She was startled by his answer and relieved at the same time. “Well, that is praise enough for me. However, I think he will not take me on as friend until I have somehow proven myself.” Like she’d had to do constantly with everyone she had met lately, including Oliver.
“You prove yourself every day,” Oliver said, taking her hand in his and pressing a small kiss to her palm. “It is only a matter of time before he adores you too.”
Adores me too?“To you maybe, not to the masses that still believe me guilty of heinous crimes of murder and mayhem. I have to find Nathaniel’s killer; it is the only way they will ever believe me. We have ruled out many from my list but there has to be someone who might know something.”
“What if the killer is not even one of theton? Maybe it was a hired thug?”
Lisbeth sighed. It seemed so easy for him to dismiss her concerns. It was not his life that had been ruined by a wrongful accusation. “Nathaniel let him in. He would not have done that unless he knew him or had invited him there in the first place. I don’t have time to speculate on other theories; believe me, I’ve thought this through quite thoroughly. The season ends in a week or so and thetonwill start leaving for the country. We must concentrate on the clues we have. The list grows smaller but not small enough. We need something solid.”
“I could enlist Tony’s help. He is prodigiously clever at searching out the truth.”
Lisbeth gasped. “He knows? What have you told him, Bellamy?” Her voice was soft in the garden, but it was laced with anger.
“I haven’t told him… much,” Oliver confessed looking only a little contrite.
She gasped. “Oliver! You know how I feel about this. How could you?” She wanted to throttle him.
“I just bandied some names around and asked him what he thought, that’s all.”
“And what, pray tell, did he say?” She was finding it hard to contain her anger.
“Not a lot. He said he may have some information for us, but he wants to verify it first. He would never tell me something he was not sure of. And he does not know the reason behind my request.”
“I wish you had kept him out of my business, Bellamy!” She stood up and took a step away from him. “He is not a fool; he will surely figure out what we are up to in no time. It is little wonder he was looking at me strangely, like he was trying to read my mind.”
“No, that would be his normal look,” Oliver replied with a smile.
She did not smile back.
He walked over to her and turned her towards him. “I did what I thought needed to be done. We were not finding what we needed going on as we are and as you said we are running out of time. He’s a professional, Lisbeth. He would never betray me.”
“Maybe not you, but what about me? He has no reason to help me.”
“He is helping you, because I asked him to. He knows you mean a lot to me. He understands I want to get to the truth of the matter. So do you, so I see no reason not to use all resources at our disposal. I did it for you.” He touched her face, skimming his finger down her cheek and lifting her chin so he could kiss her lips. “Don’t be angry with me, my love.”
All anger drained away as her heart sped up and her body moved closer to him, needing his touch, his kiss, his love.
“You make it nearly impossible not to when you go ahead and do things like this,” Lisbeth said, looking into his warm brown gaze. “Maybe we should return to the house now. People will wonder where we have gone.”And what we have been doing.
Oliver offered his arm. “As you wish, my dear.”
My love, he had said, but was it just a turn of phrase?
*
In the shadowsDalmere watched the pair leave the quiet haven of the garden. He gritted his teeth together until his jaw hurt. His eyes burned with anger and frustration. He was right to think they were up to something more than just dallying in disused rooms at the balls and soirees they had attended this season. Although, he had doubted himself for a brief moment earlier tonight, when he had seen them go into the room off the hall, when he had heard them together. He had followed them only because he was inquisitive.
He moved out of the shadows and from behind the fragrant bush he had been hiding behind. He had been close enough to clearly hear their exchange. They’d been so focused on each other he could have stood right behind them and they would not have noticed.
Now he knew the pair was up to mischief. They were trying to find out who killed Blackhurst. He would have laughed under normal circumstances but now they were involving Ashton. This was not good news. How couldheuse Ashton to his own ends if Bellamy was now enlisting Ashton’s aid? Bellamy had been useless in finding anything of use concerning the Black Raven’s involvement in the speculation, but then her pretty blue eyes had easily distracted him from his job.
The Blackhurst witch was just as deceitful as he had thought her, just as deceitful as her dead husband had been. She was playing Bellamy for the fool, and now she was going to try it on Ashton like she had everyone else.
It had been up to him to put her in her place, after he had disposed of Blackhurst, to make sure her life was a misery. He should have got rid of her when he had killed Blackhurst, but thedignity of a quick death was too good for the likes of her. She was supposed to have hung, humiliated and shamed, for killing her husband, but she had not. She should have rotted in Newgate prison, got the pox, and died with her legs spread for some guard, but she hadn’t. Somehow, someway she had gotten off on a technicality and he’d had to work incredibly hard to keep her reputation suitably tainted.
Oh, the rumors he had spread, the tales he had told, the lies he had made up. As fun as it had been to play Machiavelli, none of his defaming had been sufficient to get rid of her. The stupid woman didn’t even have the sense to move to the Continent until the hubbub died down. He’d been as surprised as anyone that the landlord had sold her the townhouse, after her acquittal. But then again, who wanted to rent a house where someone had been killed? There were some advantages to having inherited nearly all the blunt Blackhurst had squirreled away, he supposed. Dirty, devilish money earned through deceit and lies by her bastard husband.
He knew she would want to seek out the truth, eventually. On her own she was no threat, but now with Bellamy at her side he had begun to worry. If Ashton joined their merry band of mischief, there was a real chance he could be found out. He would not let it happen. He had just started to get over his own financial hardships and it had not been without great sacrifice on his side. He had vowed his revenge on Blackhurst’s bride when she had refused to return the capital from the speculation.
