“She says Lord Archer demands you come to Essex for the Christmas holidays, my lord, and that you’re meant to leave for Cliff’s Edge this morning. She’s quite insistent, my lord.” Grim gulped. “I doubt she’ll leave until you see her. You know how Miss Bishop is.”
“Yes, Grim. I do.” The first time Oliver laid eyes on Dinah Bishop she’d mistaken him for a highwayman. She’d shot at him with a muff pistol and nearly put a ball in his forehead. He, in turn, had fallen madly in love with her. What man could resist a lady with such enchanting blue eyes who was a crack shot into the bargain?
A strange thing, love. It had transformed him from a notorious Tainted Angel into a respectable gentleman, his current disreputable state aside.
Oliver struggled to a sitting position and opened the one eye that still worked. “What I don’t understand, Grim, is how she knows I’m meant to be leaving for Cliff’s Edge today.”
“I suspect Lady Archer told her, my lord.” Grim lowered his voice. “Lady Archer and Miss Bishop being as thick as thieves, my lord.”
Oliver groaned again. “I’m doomed, Grim.” Once Penelope and Dinah started conspiring, a mere mortal man hadn’t a prayer of escaping them.
“Doomed, indeed, my lord. You will you go down and restrain…er, see Miss Bishop, my lord?” Grim’s voice wasn’t quite steady.
Poor Grim was terrified of Dinah, and for good reason. Oliver was enormously fond of Grim, but one couldn’t deny his manservant was no more a match for Dinah Bishop than a baby bird was for a clever, hungry cat. “Yes. Help me to dress, won’t you, Grim?”
“Yes, my lord.” Grim hurried forward, and after a bit of a struggle they retrieved enough of Oliver’s scattered clothing to put him in order.
Well, mostly in order. Dinah wasn’t the most patient of ladies, and Oliver didn’t linger at the glass. “Will I do, Grim?” He studied his reflection. He’d tugged on a pair of breeches, a shirt, and a crumpled waistcoat. His cravat had given way to his fruitless tugging and was decidedly askew. Neither he nor Grim could find his coat, so Oliver had tossed an embroidered silk banyan over the ensemble.
“Very nice, my lord, but your hair is a bit wild.” Grim tried to tame it, to no avail.
Oliver squinted into the glass. “Doesn’t it always look like that?”
“Not usually quite so…well, never mind.” Grim studied him doubtfully. “I hope your wound doesn’t start bleeding again, ladies not being keen on blood, my lord.”
“True enough. Fetch me a handkerchief, will you?” Oliver grimaced at the gash in his forehead, but he couldn’t do a thing about it, or about his swollen jaw and black eye, either. Erskine was a decent enough bloke, but he could be a trifle unreasonable when he was in his cups, and he hadn’t taken kindly to Oliver’s dragging him away from the hazard table last night.
“Good man, Grim.” Oliver took the handkerchief Grim offered him and made his way down the stairs to the study.
He came to a stop just outside the door. Dinah was slumped in his chair, her body limp with sleep, her face pillowed on her arms and a few strands of her dark hair falling loose.
Tenderness welled inside him, and he stood there drinking her in for a moment before clearing his throat. “You’ve dragged me out of my bed without so much as a by-your-leave, and now I find you dozing in my study? I don’t think so, Miss Bishop. If I’m not to be permitted to sleep, then neither are you.”
Dinah opened her eyes and blinked owlishly at him. “Nonsense. I wasn’t asleep.”
Oliver looked into those blue eyes and his heart gave a wild thump. No matter how often he gazed into them, her eyes rendered him speechless every time. When she looked at him as she was doing now, with all her attention fixed on him, it was as if she could see down to the very depths of his soul.
Did she realize her eyes went soft every time she looked at him, and her pulse fluttered in her throat when he smiled at her? She might deny it to herself—she might banish him from her presence—but Oliver would have wagered his last guinea he’d already won her heart.
The trouble was, Dinah either refused to admit it or didn’t know it herself, and her opinion was the only one that mattered.
“Oliver! Oh, no. What have you done?”
Oliver jerked his attention back to her. “What do you mean, what have I done? Not a deuced thing that I can recall.”
“What’s happened to your face, you ridiculous man?” She shot to her feet, hurried across the room to him, and turned his face toward her with a gentle nudge of his chin.
“Don’t say it’s bleeding again.” Oliver traced a finger over the jagged cut over his left eye. “Grim did warn me ladies weren’t keen on blood. Not quite the thing, is it?”
The cut was deep, but his eye was worse. It was swollen closed, and his jaw was so shadowed with bruises it looked as if someone had slammed a boot into it.
Because someone had. Lord Erskine, the devil. “Now, don’t look at me like that, if you please. It isn’t so bad.”
“Bad enough!” Dinah released his chin and took a step back, her gaze sweeping over him from head to toe. “Strip off your banyan, please.”
Oliver stifled a sigh. If the circumstances were different, he’d have been delighted to hear those words from her lips. “There’s no need, I promise you. Do you suppose I’d be standing here if I’d been shot?”
“You’re standing here with a head injury, aren’t you? If you’re telling the truth, then there’s no reason for you not to strip off your banyan.”
“You’re being absurd.” Still, Oliver removed the banyan and held his arms out. “See? Not a single bloodstain or festering wound.”
Dinah studied him with narrowed eyes. “Take off your waistcoat, too.”
Oliver huffed impatiently, but he unbuttoned the waistcoat, tossed it aside and turned in a circle before her. “Satisfied?” If he was going to strip off his clothes, someone should be.
“You promised your brother there’d be no more brawls.” Dinah waved her hand at him. “Put your clothes back on, if you please.”
“A brawl? It was a mere disagreement, nothing more. A minor difference of opinion between Lord Erskine and myself.” It had been a trifle more than minor, but Dinah didn’t need to know that.
She sniffed. “You’re fortunate Lord Erskine confined his wrath to your face.”
“Of course, he did. He despises my face because it’s much prettier than his.” Oliver fluttered his eyelashes at her.
Dinah snorted. “You may save your charm for a more susceptible lady, my lord.”
“Don’t be silly, Miss Bishop. You know you’re the only lady I want to charm.” Oliver slipped his arms back into his waistcoat and gave her an unrepentant grin.
Dinah ignored his flirtation. “What were you arguing with Lord Erskine about?”
“Nothing of any importance.”
“Well, there will be no hiding that from Lord Archer.” Dinah nodded at his face. “I don’t envy you that explanation.”
“Explanation?” Oliver asked. “I don’t intend to explain a damn thing to Will.”