Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Notorious in the West\Yield to the Highlander\Return of the Viking Warrior (8 page)

His suspicion wasn't unwarranted. Guiltily, Olivia bit her lip. She didn't want him to isolate himself from her. Not just because she needed his cooperation, but also because...it pained her, somehow, to see him this way. To see him suffering.

“I truly
am
intrigued by you!” she protested. “I honestly—”

“‘Intrigued'?” He made it sound like a filthy insult. “People are ‘intrigued' by curiosities. By
sideshow freaks.
”

“No!”
Oh, my.
How had this gone so wrong, so quickly? “I don't mean it that way.” Determinedly, Olivia strode to the bed. “I
don't
see you that way. Yes, I was alarmed by you at first,” she confessed, “but only because—”

“Stop.” He drank more whiskey. When next he looked at her, his eyes were haunted. “I don't want your pity. I want your absence.” He gazed scornfully at her. “I want to see you leaving here and not coming back. Give me that, Olivia. Just...leave.”

Woefully, Olivia clutched her broom. She wanted to fix this situation somehow. But it appeared to be too late for that.

For now, at least, her efforts were at an end.

“I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings,” she said, speaking with as much poise as she could muster. “But more than that, I'm sorry you can't believe me when I tell you how I feel about you. I'm an honest woman, Griffin.”

He yanked down his hat, stonily refusing to speak.

His silence only provoked her. It was as though she'd never tamped down her natural brazenness—as though she'd never strived to be ladylike by putting aside her inclination to speak freely.

Clearly, being ladylike wasn't working anyway. And she couldn't simply give up. She couldn't pretend she'd never met Griffin Turner and go back to gadding about the territory the way she had been, attending dances and wedding parties and summertime soirees. There was too much at stake here for that.

Her father had already confided in her that Griffin had every right to The Lorndorff. He'd insisted on strict terms when offering his investment. Henry Mouton had taken them. The only way out of this predicament was to appeal to Griffin's goodwill.

As if
that
existed, Olivia thought with a burst of indignation. Everything he'd done since arriving in Morrow Creek was proof it didn't. So far, she'd been wholly unable to remedy that. She took another look at him and felt her temper rise.

“No wonder you like it so gloomy in here!” she said wildly. “It matches your disposition!” Frustrated, she glimpsed no sign that she'd affected him and felt further pushed to say more. “The problem isn't how
I
see you, Griffin. The problem is how
you
see yourself. You see shades of black and nothing else. You see darkness everywhere—” she gestured illustratively at his suite “—but only because you refuse to leave open the curtains!”

“They're open.” He gestured toward them with his whiskey bottle. He took another long drink. “Nothing's changed.”

“Only because you won't let it change.”

“Because it
can't
change.”

His mulish desolation got to her when nothing else could, dousing her ire like a bucket of water on McCabe's blacksmith's fire. Feeling unexpectedly sorry for him, Olivia stepped nearer.

“You don't really want me to leave,” she cajoled. “You told me before that you didn't.”
You said I gave you something to live for.
Tentatively, she touched his arm. “You said—”

Griffin reacted as though she'd struck him. With a near growl of unhappiness, he yanked himself away from her touch.

“I already told you to leave.” His anguished gaze met hers briefly, then swerved away. He gave his hat a fruitless tug. There was no room for it to move any lower. “If you insist on staying, I can't be responsible for what happens between us.”

His threat was not subtle. Neither was his aura of menace. Something she'd said or done had wounded him. Olivia had learned once already not to incite Griffin Turner when he was like this.

Exasperated, she took a long look at him. Then, knowing she could make no additional progress now, she slipped from his room as quickly as she could.

She wasn't fast enough, though, to avoid hearing the bottle he threw against the door hit it hard. She wasn't fast enough to avoid hearing that whiskey bottle shatter into a thousand pieces while she fled down the hallway. And she definitely wasn't fast enough to avoid wondering...if she found the courage to come back, exactly what would happen between them next, now that they'd finally touched?

