Her hand dropped to her lap. “She did it to him, Griffin. Deliberately. She scarred her son. It was what I thought when I saw it, and nothing you’ve told me alters that opinion. I doubt there is anything that can be said that will cause me to believe otherwise.”
“It is the same for me.” He pushed a pillow behind his back. “After the services for Elaine, there were matters requiring my attention that of necessity meant I had to leave Wright Hall. I placed the boy in my sister Juliet’s care as her son is of an age with him, and she had a nanny and tutor already in her household. When I returned for him she reported that he was obedient and mannerly to a fault, and largely silent. Thomas, Juliet’s son, had no success in drawing him out, and my nephew is credited to be up to every trick.”
“So you brought him here,” she said. “I should not have questioned your judgment.”
“Of course you should. His presence here cannot help but affect you.”
“Except for my own experience with childhood, I know nothing about children.”
“You know almost nothing about being a child,” he said quietly. “And neither, I think, does he.”
Olivia felt a sudden ache behind her eyes. She looked down quickly, blinking. The tears she held at bay settled in her throat. Swallowing hard, she took a steadying breath and waited for the pressure in her chest to ease.
“Olivia? Are you well?”
She glanced up, smiled ever so slightly. “It is only that your comprehension touches me. For myself, but for Nathaniel as well. You will call him that, won’t you? Nathaniel. Not the child. The boy. Her son. It will be better, I think. For him, certainly, but for you also.”
“Nat,” he said. “I shall call him Nat, I expect. Nathaniel is too big for him.”
Her smile deepened marginally. “It is, isn’t it?” Another thought occurred to her that she knew she needed to give voice to. “He’s not ill, is he? He’s so slight. I wondered…”
“Dr. Pettibone’s examined him. There appears to be no lung ailment. Elaine was slightly built, so perhaps that accounts for it. He does not eat a great deal, but I anticipate that will change in time.” He raised his hand toward Olivia, beckoned her to come to him. “Have you rung for breakfast?”
Crossing the room, she shook her head. “I only just awakened myself. Shall I ring now?” She paused a step outside of his reach when she read the intent in his eyes. His appetite was for something other than the usual breakfast fare. Her eyebrow kicked up. “You cannot mean to ravish me again.”
“Actually, I do.”
Olivia’s eyes followed his down to the faint rise in the blankets lying across his lap. She sighed. “That was awake before you were, if you must know.”
He chuckled. “That is often the way of it.”
Nothing was served, least of all her own appetites, by keeping him at arm’s length. Olivia launched herself onto the bed, catching him unaware so that he was tipped sideways and she had the immediate upper hand. She pinned his wrists and shimmied under the blankets, a little breathless by the time she had him restrained to her satisfaction.
Griffin grinned up at her. The curling ends of Olivia’s hair tickled his shoulder until she threw her head back and tossed it behind her. “You cannot mean to ravish me again.”
“I do,” she whispered, her eyes darkening. “I certainly do.” She bent her head and brushed her lips against his. She nudged them open, tasted his upper lip with the tip of her tongue, then the lower one. She kissed the corner of his mouth, his jaw, then used her teeth to worry his earlobe.
Her breath was warm, humid, and Griffin felt his pulse quicken as she teased him with her lips, teeth, and tongue. She whispered something he could not quite make out, but what she said was infinitely less important just now than how she said it. How she said it raised ribbons of heat that twisted and curled under his skin.
He tried to catch her mouth when she lowered it a second time, but she darted away at the last moment and turned her attention to the cord in his neck and the underside of his jaw. Her breasts rubbed against his chest, pleasing her, but pleasing him more. She squirmed a bit, balancing the need to find a fit for herself against his frame with delicious discomfort each time she failed.
He snagged a breath, held it, as she traced the line of his collarbone with the damp edge of her tongue. She sipped his skin at the curve of his neck and shoulder just as he had done to her last evening, leaving her mark on him, taking possession.
He tentatively attempted to lift one of his hands, but she was having none of it and pressed his wrist back. He thought he let her, but he wasn’t entirely certain that in an earnest battle that she might not emerge the victor. Certainly he’d have bruises for it, much less enjoyable in the making than the one she was giving him now.
“Do I amuse you?” she asked darkly, lifting her head so her mouth hovered a fraction above his. “You chuckled.”
“Chuckled? You are mistaken. I would not.” He cleared his throat, pushed back the laughter that threatened to reveal his lie, and suffered the thorough study she made of him. “A guilty man would confess, you know,” he told her. “You are uncannily persuasive.”
“I am merely looking at you.”
“My point precisely.”
She put her mouth to his, kissed him warmly. “You are kind to flatter me.” She smiled, feeling the rumble of laughter in his chest tickle every one of her nerve endings. Rather than take him to task for it, she deepened the kiss.
Olivia made free with his body. She let his wrists go because holding them only hampered her search and discovery. She welcomed the contrasts between them, the broad plane of his hard chest to the more yielding softness of her own, the spread of his hand against her smaller one, the narrow line of his hip still capable of cradling her curves.
She indulged herself in the taste of him, the scent of him, and finally, the sound of him as he whispered her name in a way that spoke to his pleasure…and later, to hers.
