“Go, will you?”
He scowled but disappeared from where they stood.
She looked around, ensuring he was gone, then squatted and crossed her arms over her knees and bent her head. “Oh, how could you kill him? How did you rip his gauntlet off his hand to free yourself from his desperate grasp? Was his precious life worth the fiery pits of hell because that’s where you belong?”
His precious life? What was this he was hearing coming from a Montgomery’s lips? Hovering over the wall on the sea side, Oliver doubted the good of his ears. Was she cursing her distant grandmother? He never would have expected it.
A bit dazed, he left her alone as she wished, but he still watched her from the turrets until she left the battlements. When she did, he followed after her and hid high up in the rafters, staying out of her sight. He didn’t interrupt her while she made endless phone calls and spoke to the workmen about the structure of the fortress. She knew much about it. In fact, whenever she spoke of it, her voice changed and the glint in her eyes proved she loved Graven.
Oliver had wanted Eleanor to love Graven. Instead she took his life in it.
Confused by what he was feeling toward another Montgomery, he stayed away from her until the sun set. When the last of the workmen left his station for the night, Miss Montgomery remained behind.
Oliver didn’t know why she didn’t leave. There was only candlelight here. There were none of the comforts of the current century. Why would she remain when everyone else left?
“Lord Harwich?” she said as she sat at the dining hall table to eat her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “You’re welcome to join me.”
He appeared in the seat opposite her at the table more quickly than he intended.
“Have you been tailing me all day?” she demanded softly.
“Tailing—”
“Following me,” she clarified.
“Ha! Of course not. I have more important things to see to than spending my time pining—”
Her eyebrows raised. Fire flashed across her eyes and her smile teased. “I’ll never be yours.”
He stared at her for a moment then he couldn’t help but chuckle. “If I wanted you to be, you would.”
She laughed with surprise and he watched life blaze through her cheeks. “Do you want to bet?
Did she just—? “Yes, I’ll bet.”
“Okay, if by some miracle you win, you can…” She thought about what to offer him if he won her.
“If I win,” he told her, breaking her indecisive silence. “You must remain with me here as my servant for one month.”
“No,” she refused flat out.
“Two weeks,” he amended quickly.
“No.”
“Then what?” he asked.
“I’ll stay the month, but not as your servant.”
He wanted to ask her what she would call herself if she stayed another month. Another month? What had gotten into him? He didn’t want her and her crew here for three months and here he was asking her to remain even longer!
“Deal,” he agreed and looked down at her extended hand.
When she realized what she was doing, she pulled back and laughed.
But he didn’t want to laugh. He wanted to feel the heat of life in her, the delicacy of her grip.
“If I resist your wiles,” she went on, “I’ll leave Graven to crumble. The only reason its restoration was so important to me was because it was nice to have something that belonged to a woman who fought for her innocence and won. But none of that matters anymore.”
