Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Notorious in the West\Yield to the Highlander\Return of the Viking Warrior (14 page)

He was doing it. Just like her, he was savoring. He was storing up the experience of being at the musicale with her. In that moment. While it was still happening. Before it slipped away.

Not that Griffin was rude about it. Olivia doubted anyone else noticed his gaze moving, from time to time, to the hand-lettered signs and the chattering townspeople and the humble decorations overhead. But
she
noticed. She noticed, and it made her feel sad. Why could she not help Griffin feel secure?

The notion should have made her laugh. On the face of it, a man like him did not need her help feeling secure. Griffin was successful, wealthy and admired by industry. He was, by all accounts, a man to be respected for his accomplishments. But Olivia knew him for more than The Beast he was supposed to be.

She knew him. She cared for him. She might even
love
him.

Maybe that was why Annie's next question caught Olivia off guard. Her longtime friend, having noticed Griffin's inattentiveness, seized that moment to waylay Olivia.

“So,” Annie said, darting a furtive glance at Griffin, “do you think you'll be able to change his mind? How close are you?”

“How close am I?” Tardily, Olivia realized that Annie must be referring to her plan to convince Griffin to relinquish control of The Lorndorff. She waved off her friend's concern. “Honestly, I haven't given it much thought lately.”

“Well, you must be making progress.” Annie stepped back as Griffin absently excused himself and then strode away, further enabling their gossipy conversation. “I heard,” she went on, “that Mr. Turner invited your father to manage the hotel again.”

“He asked him to.” Olivia had learned as much from her father. “My father refused. He doesn't want to settle for ‘half measures.' He thinks he can hold out. He thinks he can convince another investor to buy out Mr. Turner and solve the problem entirely.” She sighed. “I think that will simply introduce another troublesome element to an already unwieldy situation. Given a large enough stake in The Lorndorff, another investor would be equally likely to force out my father...
and
he'd be an unknown quantity, besides. I say it's too risky overall.”

“Hmm?” Annie frowned. “What has gotten into you? All of a sudden, you talk like a book. A business book, to be precise.”

Olivia felt abashed. “Perhaps I've been spending too much time in Mr. Turner's company.”
Kissing him. And relishing a great deal of insightful conversation with him.
Not that any of those opinions had been other than her own. “I'm sorry.” She sipped her punch, then smiled at Annie. “Is that a new dress?”

“It
is!
” Annie gushed, making a slight turn to display her fashionable bustle. “I've been working on it for ages. In fact, I was hoping to catch the eye of a certain gentleman tonight.”

“Hmm. Mr. Grant, perhaps?” Olivia suggested, much too innocently. She'd noticed Annie noticing Griffin's associate.

“
That
citified know-it-all? No, not him!” Annie declared, much too vehemently. She stood on tiptoe, then gazed avidly across the town hall. “Why? Have you seen him here?”

Olivia suppressed a grin. “He was jigging with the dance-hall girls in the leftmost aisle a while ago. Since then—”

Annie gave her a playful swat. “He was not jigging!”

I almost was.
“Well, it wouldn't be wholly untoward...”

“Yes, it would!” Annie rolled her eyes. “Dance-hall girls?”

“Well, if it wasn't a dance-hall girl who was dancing,” Olivia tried. “Then maybe...?” She was desperate to learn how Annie might react to a hypothetical scenario. Say, if
she
were to indulge her yen to dance in the aisle to toe-tapping fiddle music. But she never had a chance. Because in the next moment, Annie stared. “Is that Mr. Turner?” she asked, pointing.

At the same moment, the crowd parted obligingly. In the resulting gap, Griffin strode nearer, wearing his black clothes, black boots and black hat...and carrying a young boy in his arms.

The child looked three or four years of age. With his small face streaked with tears, the tousle-haired boy clung monkeylike to Griffin's shoulders, clearly unwilling to be parted from him.

“Ladies.” As though there were nothing unusual about a famously hard-hearted beast of an industrialist cradling a child in his arms, Griffin nodded politely at Olivia and Annie. “I'm sorry to leave you so abruptly. I saw this tyke crying in the corner. Nobody else seemed to have noticed the little scamp.”

At Griffin's attentiveness, Olivia couldn't help remembering his nonchalant statement days ago.
There's something about growing up hand to mouth, in danger of getting beaten, that makes a man notice the details of things.
Sometimes, she guessed, those details weren't dire. But they were no less important to attend to. Especially when they involved a child.

