It seemed it could, Griffin marveled, and smiled afresh. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled twice in one day.
His pleasure only appeared to gall her further. “I wish I’d clobbered you with your breakfast tray. That’s what I wish!”
He offered a tsk, tsk of sham politeness. “Come now. That’s hardly the exemplary service The Lorndorff is known for.”
An unintelligible sound of frustration came from her. Oddly enough, Griffin liked it. He liked seeing her ladylike facade crumble. He liked knowing he could affect her. He liked...her.
The realization made Griffin falter.
He didn’t want this. He didn’t want her.
He’d come here to be alone. He’d set out to make his supposed “chambermaid” leave, not to become smitten with her. He was not a man who failed to achieve his objectives. Not anymore.
“That sort of outburst really does call for dismissal,” he reminded her. “You shouldn’t push a man like me too far.”
“Asking for an apology is not going ‘too far,’” she averred. “I insist you ask for Miss Holloway’s forgiveness.”
Impressed by her determination, he considered it. Then he came to his senses. “No. But you’re gutsy. I like that.”
She gawked. “You’re mad. But I should have expected that!”
Irately, her gaze whipped over his black clothes, his hat and his dark hair, as though their combined qualities entirely proved her assertion. Griffin figured they probably did, to most people. He wore black to avoid attention. He wore his hat to hide his face. He wore his hair long to distract from his hated nose. He’d done what he could, just as he’d sworn he would years ago, to make the world see a man when they looked at him.
He reckoned he’d done pretty well hiding the Turner curse. But this woman... She looked as if she saw every inch of badness in him. As if she saw him and didn’t approve of what he’d become.
Well, that made them even, then, didn’t it?
He’d become a man, it was true. But not a good man. Not entirely. He’d been counting on Mary to make that transformation complete. Now, though, Griffin was lost. Probably for good.
That made holing up at The Lorndorff a fine plan. The devil didn’t deserve a heavenly choir. Griffin Turner didn’t deserve sunshine and smiles and the friendly company of good people.
“I should have expected no better,” she declared, breaking into his ruminations, “from a man who would belittle a maid, manhandle a woman and offer a bribe, all before breakfast!”
Her outraged tone suggested that she actually objected to his actions, not his appearance. Griffin knew that could not be the case. It never was. Especially not while she was, at that very moment, avoiding looking him straight in the face—avoiding looking at his nose. Avoiding looking at pitiable Hook Turner.
His temper flared. This was why he needed to be alone.
“If you’re hoping to be ‘manhandled,’ as you say, you’ve come to the wrong room,” he informed her coolly. “I’m not interested in empty-headed women with nothing more on their minds than posing prettily and being paid handsomely for it.”
“‘Empty-headed’?” She gawked at him. “You dare call me—”
“Although you did help sell thousands of bottles of that complexion concoction,” Griffin went on smoothly. “I hear it’s even more successful than Lydia E. Pinkham’s tonic. I offer you my congratulations, miss, from one entrepreneur to another.”
Sardonically, he offered her a sharp salute.
She did not appreciate the gesture. “You gravely misunderstand me, Mr. Turner. Worse, you underestimate me.”
“No.” He contemplated it. “I don’t believe I do.”
“I am more than an image on a bottle!”
“Really? What else are you?”
Rather than answer him, she paced. Then she whirled, sending her skirts swaying. “You truly are beyond the pale.”
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
“What else am I? I’m unimpressed with you, that’s what else I am. You’re hopelessly rude. Purposely boorish—”
“I’ve been deemed much worse.” By my own mother, for one. “Although not by anyone as wholesome as you.” He gave a civil nod. “I’ll take your attentiveness as a compliment.”
“Don’t. All I want from you is a bit of contrition.”
“Ah. You’re angling for an apology for yourself now, too?”
“You are the one who’s empty-headed, Mr. Turner, if you believe I would ask for an apology for myself.”
“You only crusade on behalf of your friends?”
“It’s not a crusade.” She gave him an uncomfortably comprehending look—one he didn’t care for much. “It’s decency. Something you’re not on very close terms with, evidently.”
But Griffin knew that already. She couldn’t hurt him by pointing out the truth, any more than she could wound him by asserting grass was green. He hauled in a breath, intending to tell her so. “I’m sorry,” he surprised himself by saying.
Her eyes widened in surprise. But she didn’t speak.
“That’s not good enough for you?” he groused, unaccountably piqued by her unsatisfying reaction to his concession. “You want a prettier apology than that? I don’t have one for you.”
“Mr. Turner.” Delicately, she placed her hand on his arm. He realized, to his unwelcome dismay, that he didn’t know her name—and, to his further consternation, that he wanted to. “An apology isn’t only for the person who receives it. It’s also for the person who gives it. It’s for the person who needs to see what he’s done...and to try his hardest not to do it again.”
Griffin frowned. Would she never quit saying things that confounded him? Something about her made him feel that she had...something...he needed. Something important and inexplicable.
Something he shouldn’t allow himself to have.
“You shouldn’t casually touch a man like me,” he warned in a low voice. “Especially when you’re alone with him in his private hotel suite, and he’s still a little drunk.”
“Drunk?” She peered at him. “That explains a great deal.”
It didn’t explain enough, Griffin knew as he moved beyond her reach to stand nearby. It didn’t explain why he’d apologized to her...except that he’d felt a cad for not doing so. In the past decade, few people had roused a true sense of remorse in him.
That she had was all the more reason to avoid her.
“Don’t make excuses for me,” he said. “You’ll regret it.”
“I doubt it,” she disagreed with surprising sanguinity. “Folks generally live up to people’s expectations of them.”
“Or down. I’ll likely stay drunk for weeks to come.”
“Is that your plan? Is that why you’ve come here?”
“No. I came here to confide all my secrets to a suitably nosy chambermaid.” He gave her a deliberately bland look. “I’m lucky you’re here. You’re exactly what I need.”
Her uncomfortable expression told him all he needed to know. She was no more a chambermaid than he was a saint.
“You’re making fun