by Eloisa James
But Olivia did not move. She would never move again.
He lowered his face to her neck, trying to smell that wonderful, elusive perfume that was Olivia, but all he could smell was smoke.
Something twisted hard inside his chest, and all the grief he had never expressed came boiling up, sobs rising so hard that his body jerked as if he were having a seizure. There was no stopping these cries; the world turned into a black swirling hole of grief. Alfie, Olivia, even Evangeline and Rupert . . . they were all dead.
Howls tore through him, bringing with them words that he had never spoken aloud, because a duke is always controlled, a duke never pleads.
This duke pleaded.
Please, God, help. Help.
Finally he realized that he could see Lucy licking Olivia’s cheek; the room was clearing of smoke. The chimney fire must have been extinguished. Lucy uttered a bark that sounded like a low bell, like that of a Great Dane.
The bark of Cerberus, the dog who guards the gates of Hades, perhaps.
His last sob brought with it a strange clarity, a deep calm. “I cannot bear it,” Quin said, talking to the thin air. “I cannot bear this again.” He couldn’t go back to his sterile house, to the pages of mathematical equations, to his mother’s strictures. Without Olivia and Alfie, there was no point in living.
Lucy was still licking Olivia’s cheek. He reached to push her away—and he thought he saw Olivia shudder. He grabbed her shoulders and lifted her toward him. “Please, Olivia! Breathe. Please!”
Nothing.
He pulled her body against his and rocked back and forth, those damned tears falling again.
She coughed.
Tarquin Brook-Chatfield, Duke of Sconce, made a fool of himself that night in France. He always remembered it, and looked back with a tinge of embarrassment.
The man who never cried, not even at his own son’s funeral, wept.
And when Olivia Mayfair Lytton came to, coughing and hurting, but otherwise fine, she—who never cried either—wept as well.
Thirty-two
A Warrior and an Amazon
“It was the mattresses,” Olivia told Petit two hours later. She was sitting on a chair in the middle of the courtyard, taking deep breaths of fresh, sea-scoured air. Her chest ached, but it was already feeling much better. A steaming hot bath had helped. “Your mattresses saved our lives.”
But his eyes were agonized. “It was I, I, who almost cost you your life! I blocked the chimneys to force Madame to leave the kitchen, and then one of them caught on fire. By the time I realized you had not used your key, I couldn’t get through the smoke. I failed!”
“It was an accident,” Olivia told him. “But you must promise never to do something so dangerous again.”
“I will not,” Petit gasped. “Never, never, never.”
“You can make up for it,” Quin said, appearing at his shoulder. “Carry Lucy to the rowboat next to Père Blanchard’s hut, if you please.” He handed over the little dog. “She’s too tired to walk with us. Give her to a sailor named Grooper, who should be waiting.”
“I will run all the way,” Petit said, suiting action to word and tearing out the front gate.
“My goodness.” Olivia watched him go. One of Lucy’s ears was just visible, blowing backward in the wind. “Lucy must feel as if she’s in a race.”
“Petit is taking the road,” Quin said. “We’ll cut through the woods, and we should meet him not long after he arrives, even given his gallop.” He bent and picked her up in one smooth movement. “Time to go home.”
“You mustn’t!” Olivia protested. “You can’t! I weigh too much.” But he merely pressed a kiss on her forehead and walked out of the courtyard, leaving the sordid garrison behind.
His body ached, but he never gave way to fatigue. It was half a league to the inlet where the rowboat waited for them, but the duke’s muscles seemed to be made of steel.
Olivia was quiet, her arms around his neck, her cheek against his chest, so grateful to be with him, and alive, that she couldn’t speak. But when he walked through the woods and she heard the sound of running water, she insisted on being put down.
“We’re almost at the Day Dream,” Quin protested. “I want to get out of this bloody country.”
She ran a hand along his cheek. “Please?”
He groaned, but he put her on her feet.
