The Price of Desire. Jo Goodman

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      Olivia appreciated that her second and third day in the gaming hell proceeded uneventfully. Mason escorted her on a walk twice each day, making certain that she went unmolested. He was not given to many words and after she had exhausted the topics of weather, Malthus, and the butler’s frustrating, ultimately fruitless search for a suitable maid for her, there was nothing he cared to talk about.

      The snow ceased to fall on the second afternoon. As much as she had appreciated it, she was concerned that it would delay Alastair’s return. If he meant to return at all. That niggling thought would not be permanently quelled. She hated that the viscount must be thinking it also. He had to have already calculated the length of the journey Alastair would make to reach Sir Hadrien as well as the time it would require. Sir Hadrien detested town and spent almost the whole of the year at his estate in Sussex. With no mishaps, she could expect Alastair to be gone at least five days. If their father proved difficult—and it was almost a given that he would—it seemed unlikely that her brother could return before a full sennight had passed.

      She finished the essays by Malthus and began Brown’s. Soon after she mentioned to Mason that it might be pleasant to write down her own thoughts on the philosophy of the human mind, Foster appeared at her door bearing paper, quills, and a full bottle of ink. The small table he’d procured for her earlier so that she might take her meals in comfort also served well as a desk. She wasn’t sure what she might put to paper concerning philosophy, but she heard enough coming from the floor below each evening to venture some thoughts about the human mind.

      On the evening of her fourth day, Olivia had a surprise waiting for her when she returned from her late outing with Mr. Mason. It had not occurred to her during the walk that the valet’s rather jovial mood—which regarding Mason meant that he tipped his hat and ventured a smile when he greeted her—had anything to do with his knowledge of what would be taking place during their brief absence.

      Immediately upon her arrival at the threshold to her room, she knew something was different. She could quite literally smell it in the air. The breath she drew was changed by the scent of lavender and moist with steam from—could it truly be?—the water-filled hip bath.

      Olivia had been so moved by this gift, knowing what pains had been taken to haul so much heated water to the tub, that she was possessed by the urge to throw her arms about Mr. Mason’s shoulders and plant a kiss on his cheek. Had she given into the impulse it would have been a novel experience for both of them, but her own natural restraint was reinforced when Mason, having some sense of how she might be moved to express her gratitude, cautiously stepped back out of arm’s reach.

      As she thought about it later, a smile tugged at Olivia’s lips. She slipped lower in the tub. She doubted Breckenridge had ever known an urge to hug his valet.

      In the end she had never properly thanked Mr. Mason. Although she felt as if she were dancing in place with excitement, she had in fact simply stood in the doorway unmoving. What she offered him was a watery smile, hardly an adequate demonstration of the gratitude that was in her heart.

      The scent of lavender rose deliciously from the bath as Olivia stirred the water with her fingertips. She tried to imagine whose idea it had been to add bath salts. Similarly, someone had thought to line the copper tub with linens. Sitting almost shoulder deep in warm and fragrant water was as decadent a luxury as she had known.

      Olivia picked up a sponge and sliver of soap and made a lather that she applied to her arms. She set her mind once again to wondering at the origin of the salts and linens. Owing to the fact that she was a curiosity, she’d had brief contact with most of the staff. It wasn’t that a woman had never stayed in the gaming hell that made her an unusual guest and the subject of speculation. It was the mystery surrounding her presence that created the stir.

      Mrs. Christie, the woman whom Breckenridge had named as a friend, Olivia had learned was a frequent visitor to the hell but only occasionally remained there until morning. That she was his lordship’s mistress was understood, and the servants, Beetle most particularly, let such words drop that Olivia came to understand it as well.

      Her own connection to the viscount was not a matter of easy comprehension for the household staff, especially as Breckenridge had nothing at all to do with her. Except for Mr. Mason, who knew the truth of it and wasn’t sharing, everyone else was left to wonder.

      It amused her to think that the bath, the salts, and linens may all have been in aid of softening her own defenses so that she might answer their questions rather than have so many of her own. She had it from Wick that there was a small, friendly wager among the servants as to the nature of her presence in the gaming hell. The hypothesis that currently curried the most favor was that she was in fact a relation to his lordship, a distant cousin whose lack of marriage prospects and financial straits were an embarrassment to the family. Apparently she had been thrust upon Breckenridge as a punishment of sorts to both of them.

      Olivia thought that if she’d had only one shilling to her name, she still would have been moved to place it in support of that particular theory. It seemed a more likely turn than what she knew the truth to be.

      Olivia kept at the puzzle of the salts and linens while she washed and rinsed her hair, regretting for the first time that she did not have Dillon’s help with the task. The most likely candidate to have contributed the additional amenities was Beetle, she decided. The boy had informed her by way of making conversation that his mother was a whore at Mrs. Tittle’s fine house here in Putnam Lane. From the way he’d told her, she gathered it was an establishment of some renown, popular with a certain set of privileged gentlemen. Beetle had been wont to impress upon her the elegant fashion of the place. It was turned out as well, on the inside at least, as Breckenridge’s own establishment.

      Although the salts and linens probably had been lifted by Beetle СКАЧАТЬ