Still, she couldn't believe he'd voluntarily cradled a lost child. Most men held children about as expertly as they did brooms. But as with sweeping, Griffin seemed to come by this skill naturally. Beside her, Annie could do no more than stare, along with the townspeople standing by. Olivia merely looked at Griffin, saw him making a funny face while murmuring silly nonsense to comfort the child and felt her heart open wide.

Something about seeing this tender, protective side of Griffin made him irresistible. He was...downright nurturing.

“If he agreed to quit bawling,” Griffin announced, peering kindly into the boy's little face, “I promised him a pony.”

“Griffin!” Olivia objected. “That's far too lavish.”

“Mr. Turner!” Annie echoed in a similarly censorious tone. Then her gaze turned devious. “
I
like ponies. I mean, if you're faced with an abundance of the critters and require volunteers...”

“Annie!” Olivia shook her head at her friend. “No.”

But Griffin was unperturbed by their wrangling. He only jostled the boy good-naturedly in his arms, then asked, “Will the two of you help me find his mother? He says his name is Jonas.”

“Will we earn a pony if we do?” Annie asked cagily.

Olivia frowned at her. “Of course we'll help you,” she assured Griffin. “Let's begin with the perimeter of the room.”

“Perimeter?” In frustration, Annie stopped with her hands on her hips. “Can you please speak normally? I didn't read a million books when I was small,” she reminded Olivia with a nonplussed look, “so I can't keep up with all your fancy talk.”

“I'm sorry.” Olivia gestured helpfully. “Let's look in the aisles on the outsides of the room first. That's all I mean.”

“Then why didn't you say so?” Annie gave a disgruntled head shake as they trailed Griffin and his newly devoted friend, Jonas. “You're still doing it, you know,” Annie complained. “Talking like a book. Like you used to talk, years ago.”

Feeling a glimmer of warning at that, Olivia shrugged.

“I guess lost children bring out my studious side,” she hedged, unwilling to admit that it wasn't a single incident that was making her revert to her old rebellious and hoydenish ways. It was Griffin. Increasingly, she wanted the same freedom in the rest of her life as she found when she was with him. It was getting harder and harder to refrain from impropriety altogether—harder to remember why she'd ever wanted to behave herself in the first place. “Come on,” Olivia said to Annie, tugging her arm. “I see Mrs. McCabe, the schoolmarm. She knows everyone's children, whether they're of school age or not.”

As they picked up speed, still following Griffin and Jonas, Olivia cast that adorable duo a second, contemplative glance. Now the boy was whispering something to Griffin, elaborately cupping his ear in the dramatic fashion children had, and Griffin was laughing at the confidence they'd shared. In response, Jonas beamed. His childish chuckle sounded out.

Someday, Olivia couldn't help thinking, that could be their child being held in Griffin's arms. That could be her future, shared with a man who rescued lost children, understood philosophical theories
and
volunteered to dance scandalously in the aisles to fiddle music. In so many ways, it was ideal.

Unless...

Abruptly, Olivia stopped, peering at Griffin as Jonas's mother caught up to the pair. She watched as the woman thanked Griffin effusively, then hugged Jonas to her while conversing animatedly with Griffin. Belatedly, Olivia recognized her as one of the most decorous, well-respected, God-fearing women in Morrow Creek. Undoubtedly, she'd never experienced a moment's temptation to dance to the musicale's boisterous fiddle music.

Possibly, it occurred to Olivia, Griffin hadn't, either.

Was he...
testing
her?

The idea suddenly seemed all too plausible. Certainly, Griffin appeared to enjoy the lengthy talks he and Olivia shared about egalitarianism, absolute idealism, naturalism and other philosophical theories, as well as about novels they'd read and places they'd like to visit. But those conversations occurred in private, in his hotel suite. What if Griffin, like most other men, was more concerned with what occurred in public?

What if he was concerned with having a wife who could behave herself in public?

If he was, the dreamy domestic scenario Olivia had just been imagining could not possibly come true. Marriageable women did not, as a rule, behave like dance-hall girls, Olivia knew. Neither did respectable women like Jonas's mother. Once upon a time, Olivia would have been happy to omit herself from their numbers. Once upon a time, she'd been proud of her adolescent freethinking and unruly conduct. But now things were different.

The things she wanted from her life were different.