It was early evening, and the air was warm and smelled of flowers. Bluebells stretched down to the edge of a lazy stream lined by young oaks. “They’re so beautiful,” Olivia breathed, kneeling in a patch of blossoms.
Quin just growled. “Enjoy them now, because you won’t see these flowers again. We are never returning to France.”
She laughed. “Of course we will return, after the war is over. I want to meet Petit’s bride someday, and learn if the drunken capitaine sobers up. Besides, I heard you making plans for cognac to be sent to Littlebourne Manor on a regular basis.”
“The best I’ve had in years.” Quin looked unrepentant.
“I hate to say it, but Madame’s bread was astonishingly good. Worth a trip to France.” Her voice trailed off as she looked up at him.
Quin had bathed as well, and washed away the streaks of black soot that made him look like a thief in the night. Even so, there was something different about him. The cheekbones that seemed aristocratic in England now seemed harsh and undomesticated. He wore no coat, and one shirtsleeve had been ripped away, baring his muscular arm. He was the embodiment of an avenger.
“What?” he asked, scowling down at her.
“You look like a warrior,” she said, her whole body thrilling in a distinctly uncivilized way to the barely suppressed violence pulsing in his every sinew.
He crouched beside her, and his thigh muscles bulged in a way that made her long to run her fingers over them. A lady would never notice that. Her mother would be scandalized, and she could not have cared less.
“I thought I had lost you,” he said, his voice stark and uncompromising. “It turned me into a madman, so I should probably warn you that I may never be the same again, Olivia.”
She came up on her knees so that their eyes were level. “My last thought before I fainted was of you. I knew you would come. I love you, Quin.”
“I never understood much about love,” he said, not touching her. “But I do know that I love the way you hold your own against my mother, and your bad jokes, and your silly limericks, and your violet dress, and the way you can climb a tree and fly a kite.”
She smiled. That was good enough.
“My mother told me long ago,” he continued, “that it was a good thing that we were an unemotional family, because love was dangerous. I proved her hypothesis by falling in love with Evangeline.”
Olivia bit her lip, ready to argue.
“But I love you so much more.” His voice grated and nearly broke, but he steadied it. “I love you more than anything in this world, more than my own life. If love is dangerous, then I don’t want to live in safety.” His voice was rough and savage, and doubly honest for its hunger.
Olivia shifted backward, still on her knees. “Just looking at you makes me ache . . . here.” She put a hand on her stomach, let it drift lower. “And here.”
His face changed from deadly to sensual. “Olivia.” He breathed the word. Then: “No.” He tried to make the word into a command, but she was pretty sure that warriors married Amazons, which meant it was time she became as bold as any Amazon. Not that history was her strong point.
“I’m not afraid when you are with me.” She undid the top button of a villager’s dress, kindly given to replace her ruined travelling costume. “I’m not afraid of Bessette, because I saw what you did to him back at the fortress.”
Quin’s jaw clenched. “Unfortunately, I think the bastard will survive. If I had known that he had given you those bruises, I would have beaten him to within an inch of his life the first time I encountered him.”
She smiled, and slipp
ed free two more buttons. “And I’m not afraid of French soldiers, because all the ones around here are your cousin Justin’s age, though they might not be quite as poetic.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Petit returns to his room to scribble verses to an English moon goddess.” He was watching her hands.
Olivia undid the last button and eased the gown over her shoulders. “Most of all,” she said, coming to her feet, “I’m no longer afraid of myself, of my own body.” The gown pooled at her feet, leaving only a chemise.
“No corset,” he growled, not moving. “I’m going to destroy all your corsets when we reach England.”
“What’s wrong with a corset?” she asked, teasing him by slowly, slowly inching up the hem of her chemise.
“Holds you in,” he said, his eyes flaring. “I can’t stand to see your curves confined.”
She knew her smile was radiant; she felt not even a tinge of embarrassment as she pulled her chemise over her head and tossed it aside. Quin froze, a muscled, wild man crouched at her feet. She simply waited in that patch of French bluebells, a ray of dusky sunshine playing on her breasts and stomach, and let him look as long as he wished.
