Part 25 (2/2)

Still, she wasn't certain how to reply.

”Perhaps you have one or two things you'd like say to me?” A glimmer of mordant humor there. Still, the prevailing tone was detached irony.

”Perhaps,” she managed. Her voice was still a thread.

”Then perhaps you'll agree to a conversation. But not here. I'd like to conduct it on my s.h.i.+p.”

”On your s.h.i.+p?”

”Yes,” he said. Almost impatiently.

”Your . . . s.h.i.+p.”

”Yes.”

The arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d didn't bother to explain why on earth he would have a s.h.i.+p.

”So . . . Mrs. More isn't here at all.”

”No.” There was a flicker of something like intolerable amus.e.m.e.nt in that word.

”So you lied. And tricked me.”

”Yes.”

He was almost brutally monosyllabic and completely unapologetic.

And that's when she fully understood: Lyon was furious, too.

Blackly, coldly furious.

And somehow, perversely, this heartened her. It was better than that impa.s.sivity.

She looked into his face, searching for some clue as to who he was now. There was no evidence of the young man she'd last seen standing as motionless as the dead, his face leached of color, the rain plastering his hair to his face and his s.h.i.+rt to his chest because he'd given his coat to her.

”One must have a code, as you once said to me, Olivia. And while I prefer not to lie, I also prefer to get what I want. And what I wanted was to speak privately to you without anyone else knowing. And I knew just how to do it.”

Every word as coldly delivered as if she was up before a magistrate.

Her own fury ramped and then wavered in the face of his, which was as palpable as a wall.

It wasn't as though he didn't have the right to his.

”On your s.h.i.+p.” She matched his irony.

”On my s.h.i.+p.”

”You couldn't have . . .” Her voice was faint again.

She didn't finish the sentence because she already knew the answer.

”What? Called upon your father, hat in hand? Sent flowers? Shouted objections from the church congregation while they read your banns Sunday after Sunday? No, Olivia. I won't be doing that. But I do want to speak to you. If you are agreeable to this, it will be on my s.h.i.+p. And it will be now, or never.”

Now or never.

Just like that night five years ago, when he'd forced her to decide her future in one minute in the pouring rain, in the dark.

This coldly, unnervingly confident man was the same Lyon.

And yet he was not.

That impulse to comfort her. Her name in his voice. Gruff with emotion. She recognized those.

Were all of those simply reflexes born of old memories?

My heart, he'd once called her. My love.

She'd been his heart. And he'd been hers.

And he'd left her without a heart when he disappeared.

Perhaps now she could get it back. Along with the whole of her life.

”It's docked very near. You'll be escorted safely. It's a short enough walk. You're free of harm from me and, I a.s.sure, you, from any cutthroats or other unsavory personages. And it must be now.”

That's when she saw the sword at his hip beneath that beautiful coat.

He was wearing a sword. The way any other man would wear a watch fob.

She blinked, and felt another little p.r.i.c.kle of warning.

Who was he now?

What was he now?

G.o.d help her, she wanted to know.

”Very well,” she said. ”I'll go.”

Chapter 15.

HE DIDN'T SAY, ”THANK you.”

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