the body that filled and took her as she lay caught between it and the shifting sand and sea, helplessly abandoned to the wild coursing joy of completion.
And slowly the waves of delight receded, leaving only the sucking sounds of the surf, and Olivia shivered in Anthony’s arms as he gathered her against him. “That was a most unusual swimming lesson,” she murmured.
He laughed softly and stood up, pulling her up with him. “Come, quickly now.” She stood, disoriented, still caught in the half-world of her dissolution. Anthony grabbed her hand and pulled her back into the water, swiftly washing the sand off her back, intimately but without lingering, cleansing the nooks and crannies of her body.
“Run in,” he instructed. “There are towels beside the fire. I’m going to swim.” He turned her to the beach, giving her a playful smack of encouragement, and Olivia returned to her self.
She ran for the beach, leaping over the little waves, her teeth chattering, her skin prickled with goose bumps. The wonderful rich smell of roasting chicken rising on the air, the crackle of crisping flesh, the hiss as fat dripped into the fire, made her hungrier than she would have thought possible. A magnificent hunger, a glorious feeling, as the lethargy of afterglow fought with the physical stimulation of cold water and the evening air on her bare wet skin.
There were towels, as Anthony had said. She grabbed one and rubbed herself dry, watching the sea, watching the swimmer cleaving the water with powerful strokes.
She waited for the black cloud of revulsion to envelop her. But the residual glories of loving were untarnished.
She stepped closer to the fire, warming the backs of her legs as Anthony rose from the waves and came running up the beach, water streaming from his hair.
Olivia gazed at him, loving every line of his body, the little buttons of his nipples, the hard, flat planes of his belly, the soft, quiescent sex in its nest of gold curls, dark now with water, the long, muscular length of his thighs.
“Stop that!” he said, laughing as he reached for a towel and rubbed himself dry briskly if somewhat perfunctorily. “It’s enough to embarrass a man.”
“Oh, pah!” Olivia scoffed. “I thought you were the one who adored the human body, fat, thin, stooped, straight. All the most wondrous creations. Isn’t that what you said?”
“And it’s true enough,” he said, snatching the wet towel from her. His eyes touched her body, lingering over every inch.
Olivia shivered and he bent to pick up another towel.
“You’ll catch your death!” Roughly now he rubbed her all over, turning and twisting her as if she were a rag doll, bending her over his forearm to dry her back and buttocks and down the length of her thighs.
When he was satisfied, he tossed aside the towel and picked up a blanket, wrapping it securely around her. “There now. You’re all ready for bed.”
“I thought you were going to draw me.” Olivia huddled closer into the rough wool of the blanket.
“In the morning, when the sun will warm you.” He threw more wood on the fire. The chicken skin hissed and crackled. “This’ll be ready soon.”
“Oh, good. I’m famished.” She sat down beside the fire, wrapped in the blanket.
Anthony opened a basket and took out a loaf of bread, cheese, a flagon of wine, and two pewter goblets. He poured the wine, a pale creamy canary, and broke bread. “We eat with our fingers tonight.”
“How else.” Olivia took the goblet and the crusty hunk of bread. It smelled as if it had just come out of the oven. “Aren’t you going to wear a blanket too?”
“I don’t find it cold,” he returned with one of his secret little smiles.
“Then you c-can’t object if I feast my eyes upon you,” she mumbled through a mouthful of bread and cheese.
Anthony merely laughed and squatted beside the fire, using the tip of his dagger to test the chicken. The firelight danced over his deeply tanned skin, illuminated the knobbly curve of his spine, sent a finger of light into the dark secret shadows of his loins.
Olivia, curled up in her blanket, drank wine and gazed at him with unabashed lust. She thought suddenly of Godfrey Channing, of what he would think if he could see her thus. And she thought of Brian, probing the thought as if it were an aching tooth, waiting for the nerve to blossom with pain.
Anthony levered a leg away from the body of the bird, watching the color of the juices. “Are you cold?” He didn’t look up as he spoke and yet somehow he’d felt the change in her, and he dreaded looking at her, seeing the revulsion, the withdrawal once again in her eyes.
“No,” she said, resting her chin on her drawn-up knees. “No, not in the least.” Her voice was firm.
Only as he felt the relief seep into him did Anthony realize how much he had been afraid. He began to pull the roasted chicken apart with his fingers, slicing the breast with his dagger, piling the richly fragrant meat on two large flat pebbles.
They ate and drank in the firelight as the moon rose high, sending a silver river of light across the sea.
