for your safety. Even if there was no question that you would return, he would not have allowed you to walk the streets alone.”
Olivia freed one hand and lifted it to indicate the street ahead of them and the small park beyond. “It cannot have escaped your notice that there is almost no one about.”
“It is not a risk worth taking, Miss Cole. There are footpads alert to opportunity at any hour of the day.”
“And I am worth £1,000.” She looked at him sideways, wondering if she had misspoken. “You were aware of that, weren’t you?”
“I was. His lordship told me. You needn’t be concerned that it is common knowledge among the staff. It is yet another reason why I was chosen to act as your escort. You will find that Lord Breckenridge values discretion.”
“I see.” Olivia stepped over a mound of snow that had been pushed street side. Ahead of her an eddy of snow was lifted into the air. “How long have you been in his employ?”
“He was still in short pants.”
“Long ago as that?”
“I was his father’s man then.”
“His father’s dead?”
“Almost ten years now.”
She felt oddly dismayed to hear of it, though why that should be so she couldn’t say. “So young.”
“For both of them,” Mason said. “One too young to die; the other too young to take the mantle.”
When Olivia looked askance at Mr. Mason, she saw that he seemed surprised that he’d spoken so openly. She watched him press his lips together and knew there would be little else forthcoming. She ducked her head against the wind while he clamped one hand on his hat and used the other to raise his scarf to the level of his nose. With his mouth so effectively covered, they continued on just as if no words had ever passed between them.
Griffin waited until afternoon before he called upon Mrs. Christie. Nothing had been settled between them last evening. She had thwarted his every effort to end the affair. Because their confrontation had taken place at such a late hour, Griffin had not pressed his argument forcefully. Rather than utter sentiments that he still hoped might be left unsaid, he’d allowed her to believe she had won the day and his affections for that much longer.
He entertained no doubts that Mrs. Christie thought she had secured as much as another month under his protection. She set that much stock in her persuasive powers. To be fair, she had not tried to seduce him, though whether she thought she was punishing him or had correctly divined that his ardor for her had cooled he had no way of knowing. What she had done was to put forth the notion that she was his partner in business, that their association transcended the mere physical, and that her presence each night in his establishment was critical to his continued success.
He’d been struck by the complete conviction with which she set forth her argument and could think of 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,