He watched as they rowed her out.

And he watched her grow smaller and smaller.

And he prayed. And he held his breath.

But she did it.

She got on the ship.

She got on the b.l.o.o.d.y ship.

She never once looked back.

Ah, she certainly knew how to punish him.

He dropped to his knees on the sand and blew out a long breath, wrapping his folded hands across the back of his head.

But this was a calculated gamble. And if it paid off, he promised the Creator it was the last gamble he'd take in his entire life.

Because he did know what he'd wanted to know: he knew now he would be willing to follow her to the ends of the earth.

But he wasn't going to do that.

And he knew that she loved him.

But he wasn't going to lead her to that conclusion.

He wanted her desperately, in every way, forever.

But she needed to fight for him.

And in the end, she needed to unequivocally choose him.

For her own sake, and for his.

Oh, he would be d.a.m.ned if he'd chase her again.

He would, however, make it possible for her to catch him.

Chapter 22.

OLIVIA RETURNED FROM "PLYMOUTH" to find various relatives as thickly scattered about Eversea House as the birds in the trees outside.

"You do have a remarkable glow, Olivia. Talk of abolitionism must be more thrilling than we all thought. Or the waters in Plymouth were healing. Darling, perhaps we ought to go to Plymouth," her aunt Pauline called to her uncle Phillips, who grunted. "See how pretty Olivia looks!"

"She's going to be a bride, Pauline. All brides are pretty." He didn't look up from his newspaper. "I don't think Plymouth is going to help you."

"This is all marriage, eventually, my dear," Pauline said complacently to Olivia, gesturing to her husband, apparently not at all nonplussed, and not noticing or not caring that Olivia was horrified.

"Not all brides are pretty. You should have seen that Waltham chit who was married in our church. She had a tiny little beard." She gestured to her chin.

This was said by another aunt, her father's sister Araminta, who swooped in to kiss Olivia as she bustled through the room on the way out to criticize the garden.

"More aunts here than at a picnic." Ian was at her side, murmuring.

"Ha," Olivia said bleakly.

"At least they aren't all humming 'The Legend of Ly-'"

"Don't you dare say it!" She whirled on him.

And then stormed out of the room.

Leaving all of her relatives bewildered and even Ian blinking.

"Brides," her aunts said in unison. "Have to get them married quick. The longer between the proposal and the ceremony, the tetchier they get."

"We got married straight away, and it didn't sweeten your temper any," her uncle said.

"Oh!" her aunt swatted him playfully.

And just like that, Olivia's life closed in over her again. Rather like the Red Sea closed over the pharaoh after Moses and his entourage scooted across.

She could almost believe Cadiz had been a dream. But she still had faint bruises where she'd been gripped as she and Lyon had gone at each other like rutting wild animals.

She closed her eyes as desire roared through her at the very thought.

That had not been a dream.

That, and the fact that she'd returned with something of a golden glow, since she'd forgotten her bonnet for a day. She remembered what Lyon had said: people see what they want to see. And never in a million years would anyone look at her and conclude she'd been making mad love on a beach with a vanished heir.

You should do what you think is right.

What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l did that mean? If it meant anything at all.

I won't be returning to England with you, Olivia.

Her life was here. Her family was here. Everything she loved and ever wanted was here.

Except him.

Just remember your code.

She lay awake at night in her room, so little changed from the last time she'd seen him. Whenever she did fall asleep she'd inevitably awaken with a start, imagining she heard pebbles thrown against the window.

She leaped up and peered, but it had been nothing but a dream.

The same one she'd had countless times since he'd left.

He hadn't said he loved her. And surely he did. She knew it in her bones. They were born to love each other.

But how could he let her go again so easily if he did?

"DO YOU THINK Aunt Pauline and Uncle Phillips are in love?"

She wanted to ask her mother a different question entirely, but she needed to lead her into it without worrying her overmuch.

Her mother stopped poring over the menu for the wedding breakfast and looked up at Olivia in some surprise.

"I don't know that they're in love. I'm certain that they love each other." Her mother quirked the corner of her mouth. "There's all kinds of love, of course."

She sat down next to her mother.

"Lemon seedcakes, Olivia?" Her mother fretted. "Or perhaps a tart instead? For the breakfast?"

