no response save for those he would regret. Now, mounting the steps to her home, he wondered if he had done right by her, for it was in his silence that she perceived herself the victor.
Griffin had purposely chosen the afternoon hour to call upon her because he knew she would no longer be abed. The mantel of snow aided his cause, making it unlikely that she would have yet stepped out. Still, after she’d been informed of his arrival, she sent down the message that she was late in rising and would not be quick to join him. He supposed that he was meant to infer that he was free to go. Although he had every right to join her in her bedchamber—and had done so on many occasions when she thought to tease him in such a fashion—he allowed the housekeeper to show him to the drawing room where he knew he could expect to wait above an hour for her.
“So you are still here,” Alys Christie said when she finally saw fit to seek him out. She managed to infuse a note of surprise in her greeting. “I was not at all certain you would be. You have a tendency toward impatience of late.” She walked directly to him and gave him a kiss full on the mouth.
Griffin did not pull away but neither did he respond. If she noticed, she was not allowing him to see it.
“Will you take tea?”
He shook his head.
“A whiskey, then.”
“No, nothing for me.”
Her pale eyebrows lifted slightly. “Very well, but you would not deny me, would you?” Not waiting for an answer, Alys went to the drinks cabinet and poured herself two fingers of whiskey.
Griffin smiled slightly. He’d always been amused that she preferred hard liquor to sherry. In the beginning she’d tried to hide it from him, concerned that he would judge her as not being as refined in her tastes as she ought to have been. To Griffin’s way of thinking it made her more interesting rather than the opposite, and he’d told her so. That he was prepared to end their association did not change his thinking about her tastes. It was just that there was so little else that he found in any way attractive.
There would be those among his acquaintances who would wonder at this perception. By every standard of fashion, manners, and beauty, Mrs. Christie was acknowledged to be a diamond. At thirty years of age, she had the experience of being so well admired as to give her a surfeit of confidence. She exhibited the heritage of her Viking forbears in her pale coloring and smooth complexion, and while her hair was very fine, she had it in abundance. Even plainly arranged it called attention to itself. When she wore it adorned with flowers and beads it resembled nothing so much as a crown. Her figure was womanly in every regard: rounded arms, hips, and bosom. She knew what fashions and fabrics accentuated the features that made men shift their glances in her direction. The turn of her ankle was delicate; the curve of her waist pronounced. With shoulders held back and her chin lifted at an angle that suggested condescension, her manner of carrying herself was often referred to as regal.
Her standing in polite society, though, would never put her in the same circle as the royals. Griffin could not imagine that she would ever admit it, but she stood poised on the edge of the ton like a beggar at a baker’s window. And like that poor soul, she longed for entry, not mere crumbs.
Griffin had no illusions as to why she agreed to leave her former protector and accept his offer. She had observed that his own standing in society possessed a certain fluidity. He had rank, which gave him entry and a reputation that kept him closer to the periphery than the center. He enjoyed the freedom to step outside the ton altogether as he did when he took up the gaming hell, but he also was greeted by his peers as a prodigal son on any occasion that he returned to their fold.
Some of rank and privilege envied him for shrugging off the strictures that set their life on such a narrow path. Others, like Alys Christie, envied him his access to that path.
“We are done, Mrs. Christie,” Griffin said. He had not anticipated putting it before her quite so baldly, but once said he did not try to soften it. He watched twin sovereigns of pink appear in her cheeks. Her fine china-blue eyes, arguably her best feature, brightened with a sheen of tears. At one time he would have mistaken them as an expression of disappointment or sadness. What he had learned was that they appeared out of deep frustration and were the precursor to a fit of temper that few young children could match for ferocity and duration.
Griffin decided a warning was in order. “I will not suffer one of your rages, Alys, so think before you fly into the boughs.”
Taking a deep breath, she held herself in check for the moment. The note of caution in his voice meant little to her, and the threat less than nothing, but the fact that he had called her Alys was enough to give her hope. “We can discuss it, can we not, Breckenridge? I thought we had reached an understanding last evening.”
“There was no understanding. You made your argument, and I did not gainsay you. It is not the same as reaching an accord. We are done.”
Alys pursed her lips. Her fingertips tightened on the tumbler in her hand. “I don’t see how that can be. You need me.”
“Oh, Mrs. Christie, do not make me say otherwise. Let us at least agree that we might remain on friendly terms.”
“Is it because there was no good word from Paris? Have you now given up hope on everyone?”
Griffin was aware he was being drawn in and still could not hold his tongue. “You told Pettibone. That was not your place.”
“It is my place. Your wife—”
“My wife is nothing to you.”
“But if she’s dead—If you can prove that she’s—”
“It changes nothing.” In contrast to his eyes, which were hard, his voice was dangerously soft. “She is already dead to me, and it makes no difference. I will not marry you, Mrs. Christie.”
“Have I spoken of marriage?”
“Even you have moments of restraint.”
Alys’s nostrils flared. He’d raised the point of restraint at the very moment she was rearing back her hand to throw her glass at him. She caught herself and drank half of what she’d poured instead. Above the rim of the tumbler her pale blue eyes glittered. It was rare that there was heat in her anger. What she invariably felt was ice cold, and this was no exception. The whiskey did not warm her.
“What of your business?” she asked. “Have you considered at all what I said last night? We are partners, Breckenridge. You cannot deny that I have been an asset to you in the operation of the hell.”
“I do not deny it. It does not make us partners. Your contribution was not financial, and it was not asked for.”
“God’s truth, but it was not refused,” she snapped. “You appreciated my presence in your place. You even were moved to remark that your patrons wagered in a most excellent fashion when I was in the room. That was more of the ready in your pockets, Breckenridge.”
“And you were recompensed handsomely for it. Never say to me that you did not benefit from our arrangement. You have a house for which you owe nothing. Fine clothes. Jewelry that you may keep or sell at your pleasure. Your staff receives their wages from me and your allowance defines the very word generous.”
Hearing his voice begin to rise, Griffin took a leveling breath. “The house. The clothing. The jewelry. All of it is yours, Mrs. Christie.
