the ring. The debt is well and truly settled.”
“It was settled already, Olivia. When your brother left you in my care, it was settled, and God’s truth, but I got the better part of it.” He pointed toward the bedchamber. “Join me at the table. I’ve yet to have a cup of coffee or a bite of toast.”
Olivia led the way out. She poured his cup for him before she sat and slathered strawberry jam on his toast while he drank. She nudged the plate forward until it rested directly in front of him. “If there is more you wish to say about the ring,” she said, sitting back, “I am most desirous of hearing it.”
Griffin took a large bite of toast and rather a longer time to chew it than was strictly necessary. “That was something a wife might do, you know. Pouring my coffee and spreading the jam.”
“Really? It seems to me it is most capably done by a nanny.”
Griffin’s mouth twitched. He raised his cup in a vague salute, conceding the point. His argument had not been well conceived, and he appreciated that she had not stated the obvious, namely that his wife had never once attended him at breakfast. He washed down the toast with coffee, then set his cup in its saucer and regarded Olivia frankly.
“I heard some time ago that Mrs. Christie came into possession of the ring. She is known to frequent Crocker’s establishment and may have entertained the notion that he would make her his partner. He is completely untrustworthy, of course, but then, so is she. I imagine on this occasion, she was able to get the best of him.”
“Then she won it back for Alastair. He’s still with her, is he not?”
“I have not heard differently, though I do not go out of my way to learn such things. As to whether she won the ring for him, I would not place a wager there. One rarely goes wrong depending upon Mrs. Christie, first and foremost, to look after herself. It is not beyond reasonable to suppose that she has come to some understanding with your brother and another with Mr. Crocker. She does not move from one situation without making arrangements for the next.”
“I wish you’d told me.”
“Perhaps I should have, but we both seemed to have put this matter of the ring behind us. I never wanted it, Olivia. Not for myself. I’d hoped possession would ensure your brother paid his debt, nothing more.” Griffin found the ring in his pocket and set it on the table. He nudged it with his fingertip, turning it round. “Have you wondered at all how your brother was able to enter?”
She hadn’t. Now she did. “A key?”
“Most certainly. And that could have only come from Mrs. Christie. She would have had access to them at one time.”
“You think she still has keys in her possession.”
“It seems likely. Truss is particular about locking the doors. Everyone on Putnam Lane does the same. The hells are too vulnerable otherwise.”
“So he stole the ring from her, and the key, and came here. I am not certain I take your point.”
Griffin stopped turning the ring. It wobbled, then was still. “Someone else once had possession of a key,” he said. “You cannot have forgotten that.”
Olivia blinked. “The gentleman villain.”
“The very same. I thought—we all did—that he lifted the key from the peg in the servants’ hall. Guests do not normally venture below, but we believed he could have done so unnoticed because almost all of the staff is engaged in the gaming rooms. The presence of this ring makes me suspect he had the key to your room when he entered the hell that night.”
She frowned. “Are you saying that the villain is responsible for the return of the ring?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Then Mrs. Christie.”
Griffin flicked the ring so it skittered and spun across the table toward Olivia, the emerald and diamonds flashing. “For returning this? Hardly.”
Olivia stared at the ring for a long moment before picking it up. She turned it over in her hand thoughtfully, then, on impulse, slipped it on her thumb. She looked up at Griffin.
