Price of Desire Read online

  Olivia closed the door and leaned against it. There was nothing for it but that she would have to meet her visitors. She might fear what they would say to her, but she had to hear it nevertheless.

  Returning to the cheval glass, Olivia made the adjustments to her hair that she had been too weary—no, too discouraged—to make earlier. Fixing the combs in their proper position did not greatly improve her appearance, but at least she no longer looked as if she’d just tumbled out of bed. In truth, she’d never been to it, having spent the night sitting in a chair by the fireplace with her feet resting on a hassock.

  Olivia applied a bit of powder to her nose and made a swipe under her eyes. The bruised look was marginally erased. She pinched her cheeks to good effect and pressed her lips together to raise a modicum of color.

  Her nostrils flared slightly as she took a deep breath. Releasing it slowly, she pronounced herself fit enough to greet strangers, though in no wise of a mood to converse at length. She hoped these runners—if that’s what they were—had come without expectations.

  Although she approached the drawing room as she imagined the wrongfully condemned approached the gallows, upon opening the door Olivia managed a gracious though somewhat grave smile.

  “Gentlemen,” she said easily, “I am consumed with curiosity as to your presence in my home. I hope you mean to enlighten me quickly as I am obliged to visit Lady Fontanelle for elevenses.”

  Neither man spoke for a moment, although they did exchange unreadable glances. Olivia was not at all certain Mrs. Beck was correct in her estimation that they were from Bow Street. For one thing, they dressed rather better than the runners she’d seen mingling with crowds at Vauxhall Gardens or strolling in and around Drury Lane after the theatres released their patrons. These gentlemen wore clothing cut from a different cloth; frock coats that looked as if they’d been tailored to fit comfortably on broader shoulders, waistcoats that did not hang too loosely nor strain the fabric around Corinthian physiques.

  The gentlemen were of an age and attitude that reminded her of Alastair. It occurred to her that they might be his intimates, though caution kept her from advancing this assumption.

  “Mrs. Cole.” The gentleman with russet-colored hair and a nose that looked to have been broken, perhaps several times, made a slight bow as he stepped forward to separate himself from his companion. “I am Stephen Fairley. I was instructed most particularly to speak to you.”

  Olivia wondered how that could be. He was under the misapprehension that she was Mrs. Cole. She did not correct him. “And so you are, Mr. Fairley.” She glanced in the direction of his partner. “You, sir? Were you similarly instructed?”

  “I was. Patrick Varah, Mrs. Cole.” Mr. Varah’s clipped blond hair fell across his sloping brow as he bent his head to make his introduction.

  Olivia had no intention of making them easy in her presence. She certainly was not easy in theirs. Crossing the room to the small tea table near the fireplace, she deliberately chose a path that forced her visitors to make way for her. Divide and conquer, she reasoned, was always a wise course, even if the effect was short-lived.

  “Please state your purpose,” she said, turning on them.

  “It’s thought that you’ll already have some notion of that,” Mr. Fairley said carefully. “But I was told that if it must be refined upon, I should say that we’ve come on the matter of a certain emerald ring and a debt of considerable consequence.”

  Olivia was glad of her foresight to put the table at her side. By placing her right hand on the polished cherrywood top, she was able to keep herself upright. “I see,” she murmured. No other response occurred to her. Her mind had become a perfect blank slate.

  “You’ll want to fetch your pelisse and bonnet,” Mr. Varah told her. “Gloves, also. The air is bracing. I shouldn’t be surprised if it snows this afternoon.” When she didn’t move, he prompted rather gently, “You understand we’ve come for you, don’t you? It’s expected that you’ll return with us.”

  She nodded once, slowly, though there was no real comprehension behind the movement. Her head ached abominably.

  Mr. Fairley took a small step toward her, one hand raised as though to offer support. “Perhaps you should sit.” He glanced at his companion. “It cannot hurt to wait for her to recover her wits.”

  In other circumstances, Olivia would have taken umbrage with Mr. Fairley’s characterization of her as witless. The sad truth of the matter, she reflected, was that he had named the thing correctly. When Mr. Varah slipped a claw-and-ball-footed chair behind her knees, she dropped like a stone. The gentlemen hovered momentarily, uncertain, then backed away. She drew a deep, settling breath.

  “Rest easy, sirs. I have no intention of fainting.” She glanced up in time to witness their relief. Clearly they were not prepared for any reaction from her save for acceptance and cooperation. It made her wish she were given to brief moments of blissful unconsciousness just to test their mettle. High drama did not suit her either, so there would be no wailing or wringing her hands. She resisted even the small urge to press one hand to her forehead, thinking it was precisely the sort of gesture that was overdone on the stage to convey moments of great anxiety.

  “I must know about Alastair,” she said quietly. “The ring means nothing, the debt less than nothing, if you cannot tell me how he fares.”

  Mr. Fairley cleared his throat, betraying his discomfort. “I can say, quite truthfully I promise you, that when last I saw your husband he was having a run of good luck at cards and in fine spirits.”

  Olivia could not divine the exact meaning of that. It seemed to her there was a greater truth that Stephen Fairley was neatly sidestepping. The phrase “in fine spirits” resonated with her, prompting her to wonder if Alastair had been deep in his cups. “You are not from Bow Street, are you?”

  “Certainly not,” Fairley said, bristling slightly at the suggestion.

  As if to ward off a similar insult aimed at him, Mr. Varah interjected, “We are friends of your husband, come to do him a favor.”

