Olivia had an urge to poke him with her elbow. She restrained herself, but only just. “What nonsense you speak. What are we doing here?”
“Stealing a moment for ourselves.”
“Oh.” Olivia thought he might kiss her, and she wondered if she wanted him to, but he remained exactly as he was. She worried her bottom lip, trying to unravel his meaning as if he’d spoken in code. Did he expect that she would kiss him? “What does one do with a stolen moment?”
“Sometimes nothing at all.”
She approved of that. To mimic his posture, as it seemed pertinent to doing nothing at all, Olivia set her elbows behind her and reclined at an angle parallel to Griffin’s. “It’s a fine idea.”
“A fishing pole and a swiftly running stream would improve it.”
She nodded, though she wasn’t as convinced. “Do you have many opportunities to fish?”
“I did. Not so often now.”
She waited, content with his silence, sensing that he might be moved to reflect if she did not speak too soon.
“The park at Wright Hall has such a stream. The water is clear and cool, and runs so quickly there is always a pleasant roar in one’s ears. Sunlight slips through the trees overhead and turns every spray into a translucent rainbow and every droplet into a diamond. The trout leap like acrobats and tease like coquettes. The most experienced anglers are patient and appreciate the performance. Some find it spiritual.”
“Did you?”
“There were times, yes.”
“And now you are in London.”
“I am.”
This time her silence did not prompt him to speak. “I have never fished,” she said. “Although I like smoked trout well enough, but perhaps that is not spiritual.”
“It can be.” He winked at her. “It is all in the preparation.”
Olivia’s smile was rather winsome. “I think I will try fishing someday.”
“Then you will want to know that using feathers from a lady’s bonnet to make your own flies is ill-advised.”
“I imagine it depends on the lady’s affection for the bonnet. Did it belong to one of your sisters?”
“My mother, and she had, in my opinion, an unnatural attachment to the thing.”
“By ‘an unnatural attachment,’ I take it to mean she was actually wearing the bonnet when you plucked the feathers.”
“You are clearly too clever for your own good.” He rose to his feet, then took her hand in his and helped her up. He kissed her once, briefly, warmly, and released her before it became something more. With no parting word, he tripped lightly down the steps and turned the corner into the hall.
Olivia pressed the back of her fingers to her lips and stared after him. Not so very clever, she thought, not when she hadn’t the least notion of how to maintain her balance in his presence.
She slept alone that night and for a full sennight after that. It occurred to her to return to his room without invitation, but she remained in her own because except for the occasional kiss at oddly chosen moments, Griffin Wright-Jones hardly seemed to know she was still under his roof.
He was a curiosity. Olivia found herself studying him, rather more intrigued that he had set her from him since their night of intimacy than simply relieved by it. In her presence he often seemed mildly distracted so that she was never quite certain he was listening. It emboldened her at times, and she tested him, allowing small pieces of herself to drop like crumbs to see if he would sweep them up. He didn’t. Such things as she told him were never commented upon; indeed, he often chose some other conversational thread to pull and let such bits as she gave him simply lie there.
In spite of Olivia approaching him several times in regard to his requirements, he had never shared them. Relying on trial and error and her own sense of what would be helpful, she became more involved in the nightly activities of the hell. She examined the cards for wear and recommended when decks should be discarded. She collected fallen chips and coins and passed them on to Beetle and Wick, who became her devotees because of it. When she asked Mason if she might propose some changes to the distribution of liquor and wine, he suffered her suggestions without comment, but implemented the whole of it the next evening.
They all came to her after that. It was as flattering as it was unexpected, although the part of her that retained a survivor’s skepticism suspected Griffin’s encouragement, if not outright manipulation of his staff.
While she had no access to the financial ledgers, she never doubted that Griffin was scrupulously fair in his dealings with her. It required little effort on her part to estimate her table’s winnings and calculate her share based on the percentage they’d agreed upon. She was never wrong by more than a few pounds as Griffin’s more detailed calculations proved night after night.
He’d wanted to know how she was able to do it, but she had no explanation for it, nor any explanation for how she kept an account of the cards she’d dealt. Griffin had pointed out, quite correctly, that she could make even more money at faro as a punter rather than a dealer, but she had no interest in gaming as a participant.
It had not escaped her notice that he did not make any wagers in his own establishment and as far as she was able to discover, made none anywhere else. The former, she understood. It was the latter that gave her pause, and when she asked him about it, his answer was a terse, “If I wish to give my money away, I will choose a charity.”
