Chapter Eleven #3
For so long she had taken the blame for her husband’s anger, for his brutal treatment.
For was there anyone else to blame? She had searched in vain for an answer to so many questions but in the end, she had felt only numb, unable to function without his instruction, without his fist forever poised and about to strike for the smallest, faulty step.
Her mind spun and dipped and swayed in an effort to bring her back but all she could see was the darkened room, smell the metallic aroma of blood, and something else she didn’t quite understand, of her hand reaching out and finding Nathaniel’s body cold and staring. Her shaking hands on the…
“Lisbeth? Lisbeth!” Oliver didn’t know what to do.
He’d turned from locking the door to find her doubled over on the floor crying and making a horrid keening sound that almost stopped his heart it was so soul-wrenching.
The sound of pure misery. He’d heard it before, too many times before.
The sound of grief and despair. It was the sound of one’s heart shattering into a million pieces.
He’d seen women crying over the bodies of their dead, screaming their anger at a hazy smoke-filled sky.
At the time he had been glad there was no woman who would have to suffer such a fate over him was he to fall in battle.
He’d seen this at too many battlefields, too many dead, too much needless grief.
He wished he could forget but some things burn into one’s memory like a tattoo.
He blinked several times, which didn’t help at all. His eyes still burned. What had he done?
Dealing with women in such a state was beyond his experience. Did he dare touch her or offer her comfort? He’d tried that once and she had threatened to blow a hole through his ribs. She didn’t have her precious little pistol now so perhaps if he… just…
He knelt down beside her and took hold of her shoulders.
She jerked away from him, her eyes filled to overflowing with tears—unseeing.
He swallowed the smart remark meant to make her laugh.
Instead, he pulled her towards him. She resisted for a few moments, fighting him with her small fists.
Then focusing, as if recognizing him at last, she practically threw herself into his arms, weeping uncontrollably until his jacket and shirt were quite soaked through.
He sat on the floor with her in his arms and for a long time just rocked her.
He smoothed her hair, crooning comforting words into her ear until he was nearly hoarse.
He apologized profusely, and multiple times, for he knew to some extent her tears were a direct result of his thoughtless actions.
If only he had not charged into her house like an imbecile demanding to know why he had been left out of her schedule.
If only he had not been so upset by the thought that she was leaving him out of something important, he may have been able to process the fact that this was something she had needed to do herself, without him.
She was in no state to tell him, so he guessed he would just have to wait.
It seemed like days she wept, intermittently hitting him in the chest, and squeezing the breath out of him. Finally, she released him. She had developed the most adorable hiccups, and he took this to mean that this particularly puzzling play of emotions was over with, for now.
Oliver stood, pulling her to her feet, and guided her to one of the stiff-looking chairs by the window. He gave her his handkerchief, for what it was worth, and went to open the door.
Now the entire household staff was waiting in the hall.
He smiled. “She’s perfectly all right. Just had a bit of a…
” Bit of a what, complete breakdown? “Turn,” he decided.
“Spot of brandy I think, Rollands, if you please,” he requested.
The butler raised a brow for a moment in surprise but then nodded even if he was still looking rather peeved.
“Oh, and some tea… for your mistress,” Oliver added. Well, by the looks on their faces that didn’t earn him any popularity points with her staff. He retreated back into the room and sighed loudly.
“It’s official. They hate me,” he announced as he walked over to her. She hadn’t moved an inch. “Look, Lisbeth I’m sorry… again for… whatever it is that I did.”
She lifted her head and looked at him for a few moments.
Then she laughed a sad little laugh that indicated that she didn’t really want to laugh, but he was obviously so pathetic at apologizing that it had caused an involuntary reaction.
It was a start, if nothing else. The start of what, though, he wasn’t sure.
Hopefully, not the start of more crying.
Oliver offered her a small smile in return.
“You have been very kind,” she said in a whisper.
“I have? Oh, the hair-smoothing technique was quite effective, granted. Learned that from my mother, God rest her soul. The words of comfort, though, were all mine, except for maybe, ‘don’t cry, precious,’ which I think I stole from my nanny.”
She smiled tremulously. “You are ridiculous.”
He looked at her through lowered lashes. “Yes, sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry. I’m beginning to believe you.” Lisbeth gave another weak smile and wiped her eyes again before offering back his handkerchief.
He looked at it. “Keep it as a memento… or twist it into an impossible knot, whatever takes your fancy,” he said as he watched her hands do just that.
“Thank you.” She stopped twisting his handkerchief and looked around the room. “It is I who should apologize. I am so sorry that I… wet your shirt. It is just that I… I hate this room!” she announced.
“Really? I would never have guessed.”
“My… husband was not a nice man. He was… mean and cruel and…” She stood, turning away from him.
“Countess, Lisbeth, please, there is no need for explanations if they upset you… Really.” He had a good idea exactly how mean and cruel Blackhurst had been.
“Do you not wish to know why I was so upset? Why this room so unsettled me?” She had commenced pacing around the room touching small items now, her brow creased as she looked for the right words.
He watched her, as always, with a growing admiration he wished he didn’t have.
He had heard about Blackhurst from Dalmere last night, but he had not wanted to believe him.
Perhaps Dalmere had been on the mark. He remembered Blackhurst’s portrait above the mantel in the parlor.
A bitter taste formed in his mouth. Was it bad of him to want to dig Blackhurst up and pound his bones into dust?
“I assume there are bad memories in this room?” he asked, taking a seat to watch her. He loved watching her move. She had such an easy grace, the kind that came naturally and could not be taught no matter how many books may be placed on one’s head.
“Yes, bad memories.” She pushed one of Nathaniel’s pictures off-center on the wall. “I should thank you really.”
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 over the 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.
She had known, which was why she had found it so difficult to open the door herself.
Her reaction was regrettable. 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 perhaps one more 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, closely followed 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.