Her lips, they were so soft and plump, like a feast for a starving man. Her magnetic blue eyes could burn a man’s soul, and he would gladly die in the inferno. Her breasts… yes, her breasts could burst a man’s blood vessels, and still he would smile while bleeding.
Lisbeth, Beth, Lizzy. He chuckled. She’d hate being called Lizzy—he should try it on her sometime.
He was asking for trouble.
He was doomed!
He was ten types of a fool to feel like this about her. The worst being: stupid fool, idiotic fool, insane fool, and of course, bloody fool. He was sure there were more than ten types and if so he would still fall into whatever category they might represent. Ashton could probably come up with fifty but that was because he would find perverse pleasure in reciting them to him one by one, probably for days on end—without a breath.
He had to keep Lisbeth on a shorter rein. Huh!Add, naive fool to the list, if you please, Ashton.
If he had learned anything in the last couple of weeks, it was the Countess of Blackhurst was a determined little baggage.
He got up, washed, and dressed for the day, but his mind was full of the woman with the incredible eyes. Eyes that could make one suffer both pain and desire.
He was so confused, especially after yesterday. Now he knew there was so much more to her story, and damn if he didn’t want to read the whole book. Her cold beauty masked a woman who had endured more than her share of ugliness. He understood masks. He wore one too, but now he felt like his reasons were far more trivial than hers.
He took on the façade of one who was in control, who cared little for financial matters, like he did not have a huge debt and potential failure looming above him. He wanted to make Henry proud, make his parents proud. He wanted to prove he could come rising out of the ashes of this financial debacle like a phoenix rising—wings spread wide and ready to fly once more.
Oliver was determined he would not put his aunt through the scandal of having his pecuniary state exposed to all and sundry. If he could just pay back the bank and show that he was capable of repaying his debts, he may have some hope to rebuild his legacy. He was under no illusion; it would take years to gain any real profit from his estates. He would just fade into the shadows of thetonand reside in the country until he felt he was worthy to take a wife.
A wife!Where had that come from?
Oliver moved from the window overlooking the road below and sat behind his brother’s large desk. Lord, he missed his old life. Gaining his title had lost him more than just his brother. He’d lost his sense of being something useful, his sense of control. It was a sad state of affairs.
His position as a code breaker underScovellhad been an important but unglamorous position, but because he had shown skill in the fighting arts, he’d been assigned under Captain Markham, writing or breaking a coded message by splutteringcandlelight at midnight. It was how he’d reunited with Ashton. It was because of Ashton that Oliver had become an unofficial member ofThe Ring, a small network of specialty agents who work for the King.
He laughed remembering Lisbeth’s whispered words of confusion when she couldn’t make head or tail of his list at Costello’s musicale. Only a handful of people in all of England could read the code. However, that part of his life was over and now here he was, in his brother’s house, surrounded by things that were not his and never should have been.
Picking up Lisbeth’s little pistol, he glared at it as if it represented his life—shiny and impressive on the outside but empty and useless on the inside. He’d been furious upon finding the gun was neither loaded nor primed. The worst she could have done with it was hit him over the head. He put it in the box that held her sketches. He had looked at those sketches too many times to count but it seemed a fitting place to put her puny pistol. Picking up his coded note from Ashton he deciphered.
Client wants you to dig deeper, get closer. He warns not to fall for her manipulations and falsehoods. There are many who would take matters into their own hands. Beware.
I would like you to bring Lady Blackhurst to my sister’s coming out ball. My mother and Warrington have agreed. I want to meet her. Make sure she attends.
Ashton.
Oliver stood, threw the missive into the fire, and wiped a hand down his face. He had hoped Ashton’sclientwould give up on this madness. Obviously not. He knew things looked bad for Lisbeth, especially considering what had come to light yesterday regarding her marriage to Blackhurst. She had every motivation to kill the bastard. But then, so did a dozen more—including his own dear departed brother. What a mess this was all turning out to be.
Returning to his brother’s desk, he picked up Lady Blackhurst’s schedule—Mozart’sDon Giovanniat the opera. It looked like her grandmother came through after all.
*
Oliver. Lisbeth couldnot stop thinking about him. Part of her didn’t want to but she couldn’t help it. The way he had held her, whispered those ridiculous endearments in her ear, and helped her vent some of her anger on Nathaniel’s study was something she would always be grateful for.
She felt her face flush red at the thought of what had happened in Nathaniel’s study. Such an embarrassing display would have made most men run for their lives and not stop until they hit Portsmouth and yet Oliver had stayed. Not only stayed but comforted her and asked for nothing in return. It was strange.
Stranger still, he had not even tried to kiss her. It was unlike him not to at least try. It was unlike her to be disappointed by the fact, but she was. She wanted Oliver to kiss her. She had thought she would never want to kiss another man, not ever, not after Nathaniel. So this was quite a revelation.
She picked up her quill and let the feathered end whisper across her cheek. She wondered briefly if Oliver had inherited his strong jaw line from his mother or his father’s side of the family. Were his warm chocolate eyes a Whitely trait? Henry had brown eyes too from memory, but she could not remember him specifically. He may have looked similar to Oliver, but her memory of his brother eluded her.
She heard the knock and glanced up to see Rollands come into the room.
“Is it strange, Rollands, to want to know everything about him?” she asked when he deposited her afternoon post on the table.
“About who, my lady?”
“Bellamy, of course.”