"Lemon seedcakes sound lovely." She doubted she'd eat anything at all.

"Excellent." He mother made a note.

"Mama . . . were you in love with Papa when you married him?"

"Oh my. Dear me. Yes. I was."

She knew it to be definitely true, because her mother's face took on a misty, reminiscent glow. She hadn't settled for Jacob Eversea instead of Isaiah Redmond. Olivia was glad.

"Was he very handsome when he was younger?"

"You should have seen him when he was a boy, Olivia. He rode his horse at breakneck speeds, but he was such a brilliant rider, it was a pleasure to see him. Very thrilling for a young girl, you know. It got so that every time I heard the thunder of hooves my heart would about jump from chest, because I knew it was him. To this day when I hear hooves my heart leaps. And your papa no longer thunders, as you know."

Olivia smiled. "A bit like Colin used to ride. Before Madeline."

Her mother's face went peculiarly still and she stood up abruptly and paced to the window and looked out. Perhaps imagining a young Jacob Eversea galloping out there on the green.

She didn't reply for some time.

"It's not as though love doesn't get tested over the years, on occasion, Olivia. When you were a little girl, your father went to sea for a time, as he did when he was younger. He was a little too fond of risks with money, though he is generally very good at it, but we lost a good deal at one time. And then he went out in search of more fortune. It was . . . it was a difficult time. But true love weathers those things, and only grows stronger."

It was interesting to hear this version of her parents. Similar to hearing what her father had told her years ago about her courting her mother.

He hadn't been trying to warn her about Lyon then, she understood now. He'd been trying to warn her about Isaiah.

"That was just before Colin was born, right? When Papa went to sea?"

"Yes," her mother said.

"And you and Papa . . ."

". . . are on the whole very happy, and we congratulate ourselves on our successful match and splendid offspring quite often."

Olivia laughed.

"And I cannot speak for all of womankind, Olivia. I can speak from experience and observation. I think there's the kind of love you're born with. The kind you can't help, because it's like your eye color or anything else. There's the kind you fall into. And there's the kind that you find yourself enveloped in after years of familiarity and comfort and a family to bind you. Which I suppose is the kind that Pauline and your uncle now have. I don't know if they're in love, but of a certainty they love each other. I don't know that one is better than the other, ultimately. All love is a blessing. The opportunity to give it and receive may be what humans are born for. And I like to think that if you loved once . . . it only means you can love again."

The words "Lyon Redmond" were never mentioned, but of course, the last sentence was all about him, and they both knew it.

"I love you, Mama."

"I love you, too, my dear. Olivia, all your father and I want is for you to be happy and safe and loved. It is all we ever wanted for you. Never forget it."

She said this fervently. As though delivering a message.

But given the condition of Olivia's nerves, everything had begun to seem significant.

Olivia, who had long loathed being told what to do, still rather wished that someone would.

SHE SLIPPED FROM the house and walked alone to the vicarage, past the churchyard fence. She recalled the view of hems and boot toes when she'd dropped her prayer book, at the very spot she stood now, then looking up into Lyon's eyes. And even now it made her heart leap.

And how she had gone walking with Landsdowne in public past this very churchyard, knowing the town would see her. Signaling to everyone that she intended to move on and live her life.

On impulse she veered into the churchyard to prowl among the stones of her ancestors.

She paused before a newer one, Lady Fennimore's.

She was a curmudgeon, that one, and Olivia always smiled when she saw what was written on her headstone.

Don't think it won't happen to you.

Which could apply to anything in life, really. Olivia liked it. Quite a flexible message. A message of dread or hope, depending on what sort of day you were having and who you were. She would have to think of a similar one to amuse future generations of Everseas who might stroll through this churchyard.

Olivia, Lady Landsdowne.

That's what her headstone would say.

For she would be married tomorrow.

She drew in a long breath, and tried to decide how she felt about it.

If Lyon wanted to intervene in her wedding, now would be the time to do it.

But d.a.m.n him to h.e.l.l, he was nowhere to be seen. And if she thought about it too much she nearly stopped breathing. The force of the longing was too much to bear, and once she made a decision, she could begin allowing it to ebb.