Now that they'd finally touched...and she'd enjoyed it?

Chapter Eight

W
hen the knock at his hotel room door finally came two days after he'd made Olivia Mouton leave, Griffin knew for certain it was her. Returned to him.
Contritely returned,
he instructed his imagination to believe as he stomped to the door, ready to open it and unceremoniously toss her on her backside one more time.

Instead, Griffin was nearly smacked in the face as Palmer Grant pushed open the door and strode inside, fully fired up.

“You're costing yourself a fortune by staying here, Griffin.” He shoved shut the door behind him, sealing off any possibility that a “chambermaid” might be lurking outside with a feather duster and a smile. He brandished a handful of telegraph messages. “Your business managers are losing their minds.”

“They'd already done that. They partnered with me.”

A sigh. “You know that's not what I mean.” After tossing down the telegraph messages, Palmer flopped onto an upholstered chair. He rubbed his free hand over his face. He gave Griffin's hotel room a curious look. “Hmm. It's dark in here again.”

“I like it this way.” Feeling doubly morose now that he knew Olivia had not come back to beg forgiveness, Griffin tipped back some whiskey. “I'm comfortable in the dark. It's a polite gesture. It keeps women and children from having to look at me.”

It didn't have the same shielding effect on his longtime friend. Griffin didn't like the astute squint Palmer gave him.

“Aha. ‘Women,' eh? This is about
her.
I wondered when it would come to this.” With the amused forbearance of a saint—or a particularly addle-headed child—Palmer got up.

He went to the window. He flung open the drapes.

It was as if the pernicious ghost of Olivia Mouton had come to haunt Griffin during daylight hours...the way she did when he tried to sleep, whispering sweet things and smelling of roses.

Sometimes he wished he could sleep all the time.

“Argh.” Scowling, Griffin covered his eyes with his arm. “Not you, too. You damn traitor. Leave. Now.” He pointed to the door with his whiskey bottle. “Just get out.”

“Fine.” Palmer stood. “But I'm taking this with me.”

He snatched Griffin's bottle of Old Orchard. It was a cheap brand, but it had stood by him ably. He didn't want to lose it.

Unfortunately, he was too tipsy to prevent its loss. He had to settle for glaring at Palmer as his associate tucked it securely beneath his arm in an unwitting imitation of Olivia.

“Without this,” Palmer said, “maybe you'll get back to business.” He glanced at the pile of telegraph messages. “Some of those need replies. You're endangering your livelihood.”

Griffin didn't care. He didn't care if his money ran out or his businesses ran aground. Success had never brought him the happiness he'd sought. Success hadn't even brought him Mary.

Granted, he hadn't seen much of Mary during the interval between his tenement beginnings and his successful life. He'd been busy working and striving and sacrificing. Still, during those hard times, he'd counted on Mary being there for him. She'd been an emblem of true success to him. Sometimes distant, sometimes busy, but always representing love and kindness and the warmhearted family Griffin had wanted and had been denied.

You thought I would actually marry you? Oh, Griffin...

Her rejection had been gentle on its surface, but no less unbearable for him to receive. Over the years, imagining his eventual proposal and Mary's delighted acceptance had gotten Griffin through some difficult times. When she'd refused him instead, she'd kicked a hole in his heart. There weren't enough fond words and Irish stew in the world to mend it.

She'd claimed that she thought of him as a brother. She'd insisted that he'd been gone for too long. She'd said that she'd found another, more devoutly Catholic man whom her parents approved of...and Griffin had realized too late that he could only have as much as the world could be forced to relinquish to him.

True love was—both then and now—
not
included.

Maybe true love was wholly illusory.

Success should have improved his life. Instead, it had brought him here, Griffin reminded himself grumpily, where Olivia Mouton lived with her smiles and her softness and her saucy way of pretending to know how to sweep. Success had made him vulnerable to her pretenses. It had made him believe—temporarily, at least—that she
liked
him...when he knew only too well she was trying to wrest control of The Lorndorff from him. He wasn't a gullible child. He didn't usually behave like one. He'd known from the start that Olivia had to have had another reason for seeing him. Why else would she have come to him every day?