Later, Olivia lay in the circle of his arm between the blankets. She was sleepy and yet her eyes refused to close. The star-filled night was too beautiful. After their loving, she was filled with such peace and contentment that not even the certainty of its ephemeral quality could spoil her languid joy. It was as if her wounds had been closed. This was the memory she would carry with her. Many years from now she would still remember how it felt to lie here under this rough blanket in the glow of the fire, listening to the lullaby of the waves breaking on the shore, with Anthony’s body against hers, her head in the hollow of his shoulder, his legs twined around hers. Many women… most women… never knew such piercing joy, however long they lived.
This one intense passion would last her lifetime, and it
Olivia closed her eyes at last and was surprised to find that tears squeezed from beneath the lids. She hadn’t realized she was crying soundlessly as she talked herself into acceptance of a future reality where this passion could not possibly exist. Lord Granville’s daughter and Anthony Caxton could not enjoy each other in the real world, only in the dream that they had spun for themselves.
It was just before dawn when she awoke, and she was alone under the blanket. She sat up in the gray light, holding the blanket to her. There was a definite chill in the early morning air. Off to the east, the as yet invisible sun drew a thin red line on the horizon. As she watched, the line spread and the sky glowed red and orange, and then the great ball of the sun peeped above the horizon. It rose rapidly until it was all there, casting a brilliant red light upon the flat surface of the sea.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
She turned at Anthony’s voice behind her. He was dressed now and held two fish dangling from their hooks. “Breakfast,” he said, bending to kiss her upturned face.
“I have to…”
“There are rocks behind you and the sea in front,” he said, tossing the fish to the sand and squatting to rekindle the fire from the faint glow of the embers.
Olivia stood up, dropping the blanket. She stretched luxuriously, watching his deft, competent hands at their task. The fire flared and he took up the fish again and carried them to the water to clean them.
Olivia watched him for a minute, then, remembering her need, made her way to the seclusion of an outcrop of rocks. When she came back, he already had the fish on flat stones cooking over the fire.
She dressed and it felt strange to be clothed once more.
“There’s water in that other flagon, if you’re thirsty.” Anthony gestured to the basket.
Olivia drank deep of the fresh springwater. It tasted wonderful. Every sense seemed so much sharper, every experience so much more intense out here on this tiny beach under the ruddy dawn sky.
“As soon as we get back to the ship, Mike will sail you home,” Anthony said, taking the water as she held it out to him.
Olivia gazed out over his shoulder to the sea. They didn’t have to waken from the dream just yet. Her father would not be back for several days. Phoebe and Portia would find a way to satisfy the household about Olivia’s seclusion behind the bedcurtains. It would be wasteful to pass up this gift of time.
“I don’t have to go back today.”
Anthony took the water bottle from his lips. “What about your father?”
“He’s not at home. He won’t be back for several days.”
“And his wife?”
“I’ll just need to send a message so she and Portia don’t worry if I’m away a little longer than they expected.”
Anthony made no response for a minute. “What exactly do they know?”
“They know I’m playing chess with the pirate who kidnapped me,” she said with a little laugh. “And Phoebe doesn’t approve of my playing chess or anything else with such an unsavory character. Portia is more sympathetic, but then, she knows all about passion with unsavory strangers.”
Anthony tipped the water flask to his lips.
He handed her back the water flask. “I have to sail
“Am I invited?” She had the feeling that he had become suddenly tense.
He looked up with a smile of such promise that all sense of tension dissipated. “Mike will take a message to your friends.”
“What are you doing in Portsmouth?”
“I have a little business.”
Olivia knelt on the sand, sniffing hungrily. “What business?”
“I have goods to sell.” He handed Olivia one of the two fishes.
She broke it apart with her fingers and ate. Fish had never tasted this good before. A pirate would always have goods to sell. And presumably, since they’d only been back from sea a few days, Anthony still had everything he’d taken from the
“Just this, miss?” Mike looked at the little ring of braided hair that Olivia had given him once they’d returned to
“Just that,” Olivia said. “But you must make sure you give it either to Lady Granville or to Lady Rothbury.” If she sent a written message, it might fall into Bisset’s hands. The ring would mean nothing to him. Villagers were often sending strange items to Lady Granville, either in thanks for her services or as herbalists’ suggestions for a new medicine. Bisset would think nothing of a local villager delivering something of that peculiar nature to his mistress.
“Put the flag up, Mike, so that we know the message was delivered safely and there was no trouble,” Anthony said, without looking up from the charts he was plotting. “We’ll be standing out in the channel by ten o’clock. If the flag’s not flying, we’ll still be close enough in to put Lady Olivia into the sailing dinghy and get her to shore.”
“Right y’are, master.” Mike tucked the fragile ring into the breast pocket of his doublet. “I’ll be off, then.”
“Thank you,” Olivia said.
Mike bobbed his head and left the cabin.
The channel was too narrow to turn
