Chapter Nineteen #2
Her floor was soon littered with paper balls of varying sizes depending on how bad her attempt had been. Eventually she decided on firstly releasing him, then when she had done that, she would be able to gage how best to proceed with her declaration of love.
Dearest Oliver
I can never repay you for all you have done for me. Now the truth is known by all I think it only fair that I release you from our agreement.
With affection,
LC
Simple was best. Marie had said to be direct.
Lisbeth thought if Oliver had any questions she would simply write the answers down for him, but she felt her note clear enough.
She wanted there to be no feeling of obligation between them.
She wanted him to be sure it was she he wanted. It was she he loved.
*
Oliver wore his best frock coat. He wanted to be well-dressed when he asked Lisbeth to marry him.
When he told her his heart was hers. What had happened in the last few days had made his feelings clear.
He loved her. He smiled at the thought of her face beaming with joy.
At how she would fling herself into his arms and kiss him.
Tears of happiness escaping her amazing blue eyes.
He whistled happily as he strolled down the road.
He had decided to walk as his body was too full of nervous energy to sit in a hack.
As it was, he was continually stopped by passers-by who asked if the rumors were true.
He was happy to confirm they were. Dalmere was imprisoned and would appear before a court of his peers.
They would not go lightly on him as the murder of Blackhurst was not an act of honor, no matter what dishonorable act Blackhurst had committed.
Things may have been very different if Dalmere had simply killed Blackhurst in a duel.
The fact he had tried to hide his crime behind the skirts of a woman only made him seem more cowardly.
Oliver reached Lisbeth’s house and stood for a moment on the steps where it had all begun. It was here on this step he had misguidedly started on this journey with her, while waiting to win The Black Raven Wager. It was here he wanted to propose to her. It seemed fitting.
Decided, he knocked on the door. This time when it was opened Rollands almost looked pleased to see him.
“Good afternoon, Rollands. Would you be so kind as to ask your mistress to come to the door?”
The butler frowned. “The door, my lord?”
“Yes, the door. The hard wooden thing you are currently hovering in front of and have such a wonderful time slamming in unwanted guests’ faces.”
“It’s not done—”
“Well, it’s done today. Don’t be difficult and ruin my surprise. I plan to propose to your mistress so be quick about it.”
Rollands looked at him for a moment as if not quite believing he had heard Oliver correctly. He no doubt saw the stupid grin. A grin that had refused to leave Oliver’s face since he had decided to marry Lisbeth.
Rollands gave the hint of a smile. “Very well. Would you like to step in and wait?”
“I’m fine just here.”
The door closed and Oliver stifled a laugh. The door had been closed in his face the night he had met her, too. He was convinced this was the perfect place for his proclamation of undying love.
A few minutes later Lisbeth stood in the doorway, a bemused expression on her face. He bowed. She looked around but then shrugged and curtseyed. She thrust out her hand before he could open his mouth to start his very impressive speech. A speech he had worked on all morning.
“What’s this?” He unfolded the papers and saw one page was her list of wagers, all in code. “I don’t understand.”
She motioned towards a second page.
He read it.
Frowned.
Read it again.
He felt the blood leaving his face. A strange kind of dizziness came over him and caused him to grip the rail on the steps for support. She was dismissing him? Just like that? Now Dalmere was caught and she was free of her murderous reputation, she was letting him go?
“No!” he said, shaking his head.
Lisbeth blinked. She shook her head and pointed to the last sentence again. Now the truth is known by all I think it only fair to release you from our agreement. She opened a small notebook and began writing.
I am setting you free, she wrote.
“Oh, well, thank you, I had not realized I was imprisoned.” He knew his voice was verging on sarcastic anger but he couldn’t help it.
I do not want you to choose duty to me over your own future, she wrote next.
Oliver took a step back. “In other words, you want me to leave and find a future with someone else?”
She shook her head vigorously. She began to write again.
He held up a hand to stop her from writing. “Oh, I understand,” he said. “I don’t blame you. After all, I have nothing to offer you. Except myself and that’s not exactly a lot, is it? I’m nothing. A man in my position could not possibly tempt a woman like you.”
She was still scribbling madly in her little book, but he had a sour taste in his mouth and no want to swallow yet more bitter disappointment.
