Because this is what they were for each other. And as he’d said earlier, it was a rare, rare luxury. She’d always wondered whether she even deserved to be loved the way he loved her. But now she knew he simply needed her.
They were quiet. She traced that white musket ball scar on his abdomen gently, then pressed her lips against it.
His chest rose and fell in a sigh, and he threaded his fingers through her hair, gently, stroking.
“I have, in fact, learned that people see what they want to see, and that context is everything,” he said. “I said I was a merchant, and no one thought I was anything other than what I purported to be. As the Redmonds do not yet own the world, I’ve never been recognized. I’ve of course also been very careful. Interesting, but everything I ever learned, from shooting to fencing to investing, turned out to be very useful indeed.”
He flashed a wicked little smile.
She absorbed this thoughtfully. “And so the houses, the land, the . . . you paid for it by . . .”
“We took the cargo the ships were carrying and intending to convert into slaves,” he continued calmly. “We dispersed it, selling and trading it so that its origins couldn’t be traced. After that, I paid my crew—very, very well, I might add—invested the money in legitimate cargos and other ventures, all quite orthodox and above-board . . . and anonymously donated the rest to the likes of Mr. Wilberforce and anyone else committed to abolitionism and reformation of laws.”
She was frozen with what was likely an inappropriate admiration. She simply could feel only two things: she was glad he had done it, and she was glad he’d survived it.
“And now?” she said softly.
“And now I am done. I will be selling The Olivia to my first mate, and my crew and I . . . we shall all go our separate ways. I doubt I’ll see any of them again.”
She propped herself up on her elbow again so she could look down into his face. They were quiet for a time, his fingers tangling idly in her hair.
A question haunted her. She thought she knew the reason, but she needed to say it aloud.
“Why did you do it?” she whispered.
He was silent a moment, thoughtful.
And then his mouth quirked at the corner.
“Because you couldn’t.”
He said it gently. But deliberately. Ruefully. Laying those words out as if delivering a truth.
Just the way he’d done the night he’d left: What if loving you is what I do best?
It was indeed what he did best.
He had gone and proved it.
Her breath snagged in her throat.
She saw herself reflected in his eyes. And that was how both she and Lyon had seen the world for years: through the lens of each other.
He held her gaze evenly. She knew how she probably ought to feel.
And then there was the truth.
“Thank you.” She gave him the words, slowly, fervently. Her voice frayed and thick. Tears burning at the backs of her eyes.
The hush that followed was profound and soft and humbling.
They remained silent, honoring a love so immense and pure and unapologetic words would have seemed like a desecration in the moment.
It had belonged to them once.
But she still didn’t know whether it belonged to them now.
IT SEEMED A terrible pity to put their clothes back on, but they did, in order to walk to the house. But Olivia carried her shoes, so she could feel the sand between her toes all the way.
And then, just for fun, Lyon carried her on his back up the hill to the gate.
“Ho, Benedict! Faster, faster!” she cried.
“That’s not what I said to my horse when I rode him,” he said indignantly, which made her laugh.
She rewarded him by slowly hand-feeding him slices of oranges in the house as the sun lowered. They feasted on bread and cheese and fish and wine until they were sleepy and and sated, and then they curled up next to each other on the cream brocade settee, and the conversation meandered from topic to topic the way a bird flits from tree to tree, simply because it can, taking pleasure in flight. She told him about her cousin, the new vicar, and the uproar he had caused, and about Colin’s return from the gallows, and about Genevieve and the duke. He told her about some of his travels, leaving out, she was sure, the violent parts and leaving in only the beauty.
He was her best friend. She was again reminded that every single thing, from the profound to the mundane, was better when Lyon was added to it.
But it was déjà vu, too. Once again they skirted the things they ought to talk about and avoided difficult questions. Once again their time was finite. Once again a marriage loomed over them, and this time it was Olivia’s.
“How did you get a sugar plantation, of all things, in Louisiana?”
“I purchased it from a man who was up to his eyes in gambling debts. Naturally, I got it cheaply.”
“And you’ve been to see it? What is Louisiana like?”
“Steamy. Green. Beautiful. Mysterious. Wild. Very different from Sussex. The funny thing is, there are alligators, but no crocodiles.”
“Do you ride them?”
“Naturally. I’ve a stable full of them. All named after you.”
She laughed. “You didn’t arrange to have that awful song composed, too, did you? The way you orchestrated the various modistes?”
“I wish I could take credit, but it really was a matter of the stars aligning, and so forth. Didn’t I tell you I would one day become a legend?”
“You did, indeed. The song was awful, but Rowlandson at least got your thighs right.”
“Did he? How so?”
She dragged her hand along one to watch his eyes darken, stopping tantalizingly just shy of his cock. A wanton thing to do, but nothing had ever felt more natural.
“They are very hard and very beautiful.”
He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers softly, lingeringly. As if they did indeed have all the time in the world.
“I remember when I could only touch you here,” he murmured against her mouth, and skated a finger slowly, slowly along the neckline of her dress, leaving a trail of sparks in its path. “And here.”
