by Laura Landon
“I wouldn’t miss it. Olivia is like a daughter to me. You, a son.”
Damien reached for two glasses of champagne from a passing footman and handed one to the captain. “Did the Commodore get off this morning?”
“Yes. It sailed shortly after dawn. Captain Russell anticipates his return in two weeks if all goes well.”
Damien nodded.
“Your bride must feel much better,” Captain Durham said, casting an approving glance at the lavish decorations that adorned the room.
“Yes, although I have to admit I hadn’t realized Olivia was partial to such bold colors. I always thought she preferred softer shades.”
“The room does have a conquering feel about it. Do you think she’ll be strong enough to come down, or will the ceremony be held upstairs?”
“She sent a note earlier that the ceremony would be held here.”
Damien could see the relieved look on Durham’s face.
“I won’t lie,” the captain said, lifting his glass to his mouth. “I was more than a little concerned about her last night. I’m glad she’s better today. Did she sleep well?”
“I assume she did. I haven’t spoken with her yet today.”
Captain Durham looked at him from beneath lowered brows, then smiled. “Well, it’s not all that uncommon for the bride not to want to face the man she’s about to marry before the vows. I’m sure it’s wedding day jitters. Every woman suffers from them, they tell me.”
“Yes, perhaps. She sent down a note when I inquired about her, saying she was much improved. I’ll be glad when the ceremony is over. I wish her father hadn’t forced both our hands. It’s making it hard for her to accept the way things have to be.”
“The earl made the stipulation for Olivia’s own good,” Durham said. “As he became more ill, she took on more responsibility, what with running the estates and the shipping ventures. And he wasn’t sure you’d come back if he didn’t force you.”
“Oh, I would have come back,” Damien said, taking another small sip of the champagne and looking again at the clock. “Everything I want is right here.”
1:55.
The captain stiffened. “And he knew you well enough to fear that when you did finally come back, your pride wouldn’t let you marry her unless he gave you no other choice.”
“I’m not marrying her for the ships.”
“I know you’re not. You’re marrying because you love her.”
Damien clenched his jaw tight, refusing to give Durham’s comment credence. But Captain Durham didn’t give up.
“You’re marrying her because you love her, and you could never give her up to another man. Her father knew if he gave you the ships, you wouldn’t let the deadline pass because you know how much Olivia loves them. He gambled you wouldn’t deliberately take them away from her.”
Damien took another sip of the champagne, then let his gaze travel over the opulent decorations adorning the room. He ran his fingers down the side of his face. The scars were still there and would be until the day he died. “But how could he be sure she’d marry me? I’m hardly the same man I was four years ago.”
Captain Durham didn’t hide the look of censure on his face, nor did he hesitate to speak bluntly. “I say this in Olivia’s father’s place, because I know he would give you the same advice. It will do neither you nor Olivia any good if you can’t come to terms with the choice she made to save you. She put you aboard the Princess Anne because she loved you and didn’t want to lose you. But as long as you see it as an act of betrayal, your blindness will kill the love the two of you need to make yourselves happy.”
“There’s no need for you to worry, Captain. Olivia and I both understand perfectly how our marriage will be. We are both older and wiser, and are not walking into this with starry eyes and unattainable expectations. Perhaps,” he said, setting his glass of champagne down on the table, “we are more content with each other than ever before.”
“I hope so,” the captain said. “But there is still something very special about the newness of love. The depth of first-discovered passion.”
“And something dangerous about it, too.”
Damien heard the first chime of the clock.
Two o’clock.
“Now, if you will excuse me. It’s time for us to start. I’ll go upstairs and bring down my bride.”
Damien walked across the room and down the narrow hall that led to the open foyer. With his back straight and his uneven gait as steady as possible, he walked across the entryway to the winding staircase. He took the first step upward and stopped when Chivers’s voice spoke from behind him.
“If you are going to get Lady Olivia, she isn’t there.”
Damien spun around, then gripped his fingers around the polished oak banister. “Where is she?” he asked, but his chest was already weighed down with dread.
“Gone, my lord. She sailed at dawn on the Commodore. She left you this.”
Chivers took a step forward and held out a piece of folded paper.
Damien knew he should take the paper bearing his name, but deep inside he was certain that nothing would be the same if he did. So he stared at Chivers’ outstretched hand until he had no choice but to take Olivia’s message.
He didn’t open it immediately, but let it dangle from his fingers as he slowly walked down the hallway to the study.
He stopped to look around the room. Olivia’s presence was as powerful here as anywhere in the house. Maybe more so.
He could almost see her sitting behind her father’s desk. Almost hear her voice and smell the familiar lilac water she bathed in. Almost feel her hands wrapped around his neck and her lips pressed against his.
Damien wasn’t sure how long he sat behind the massive oak desk and stared at the folded paper in his hands. When he finally worked up the courage to open her message, he noticed that his hands were shaking.