Griffin had
seemed
sincere when he'd urged Olivia to dance to the fiddle music earlier, she mused. He had recognized her love of it. He'd even seemed to share it. His toes had tapped a time or two, as well. But what if he didn't approve as wholeheartedly as he seemed to? What if he'd been pushing to learn exactly how unconventional she really was?

What if Griffin was predicating his willingness to commit further on her willingness to comport herself appropriately?

Concerned, Olivia studied him a bit longer. Then, as Annie identified Mr. Grant on the other side of the room and beelined toward her—purportedly—least favorite Boston businessman, Olivia made her decision. If Griffin was testing her, she meant to pass with flying colors. She wanted Griffin to think well of her. She wanted him to think of her as more than a counterfeit chambermaid, an amenable tour guide to Morrow Creek and a sometime conversational partner. She wanted him to think of her as a woman. A
desirable
woman. A woman whose most attractive qualities were impossible to overlook...as he seemed to have done so far.

If she could ensure that their togetherness would grow, simply at the price of sticking to her usual upright behavior, then that was what she'd do, Olivia vowed. She would refuse to dance. She would try harder at sewing. She would keep her most divergent opinions to herself. She would be the most respectable woman she could possibly be, and she'd prove her marriageability to Griffin in the process...no matter how much fiddle music might play or how many temptations might fall in her path in the meantime.

Chapter Twelve

A
half hour early for the Morrow Creek handicrafts show, Griffin ducked into the designated venue—a two-story brick house located at the far end of the town's main street—with his mind on Olivia. He'd agreed to meet her for another of his getting-to-know-Morrow-Creek sessions, but the intent of those sessions felt largely superfluous by now. Griffin had already met and—with surprising ease—befriended most of the town's residents. He guessed that ease came hand in hand with the residents' lack of familiarity with the Turners of Boston. Here, Edward Turner's nefarious business tactics and coldhearted abandonment of his family were as irrelevant as the travails of streetcar travel and the touring playhouse schedules at the Howard Athenaeum. No one in Morrow Creek looked at Griffin's face and saw in it the curse of the Turner men. No one saw pitiable Hook Turner.

They only saw
him,
Griffin, alone. And the woman who had instigated that welcome change was waiting for him to meet her.

If not for Olivia, Griffin knew, he'd never have realized the fresh chance awaiting him in Morrow Creek. If not for her, he'd likely still be sequestered in his suite at The Lorndorff, lost in self-pity and whiskey and darkness, wondering why success, money and hard-earned respect had not made him happy.

Today, he felt happy. Walking through the show-hosting household's spacious hallways and past its finely decorated rooms, Griffin surveyed the hustle and bustle of preparations for the show and knew that his newfound happiness owed itself to Olivia. He may have failed to seduce her into letting her feet dance them both into carefree enjoyment of the musicale's fiddle music a few days ago, but today would be different, he vowed.

Today he had a surprise that even Olivia, with all her grit and tenacity and dedication, would not be able to resist.

First, though, he had volunteered to help Olivia set up the displays for the handicrafts show. Spying the set of rooms where he'd been told she would be, Griffin felt his heart race faster.

Grinning at his own sap-headed sense of romanticism, he picked up speed. His boot heels rang against the polished oak floorboards. His coat billowed behind him, lending him an imposing appearance as he strode onward. Catching a glimpse of himself in the hallway's gilt-edged mirror, Griffin hesitated.

He stopped.

For the first time in years, he took a good look at himself. He wasn't sure he liked what he saw. Not because of his nose—although that detestable feature was still fully accounted for—but because of his forbidding black clothes. Above his inky collar, dark coat, midnight vest and plain black trousers, his own rugged countenance frowned back at him, framed by the wide brim of his equally dark hat and the omnipresent tangle of his tied-back dark hair. Even his thick, dark eyebrows looked menacing.

Damnation. How was he supposed to endear himself to a lighthearted and fun-loving woman like Olivia when he most resembled a hulking, oversize, expensively dressed undertaker?

Newly mortified by the thought, Griffin turned. He peered at his profile as best he could, noting his perfectly turned-out collar, his jet cufflinks and his rough, masculine stance. He
did
appear threatening. No wonder, it occurred to him, Olivia had not wanted to cut loose and dance at the musicale.

She hadn't wanted to dance with him.

Confounded, Griffin delivered his image a scowl. Until now, he'd largely strived for invisibility. But here in Morrow Creek, with Olivia, such measures might not be necessary. Here in Morrow Creek, he might get away with a more female-friendly set of clothing. He might even dare to try not tugging his hat low.

