you concluded you were being escorted to a brothel anyway.”
She had. “It was not an unreasonable assumption.”
“Perhaps not, but it is not my business. Did someone tell you otherwise?”
“No.”
He nodded once, satisfied that he had impressed the truth of the matter upon her. “Do you want to know the size of your brother’s debt?”
“If you’d like to tell me. In truth it doesn’t matter if it’s one pound or one thousand. I have no money of my own to compensate you.”
“As it happens, it is £1,000.”
Olivia felt herself in the grip of a chill as color drained from her face. She wished she had chosen a chair closer to the fire.
“If you think you might faint,” Breckenridge said, “lower your head to the level of your knees.”
She thought people were inordinately worried about her fainting today. “I am not going to faint.” She noticed he was as skeptical of her assertion as Varah and Fairley had been.
“My sister Jenny requires almost no provocation to swoon. It’s fascinating, really, how she has mastered the art of it. The physicians say they can find nothing to account for it, but then they are forever examining her without her corset. Her husband shares my opinion that she instructs her maid to pull the strings too tight.”
“She would not thank you for imparting that information.”
“It is by way of educating you. Jenny approves of education. She has a prodigious intellect.” One side of his mouth twitched. “Which we all support since she has little in the way of common sense.”
“It must gratify her,” Olivia said dryly. “Your support, I mean.”
The grin deepened momentarily, then was gone. “As it is now a certainty that you will not faint, let us return to the problem of the £1,000. Your brother volunteered that he could pay the debt with an advance on his allowance. I knew that such a large advance would not be forthcoming. Your father is by reputation a clutch-fisted individual, and there appears to be support for the rumor that Alastair has fallen out of favor with him.”
“You think you know rather quite a lot.”
“I do not require that you confirm or deny anything I am telling you, so ease your mind on that score. I merely present the whole of it as a caution. You will be pleased, I think, to know that as much as I learned about Alastair, I never once received any particulars about you. The most surprising thing to learn about you being Alastair Cole’s sister is that it makes you Sir Hadrien Cole’s daughter. I wonder that it is not common knowledge.”
“I fell out of favor with my father some years ago.” Olivia offered Breckenridge this small bone to keep him from digging for a bigger one. She was careful not to hold her breath as she waited to see if it would be enough for him.
“Perhaps that is why your brother came to the conclusion that he could offer you in his stead.”
Olivia was on the point of seizing this opportunity to inquire after Alastair when the door opened and the lad who’d removed the tea service appeared on the threshold with a large tray laden with the repast the viscount had ordered.
Griffin Wright-Jones pushed aside more items on his desk and dropped a short stack of account books onto the floor. He pointed to the clearing and removed himself, then he indicated to Olivia that she should take up the chair behind the desk. When she didn’t move quickly enough to suit him, he said, “I will not hesitate to put you in it.”
Olivia saw the young man bobble the tray on his way to setting it down as he regarded his employer with surprise mixed with wariness. She took that as an indication that the viscount was not in the habit of making threats. She wished she might know better if it was Breckenridge’s habit to carry them out. Olivia came to her feet in what she hoped was a dignified manner. It was important to her that her host did not mistake cooperation for intimidation. She had a kind smile for the bearer of the tray as she skirted the desk, but she waited until he was gone before she took her seat.
Aware of Breckenridge’s narrowed gaze, Olivia picked up a fork before she was ordered to do so and stabbed at the yellow curds of baked egg. “To spare you from feeding me as well,” she said before placing the egg in her mouth.
Griffin slipped into the chair she had occupied and watched her eat. She had no enjoyment of the food, of course, but that was not the point. The point was that she truly looked as if a sudden draft would lift her off her feet.
She wore a shawl about her shoulders, but it had slipped when he’d helped her out of her pelisse and he’d seen the unnaturally prominent line of her collarbones. It was true that her figure did not lend itself to the fullness of sensual beauty, but judging by the bruised shadows beneath her eyes, she had recently acquired an appearance that suggested starvation.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“Am I?”
Of course he was, and he knew it. “Yes. Has anyone commented that it’s impolite to do so?”
“I find that women are glad for the attention.”
Olivia thought she might choke on the bite of toast she’d just taken. She managed to push it down with a sip of the cocoa. “You find that…” She stopped, unable to repeat the whole of it even to be certain she had not mistaken the words. She simply shook her head and took another sip of her hot drink, nearly closing her eyes with the pleasure of it.
“I may have overstated it,” he allowed. He observed that she was not proof against the sweet cocoa. A thin mustache of liquid chocolate appeared just above her upper lip, and even as he wondered if she would raise her serviette or lick it away the tip of her tongue appeared to do the deed. He knew himself to be most grateful. “There are naturally exceptions.”
“I wish to be in the category of exceptions.”
Griffin gave in easily, but only because the fire was in want of tending and he’d already witnessed the flicker of her tongue along her lip. He rose and crossed to the fireplace where he poked at the coals, then added more from the scuttle. He stood there wondering what he might reasonably expect from Olivia Cole while she cleaned her plate and tipped her cup to swallow the last mouthful of cocoa.
“Will you take tea with me?” he asked when he returned to remove the tray.
“I couldn’t possibly.”
He did not insist. “Very well. You may remain there. It is a comfortable chair, is it not?”
It was, but the soft leather also held the faint scent of him. There was nothing comfortable about that. “I think I would prefer a turn about the room.”
“As you wish.” He set the tray on a side table and poured himself a cup while Olivia picked her way among the detritus that was the evidence of his work. “The servants dust and polish only. I don’t allow them to move anything.”
It was unnerving the way he seemed to respond to her thoughts as if she’d spoken them aloud. “It seemed that might be the case. There is some method, I expect, to your
