“You have always known?”
“I have always suspected. Iknewwhen I said as much to her and she did not deny it. She wanted me to know but did not possess the courage to say as much aloud. I broke off our arrangement, but in her mind she has had the last word.”
A small vertical crease appeared between Olivia’s eyebrows. “It seems you had a complicated arrangement.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps it was. It was straightforward at the outset, at least to my way of thinking. Such entanglements as there were, were of her making. I did not encourage them.”
He would believe that, Olivia thought, and she felt something akin to pity for Mrs. Christie. She could imagine that Griffin’s former mistress had allowed herself to hope; therein were born the entanglements. “A woman scorned,” she said softly, more to herself than to Griffin.
“One motivation, certainly,” said Griffin.
“But you hadn’t yet ended your arrangement.”
“No, but she was entirely capable of seeing the road ahead. She may have known before I did that we would part ways soon. It is very much like her to plan for such an end.”
“But to help Alastair…” Olivia could not quite grasp the sense of it beyond Mrs. Christie’s desire for revenge.
“You are his sister,” Griffin said gently. “His older sister, in fact. The truth does not come so easily when we fail to see our loved ones as someone outside their relationship to us.”
Olivia blinked as the import of his observation was borne home to her. “They were lovers?”
He smiled because she was so clearly astonished. “You knew there was a woman.”
“Yes, but…” She shook her head. “But Mrs. Christie? It is beyond my comprehension.”
“Judging by the attention your brother received here—from women, I might add, who were clearly attached to their gentlemen escorts—I can attest to the fact that his face and figure were much admired.”
Olivia waved that aside. “I am very aware that Alastair is possessed of a handsome face and figure, my lord, and for that matter, a handsome income as well, but he is not you.”
Griffin found himself the object of Olivia’s frank study. It was never easy being on the receiving end of such regard, which was why he often was the one initiating it. He suffered it for several long moments before he was struck by the humor of it.
“Have a care, Olivia, else I will think you mean to flatter me.”
“Of course you will think that. You are ever hopeful. Still, at the risk of encouraging you, I must underscore my point that Alastair is not so well favored as you, financially or in any other way.”
It was then that Griffin was compelled to point out what she’d allowed herself to forget. “He is also not married.”
Chapter Eight
Olivia lay awake long after the house quieted. The candle at her bedside had flickered out sometime earlier, and it was the fire’s meager light that stretched across the floor toward her. She had participated in the closing rituals that put the hell to bed for the night and prepared it for the following day’s business. Until this evening, Griffin had never permitted her to have any role or responsibilities after the patrons departed. It was not that he assigned her any particular tasks tonight, but that he didn’t stop her from taking part. She’d felt his eyes on her on at least two separate occasions, but he never interfered, and when he removed the money boxes from the gaming rooms and took them to his study, he did not insist she accompany him.
She was both glad of it and confused by it.
Olivia turned on her side and burrowed deeper into the bedcovers. She wondered if Mrs. Christie had ever known such disconcertion in her dealings with Griffin. If she had, it might have been reason enough to seek out Alastair. He was infinitely less complicated, though Olivia supposed that was as much because of his youth as his predilection for making the easy choices. Her brother’s naïveté might have been appealing to a woman weary of another man’s suspicious nature.
Alastair’s heirloom ring had likely garnered Mrs. Christie’s interest at the outset; his connection to Sir Hadrien had probably sustained it. The woman’s sense of being wronged by Griffin went a long way to keeping her at Alastair’s side and quite possibly provoked her to help him steal back his ring.
Olivia wondered if Mrs. Christie had been the first to propose the theft or if perhaps Alastair had put the idea before her. It rarely occurred to Alastair to guard his tongue. If he had a thought, he was pleased to speak it aloud, though most often it was simply to turn over an idea in his mind. Olivia recalled being disconcerted by her brother’s conversational asides until she realized he wasn’t really speaking to her. Mrs. Christie may not have understood that much of what tripped so easily from Alastair’s tongue was meant to be ignored.
Still, it was Alastair who was the author of the marker. She could not put the responsibility for that on Mrs. Christie’s shoulders.
All the rest, though, fell to her. She was the one who would have known Griffin was not wearing the ring, the one privy to the drawer where he’d hidden it, the one with ease of access to the hell and the freedom to move through its halls and rooms without calling attention to herself.
Mrs. Christie must be well pleased that the consequences of her theft were so far reaching. She had not only retaliated against his lordship in fine style, but she had relieved her new protector of his most onerous burden. All in all, it was a good piece of work if one shared her eye-for-an-eye sense of justice.
Olivia did not.
Wearily, she lifted her head just enough to plump the pillow under her. If she could not settle her mind, sleep would never come. It did not seem to matter that she was tired almost beyond bearing—she was still seized by a restlessness that made it impossible to find comfort in her own skin. She wished that she might throw it off as easily as her bedclothes or shed it like her nightgown.