That revelation caused a pain to settle in his chest because he realized it wasn’t anger that caused his body to tremble or fury that stole the air he needed to breathe. It was fear. Raw terror because he knew without looking at her words that his life would never be the same. He knew he’d gained everything he thought she’d taken away from him: the Pellingsworth ships, the estates, everything that should have been his when they married. But he also now understood that he’d lost the only thing that was truly important.
With trembling fingers, he read the words that confirmed his greatest fear.
I concede.
Chapter 25
Damien paced up and down the dock while the Commodore dropped anchor and the crewmen rushed about securing the ropes and lowering the gangplank. It had been two weeks and three days since the Commodore had set sail with Olivia aboard. Seventeen days of torture unlike anything he’d ever survived.
He wasn’t sure he would be able to survive one more day without her.
He kept his eyes focused on the deck of the Commodore, scanning above him from one end of the long ship to the other, searching for any sign of her. He needed to make sure she was all right. That she was safe.
Then he saw her and his breath caught in his chest.
She stood on the upper deck, her thick dark hair pulled back from her face, hidden beneath the wide brim of her bonnet. She wore a dark-burgundy gown and carried a matching parasol she didn’t open. She stood alone on the starboard side of the deck, her gloved hand resting on the wood railing, her eyes focused out to sea, as if longing to return from where she’d come and not step foot on English soil.
Not step foot near him.
A painful ache knotted deep in his gut when he thought of how small and fragile she seemed. How alone.
She hadn’t seen him yet, but he studied her, taking in every inch of her. How he wanted to run to her and take her in his arms and hold her. He wanted to pull her against him and never let her
go. Instead, he took advantage of the fact that she didn’t know he was there and just watched her.
“If it’s any consolation, she doesn’t look any happier than you do,” Captain Durham said, walking up behind him.
“That hardly makes me feel better.”
Damien didn’t turn around to look at his friend, the man who’d spent that first week after Olivia had left rescuing him from more drunken brawls than Damien could remember, putting him to bed when he couldn’t find his way home, and staying with him when the nightmares and the pain had such a strong hold he couldn’t escape them.
Damien prayed she wouldn’t force him to live the rest of his life in the hell he’d been in since he realized he’d lost her.
Damien watched Captain Russell step across the deck and speak with her. She dropped her hand and slowly turned, then made her way to the lowered gangplank. She took one step and stopped when she saw him.
Damien wasn’t sure if her face registered shock or disappointment, but she grabbed the makeshift railing as if she needed to steady herself. Then, with a slight lift of her chin, she took another step, with Tilly following behind.
“Be careful, lad,” Durham said softly. “You’ve nothing more to bargain with. She has nothing more to lose.”
Damien cast him an angry look. “You think I only intended to take everything away from her?”
“Didn’t you? What does she have now that she didn’t have before you returned?”
Damien clenched his hands at his sides and watched Olivia walk slowly toward them. Even though she cast a look in his direction, Damien had the feeling she had to force herself to stay focused on him and not look away.
He held his breath, then walked as if to meet her halfway. It was as if they were two opposing armies closing the distance between them.
There was a proud lift to her chin and a regal bearing to her carriage. She stopped in front of him and faced him as confidently as the general of a victorious army.
And Damien suddenly realized she was the victor. That even though she’d lost everything she held dear, he’d lost far more.
“Olivia.”
“Lord Iversley.”
She held his gaze only a moment, then walked past him to greet Captain Durham.
“Captain,” she said, kissing his cheek and giving him a hug. “It’s nice to see you.”
“You, too, my lady. Did you have a good trip?”
Damien noticed the small hesitation before she answered. “Yes. The weather was perfect.”
She looked past him down the walk to the street where wagons were lined up to haul the freight from the incoming ships. “Is Johns here?”
“Yes. He’s waiting for you.”
“Good. I hope to see you later, then,” she said, giving him another squeeze. “Come, Tilly.”
“Wait, Olivia.”
Damien saw her stiffen as she came to a halt. “Did you need something, my lord?” She didn’t turn to face him.
“Yes.”
An uncomfortable silence stretched between them.
“Could we please go somewhere private?”
“Lord Iversley, I’m not sure there’s any need. I think we’ve both said everything we need to say.”
Damien felt a cold breeze wash over him. “No. I don’t think we have.”
“Then perhaps later. In a day or two.”
“No. I think now would be best.”
Her head dropped forward and he heard her sigh. “Very well.”
“Would you mind if we went back aboard the Commodore?”
She shrugged her shoulders and looked back toward the ship as if where they went was inconsequential. “If that is where you prefer. The Commodore is now yours, my lord.”
Damien ignored her sarcasm and held out his hand for her to take. She didn’t touch him, but turned to where Tilly stood a little ways off.