Why else would she have allowed him to touch her? To
hope?

It sure as hell wasn't because she loved cleaning. Olivia might have been eager, but her grasp of cleaning was dubious, at best. And although she looked very fetching while making a bed...

“Am I wasting my time, Griffin?” Palmer blurted. “It's been more than a week now. How long do you intend to wallow here?”

“As long as it takes. Longer. Forever, if necessary.”

A commiserating look. “Would it change your mind to know you've had a letter from Mary? It came in this morning's mail.”

“I don't want it.” Griffin crossed his arms. “Return it.”

“But you've known her since you were fourteen years old!” Palmer protested. “She deserves more than silence from you.”

“Truly?” Griffin fixed him with a measuring look. “What makes you believe that? Was it her disloyalty? Her pretended devotion? Her willingness to deceive me for almost a decade?”

At Griffin's near roar of questions, Palmer shifted uncomfortably. But he held his ground. “If you want to sulk, go ahead. If you want me to keep running this damn rusticated hotel while you brood up here, I will. But
don't
speak ill of Mary.”

Griffin lowered his voice. “Is that a threat?”

“It's what's necessary.” Palmer lifted his chin. “For you.”

“You don't know what's necessary for me.” For a while, Griffin had thought Olivia was necessary for him. Obviously, he and Palmer were both terrible at this game. Realizing that, Griffin sighed. “Neither do I.”

At his grudging admission, his friend went silent.

But someone else did not. When Griffin hadn't been paying attention, he realized too late, Olivia Mouton truly
had
arrived. As usual, she didn't intend to be silent in the least.

“
I
know what's necessary for you,” she said from her place in the opened doorway. With conviction and sass, she strode in. “I've worked it out, and I know exactly what to do. If you're smart, you'll let me show you, before it's too late.”

* * *

Too late.
Her ominous tone didn't daunt Griffin. At least that was what he told himself. But when he looked at her—when he caught a whiff of her dizzying scent, saw her lively, beautiful face and felt his whole body yearn to be next to hers—he knew he was lost.

Olivia Mouton affected him. Whether he wanted that to be true or not, it was a fact as incontrovertible as the headache that came from imbibing or the ache that came from needing.

Not that he intended to reveal as much to her. Not again.

He still burned from the way she'd looked at him—from the way she'd reacted when he'd held her hand and asked her to call him
Griffin.
At first, Olivia had appeared as moved as he had been. Then, suddenly, she'd only appeared...stricken.

Undoubtedly because she'd realized she was touching The Beast. She was allowing The Beast to get closer and closer...

He'd wanted to get closer still, Griffin knew. He couldn't forget the subtle tremor that had passed through Olivia when he'd covered her hand with his. He'd felt it, too. Far less subtly. For him, it had been as though the earth had shifted...and left him groundless.

Hoping to get his feet squarely under him now, Griffin gave a stiff gesture of introduction. “Palmer, you've met Miss Olivia Mouton. Olivia, I believe you've also met my associate—”

“We're acquainted,” his friend said with an inexplicably gleeful grin. He shoved the whiskey bottle at Griffin. “You might need this. Later.” He tipped his hat at Olivia. “Miss Mouton, I'm sorry, but I have a prior appointment. Goodbye.”

With that, Griffin's cowardly friend scampered from his suite. The door closed behind him, leaving Griffin and Olivia alone. He glanced at her...and wanted to touch her again.

Willfully, he clenched his fist instead. She could
not
make him want her just by being there. She couldn't. He refused.

And yet something in her demeanor gave him senseless hope. After all, he'd already learned not to underestimate her.

Did
she know what was necessary for him? he wondered. Did she know how desperately he wanted a way out of the darkness?

As though answering his unvoiced questions, Olivia came farther into his suite. She looked composed and intelligent and utterly desirable because of it. Her beauty moved him far less than her attitude did. He could not resist her irrepressible confidence—her assuredness that he was
not
beyond hope after all. Mere prettiness could never have been as seductive.