  “I doubt that,” Olivia said.

  Fairley offered an alternative description. “Amiable acquaintances. I could not say whether your husband counts any man as his friend.”

  Olivia pressed her lips together and nodded briefly, satisfied Mr. Fairley was in every way more accurate than his companion. “I imagine you play cards at the same table now and again. Mayhap place wagers on the horses.”

  “Yes.”

  Taking this in, Olivia tightened the hands folded in her lap. “Did you know him at Cambridge?”

  “I did,” said Varah. “Fairley here was an Oxford man.”

  “He told you he was married?” asked Olivia.

  “Never breathed a word of it, Mrs. Cole. Fairley and I only learned of it this morning when we were called upon to perform this small service.”

  “A service, is it? No longer a favor?”

  “It can be both,” Fairley said. “And it is. I hope you will believe me when I say that your cooperation will be of considerable benefit to your husband. I imagine it is the very thing he is counting on.”

  Olivia made no reply and allowed silence to settle heavily around her. She drew a modicum of comfort from it as though it were as tangible as the shawl about her shoulders.

  After several long moments, Mr. Varah tread lightly into the quiet, tipping his head toward the door. “We should be off, Mrs. Cole. Shall I ring for the housekeeper? You really must dress for the weather. The hack can provide but a thin shield from the wind.”

  Stoic and graceful, Olivia stood. She forbade to answer Mr. Varah but crossed the room and rang for Mrs. Beck herself. She made no attempt to leave their company in order to prepare for her departure. It occurred to her that she would not tolerate well the humiliation of not being allowed out of their sight. Mr. Fairley and Mr. Varah had been unfailingly well mannered, but she did not mistake that it meant they trusted her. Indeed, she suspected they had been cautioned against
it.

  For Olivia it was further proof they did not comprehend the nature of her relationship with Alastair. Far from desiring to bolt, she was prepared to surrender herself in whatever manner was required. Alastair would have known that; whoever sent Fairley and Varah did not.

  The ride in the hack was rather more brief than Olivia anticipated, lasting not above thirty minutes. She thought it probably seemed much longer to her companions, or at least she hoped that it did. Since leaving the comparative safety of her home, Olivia fancied Varah and Fairley were proving to be more like gargoyles than guards. They sat stonily on either side of her, crowding her with their shoulders and elbows and making no allowance for the fact that she was already occupying very little in the way of space. She ignored the hammering of her heart and tightness in her throat and told herself she was glad of the warmth their proximity provided.

  Something good could come of something bad.

  She held this thought, as she often did, until she believed it was so.

  “What is this place?” Olivia asked, confronting a row of houses as she alighted from the hack. She stiffened a bit as she came to the answer herself. In the light of day there was nothing to obscure the genteel shabbiness of the street or the residences that lined it. The gray stone houses might have been home to gentry half a century earlier, but they were let out as business establishments now. Twin lanterns fitted with red glass were affixed to more than one dark entrance. Curtains were drawn while the occupants of those houses slept on, oblivious to the late hour of the morning.

  Glancing on either side of her, Olivia saw that she and her escorts were alone. The hired hack was the only one of its sort on the street. Its noisy approach was probably most unwelcome even as the time was nearing eleven.

  She imagined—and she had experience enough to imagine it well—that with a bank of fog rolling up from the river and the forgiving cloak of night, this particular street might present itself as infinitely more appealing, certainly more exciting. Gentlemen about town, especially young gentlemen, would gravitate to this place, called here by the intrigue of something illicit, the hope of something winning, and the promise of something adventurous. If they were fortunate, Olivia supposed, they would leave wiser for the experience without having to explain away the pox to their wives, empty pockets to their creditors, or the lump on their head to their physicians. All of that and more was to be had on a street like this when day gave itself over to night.

  Olivia actually sighed, holding up one hand to stave off Mr. Fairley’s answer to her question. “It is of no import,” she said. “I can’t think that it matters where we are. One enterprise is very like another.”

  Fairley looked pained. “That’s not quite so, Mrs. Cole, but it’s not for me to explain. We’re not much more than a well-pitched stone from Covent Garden. We’re standing in Putnam Lane off Moorhead Street.” He pointed to the unremarkable gray stone townhouse directly in front of them. “This is Breckenridge’s establishment. If it has another name, I’ve never learned it.”

  “Pray, Mr. Fairley, how much information would you have felt compelled to impart if I had shown the least interest?” Olivia was gratified to see Stephen Fairley flush at her rebuke. It was a modest sign that she was regaining the use of her faculties.

  Varah paid the driver and waved him on. “This way, Mrs. Cole. Mind the steps. I see a glaze.”

  Olivia ignored the elbow he offered but took his advice to be careful. Mr. Fairley, she noticed, hung back a little. She hoped he was still stinging from her reproach. She swept past Mr. Varah when he threw open the door for her.

  The entrance hall was lighted by a single stub of a candle in a wall sconce. It provided enough light for Olivia to avoid bumping into a table set just inside the door but was insufficient to prevent her from catching the toe of her boot on the fringed carpet and stumbling into the newell post. Straightening, she discreetly massaged her hip and fended off Mr. Varah’s concern.

  The air was stale with the lingering scents of tobacco, alcohol, perfume, sweat, and something oddly sweet that she could not identify. A second sniff assured her that she did not want to apply herself to making that discovery.

  When 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.”