He tugged at the hem of her dress, and she raised her arms so he could lift it from her head. And when she was entirely nude, he pulled her across his lap and she hooked her arms around his neck. Her eyelids were growing heavier.
“And I dreamed of touching you like this.” He skimmed his hand along the inside of her thigh and her legs slipped open to allow him, to tempt him closer. “And like this.” He dragged his hand across her belly, and feathered his fingers open over her breast.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and they met it in a kiss that left both of them breathless. His fingers trailed inside her thigh, and then glided through her damp curls, and lingered there, gliding slowly, circling softly, delving.
“Hurry, Lyon,” she begged on a hoarse whisper. “Oh, please.”
Her wish was his command. Soon she was arching in his arms, pulsing with the pleasure of release. And then she clung to him. They breathed together in silence for a time. They were both a little more tired than either wanted to admit, because they didn’t want to waste a moment of the time they had together.
He stood and effortlessly carried her to his bed, and lowered her gently. He undressed casually.
And then he lay down alongside her, and pulled her into his arms. She murmured happily and drowsily, something that sounded like his name.
“I will never stop wanting you,” he whispered.
But she was already asleep. And all was perfect, because holding Olivia Eversea while she slept felt like what he was born to do.
SHE WOKE THE next morning to his sleepy blue eyes and his slowly wandering hands, and she wrapped her limbs around him, pulling him close.
She took him into her body greedily, her fingers gripping his hard shoulders as he drove the two of them to release.
She
fell asleep again. He woke her a few hours later with black, black coffee.
And then they walked, hand in hand, back down to the cove. They stripped entirely without modesty and waded into the water, idly through the pool, floating on their backs, meeting now and again to share a kiss. They were both sore and a bit weary, but the weariness was the peaceful, sated sort that required no conversation.
Before the sun was too high they flung on their clothes again and climbed back up to the beach, hand in hand.
He stopped suddenly. He went absolutely motionless. Then gently dropped her hand, shading his eyes.
She followed the direction of his gaze.
“It’s The Olivia.”
She was just a suggestion on the horizon, but her masts and sails were stark against the blue of the sky.
“You’d best pack your trunk,” he said finally.
His voice was odd. A bit thick. And unnervingly, carefully neutral.
She turned to study him.
And unease settled in when he didn’t meet her eyes.
“Lyon . . . what about you?”
He was silent so long her heart started a sickening hammering.
When he spoke again, he hadn’t moved at all. He kept his eyes shaded, watching that ship as surely as if he was at the helm himself.
“I won’t be returning to England with you,” he said finally. Again, very evenly.
Her mind blanked in shock. “But . . . why?”
He turned to her then, his eyes so warm.
“I wanted a reckoning, Olivia,” he said evenly. “So did you. I now know what I need to know in order for my life to go on. Do you?”
He was bloody testing her, she could tell.
Panic swept in. Damn him and his tests. She was suddenly tempted to kick sand at him.
“Every relative I have is descending upon Pennyroyal Green. I have an immense trousseau. I’m to get married in less than a fortnight. There’s a bloody song about it,” she said desperately. “My family will be devastated if it doesn’t happen.”
“Well, if you’ve a trousseau, you’ve a legal obligation to be married, don’t you? I think unwed women are only legally allowed to own two riding habits. And God only knows one mustn’t disappoint the author of flash ballads.”
“I don’t like it when you’re acerbic.”
“I, on the other hand, love it when you use words like ‘acerbic.’”
She wasn’t going to smile, and then she did, and then the smile faded in the face of that inexorably approaching ship, and her inexorably approaching wedding.
They locked eyes as the breeze finished drying their skin. He reached out suddenly, and tucked a whipping lock of black hair behind her ear, and smiled faintly. It didn’t stay there.
“Do you love him, Olivia?”
An enormous pressure was welling in her chest. She could tell her silence went on longer than he preferred. It wasn’t deliberate. She wasn’t playing a game, or attempting to punish him.
It was just that she very much wanted to tell the truth.
“I could one day. I might one day.”
“In other words . . . no. You don’t love him. But it would be easy, wouldn’t it? Life with Landsdowne? And marrying him would make everyone around you happy?”
She stared at him, searching his face for what it was he wanted her to say, but both his tone and expression were ruthlessly neutral and unreadable.
She considered all manner of retorts.
“I don’t know what could be easy about being without you,” she said brokenly.
He drew in a long breath at that. And then he pulled her into him and wrapped his arms around her, almost too hard, and tucked his face into the crook of her neck. She held on to him as though she’d been cast into the sea and he was the only rock.
She thought her rib cage might break apart from the pounding of her heart.
She almost thought she could feel his heart beating against her chest, but then it could be her own, too.
There really was no difference.
They clung as if they could imprint themselves on each other forever.
“I will never, ever forget a moment of our time here, Olivia,” he murmured. “I’ll cherish it for the rest of my life.”
She stiffened suddenly. That sounded very like a farewell.
