Lucas reached across the bed, his fingers hovering above the lush curve of her thigh. He could feel the heat from here, and his hand was preparing to gather her towards him, his gaze feasting on the sight of her rose-tipped breasts and then rising to meet the slumberous green and gold eyes.
‘Do you want me?’ His voice hung between them and her lashes rose and she smiled.
‘Don’t you know?’
A bolt of triumph sheared through him and he finally allowed his hand to pull her to him—and grunted with pain as it connected with the wooden wall.
Damn it. Damn her.
He dragged himself into a sitting position on the uncomfortable bed of the inconspicuous house leased for the meetings, leaning his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his face. His head felt as if a door-knocker was being plied with vigour inside it. He was getting too old for the lethal combination of three days and nights of tense negotiations and too much vodka.
No, that wasn’t the problem. Peach-scented and far too lifelike erotic dreams were the problem. Being dragged through a wringer by the most intense and confused emotions since his childhood was the problem.
For three days he had focused on the negotiations with Nesselrode’s men with the tenacity of a bull terrier, but underneath this façade he was a roiling mess—swinging between wounded anger at her manipulative insensitivity, fury at himself for being so gullible and bouts of corrosive self-pity that he would have derided in anyone else.
And every night he dreamed of her entering his study, coming to him and...
He groaned, pushing his hands deeper into his disordered hair.
The fire had gone out and the floor was freezing beneath his bare feet. He could use a foot-warmer himself. No, he didn’t need a foot-warmer. He needed an infuriating, demanding, wary young woman who was half fear and half fierce. Sometimes much more fear than fierce...
The memory returned—of her leaning against his study door—but this time instead of setting his body ablaze it showed him only her shy, uncertain smile as she leaned against the door, determined to go forward but prepared to be rebuffed.
What the devil had he expected of her?
Had he really expected that the same miracle that had stripped away his protective layers and laid him open to this mawkish thing called love would occur to her just because he so desperately wanted it to?
The girl was as mistrustful as he, and just as scared of feeling. She would not love easily, but when she did...
Instead of thanking the powers-that-be that she desired him and wanted to be with him, and recognising that this was an excellent foundation upon which to coax that resistant but resilient plant to the surface, he had thrown a tantrum and run off like a callow youth at the peak of his first infatuation.
Right here, right now, he could not explain it.
It was just that he had not been prepared for that brand of pain. It had wrapped itself around the whole of his world and echoed back into a bellow that had followed him for the last three days like the ringing in his ears after a burst of cannon fire.
You should love me, just as I love you.
A bellow followed by a whimper.
Why don’t you?
Perhaps she never will. Not the way you need. And you will have to live with that because she is still enough. More than enough. Being with her is being alive in a wholly different way. So go back to London, apologise and then make her as happy as you can.
He stood and went to tug on the bell-pull.
With any luck his relentless little field marshal was as confused as he about the whole thing—which was why he should be with her and not hiding in his work, feeling sorry for himself and missing her like the greenest of green youths.
It was time to go home.
The noise struck him the moment he entered the Mausoleum and he groaned at the sight of the stacks of timber and carpeting in the hallway. He had forgotten about his instructions to Tubbs to begin the refurbishment of the Mausoleum.
There might not be a point if there was to be no wedding.
Stop it.
There would definitely be a wedding. He would change and go immediately to Brook Street and make very certain of that.
‘Good afternoon, my lord.’ Tubbs came up from the nether regions and helped Lucas with his coat. ‘Mr Chase heard from Sir Oswald you were due back in Town and said to expect you presently. There are fires in your room and the study and water almost ready for a bath. Mrs Tubbs has a light repast ready when you wish. There is some correspondence for you in the study. I believe Mr Chase said it was important. He said you are to wait for him here as he has something important to discuss with you.’
Lucas rubbed his face. He had no patience for business now. He had no patience for anything but Olivia.
‘Very well, Tubbs. Have the food and bath ready and then I am going out. If Chase arrives before I leave, fine. If not, tell him I have gone to Brook Street.’
