“There was very little drink,” he offered mildly. “Which receipts were the problem?”
“The carpenter and cook’s accounting of the greengrocer.”
Griffin found both and compared their totals to what he had entered in his ledger. Although he never doubted Olivia was correct, he needed to observe the nature of the mistake for himself. Seeing it, he shook his head, impatient with himself for not finding it earlier. He chose a different quill than the one Olivia had used, dipped it in ink, and began making the corrections. “How is it that you know about charts of account?”
“I managed the household books for my brother.”
Griffin shook his head, his smile gently mocking. “No, I don’t think that explains the whole of it. The principles are the same, I’ll grant you, but you followed the distribution easily enough and asked no questions. Your facility with numbers and your deft handling of the cards suggests to me that you are more than passingly familiar with the operation of an establishment such as this.”
Olivia straightened and opened her eyes, alert and guarded now. “You must realize the absurdity of that. As you have pointed out on a number of occasions, I am the daughter of Sir Hadrien Cole. A man of his stature does not suffer his offspring, no matter how ill-favored they are, to be employed in that fashion.”
“Assuming he learns of it, which I believe he did not.” He paused in making corrections to tap Olivia’s nose with the feathered tip of the quill in mild admonishment. “So which of my competitors did you work for? Dunlevy? Parsons? Never say it was Abernathy.”
“I have no idea who those gentlemen are.”
“Perhaps not, else you would know they are not gentlemen.” Griffin resumed his calculations. “I will venture another guess and say that you were not dealing cards in any of the London hells. Bath? Bristol? Do they have hells in Bristol? It seems bloody unlikely.”
“I wouldn’t know. I have never been.”
“You will have to give up your secrets eventually, Olivia.”
“I have been honest with you.”
His glance swiveled sideways. “I did not say you were less than honest, merely less than forthcoming.”
Olivia considered that. The same might be said of him, but she elected not to point a finger in return. Instead, she surprised herself by inviting him to ask a question. “But only one,” she said when his eyebrows rose and his eyes fairly gleamed with interest. “So think on that when you put your poser before me.”
Griffin realized she’d effectively set him back on his heels. There was no one question that stood above the others, therefore he would have to review them all. He chuckled. “I should be used to the sharpness of your mind by now.”
“Yes,” she said. “You should.”
And because she said it with the perfect proportions of seriousness and sauce, Griffin was moved to abandon his ledger, lean across the space that separated them, and drop a kiss on her slightly parted lips.
“What was that in aid of?” she asked when he drew back.
“Must there be a reason? Sometimes one simply wants to satisfy an impulse.” He saw her frown, closed the ledger, and crossed his arms to regard her frankly. “Do you imagine we’ve done that already?”
She knew he was referring to their one night and morning together. It was the exact thought in her head as well. “I supposed that it must be so. You did not ask me to join you again.”
“Again? I did not invite you to join me the first time.”
That stung, but Olivia held her head up. “You did not send me away.”
“No, I didn’t, did I? Do you recall that you wanted to have done with it?”
Her words, held up to her once more. She released her breath slowly. “Naturally, I recall it.”
“Can you not conceive that I might have wanted something more?”
“Something more? I allowed you to make free with me. If you want something else you must say it plainly, else how am I to know? I haven’t your talent for reading minds.”
Afraid he might pull her from his chair and shake her, Griffin stood and stepped away from the desk. “I want you to come to me of your own accord, not because you think it’s some bloody requirement. When did I give you cause to think I held you in so little regard? I am not your brother, nor your father, nor apparently like any of the men of your acquaintance.”
He saw her begin to shrink in her chair and reconsidered the last. Perhaps he wasexactlylike every other man she’d known. Bullying. Demanding. Selfish. He blew out a breath, disgusted with himself, and plowed his fingers through his disheveled hair. “That was unforgivable. I apologize.”
Olivia’s fingers remained firm on the chair’s curved arms, pressed whitely against the leather. It kept her from shrinking farther into the chair, further into herself. She stared at him, dry-eyed, watchful.
Griffin was struck that she was seeing him through the eyes of a wounded child, one without hope, without spirit, and suddenly he knew the question he wanted her to answer. “Before you came to my room, Olivia, how old were you the last time you were in a man’s bed?”