The very idea left him chockablock with trepidation. Did he dare? For the sake of winning Olivia, did he dare to step fully into the light and risk letting everyone see him without his armor of dark clothes and face-hiding hat? Getting new suits of clothes would be easy enough, Griffin mused. Palmer could issue an order to his tailors in Boston and have custom garments delivered on the train within weeks. Maybe in medium gray...

“Griffin! There you are.” Olivia approached him with a smile on her face. She held out her arms, took both his hands in hers then squeezed. “If I could, I would spend time just staring at you, too,” she teased with an affectionate nod at the mirror. “You have an arresting array of features, Mr. Turner.”

Griffin wanted to believe that she truly liked the way he looked. Hard experience—and his own mind—told him she could not.

All the same, he felt his whole heart give way at her touch. He couldn't help grinning. Olivia made him feel...
joyful.
Absurdly so. Doubtless he was making himself a fool, even then.

“You have an arresting way of fibbing outright. My features are nothing but problematic, and both of us know it.”

“Pshaw.” Eyes sparkling, Olivia levered upward. She gave his cheek a hasty, private kiss. “They are
yours,
so I love them.”

Caught by that, Griffin inhaled. Did she...?
Could
she...?

He wished he did not want her approval so much.

But he did. Worse, it felt tantalizingly close.

Feeling overcome, Griffin cleared his throat. Pointedly, he glanced around the hallway. From other areas of the house came the sounds of things being moved, of conversations going on, of workers performing last-minute tasks to prepare for the handicrafts show. “What do you want me to do first?”

“Nothing. I'm essentially finished, in fact. You're simply here to keep me company. And to meet people, of course.”

“That can't be true.” He frowned. “There must be heavy things to maneuver. Displays to set up.” Willingly, Griffin shucked his long coat, then his suit coat, leaving them both to the coatrack. He rolled up his sleeves, loving the way Olivia's eyes widened at the sight of his bare forearms. “I'll manage the difficult tasks. Just point me in the right direction.”

Standing there, Olivia merely stared at him. She seemed hypnotized by his forearms. She seemed...approving.

“As you can see,” Griffin added, unable to resist performing a subtle flexing movement to win even more of her approval, “I'm strong enough for anything you'd have me do.”

For a moment, all Olivia seemed to want him to “do” was pull her into his arms and hold her there, the way he'd done so many times over the past days. Then, abruptly, she blinked.

“Right. Yes. Of course!” A ladylike titter burst forth from her. “I'll just introduce you to Miss Violet Benson first. She's the daughter of my very good friend, the minister, Reverend Benson. I probably have told you how very God-fearing I am.”

Confused, Griffin gazed back at her. “No. You haven't.”

“Well, I am.” With effort, Olivia swerved her gaze away from his forearms. She smiled. “I am also well respected and decorous. Very like Jonas's mother, whom you met the other day?”

Vaguely, Griffin recalled the woman from the musicale. “I wasn't impressed with her inattentiveness to her own child,” he said bluntly. “If that's what you find admirable about her—”

“I thought you found her admirable! You conversed for a long time.” Olivia's brows lowered. “You seemed engrossed.”

“I was making damn sure she would pay better attention to Jonas next time.” Memories of his own mother's negligence poked at him, making him scowl anew. “I was making sure she wouldn't turn her neglect to abuse and blame Jonas for getting lost.”

“Who would blame a child for getting lost?”

Darkly, he gazed back at her. “My mother, for one. She had an uncanny ability to make every difficulty my fault somehow.”

“Oh.” Olivia's compassionate gaze met his. Her hand raised gently to his shoulder. Her touch worked like magic to soothe his troubled mood. “I'm so sorry. I didn't know. That honestly never occurred to me. I saw you talking with Jonas's mother and thought you were impressed by all her good qualities.”

“I might have been. If I'd seen them.”

Olivia seemed perplexed. “She's very admired in town.”

“If that's so, give me a less-regarded woman any day.”

At Olivia's crestfallen expression, Griffin belatedly recalled her efforts to be admired in town for her own ladylike behavior. Although that was the very behavior he was trying to staunch—because it made her so unhappy—he amended his words.

After all, he could not give her bravery by scorning her efforts—misguided and unhappiness provoking though they were.

“Not that I don't admire efforts toward respectability, as well,” he said, feeling out of his depth all of a sudden. “For instance, women with children should strive to be as good as they possibly can. That will benefit their children.”

