He leaned over and touched his tongue, very lightly, to her nipple, then drew it into his mouth and gently sucked.

"Will that do for a start?"

"Dear G.o.d," she rasped, as a white-hot shock of pleasure rayed through her limbs.

He drew leisurely hard circles around her nipple with his tongue, then introduced his teeth lightly into the surprise, while his hand wandered to cup and stroke her other breast. Drunk with the astonishing bliss, she sighed and arched into it.

He kissed a soft trail down, down the seam that divided her ribs, dragging his fingers in the wake of his lips, and he nudged up one of her thighs and without further preamble, delved his tongue into the hot, velvety, very damp core of her, and licked. Hard. Slowly. Deliberately. Again, and then again. His tongue darted, stroking, diving, his fingers playing delicately with that tender, excruciatingly sensitive skin on the inside of her thighs, and she arched to meet him, undulated to abet him, to greedily take in this extraordinary new pleasure.

"Lyon . . . Oh G.o.d . . . Oh G.o.d . . ."

And as she screamed his name, her fingers knit through his hair and she bowed upward, feeling as if she might break in two from the explosive pleasure.

He rose up over her, and as she was still pulsing with release, he seized her hips and lifted her so he could be inside her in one thrust.

Slowly, slowly, this time. Savoring every inch of her, torturing himself, teasing her. She watched him, and the sun behind him gave him a corona, and his face was all shadow apart from his eyes, first brilliant flashes of blue, then closed, as his head tipped back and his own release rocked through him.

Chapter 21.

THIS TIME HAD, INDEED, been humbling and surprising for both of them.

Somehow it was now definitive: their desire was bigger than both of them. There was an endless supply of it, and the more they indulged, the more there was of it.

He was still catching his breath, one hand absently, idly, stroking her hair as she lay burrowed somewhere between his shoulder and armpit.

"Lyon . . ."

He lifted his head when he heard the tone in her voice. Instantly wary.

"Are you Le Chat?"

He went absolutely rigid. Very like a sword in a scabbard, for that matter.

He rolled away from her, onto his side, and his hand went down as if he was indeed reflexively reaching for a sword.

He caught himself in time and then fixed her with an inscrutable stare that she could have sworn contained something of admiration for arriving at that conclusion.

"Why do you ask?"

"The simplest answer would have been no."

He was studying her shrewdly for signs of accusation or hysteria.

She thought perhaps she was too permanently sated for hysteria to ever take hold again.

Then he rolled over flat on his back and stared up at the sky.

She could say now, I was jesting. Of course you're not a feared pirate. She could release him from the question, so she wouldn't need to bear the burden of the knowledge.

But in the silence he was gathering his thoughts, and she could not go on without knowing.

She waited. A gull wheeled above them, and Olivia moved closer to him, pressing her thigh lightly against his. So he would feel safe telling her the truth.

He drew in a long breath, then blew it out at length. Clearly considering how to begin.

"Five years ago . . . I came, quite by happenstance-which means I charmed a drunk man into telling me at a dock pub one night-into possession of some sensitive knowledge. An investment group was engaged in the conversion of cargo into slaves. They owned a fleet of five ships."

She tensed at the idea of slave ships.

He sensed it. He took hold of her hand and threaded her fingers through it, comforting her, holding her fast.

"They had already made multiple trips, successfully eluding the law, bribing just the right authorities apparently, and getting wealthier and wealthier from the sale of human beings. My personal wealth as a merchant-I adopted another name as a merchant-was burgeoning and my reputation was growing. I was approached as a potential investor in this hideous practice through a third party-exchanging cargo for humans and back again. As you may have guessed, I demurred. Diplomatically."

She held his hand tighter.

"But there existed-exists, I should say-people in all walks of life who find the slave trade as abhorrent as you or I. And to put it succinctly, I discreetly gathered a crew. And my crew and I boarded each of these ships in turn by night, removed their cargo, be it silks or spices or what have you, put their crews into boats, and set them adrift, and then we-"

"And then you blew the ships to smithereens." She breathed wonderingly.

Which would have essentially destroyed both the group's profits and eliminated any opportunity they might have to try again. Salting their earth, figuratively speaking.

And frightening the devil out of anyone who might want to traffic in slaves, ever, in European waters.

Very, very thorough. So much more thorough than merely alerting the authorities. And he had of course thought all of this through to this conclusion.

He turned to look at her. "Yes."

The word was gently delivered. But completely unapologetic.

"And by boarded, you mean wore a mask and used swords and guns. And removing the cargo, you mean stealing it. And by putting them into boats, you mean putting them into boats at sword and pistol point."

She couldn't believe she was uttering those words, in that order, to Lyon Redmond.

"Yes, to the mask. When necessary, regarding the use of swords and guns." He paused. "It frequently was necessary."

And then he actually smiled again. Albeit faintly. And it was a very unnerving, yet strangely thrilling, smile indeed.

She couldn't breathe.

"I know it was madness," he said, thoughtfully. "But I needed madness. I was mad. So I sought madness. And I found a way to expend it in a way I could justify, and that was very, very satisfying indeed."

He had put himself in harm's way. Over and over.

Then again, he had won the Suss.e.x Marksmanship Trophy three years running.

The fact that he still lived was testament to how entirely skilled and clever he was. But then, he'd always been a planner.

He had rigidly followed rules for the first part of his life. But oddly, he seemed to have been born to make his own laws. He'd done it the first time he'd stolen a waltz from Cambersmith.

She had, in some ways, set him on this course. She smiled slightly at this thought.

She waited, thinking she ought to decide how to feel about this revelation. But she already knew.

A surge of fierce, possibly unseemly, happiness took her.

"And yet no one ever knew it was you?" she said on a hush.

"As I said, merchants in Europe have come to know me under a different name. And they know me as a trader who drives a hard bargain, but who is fair and reliable and very, very prosperous indeed, and committed to making others prosperous as well. As well as a dazzling conversationalist, a fine dancer with exquisite manners, catnip for women, and a welcome addition to dinner parties all over the continent." He smiled faintly at this, and gave her hand another squeeze. "Only two men and one woman ever suspected the truth, and they in fact nearly cornered me. Two of these people are married to each other-my sister Violet and the Earl of Ardmay-and the third owes his life to me."

"Violet?"

"Oh yes. My sister is so much more than anyone realizes. Of my crew, only Digby and my first mate know I am Lyon Redmond."

She tensed as she recalled something.

"You said five ships . . . but more were said to have been destroyed by Le Chat . . ."

"Ah. A pirate, and not a very good one, decided to impersonate Le Chat and seized a few ships and caused some havoc. A bad man, indeed. He had nothing to do with me. And I know this strains credibility indeed, but my sister shot him to save the life of her husband."

She rolled over to stare down at him. "Violet shot a pirate? A real pirate?"

He smiled at this. She suspected he was enjoying, just a little bit, startling her.

"A story for another time. Everyone underestimates my sister. Then again, perhaps it's what families are for, and we all have to battle our way out of preconceptions, and some of us have to fight harder to be seen than others. And if we're fortunate, we find someone who sees us for who we are."

And that's where they both fell silent.

Olivia didn't need to say anything.

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.