Whatever she had expected he might say, it wasn’t that. “I chew my nails sometimes.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Of course he had. He noticed everything. She continued playing.
“I’ve noticed, too, that you cannot accept a compliment.”
“How kind you are to say so.”
Griffin chuckled. “My point exactly. You embrace what you perceive as criticism and throw off compliments as if they were hair shirts.”
“It is a peculiarity, I admit, and one that is unlikely to change.” She saw she had come to the last of her plays. If she was to continue, she would have to cheat, and it was simply too lowering to do so in front of Griffin. She found she did not want to win as badly as that. Sighing, she drew in the cards and began again.
Griffin watched her in silence a while longer. When he judged her receptive to matters of import, he said, “You are welcome to remain here, Olivia. I do not have it in my mind to turn you out.”
Her eyes on the cards, she nodded.
Suspicious of her easy acceptance, he said, “You have heard the like before, I collect.”
“Yes.”
“And what happened?”
“I was turned out.” She shrugged. “Do not imagine that I think you are lying. I know you are sincere. It is my experience that everyone is sincere until they are…not. Whether it is changed by circumstance or condition, I have reason to know that what is in one’s mind on any given day may be quite different on another. I fully appreciate that it is not a promise, and I thank you for not phrasing it as one.ThatI would not believe.”
He had meant it as a promise, though. Now, knowing how little faith she had in such things, he could not speak of it. “Do you wish to stay?” he said instead.
“Yes.” There was no hesitation in her answer; she paused only in the reflection of it. Her fingers lay still on top of the card she meant to turn over. “What will you require of me?”
“Does it matter?”
It was perfectly humiliating to admit that it did not. “No,” she said finally.
“Then let us not discuss it now.”
“All right.” She turned over a ten of diamonds and made her play on the jack of spades.
Her compliance, perversely, did not cheer him in the least. He was rather more alarmed by it. “Pettibone informed me that you wondered what is to become of your brother.”
She smiled, though there was no joy in it. “I don’t believe my question was as philosophical as you have made it out to be. I think I know what will become of Alastair. I only wondered what will become of him at your hands.”
“He’ll live.”
“I hope so. He can never repay his debt if you kill him.”
“His debt? Bloody hell, Olivia, I care no more than this”—he flicked a card from one of her stacks—“for his debt. Do you think I don’t know that I have the better of the bargain in you than his £1,000?”
“Then he’s settled with you.”
Griffin ground his teeth until a muscle jumped in his cheek. He forced himself to relax, work out his jaw. He blew out a breath. “Yes. Something like that, though I would not go so far as to say that all is settled.”
“He sold me, did he not?”
“Christ.” The muscle jumped again. It was uncomfortably close to the truth. He ran a hand through his hair. “It may be his view, but it is not mine. There is no bill of sale.”
“There is Alastair’s marker.”
“Already returned to him,” Griffin said. Thrust in his face, he could have said. He wished now that he would have forced her brother to chew and swallow the damnable thing.