“Wait for me in the carriage, Tilly. I won’t be long.”
Without looking at him, Olivia walked back to the Commodore, leaving him to follow.
When they reached the deck, he held out his arm to escort her, but she twisted past him and walked to the hatch and down the stairs that led to the captain’s cabin. Once there, she opened the door herself and went in. He followed, and when they were both in the room, he softly closed the door behind him. An action that wasn’t lost on her.
A small frown deepened on her forehead and she walked to the opposite side of the cabin, putting as much distance between them as possible. “I didn’t expect you to be here.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Why would you? I can’t imagine why you’d care when I returned. Unless I didn’t make myself clear when I left?”
“No. You made yourself very clear.”
“Then is there something else I have you intend to take from me?”
Damien felt her words as the barb they were intended. “No. It was never my intent to take anything from you. Once we married, the ships as well as everything else would have been ours. You are the one who forfeited everything.”
“Only because the price was too high.”
“What price? I demanded nothing of you.”
She spun around to face him in a flash of fury. “Oh, but you did.”
“What?”
“Would an admission of my guilt and betrayal every morning upon rising have been satisfactory enough for you? Or would it also have been necessary for me to play the part of the adored wife in public and live the life of the scorned wife in private? No, my lord. At least in this I can choose the form of misery I will have to endure the rest of my life.”
“Bloody hell, Olivia. What kind of man do you think I am? Or have you likened me to a monster?”
She took a step toward him. “Not a monster. Just the kind of man who is not able to forgive or forget.”
“Why, Olivia? Why did you send me away?”
“Because I didn’t want to lose you.”
“You thought if you sent me away you wouldn’t lose me?”
For a fraction of a second, she kept her gaze locked with his, then she closed her eyes and turned away from him. The soft leather of her boots made a muffled sound as she walked away from him. All that broke the silence was the gentle lapping of the waves against the sides of the ship as Olivia stared out the octagonal window that was open enough to let in a gentle breeze.
“It doesn’t matter any longer, Damien.”
“Yes, it does. I need to know.”
She shook her head. “It’s too late, Damien. You now have what you want. I wish you much happiness.”
She reached out to lift the latch and Damien stepped up behind her and braced his hand against the door to stop her. “You know I never wanted just the ships.”
“I know. But we can’t all have everything we want.”
She tried again to open the door and he held it closed. “I can’t let you leave.”
“You can’t make me stay, either. It’s too late.”
“No.”
“I made a terrible mistake when I sent you away. A mistake I can never rectify. I admit it and accept the consequences for my actions. I concede, Lord Iversley. The ships are yours. The estates are yours. Everything is yours.”
“I don’t want the bloody ships! I want you!”
“I’m sure you do, Damien. Because I’m part and parcel of what you had been promised by my father. To you I am nothing more than an item included in our marriage contract. I am no more valuable than the Commodore. Only, you can’t have me.”
Damien was suddenly overcome by a fear so debilitating he didn’t know how to manage. He was going to lose her.
Damien clasped his fingers around her upper arms and forced her to face him. “What do you want from me?!”
She slowly lifted her chin, and when she looked at
him, Damien saw a real sadness in her eyes. “Only what you’re unwilling to give.”
Damien stared at her as his heart thundered in his chest, and the blood roared through his head. Let her ask for anything else—the ships, the estates, his wealth. He’d give them to her gladly. Only not his heart. Not the one thing that could destroy him.
He stepped back from her. “Marry me, Liv. Spend your life with me. I need you. Want you. I—”
She stared at him, her face containing a wealth of hope and expectation as she waited for him to say the only words she would accept from him. The only words he couldn’t say.
He watched the emotion drain from her face. She lowered her gaze, then reached out to lift the latch on the cabin door. Her fingers shook, but she didn’t look at him again. Just opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
He heard the swish of her satin gown as she walked away from him and he knew an emptiness more painful than he could bear. She was leaving him, and he would never get her back.
A cry started somewhere deep inside him, building and growing until it became a keening wail of unrelenting agony. He pounded his fist against the side of the door and cried out her name.
“Liv! No!”
He couldn’t lose her. Couldn’t.
Couldn’t.
He rushed through the open doorway and looked down the narrow hallway. She was almost to the stairs. Three more steps, and she would be gone from him. And he would be worse than dead.
“I love you, Liv. Oh, God, I love you. Don’t leave me.”
She froze with her hand gripping the railing and her toe poised on the first step. But she didn’t turn around.
“I love you,” he repeated. “I won’t survive if you’re not with me. I almost didn’t before.”
Her hands dropped to her sides, and her foot fell back to the floor. Damien heard a soft cry before she slowly turned around to face him.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Please, don’t leave me,” he said as he opened his arms to her.
Another muffled sob escaped her before she ran to him, and they were in each other’s arms.