Oliver’s eyebrow shot up to his hairline.
“I had been standing outside this room for nearly fifteen minutes.” She paused then and looked around her before locking eyes with Oliver. She pushed a glass paper weight off the desk where it smashed into a hundred pieces. After contemplating the pieces of glass on the floor, she continued.
“This was the room where we found him, you know. Right there, under your feet.”
Oliver brought his feet up immediately and looked at the wooden floorboards expecting, what, blood, to still be there?
“Don’t worry. It has been thoroughly cleaned so there is little chance of you catching anything… deadly.” She pulled out a drawer and tipped its contents onto the floor. “He would have hated this. Disorder was his enemy, among other things.”
“Including you?”
She nodded. “Including me.”
“Then he’ll probably be rolling over in his grave just like he deserves,” Oliver replied, stepping overthe spot, and propped a hip on the end of the desk. “Think he’d like me sittin’ on his desk? No? Good! Now, what else can we do to upset him? Shall we have some fun at his expense, Countess?”
Lisbeth looked at him, so handsome, so alive, so aggravating, and somehow… also wonderful. She realized that she had been the one that had involved him in her nightmare. If she had just left him on her steps he would have gone home, eventually, and she could have spared him all this.
He didn’t deserve to have to put up with her and yet she needed him, now more than ever. He was somewhat endearing, she had to admit. Most men would have simply walked out at the first sign of tears, not to mention the scene she had just put on.
She should have known it would affect her so strongly, coming in here. Shehadknown, which was why she had found it so difficult to open the door herself. Her reaction wasregrettable. If Nathaniel was rolling in his grave over her abuse of his study now, then he would have been laughing up a storm in hell to have seen her earlier.
“Yes, let’s,” she replied, knocking an inkwell to the floor.
He laughed, strolling around the room. He toppled some books off a small table by the window.
They continued in this fashion until the floor was littered with books and other assorted bits and pieces. Every picture was put off-kilter and when it was all done Lisbeth looked at the small mantel clock and then at Oliver.
“I think you should do it,” he said.
“But it was his father’s.”
“He’s hardly going to be worried about it, is he? Besides, isn’t that even more reason to do it?”
She knocked the clock off the shelf and stepped back as it smashed to the wooden floor, springs and cogs flying every which way. And it did feel good. It felt very good. She wiped her hands together and regarded her partner in crime.
“Well done!” he praised. “There is perhapsonemore thing you should do before we end this.”
“Oh?”
He nodded towards the door. “Call off your watch dogs. They are no doubt standing in the hall ready to attack me with soup ladles and feather dusters.”
Shaking her head she repeated, “Soup ladles and feather dusters?”
“I suppose you would rather pitchforks and fire pokers?” Oliver pretended to be deeply offended but was happy to see a slight smile around the corners of her rather lovely lips. Could it be that they were finally on the same side? That perhaps he would begin to know the Lisbeth of BC—Before Carslake?
He was a little disappointed when Rollands knocked on the door a minute later and entered with a tray of brandy, closelyfollowed by Mrs. Rollands with another tray containing a teapot and cups and some little cakes.
Rollands made a jolly good show of not noticing the state of the room as he placed the tray on the now clear desktop, unlike his wife whose eyes grew huge at the sight of the mess. She immediately looked Lisbeth over for any signs of mistreatment. Typical that she would think the worst of him but, upon reflection, he could perhaps understand their reaction. The pair retreated, leaving him alone again with her.
She poured herself a cup of tea and then smiled at him over the rim of her teacup as she sipped.
Lisbeth Carslake, Countess of Blackhurst was more an enigma to him now than ever.
She intrigued and fascinated him, and he couldn’t wait to know her better.
Chapter Twelve
Oliver rolled overand tried to smother himself with his pillow. It didn’t work. Then he kicked off his blankets and lay there letting his body cool. Why could he not stop thinking about Lisbeth?
