The Price of Desire. Jo Goodman

Fairley and Varah had finished stamping their feet and brushing off their hats, Olivia became aware of the inordinate quiet in the house. No one, it seemed, was stirring above or below stairs. No one had come forward from the back of the house to greet them. She regarded her escorts with a new wariness in her eyes, wondering far too late if she was safe to be alone with them.

      “We’re expected upstairs,” Varah said.

      Olivia shook her head. “I think I’d like to remain here.”

      Both Varah and Fairley were prepared to present their argument against it, but they stopped even as their mouths began to shape the protest. Their gazes were drawn upward over the velvet crown of Olivia Cole’s bonnet to the top of the stairs.

      Viscount Breckenridge nodded once in the way of dismissal. “You’ve discharged your debt, gentlemen. I can think of no reason we shall have to speak of it again. Ever. That’s clear enough, isn’t it?”

      Olivia had turned her head to follow the line of sight of Varah and Fairley; now she twisted back to look at them. They were nodding in unison and already replacing their hats. They managed to look at once apologetic and deferential. It was unseemly how quickly they made their departure.

      “Olivia Cole?”

      Olivia lifted her face in the direction of the voice again. “That’s right.”

      “Good. I’d hate to think they’d gotten it wrong, what with me having just let them go. It’s gratifying that my trust in them wasn’t entirely misplaced.” His dark eyes bore into hers. “It remains to be seen about you.”

      Olivia wondered what reply she might make to that, but before one occurred to her he was gone and she was left staring at the space he’d occupied. She stood at the foot of the steps for several minutes, determining her course of action. She had the oddest sense that it was a test of sorts, but no sense of how he meant to take her measure. Leaving the townhouse seemed the only sure way she could fail.

      Olivia unfastened the ribbons under her chin and removed her bonnet before she began to climb the stairs. She found him in a room that bore a passing resemblance to a place where one might conduct affairs of business and commerce. A large desk was central to the room. Much of its surface area was covered by ledgers, writing paper, and pots of ink. Bookshelves occupied two full walls, and many of the volumes lay on their side to make as much use of the available space as possible. Still, a stack of books rested beside one of the room’s two wing chairs, carelessly doubling as a side table complete with an empty cup and saucer on top. The teapot, cream pitcher, and sugar bowl remained on the silver serving tray that rested on a more traditional oval table near the fireplace.

      A mirror almost as long as the mantelpiece hung above the hearth. It was mounted in an elaborately carved gold leaf frame and served no purpose that Olivia could divine except to reflect the light of the three silver candelabra situated at evenly spaced intervals on top of the mantel. Their positioning seemed to be exact: three points of order in a room that might kindly be spoken of as comfortable or cozy, but could more accurately be described as cluttered. Olivia followed the cast of light reflected in the mirror and discovered it brightened an area around one of the reading chairs where a footstool had been overturned and a book lay open on the floor. A wool rug also lay discarded in a heap beside the stool.

      The tableau suggested to Olivia that her host was more eager for her arrival than his disinterest at the top of the stairs indicated. Of course it was entirely possible that the stool, rug, and book had been lying there for days and had nothing at all to do with her presence in the townhouse.

      She was aware of her host’s interest now. He was comfortably ensconced in the leather armchair behind his desk. Except to raise one dark eyebrow when she entered the room, he gave no other indication that he’d noticed her presence. Nevertheless, she felt his gaze following her as she took a turn about the room. If he expected her to speak before he did, he was sadly out of it there. Olivia knew her place, knew that she could remain silent until she understood the purpose he had in mind for her.

      Alastair would be depending upon nothing so much as her circumspection.

      “Is it your nature to be so tolerably composed?” he asked. “Or must I anticipate that you will fly into the boughs at any moment?”

      “Fly into the boughs?” she said, turning to face him. “No. That is not done. Not by me.”

      He stood suddenly, taking note that she held her ground. If she flinched, it was quite literally only in the blink of an eye. “Griffin Wright-Jones.” Coming around the desk, he made a small bow. “You look puzzled, Olivia Cole.”

      “I understood this place to be Breckenridge’s establishment.”

      “It is.”

      “But you’re not Mr. Breckenridge.”

      “That might be a comfortable fit, but alas, I am not. You must try not to judge me too harshly when you hear the truth of it. It is my dubious honor to be the Viscount Breckenridge. Ahh, yes, well, there you have flinched. It is not an exalted title as these things go, so I don’t allow myself to believe you are intimidated by it. You’ve had some experience with members of rank, I expect, and it did not go well for you.”

      His glance dropped to her hands. She had long, beautifully tapered fingers that had whitened where she was gripping her bonnet. “You are clutching.”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “Clutching.” He indicated the black velvet brim of her bonnet. “Is that why you removed it? So that you might have something to do with your hands? Or did you think that by making a display of your hair I would be persuaded not to look elsewhere?” He watched her stir a bit uncomfortably as his deliberately narrowed gaze made a slow assessment of her person. “I am credited to have an eye for a woman’s true beauty, and I judge that on a day less fraught with tension than this one, your hair is the very least of it.”

      It was a pretty compliment in a peculiarly left-handed fashion, Olivia thought. She gave it the credence it deserved, which was to say she gave it none at all. He might just as well have picked up a stick and poked her with it. The only recourse she had to spite her tormentor was to relax the grip on her bonnet. To remain unaffected in the aftermath of such a casual and demeaning study was the best revenge.

      “Please, won’t you be seated?” he asked. “While I applaud your effort, you are not so steady on your feet as you would have me believe.”

      Olivia would like to have denied it, but being caught in an obvious lie always had unpleasant consequences. Although her pride was wounded, it was relatively unimportant that he correctly surmised that she had yet to get her feet firmly under her.

      “Allow me to take your coat,” he said. “And the bonnet. You are yet wont to crush it.”

      Olivia was afraid that even the thought of flinging it at his head would be revealed in her face. She made herself think of jonquils instead, picturing the slim green stems and yellow buds just as they might be moments before flowering. At peace with this vision in her mind’s eye, she released the bonnet and permitted him to help her remove her pelisse. Her kid gloves fell out of the pocket where she’d stuffed them earlier, and she almost collided with him in her haste to pick them up.

      It was too much to hope that he would not notice the loose stitching on the seams of the second finger and thumb, or that he would not see the palms were shiny with wear. “I was asked to make a rather hurried departure,” she said by way of explanation for the poor condition of her gloves. “I took what I was given, I’m afraid. A pair of old favorites.”

      Olivia watched, vaguely disturbed as he turned them over and touched the back of one with his fingertips. The sensation was such that he might well have been brushing her own hand.

      For the second time in the matter of an hour, Olivia dropped heavily into a chair behind her. She followed her host’s progress to the door where he pulled the bell cord. In just under a minute a footman appeared in the doorway. Breckenridge gave him the pelisse, bonnet, and gloves and some