Olivia appeared hopeful. “And their husbands?”

Griffin had no idea. After his calamitous proposal to Mary, he'd given up hope of matrimony for himself. At least he had for a while. But lately, he'd indulged more than his fair share of fantasies about coming home to a modest Morrow Creek house with Olivia there waiting for him, brandishing a broom with comical ineffectualness and serving him bakery-bought pies by the dozen. He'd pictured Olivia coming to him on their wedding night, looking beautiful and giddy and wonderfully naked.

He'd even wondered what sort of husband he might be.

But that didn't mean he was prepared to admit any of it.

“Naturally, their husbands would benefit, too,” he told her agreeably. “Doesn't every man enjoy an amenable wife?”

“
Amenable.
Yes.” Olivia's pert face took on an alarming sense of purpose. “That is a very achievable quality!”

He frowned. “You're wearing that mulish expression you get sometimes,” he observed. “You know...the one that keeps you persisting when you've clearly lost a game of chess with me.”

“The game is never lost until it's over with,” Olivia announced with a newborn sense of vigor. She tucked her arm in his, then directed them both toward the rooms where the displays were set up. “That is one of my guiding principles.”

“You don't have to ‘achieve' any particular quality with me,” Griffin reminded her as they passed through the doorway into the first room. Worryingly, his words seemed to pass right through her. “What would I know about what husbands prefer?” he asked reasonably. “I've never even been married.”

“I know. But that might change.” Blithely assured now, Olivia steered him in the direction of a plainly dressed, plain-featured, dark-haired woman. She was clearly directing the volunteers' efforts. Just before they reached her, Olivia winked up at Griffin. “If the circumstances are just right, you might find yourself wanting to propose to a
very
special someone.”

Feeling increasingly wary, Griffin let himself be led.

Purposefully, Olivia stopped. “Mr. Turner, I'd like you to meet Miss Violet Benson.” She cast him a meaningful look. “Miss Benson is sponsoring today's handicrafts show along with the Territorial Benevolent Association. It's going to be...”

She continued speaking, but Griffin couldn't quite listen. All his attention was suddenly directed at what Olivia had said moments ago, about him changing his mind and proposing to “a
very
special someone”—and at the wink she'd tossed him, too.

Even as he politely shook hands with demure Violet Benson and said hello, Griffin couldn't help wondering...was Olivia angling for him to propose marriage to her friend? Was that why she'd mentioned her father, Reverend Benson, in such glowing terms? Was that why she'd given him that wink? Why she'd probed his attitudes toward marriage and family life and children?

No, no, no.
This was all wrong. His simple mission to help Olivia break free of her self-imposed restrictions was becoming ever more complicated. He didn't want marriage to just anyone!

He wasn't entirely sure he wanted marriage to Olivia. As much as he wanted to be with her, Griffin still had doubts. He had doubts he could win her. Doubts he deserved her. Doubts he could be a good husband, given everything in his past.

The only thing he didn't have doubts about was that he wanted Olivia in a way he'd never wanted another woman before.

Fraught with unease, Griffin nonetheless mustered a smile for both women. He had never been a man who was unduly thrown by changing circumstances. He could handle this complication in the same way he handled everything—with dogged resilience, ruthless exactitude and an unfailing attitude of positivity.

Positivity?
Struck by that, Griffin hesitated. Then he realized, to his amazement, that it was true. He
did
possess a determination to see the positive in life. If he had not, he never would have survived. He never would have succeeded. Right from the moment when he'd stood up to his mother at the age of fourteen and sworn she'd be proud of him someday, Griffin had possessed a gritty positivity. He'd known he could succeed.

Just because he sometimes succumbed to the darkness didn't mean he stopped expecting the sunrise. And just because things seemed thorny with Olivia didn't mean he intended to give up.

For her sake, Griffin told himself, he would persevere.

He glanced up to find Miss Benson in midconversation.

“...a few additional items,” she was saying in polite, measured tones, “that we received just this morning.”

“Additional items?” Olivia looked baffled. “I thought everything for the handicrafts show was already here. People have been talking of little else except getting their items finished and brought here to the display house.”

“That's true.” Miss Benson shot Griffin a tentative glance. Then, as though expecting to get no further responsiveness from him, she returned quickly to Olivia. “But these are crated items. They're labeled specifically to your attention, Olivia.”