Because she didn’t, she closed her eyes to see if that would help bring the thing to mind. “No,” she said, tilting her head up at him. “Not a thing. Did I speak, ask for water?”
“No. You were feverish, or at least it seemed so.”
She placed the back of her hand against her forehead. “It appears to have passed, but perhaps it’s why I am so chilled now.”
Griffin decided to act as if she’d issued an invitation. He slipped under the covers and drew her against him. Her arm slid across his chest as her head fit neatly in the curve of his shoulder. Her knee rested on top of his thigh. “Better?” he asked. He smiled, satisfied, when she hummed her agreement. “Will you be able to sleep now?”
“I thought I was sleeping before.”
“After a fashion, I suppose you were.”
“I disturbed you. I’m sorry.”
Seemingly of its own volition, Griffin’s hand went to his throat. “Not so much,” he said. “We’ll talk in the morning.” The thought that she might not let him live so long was more amusing than the opposite, though why that should be escaped him. He let his hand fall from his throat to her hair. He sifted through curling strands with his fingertips. “It must be the fire in your hair.”
Olivia nodded sleepily, though she had no idea what he was talking about. Her head was muzzy, and it occurred to her that she might be dreaming now. She hoped she would recall it later, for the whole of it was very pleasant indeed.
She had planned to rise before him, but when she opened one heavily lidded eye, she saw Griffin was already sitting at the table enjoying his coffee and reading the paper. She’d slept through the children calling to him from the street and the thump of the paper against the window. Perhaps the morning ritual had been managed in silence, the urchins’ aim truer than it usually was, but she doubted it. She’d slept as if drugged.
“Will you join me?” he asked, putting down the paper. “Or shall you take your breakfast in bed? There is a tray here for just that purpose.”
Olivia thought she spied a certain gleam in Griffin’s eye. She suspected he was confusing serving her in bed with servicing her in the same. More alert of a sudden, she pushed herself upright. “I’ll join you.” When a sly grin lifted one corner of his mouth and he chuckled, she knew she’d been right to assign him less than honorable motives. Still, she deliberately passed directly behind him on her way to the dressing room, then surprised him by sliding her arms around his neck and bussing him on the cheek. She was already dancing out of his reach by the time he recovered.
She joined him a few short minutes later wearing one of his warmer, brushed velvet robes. She’d rolled up the sleeves and wrapped it tightly with a belt, but the hem swept the floor with her every step.
“I must say, you improve the look of the thing.” Griffin handed her the platter of eggs.
“Thank you, though I like it on you well enough.” Taking the dish, she spooned herself a generous serving, added two sausage links, three fingers of toast, a small bowl of porridge, and a cup of tea with cream and sugar. She looked up just as she was prepared to tuck into her eggs and saw Griffin was regarding her with equal measures of amusement and disbelief. In defiance of his expression, she speared eggs and half a link of sausage with her fork and managed to put the whole of it in her mouth, then proceeded to talk around it. “I hope you do not mean to stare.” She waggled her fork at his paper. “By all means, return to your reading.”
Chuckling, he obliged her, though he was not above stealing the occasional glance, sometimes around the paper, sometimes over the top. Once, she caught him out and lobbed the crusty end of her toast at him. He was so surprised it was fortunate he did not capture it in his open mouth.
Olivia was still smiling when she raised her serviette and dabbed at her mouth for the final time. She pushed her plate away and announced that he could come out from behind his paper. “You were very kind to indulge me,” she said. “If you had insisted upon watching me, I might well have choked.”
And there was the segue he needed. “By curious coincidence, Olivia, I also wished to speak of choking…”
Chapter Eleven
Olivia did not ask to see the bruising around his throat to confirm what he told her. Griffin came slowly to the realization that her failure to challenge his story was not merely because she believed him, but because she believed she was capable of just such a thing. Not that she wasn’t distressed by her behavior. There was no mistaking either her deeply felt embarrassment or her even deeper horror.
She remained at the table as long as she could, but he observed the slow drain of color from her face and knew it was only a matter of time before she fled. He didn’t flinch when she jerked the chair out from under her with enough force to make it rock on its back legs and ran into the dressing room, holding her arms crossways in front of her stomach. In spite of her consideration in shoving the door shut behind her, he still heard the sounds of her being sick.
She emerged some ten minutes later, pale but composed. The table was cleared of everything save for the pot of tea and two dry triangles of toast. She sat at the table, her head bent, while Griffin finished his quiet discussion with the footman. She remained that way until the dressing room was tidied and all evidence of her abrupt illness was removed.
Griffin poured her a cup of tea and pushed it directly into her line of sight. “Here. Drink. You will feel more the thing.”
She nodded, grasped the cup in both her hands, and raised it halfway to her lips. It hovered there, keeping her hands warm, but doing nothing at all to settle her nervous stomach. Griffin placed two fingers under the cup and lifted gently, giving her the momentum she could not seem to find for herself. She brought it to her mouth, sipped. While it did not make her feel more the thing immediately, it began to warm her from the inside.
“I am compelled to point out, Olivia, that I have come to no harm.” Griffin nudged the plate of toast toward her. “Your reaction is altogether more than I could have reasonably predicted. Some modest embarrassment might be expected because the behavior is both curious and singular, but it is also clearly not within your control. Your response suggests that you not only hold yourself responsible but that you could command your nightmares to take a different course. If such a thing is possible, I have never heard of it. If you cannot accept that I do not blame you, then you can trust that I will never speak of it again.”
Olivia lowered her cup and raised her head. She searched his face, looking for some sign of the condemnation he denied. It wasn’t there. “You don’t understand.”
“That’s right. I don’t. But neither, I think, do you. I am not afraid of you, Olivia. I’m afraid for you. When you take so much upon yourself, I fear for you more, not less.” He watched her lips part as though she meant to say something. This was followed by an almost imperceptible shake of her head, and he knew she was erring once again on the side of caution for herself and mistrust of him. “You had no idea, did you?”
Her eyes fell on her cup. “I have no recollection of attacking you,” she said carefully.
“That’s not quite an answer to the question I asked, is it?”
Olivia pressed her lips together as much in annoyance as to keep herself from answering thoughtlessly. “There have been times that I’ve awakened to find the sheets twisted like ropes, the pillows stuffed between the mattress and the headboard, my feet at the wrong end of the bed. So, it’s not true that I had no idea something was not right, but with no memory to support what happened I didn’t…” She shrugged uneasily. “I just didn’t know.”
