He jumped from his horse, threw the reins over a bush, and came back to Olivia. It was ridiculous, really. He was damned sure that desire was etched on his face, which made him feel vulnerable and slightly mad. But he walked over and reached up to her waist anyway because, really, what are men? Merely animals, as subject to mating urges as any other biped. Or quadruped, for that matter.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, shaking her skirts free as he put her down.
“Science,” he answered, somewhat less than truthfully.
“Are you interested in more than mathematical functions, then?” She looped her mount’s reins on the same bush.
“Yes. But I don’t want you to fall asleep from boredom, so I won’t elaborate; we’d have to bring you home in the pony cart.” Justin was tying up the pony. He walked over to see if his aunt would like to descend from the cart, but she declared that she had a better view from her seat.
He took the kite box from the back of the cart. The lid opened as if he’d opened it yesterday, as if all those days in between hadn’t existed. He had to take a deep breath before he pulled out the first kite: cherry red, a light and speedy one that tore through the air and generally plunged to the ground with equal velocity.
Underneath were two good, sturdy kites that had held up in wind after wind. And beneath that . . . he touched the small spines for a moment, his finger rubbing the delicate wood as if it could touch the child who used to hold it.
Then he swallowed hard and shut the box on that kite.
“I have three for us,” he said, turning. His voice came out tense and dark, and he saw Olivia’s eyes fly to his face. He forced himself to smile, grim though it probably was.
Justin hopped over. “I never liked that red one,” he said cheerfully, as if the kites had no history. “Too frisky. I’ll take one of the others.”
“You have to tie the spool on,” Quin said, handing it over.
Olivia snatched the cherry kite. “I love this one!”
“It matches your hat,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’ll tie on the spool for you.” And then he bent his head to the task, avoiding her eyes. For whatever reason, he could read Olivia’s eyes, and it seemed she might have the same power over him. He could have sworn that she saw his desolation, caught a glimpse of the black monstrous silence that lived within his chest.
“Now,” he said briskly, after tying both their spools, “we’ll walk to the top of the ridge.”
It took time, and a great deal of laughter—not on Quin’s part, but that was only because he rarely laughed—until all three kites were loose and free, bobbing in a current sweeping overhead.
“I love it!” Olivia shouted. She was running back and forth, her slippers twinkling under her hem.
As if it had been only five minutes, rather than five years, the cherry kite slid below the current, plunged down, jerked its way back up. Whereas Quin’s kite reached its zenith and then stayed there, a solid scrap of white, bobbing far above his head.
Justin had flung himself on his back and was maneuvering his kite from there, indifferent to the possibility of soiling his magnificent mossy green riding costume.
But Olivia ran along the ridge, following her kite’s erratic flight.
Justin looked drowsily comfortable, his eyes fixed on the distant speck of his kite. “You’d better go after Olivia,” he said, throwing a lazy glance at Quin. “I can’t see her anymore.” With a sigh, Quin reeled in his kite.
Olivia had chased her kite somewhere . . . down or up or into the stand of trees at the end of the ridge. He glanced back and saw that Aunt Cecily was fast asleep, her jaw sagging comfortably.
He put down his kite and strode along the ridge. England was laid out before him, neat fields marked by hedgerows, a tiny carriage trundling along in the distance, the serpentine curl of the river over to the right. The wind smelled as if scythers were cutting grass, with a faint smoky undertone that suggested a bonfire.
For a moment joy bubbled up in his chest, and then the familiar old feeling presented itself, as if for review. Guilt. Yet when he pushed it away this time, he felt different. Cleaner. More peaceful.
Perhaps it was time.
Suddenly he caught a flash of crimson that had to be Olivia’s skirts. She had followed the ridge down the lee side, and was now standing under a tree, gazing up.
The cherry kite invariably found a tree to plunge into. He slowed and savored the walk toward her. His entire body was tight, fierce, as if he were barely in control. Which was absurd because he was always in control, and always had been.
Even five years ago, when he had turned away from the pier, knowing he was too late . . . he hadn’t lost control. No. That wasn’t entirely true; he shouldn’t rewrite history. He had tried to throw himself in the water, bellowed for a boat, had to be restrained by the harbormaster.
But after . . . after, he walked away without a word. One foot before the other foot.
This was a different sort of emotion, like wildfire in his blood. Olivia had her hands on her hips, and as he watched she unpinned that silly little hat and put it to the side. He quickened his pace. She couldn’t be thinking . . .
She was.
She unbuttoned her coat and placed it neatly on the ground.
As he watched, she reached up for the lowest branch and then scrambled up the trunk, placing her slippers against the bark with the agility and confidence of someone who has climbed a tree before. Indeed, many trees.