To be strictly honest, she did position her legs in the best possible fashion—knees together, bent slightly to the side. She had never felt more sensual or more desirable. Being naked in the outdoors, even though—or, perhaps, especially because—Quin was still clothed, was intoxicating. Her whole body softened with desire, sang with it.
Still, he didn’t move, that new, ferocious demeanor clinging to him. “Olivia,” he growled finally.
“Yes?”
He may be ferocious, but she was a woman. His woman. She saw the fire blazing in his eyes, and the way his hands were trembling. For her.
“Move your legs apart.”
She shifted into the immodest pose he wanted, and even that didn’t embarrass her.
“You’re perfect,” he said hoarsely. “And you’re mine.” All of a sudden strong arms circled her hips and a swipe of his tongue between her legs made her shriek.
“Like honey,” he said, taking another lick that made her gasp. A sweet, insistent ache spread quickly down her legs, and Olivia wound her fingers into the clean silk of his hair and hung on.
Quin took his time, holding her upright after her legs lost strength, his hands digging into the voluptuous curves of her arse, his tongue as demanding as the rest of him. He didn’t stop until she was sobbing with pleasure, shaking all over, trying to speak but unable to find words.
He rose to his feet and ripped his shirt over his head. A moment later she found herself on her back in a heap of discarded clothing and bluebells, a naked, hard body looming over her. But his jaw was clenched, eyes worried. “I can’t stop myself, Olivia. And it might still hurt.”
But she was already arching toward him, her hands clenching on his forearms. “I feel empty,” she whispered. “I want you inside me.”
He reached down with one hand and closed his eyes for a moment. “You’re so ready.” His voice rasped.
“Oh,” she cried, pushing against his finger, against the rough stroke of his thumb. “I . . . can you . . . yes!” The golden sunshine hurled into her again, streaking along her veins.
Quin waited through the spasms that shook her, then reared back and put his huge hands under her bottom. His face was desperate but still wary.
“I want your—” she said, but had to stop for a shaky breath.
A gleam of laughter lightened his eyes. “Don’t you dare say anything about a battering ram, Olivia Lytton.”
She pouted at him, loving the way his eyes caught on her plump lips. “But I want it.” And she meant it.
If possible, he felt even larger than the first time. But it was all different; she shrieked when he thrust home, and not from pain. Her legs instinctively rose and clenched around his hips, holding him fast.
A low cry tore from his lips. “Not—not so fast,” he gasped. He came down on his elbows and kissed her. “I love you.” The words came out low and fierce, a warrior’s vow. He drew back, thrust again. Stopped. “There’s no reason to live without you, Olivia. None.”
Her lips trembled and her eyes swam with tears. But he bent his head, caught her mouth again. “No tears,” he said. “You lived. I lived. We lived.”
“I love you,” she said, her hands trembling as she tried to pull him even closer. “I love you so much, Quin.”
Their eyes met. “Please,” she gasped, not really certain what she was begging for. But Quin knew. He came home to her, and she took what he gave her, took it and gave it back.
Thirty-three
The Merits of Simple Words
Quin did not find the right words until they had washed in the stream and put their clothes back on. But for once it didn’t bother him that the words he wanted didn’t come immediately: what he and Olivia felt was more than language. It was like light, he realized. Something plain and simple that split into a rainbow when examined closely.
“You have changed my heart,” he said at last. “I’ll never be comfortable without knowing where you are.”
The shimmer in Olivia’s eyes threatened to spill over again. But she was safe and in his arms. He began to walk, bending his head to kiss away a tear or two.
There was still a long tramp through the forest to the inlet overhung by trees, and he hadn’t slept in two days. But Olivia’s whispers gave him strength, and everything she told him, even the silliest of limericks, really meant only one thing. She loved him, that cold and unemotional man whom Evangeline had declared unlovable.