“It's been too long since you were here.” He gave a halfhearted wave at the mantelpiece. “The dust is piling up.”

He'd been unwilling to admit another, less maddening chambermaid. Olivia obviously knew that already, because her smile proved that he'd done it again. He'd underestimated her.

Damn it. She didn't believe his feigned nonchalance at all.

Typically, she had the grace not to belabor the issue, but instead got straight to her reason for coming.

“I can help you, Griffin.” She examined the remnants of his latest descent into the darkness—an empty whiskey bottle, shredded but unsmoked cigarillos, abandoned meals on trays that had been brought by Palmer Grant and summarily ignored. “Believe me. I can. But before I do, I want something from you.”

Her echo of his earlier words wasn't lost on him. It made him remember the encounter they'd shared—and the awful way it had ended, too. But in that moment, Griffin didn't care if Olivia had jerked away in revulsion at the sight of him two days ago. He didn't care if she'd misled him into friendliness and then lost her nerve.

All he cared about, in that moment, was that she was there.

Why couldn't he stop being so vulnerable? Griffin wondered irately. He'd done it when he'd first held her hand. He was doing it again now. He'd been a fool to begin trusting her. He was about to be a fool all over again. He just couldn't help it.

“Yes?” His voice croaked out, belying the fact that—just then—he would have given her anything. “What do you want?”

“Well,
eventually,
” Olivia began confidently, “I want to discuss philosophy with you. I've finished your book, and I'm very curious to know your opinions on Bentham's theories of utilitarianism and Rousseau's thoughts on direct democracy.”

He blinked...and fell a little in love with her on the spot.

Damn it. Why could he not resist her, even a smidgeon?

“I'll consider it,” he hedged. “But that's eventually,” he recalled her specifying a moment ago. “And first...?”

“First...” Olivia stopped near his place at the bed. She eyed its unkempt sheets as though remembering the first time she'd caught him in it. Her innocent, wide-eyed reaction to his under-the-bedclothes nudity had been memorable, to say the least. She drew in a breath. “I want to know why you can sweep so well.”

* * *

At her precisely voiced question, Griffin hesitated.

Then, to his still-tipsy surprise, he told Olivia everything. He omitted not a single detail. Rats, hunger pains, abuse from his mother, abandonment by his father... They were all in his past, so he told Olivia about them. He recounted them as though they'd happened to another boy, in another life, and he didn't feel much of anything at all while he did it.

He wasn't that boy anymore. He'd locked that door.

As a man, Griffin placed Olivia on the settee. As a man, he set down his whiskey and then took his place beside her. As a man, he disclosed the bareness of his life growing up in that Boston tenement. He did so without flinching, without bawling and without lapsing into needless sentimentality. He did so unsparingly. If Olivia grew hushed and wide-eyed and eventually—confusingly—teary eyed beside him, Griffin scarcely noticed.

He was performing a recitation. It was the only way.

Matter-of-factness saved him. It saved him from feeling. It saved him from acknowledging...everything. It had been difficult—surpassingly difficult—to survive those years. Not that such delineation mattered. After all,
now
was difficult, too.

When he'd nearly finished, Griffin became aware again of the dimness of the room, the nearness of Olivia and the rasp in his voice that he still couldn't shake. He'd never revealed so much to anyone before. He had never wanted to. At some point, he saw, Olivia had taken his hand. She squeezed his fingers.

Her touch looked like a blessing. But it felt like pity.

Unreasonably distraught over that sympathetic gesture, Griffin stared down at their joined hands. He wanted to believe Olivia's touch meant more. But he knew damn well that he could not.

“So that is how I learned to sweep,” he concluded. He gave her hand a final squeeze, then pulled away. “It's a shame your upbringing didn't leave you with any such useful skills.”

His joke failed to meet its mark. Olivia merely gazed at him with tears in her eyes. She glanced downward, appeared to realize that he'd withdrawn his hand then shook her head.