His study was blessedly warm and he went to his desk as he tugged off his cravat, expecting a stack of documents from Oswald. But there was only one item on the desk. His heart and lungs tried to rearrange themselves in his chest and he pressed his palm over his sternum as he approached the thick cream rectangle. There was no direction, only his name: Lucas.
He felt a little ill, but he picked it up. His mind rushed forward, telling him that whatever was written there it would make no difference, he would not let her go, she was his and he would keep her and make her happy and nothing she could say, or write, could stop that from happening. It was a babbling, high-pitched chatter as his mind marshalled its defences, but underneath was an aching sludge of fear, like the great ice floes of the North Sea as they shoved towards the shores—heavy, grey, inexorably destructive.
His fingers were shaking as he unsealed it. Even her handwriting hurt. Perhaps he should not read it—reading what she wrote when she was not there had landed him in hell once already. He could not bear it a second time. He should put the letter down and find her. Once they were in the same room he would be able to see her, touch her, make her remember why she liked him after all.
Oh, God, please.
He almost succeeded in putting it down, but the soft, creamy paper clung to his fingers. He had bought her this paper. Had spent some time choosing it just as he had the pencils. He had wanted to buy the whole stationer’s store, but pride and embarrassment had held him back each time. And fear, again.
He breathed deeply and forced himself to read.
Dear Lucas,
This whole affair began because of notes and letters and this one might mark the end of it unless you can find it in you to forgive me and also accept that I love you.
You have called me relentless and believe me when I say that is precisely what I intend to be. I am writing this letter in the event that you somehow succeed in evading me upon your return to London and to give you fair warning that I will not be fobbed off and I will not stand by as you disappear. So you had best resign yourself.
I told Chase that I would follow you to Russia if need be and that is precisely what I shall do. I will employ every tactic and strategy at my disposal, because I love you and, though I do not know if you reciprocate that particular, peculiar emotion, I know I am good for you. Sometimes.
You refused to listen to what I wrote on those lists and I shan’t bore you with everything, but you should at least know what I wrote at the end of my lists about you. This is what I wrote after our visit to Mrs Eldritch, verbatim:
Lucas is so much more generous than I—for a man who claims to be so selfish he is forever aware of others—their needs and wishes—from foot-warmers and compassion for me to a helping hand for Nora and apparently for all the Tubbs clan if what Jem lets slip is true.
I can see he sometimes wants to walk away and cannot. I could bind him merely by needing him, but I would never wish to.
I want to do the same for him as he has done for me. Be his champion in everything that seems small and mundane, but in the end that is the fabric of loving. I want to be the one who holds his hand when he is lost and sad.
That was my last entry. There is more before that, some of it even more embarrassing, but I will spare you.
This is a rather poor attempt at what is my first love letter, but it is hard to shout into an abyss without knowing what one might hear in return.
Sometimes I see something in your eyes that gives me hope that you truly want me in your life. At least part of you. I hope that part can convince the rest of you, but I admit I will not be surprised if it doesn’t.
I will always be grateful for everything you have done for me these past weeks. I cannot imagine not having known you, however painful losing you might be.
I do love you.
Olivia
PS I almost forgot. I asked Jem to take the box with your father’s letters to Sinclair House. I wish I could have met him and your mother. I think I would have liked them.
‘Livvy...’ he whispered as the words blurred. ‘They would have loved you. Adored you. Blast you, Livvy—’
‘Is that an exasperated Livvy or a pitying Livvy or an affectionate Livvy? I cannot tell.’
His heart, already sorely abused, tried to catapult out of the room altogether. He had not even heard her enter. She stood again with her back to the door, her brown-and-gold pelisse like a continuation of the warm wood colour behind her, only her face, pale, and her eyes, huge pools of forest and amber, stood out. Her hands were splayed back against the door, as if trying to hold back furies beating on the other side. Or trying to steady herself.
Olivia. Livvy.
His.
She did not move as he approached, just watched him as she had once in the carriage—without expression, prepared to stand strong and show nothing of what was inside her. Relentless and so very scared.
He took her hands from the door and somehow he was on his knee before her, breathing them in, her.
‘Forgive me, Livvy. I am so sorry...’
She crumpled on to the floor next to him with a little cry, her hands tightening on his.
