Griffin understood his friend’s reasoning, but he bloody well didn’t have to like it. He opened the door to his study and slammed it behind them. He stalked over to mix Noah a drink. His friend arched an eyebrow at his emotional reaction before sinking into one of the plush leather chairs.
Griffin smashed the tumbler down on the side board. “Damn her job. She shouldn’t have to sell herself like some kind of…”
“Hey!” Noah interrupted, half-rising from his chair to clench his fists. “Audrey is a good agent, but she isn’t a whore. You would do well not to forget that in either my presence or hers.”
Griffin barely held back a curse. Again, he’d been comparing Audrey to his late wife, but he had no right to do so.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“I don’t care what you meant or didn’t mean.” Noah snatched the drink Griffin offered. “Why the hell does her work matter to you so much anyway?”
Griffin downed his drink in one swig. Did he have an answer for that question? Certainly not a satisfying one. “She’s an old… friend. I don’t want to see her hurt.”
“Hmmm,” Noah muttered. “Just be sure your ‘protectiveness’ isn’t what ends up hurting her in the end, old man, or you’ll have to deal with me. Because I fear
With that, Noah put his empty glass on Griffin’s desk and strode out of the office. Griffin stared at his friend’s retreating back. What could he have meant by that remark? There was no way Griffin could harm Audrey because it was plain she felt nothing for him anymore.
And that was all the better for both of them.
Chapter Four
Audrey shivered while she watched from Griffin’s big picture window as Douglas Ellison strode toward his own townhouse just a few steps away. He walked like a man who had staked his claim on life.
She let the curtain drop and grimaced. Ellison believed he owned the world and would soon own her. Both thoughts were disturbing.
Not that Ellison had behaved in any untoward fashion when it came to her. At least, not yet. In Avonblithe he’d courted her respectably, and even though he’d sat too close to her for her own comfort a moment before, he hadn’t touched her in a way that made it clear that he wished to ravish her. But by the desire that muddied his pale gray eyes to charcoal, she knew that was exactly what he wanted to do.
“Yuck,” she muttered as she scrubbed a hand over her face.
“My curtains bother you so much?”
She spun around to find Griffin leaning against the doorway with a half-smile.
“Because if you hate them, I’ll have them removed immediately.” He straightened up to take two long strides into the room.
“The curtains are fine,” she said, laughing though the sound was shrill. “Trust that nothing about you or your home would ever make me react that way.”
“Then what is it that bothers you so much?”
“I was actually looking
“Ellison,” he said under his breath, his teasing tone suddenly deathly serious.
There was no use in lying. “Yes.”
Pivoting to face him, she found he’d stepped even closer and was now mere inches from her. Reaching out, he took her hand.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
Until that moment, he hadn’t touched her bare skin. Gloves had always been a thin barrier of protection between them. But now the heat of his hand warmed hers, his palm rough beneath hers, and his grip strong, but gentle.
Struggling to maintain her calm, she said, “Because so much has been lost already. One agent is dead because of Ellison and his accomplices. He had a family and was a good man. If I do my duty perhaps I can prevent more pain and injury.”
She slid away from him to put distance between them. She needed it.
“I know about pain and injury,” he said. “But I know about risk, as well. Whatever you’ll prevent… is it worth the price you’re paying right now?”
She grimaced. Griffin was thinking of the little baby son he’d never know and the wife he loved so much. His loss was much greater than anything she could fathom.
She blinked back sudden tears. “Oh, Griffin. How I wish I could have prevented your pain. How I wish I could restore what you’ve lost in your child and your wife.”
For a brief moment he looked away. When he turned back, Audrey was surprised to see no emotion in his dark eyes. He’d hardened his face just as expertly as any agent for the Crown would have done.
“You tried to prevent the pain I went through,” he said softly. “Once you tried to warn me…” He shook his head as if he hadn’t meant to voice those words. “But that doesn’t matter now.”
Audrey tilted her head. What he had planned to say before he censored himself?
“Griffin, you would have made a wonderful father,” she whispered, compelled to comfort him, even as he withdrew into some dark place in his soul. A place where he didn’t want her intrusion.
A strangled noise in his throat was Griffin’s only answer before he turned his back and took several steps away from her. She ached to wrap her arms around him and hold him. Instead she cautiously followed and placed her hand on his arm.
At her touch, Griffin turned to look down at her. They were too close, he just inches away, her hand gripping the muscles of his lower arm. She didn’t know what he would do, and it seemed neither did he. Finally, he reached out and placed his hand on top of hers.
“I suppose we’ll never know that now, will we?” he choked out before he slipped away from her to pause at the door. “Luci made sure of it.”
Audrey froze as she watched him stand there and battle with his emotions. What was going on? Something had apparently been amiss between Lucinda and Griffin before her death. Audrey wanted to ask about it, to have him take her into his confidence.
But that would be a mistake. She hadn’t come to London to chase away Griffin’s demons or even her own. She was there to catch a killer. It would be best to get back to that and forget her dreams.
“Griffin?”
“Yes?” Naked need darkened his face. It was almost as if he
“I… Don’t forget the Covent Garden Opera is tomorrow.” It was so hard to ignore the opportunity he’d given her to glimpse his soul. “Douglas Ellison will be accompanying us and sitting in your box.”
For a moment he didn’t move, just held her in a heated stare that made her feel like an animal in a cage. Then he sighed. “I remember, Audrey. I’ll be ready.”
He turned down the hallway and disappeared from sight. She heard his long, steady stride until he was far away and she was alone. It was only then she realized her hands trembled.
***
Griffin stifled a groan as the footman pulled back the curtain on his opulent box and allowed him into the seating area of Covent Garden Opera House. The room was packed, brimming with the cream of Europe for this first public event of the Jubilee. The heat was already unbearable and the noise was worse.
What was he doing here? The last thing he needed or wanted was to be surrounded by the tittering, posing masses of the