She pushed away from him and stood back, icy with shock. She stared at him numbly.
And again, his expression betrayed nothing. And he said nothing.
And then her icy shock gave way to burning fury.
Lyon knew she was furious. As though he’d anticipated it.
He was as white-faced and tense as if he was enduring some sort of great physical pain. But his legs were planted apart and he appeared implacable and quite resolute.
“Get on the ship and go home,” he said. “And as for what you should do after that . . . You should do whatever you think is right. Because as you’ve told me more than once, you do not like to be told what to do. You need to decide for yourself.”
Fury swept through her. She was once again that wounded girl who had shoved a beautiful pair of kid gloves back at him and fled, because all she wanted was to be with him forever, and she wanted to know what she should do, and what he would do, and she wanted it to be simple, and she wanted to know now.
She quite simply didn’t want to disappoint or hurt anyone, ever again.
She hated him for being one step ahead of her, always.
For making her race to catch up to him.
What if loving you is what I do best?
He’d said that to her the night he’d left.
But he’d loved her then.
And here on Cadiz, he hadn’t said he loved her still.
Surely he must.
But as he stood there silently, it was this realization that finally made her turn her back on him and go to pack her trunk.
SHE DIDN’T SPEAK to him at all again until they were again on the beach, and his crew was loading her trunk into one of the longboats.
“This is not a game, Lyon. Please . . . please just tell me what you’re thinking.”
She had never begged for anything in her life until he’d introduced her to the pleasures of her body and his.
“Just remember your code, Olivia.”
He turned and walked fifty feet away from her and stopped. As if releasing a captive bird and encouraging it to rejoin its flock.
Pain roiled through her. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly in an attempt to soothe it.
And then he blurred as hot tears scorched her eyes.
But he didn’t move. He stood, legs planted firmly apart, wind filling his shirt and tossing his loose hair, so beautiful and so him it was torture to witness.
But if he could let her go again, she could let him go, too.
She spun about so quickly her skirts lashed her legs, like a punishment.
And she didn’t look back.
LYON WATCHED, ABSOLUTELY motionless as his crew helped Olivia into the boats.
He recognized the rigid line of her spine. That delicate little chin angled like an axe blade. So proud, his Olivia. So furious. So palpably hurt and confused he nearly retched, for her pain was his, and hers, right now, was vicious.
He watched as they rowed her out.
And he watched her grow smaller and smaller.
And he prayed. And he held his breath.
But she did it.
She got on the ship.
She got on the bloody ship.
She never once looked back.
Ah, she certainly knew how to punish him.
He dropped to his knees on the sand and blew out a long breath, wrapping his folded hands across the back of his head.
But this was a calculated gamble. And if it paid off, he promised the Creator it was the last gamble he’d take in his entire life.
Because he did know what he’d wanted to know: he knew now he would be willing to follow her to the ends of the earth.
But he wasn’t going to do that.
And he knew that she loved him.
But he wasn’t going to lead her to that conclusion.
He wanted her desperately, in every way, forever.
But she needed to fight for him.
And in the end, she needed to unequivocally choose him.
For her own sake, and for his.
Oh, he would be damned if he’d chase her again.
He would, however, make it possible for her to catch him.
Chapter 22
OLIVIA RETURNED FROM “PLYMOUTH” to find various relatives as thickly scattered about Eversea House as the birds in the trees outside.
“You do have a remarkable glow, Olivia. Talk of abolitionism must be more thrilling than we all thought. Or the waters in Plymouth were healing. Darling, perhaps we ought to go to Plymouth,” her aunt Pauline called to her uncle Phillips, who grunted. “See how pretty Olivia looks!”
“She’s going to be a bride, Pauline. All brides are pretty.” He didn’t look up from his newspaper. “I don’t think Plymouth is going to help you.”
“This is all marriage, eventually, my dear,” Pauline said complacently to Olivia, gesturing to her husband, apparently not at all nonplussed, and not noticing or not caring that Olivia was horrified.
“Not all brides are pretty. You should have seen that Waltham chit who was married in our church. She had a tiny little beard.” She gestured to her chin.
This was said by another aunt, her father’s sister Araminta, who swooped in to kiss Olivia as she bustled through the room on the way out to criticize the garden.
“More aunts here than at a picnic.” Ian was at her side, murmuring.
“Ha,” Olivia said bleakly.
“At least they aren’t all humming ‘The Legend of Ly—’”
“Don’t you dare say it!” She whirled on him.
And then stormed out of the room.
Leaving all of her relatives bewildered and even Ian blinking.
“Brides,” her aunts said in unison. “Have to get them married quick. The longer between the proposal and the ceremony, the tetchier they get.”
“We got married straight away, and it didn’t sweeten your temper any,” her uncle said.
“Oh!” her aunt swatted him playfully.
And just like that, Olivia’s life closed in over her again. Rather like the Red Sea closed over the pharaoh after Moses and his entourage scooted across.
The Legend of Lyon Redmond Page 25