‘Ah, no, Lucas, please, please not yet. Please just a few moments. I cannot bear it. I told myself whatever you said, whatever you decided, I would be strong, but I’m not, I’m not. I don’t want to hear it, not yet. Not ever.’
His mind was clearly suffering from the same upheaval of his other inner organs because for a moment he had no idea what she was talking about. Then the world settled and he could think again. He pulled her shaking form against him, sliding back so that he could lean against the wall as he drew her on to his lap, stroking her hair, wiping the damp from her cheeks as she cried. He spoke, soothingly, lightly, easing her out of her pain because he knew now just how it had clung to her from the day he left, just as it had clung to him. A chain and ball of ice dragging with his every step.
‘I never thought my first declaration of love would elicit such a response, my darling Livvy. I understand it takes some strength of will to contemplate a lifetime in my company, but there are compensations, surely? Do you really not want to hear me tell you how much I love you? Not ever? I shall have to be creative then. Would other languages count under that interdiction?’ She had stopped crying and he took advantage to extract his handkerchief and dry her face as she stared at him as at a Bedlamite hanging upside down from the rafters of St Paul’s.
‘I prefer to make love to you in English, but I can do it in Italian—amore mio—or Spanish, or even Russian and Arabic—habibti. German might be a little stilted, but my Greek is tolerable—agapi mou. And if you consider that cheating, I could write it. I am not as gifted a writer of love letters as you, Livvy mine. In fact, I have never written a love letter, poem or epistle in my life, but I can try. I will start with notes, perhaps, and pin them to our bedroom wall so you cannot ignore them.’
‘Lucas...’
‘Yes, my...sorry. I forgot you did not wish to hear you are at the very core of my world and that I cannot imagine my life without you any longer. What is it you wished to say?’
‘Lucas. Are you saying this...because of my letter? Because I am in love with you?’
‘I know I made a mistake that day. I should not have acted the coward and run simply because I was hurt. But you once told me you trust me, Livvy. Do you?’
‘With my life.’
‘Then trust me with your heart. Look at me. You know I am not lying. You are only scared and that is fine, for now. God knows I am just as terrified, but that is no longer an excuse for either of us.’
She touched his jaw, lightly, just a grazing of two fingers, and he heard the faint rasp of her skin on his stubble and felt it through to the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. Then she smiled, her beautiful smile—promising both a blaze of heat and aching tenderness. Again the burning blurred his eyes and he pulled her to him, burying his face in her hair, in her scent, in his love for her, in her love for him.
‘God, Livvy. I love you. You shouldn’t trust me, not an inch. I don’t think I can live without you and that terrifies me. I want to be strong for you and keep you safe and make you happy, but how the hell can I if everything I want revolves around you? I don’t know how to find my centre any more.’
‘Oh, Lucas. It’s right here. What fools we both are. I love you so. Three days I was in purgatory, waiting and worrying and wanting. Do help me take off this pelisse.’ She squirmed on his lap as she tried to unbutton the row of tiny buttons and his body woke from its stupor with all the abruptness of a sleeping wolf being hit over the head with a club—snarling and ready for the attack. He groaned and grabbed her hands.
‘We can’t. Chase will be here soon and...’
She sighed and sank against him, tucking her head under his chin and her hand under his coat, pressed to the rapid tattoo of his heart.
‘He already is here. He brought me. I suppose you are right, and I have already broken my word to Elspeth not to come here unchaperoned.’
‘Chase brought you?’
‘I made him promise he would inform me the moment you returned.’
‘You made him.’
‘We negotiated.’
‘I see. And what did my brother receive in this negotiation?’
‘Nothing but the truth. He loves you, too.’
He leaned his head back against the wall and breathed in and out. Really, he was going to have to find a more manly way of dealing with these waves of mawkish joy that struck every time she told him she loved him. She touched her lips to the base of his throat and he could feel the curve of her smile, could feel the words forming against his skin as she spoke.
‘I love you, Lucas. I shall have to remind you of that every day until you believe it. You will probably beg me to stop.’
He bundled her closer, tipping her head back so he could do something with her damaging, delectable mouth.
‘I won’t. I will hold you to that promise, my impossible, relentless, adored love. Every day.’