When they reached the rowboat, Grooper was asleep on the riverbank, Lucy curled up under his arm. And the world—Quin’s world—was in place, and would be for the rest of his life.
When their carriage drew up at Littlebourne, followed by another, which was hung with black and carried Rupert’s body, the household poured out to greet them.
The Duke of Canterwick—still unsteady from his bout of unconsciousness—clung to their hands, thanked them over and over for bringing his boy home, and then left, a broken man.
The Dowager Duchess of Sconce broke her most cherished commandment as regards a lady’s composure and burst into tears in plain sight of the entire household.
Miss Georgiana Lytton screamed, grabbed her sister, and shook her. It hardly need be said that an outburst of sobbing, happy hysteria indicates that a person has (if only momentarily) cast aside precepts such as “Your demeanor should ever augment your honor.” It was a good thing that Georgie and Olivia’s parents were not there to see the general laws of the universe dispensed with (at least, to Mrs. Lytton’s mind).
Poor Mrs. Lytton would have been even more shocked if she had overheard the conversation between her daughters later in the day.
“But you cannot bear Lady Cecily for more than a half hour! You’ll be driven mad by within a week. Don’t you remember the trip here, when you and I—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Georgiana said firmly. “Lady Cecily’s nephew is an Oxford don, Olivia. A don!”
Olivia put down her teacup and eyed her sister. “Being a don must be a good thing.”
Georgiana ignored that; she was bubbling with excitement in a very un-Georgie-like fashion. “Mr. Holmes begins a series of lectures on Laplace’s Mecanique Céleste and Newton’s Principia next week. Women are not allowed to attend such lectures, but he obviously cannot deny his own aunt!”
“And her companion. But Georgie, are you quite certain you can endure it? Remember, lecturing seems to be a family trait: you’re facing hours of Lady Cecily’s opinions regarding digestive processes.”
“Lady Cecily is very kind, Olivia. Just think; she’s going to sit through those lectures for my sake.”
“She’s going to do exactly what I would do in that situation, and sleep through.”
“If I had to be a companion to a murderer in order to go to those lectures, I would,” Georgiana said with conviction.
“You raise an interesting question,” Olivia said mischievously. “Could it be that the sainted Mr. Bumtrinket, late husband of Lady Cecily herself, died a questionable death, perhaps from a potion bought from a Venetian quack?”
“Olivia!” Georgiana said, shocked as always.
“Worse! What if you are driven to homicide?”
“Stop that! You are being quite improper.”
“There was a talkative old woman named Bumtrinket, Who nattered day and night like a cricket,” Olivia laughed, dancing out of the way as her sister made a grab at her sleeve. “Her tongue never ceasing, Was vastly displeasing, Until her companion smacked her bum with a picket!”
“You reprobate!” The perfect princess actually chased the imperfect princess clear around the library settee before she remembered that dignity, virtue, affability, and bearing precluded bodily assault.
Olivia’s world, like Quin’s, was firmly in place. Georgie might be going off to Oxford and eschewing the life of a duchess, but the tattered shreds of the duchification program clung to her. And Olivia was about to fulfill her mother’s dearest hope . . . although it could be said that her success was directly tied to the failures of the very same program.
Quin and Olivia walked behind the Duke of Canterwick when Rupert was buried with honors: not in the family tomb, but in Westminster Abbey, as befitted an English hero who trailed clouds of glory. His place was marked by a very simple marble tablet engraved with his name and a fragment of an odd poem.
A few years later, a young poet named Keats stood puzzling over the inscription one long afternoon. Sometime after that, a middle-aged poet named Auden found himself fascinated by it for a whole week. Fifty years later, an erudite dissertation discussed the complexities of fragmentation . . . but that was all in the future, a puzzle that lay ahead for those interested in twists of language.
For Tarquin Brook-Chatfield, Duke of Sconce, complicated words never had the same incantatory force as they had before his second marriage. He never worried if he couldn’t find just the right ones.