Had she used him only to get what she wanted? Now she had it she no longer needed him? Suddenly, just like his bank account, he felt empty. Like his estate he was worthless.
She didn’t love him.
The realization of these facts felt like a right hook to the jaw and a low punch in the gut from the famous boxer Gentleman Jackson. All his breath seemed to leave his body, leaving him gasping.
He was sure he felt his heart break, its pounding turning to a sluggish flip-flop in his chest, like a fish floundering on the shore.
Oliver turned on his heel and numbly started to walk down the street.
There was no destination. It didn’t seem to really matter where he ended up.
He no longer cared. The only thing he felt was a deep ache which had invaded every nerve in his body.
He saw nothing but a dark abyss opening up before him.
Would it be too much to hope he would fall into it and be done with this pain?
Oliver walked onto the road, heard the shouts of people all around him, horses neighing loudly above him, but he just kept walking.
*
Lisbeth collapsed in the doorway. She was only vaguely aware Rollands had caught her before she hit the floor.
Oliver had walked away! He had misunderstood her note and refused to stay and let her explain. Once again, she cursed Dalmere for taking her voice. Looking down at her notebook, she read the frantic scribble she had attempted.
You will never be nothing to me. I love you. Don’t leave me.
Tears dripped onto the page. Why had he left her so easily? Had he never loved her at all?
She put her hand on the door knowing he was somewhere on the other side. Hurting, just like her.
Marie and her grandmother were by her side, and she should have felt comforted by their presence but right now she wished to curl up in a ball and cry. Cry for all she had lost and all she may never get back.
“Is this what you told him?” her grandmother asked looking down at her notebook. “No wonder he stormed off.”
Lisbeth let out a keening cry.
“We will fix this,” Marie said, giving their grandmother a wide-eyed glare. Her concern and determination was evident in her tone. “We will help you write him a proper letter explaining it all and how you never meant to send him away. He will feel foolish and return, begging you to have him back.”
“I will deliver it myself, my lady,” Rollands said.
Lisbeth nodded, for she needed to hold on to some remnant of hope this disaster could be fixed.
“I don’t understand it, my lady. Lord Bellamy told me he came here to propose to her.
” Lisbeth heard the words Rollands whispered to her grandmother, and tried to block them out with her hands but then all she could hear was the blood rushing in her ears, like a chant.
Fool, fool, fool. She had thought she was being so noble letting him go.
Although, perhaps he’d never really been hers in the first place.
Now she may never be able to explain about the ledger and the money that would soon be returned to him. Never be able to tell him how he had saved her in every way that counted.
This should have been the happiest of days but instead she wished nothing more than to do it all over. To wipe away the hurt she had caused him.
Outside, a cold wind whipped up the leaves on the trees outside her window and thunder rumbled in the distance. Rain fell in big fat drops saturating everything in its path in misery. An echo of her own desolation.
*
Oliver was wet to the bone. If he was lucky he would die of a chill.
Who said words couldn’t cut as deep as a knife?
He certainly felt as if all his life’s blood had been drained from him, leaving him nothing but a husk of himself.
Dragging himself into his brother’s house, Oliver climbed the stairs to his brother’s room and ordered his valet to pack every bit of clothing he owned.
He then told the butler, Kinsdale, to start closing the house and have everything packed and shipped to Whitely Hall as soon as practical. Oliver planned to leave in the morning.
He undressed and crawled into bed with a bottle of his brother’s finest brandy, having decided to drink it until either he passed out or the bottle was dry.
How could he have forgotten the reality of his situation?
Love was blind and when it turned on you it was like having your eyeballs scorched in their sockets by a red-hot poker.
He had been such a fool. She should have skewered him with that fire poker on the night they met.
It would surely have been less painful than what he was experiencing now.
He should hate her, but he couldn’t. He shouldn’t love her, but he did. This in itself made him pathetic to the point of, well, something more pathetic than pathetic.
Tony would say he’d had a narrow escape. That he had eluded the clutches of Madame Marriage, dodged a life of the doldrums, and shimmied out of the shackles of matrimony. He would say the way to a happy life was not through a wife.
Tony would be wrong on all counts.
About halfway through the bottle of brandy, Oliver decided the time had come to at least earn the title of the Earl of Bellamy.