She was on the first set of branches, then the second, by the time he arrived at the trunk.
“Olivia Lytton!” he bellowed, standing below her. “What in the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
She peered down at him through bouquets of green leaves. “Oh, hello,” she called. “I’m rescuing my kite, of course.” She was standing on a sturdy branch, looking as tidy as when she set out, like some sort of incongruous bird.
“Don’t go any higher!” he ordered.
The sound of her laughter filtered down through the leaves, but Quin had already taken his coat off. He pulled himself in one smooth lunge onto the lowest branches. She was heading up again, so he maneuvered himself until he was below her and could catch her if she fell.
Which gave him a clear look up her skirts. She had one leg flung over a branch, and he saw a scarlet garter, and above it, a creamy thigh. His heart gave one ferocious thump and then settled into a faster rhythm.
For a moment he couldn’t even breathe. Olivia’s stockings were white silk and ended just below her knee. Above he could see a delicate line of lace . . . her smalls, he had to suppose.
Interesting. He hadn’t known that ladies wore undergarments of that sort. Evangeline hadn’t.
A wry thought flashed through his mind: Evangeline wouldn’t have cared to waste the time. He dismissed the idea as beneath him.
“Miss Lytton, I can see your legs,” he called, realizing as the words came from his mouth that the observation was also beneath him.
Olivia froze. But she had just thrown her weight onto that leg. So she pulled herself up on the next branch, almost slipping, but catching herself. Once on her feet again, securely holding on, she frowned down at him. “Peering up a lady’s skirts is not the act of a gentleman.”
“I’m not sure but that climbing a tree disqualifies one for the title of gentleman—or, I might as well add, lady.” He nimbly pulled himself onto the branch she had just deserted. “How much higher are you going? This tree won’t take my weight above the height where you are now.”
She pointed. The kite hung just out of her reach, caught by a loop of string. Quin tested the branch she stood on. “Move onto that branch next to your foot,” he ordered. “I’m coming up.”
Olivia hopped over to a nearby branch, as steady as if she were on ground. A second later Quin stood beside her. Up close, he could see that she was flushed with exertion, her bosom moving up and down. The bodice of her habit was made of fine linen, and her brea
sts strained against the cloth.
His hand clenched on the branch above their heads. Hopefully, she wouldn’t glance at his breeches. “How can you climb a tree with a corset and all those petticoats?”
Her eyes shone with mischief. “It’s a secret.”
He leaned back against a handy limb, knees feeling a bit weak. “I am very good at keeping secrets.”
“No corset,” she said, half whispering, half laughing. “I learned long ago that it is simply impossible to climb a tree while wearing a corset. Not that I had tree climbing in mind when I dressed today. But I thought it was possible that flying a kite was a rather energetic sport as well. And it has certainly proved to be so.”
“Just when did climbing trees become part of a lady’s education?”
“The first time my mother put me on a reducing diet,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
He frowned. “A diet?”
“I need to lose weight. I have ever since I was the tender age of thirteen, actually. Perhaps even a bit younger.”
“No, you don’t. I disagree.”
“Well, I think I do. Your mother agrees, given the precept oft repeated in The Mirror: ‘Virtue’s livery is a comely shape.’ As does,” she said consideringly, “most of the ton, given the number of slimming tips that have been whispered to me in ladies’ retiring rooms.”
The cruelty of Olivia being taught to loathe an aspect of herself that—to be frank—he thought was perfect made his heart feel as if something had broken loose inside. He straightened, leaned toward her. Her head angled instinctively, and their mouths met, hot and sweet, breath fast from the climb, or perhaps just proximity . . . She tasted like sunshine and grass. Like happiness.
Careful, he moved closer, not breaking the kiss, then leaned against the trunk of the tree and pulled her into his arms, being sure not to break her hold on the branch at shoulder level. “Olivia,” he murmured against her mouth. “What’s my name?”
She opened heavy-lidded eyes. “What did you say?”
“My name,” he said, and then couldn’t wait, snatching an openmouthed kiss, a silken mating of tongues.
“Quin,” she said, drawing back. And then: “We’re flirting again.”
“We’re out of flirtation and into the fire. But in any event, no one of our rank could possibly be kissing in a tree.”
“So that means we aren’t where we think we are?” Her eyes shone with amusement, and her lips were swollen from his kisses. “Or this isn’t us in the tree? Or you’re not a duke?”
“I must not be,” he said thirstily, curling a hand around the back of her neck. “I’m not a duke. And you’re not betrothed to a marquess, either.”
They sank into the kiss as if they’d been kissing for years. His hands burned to take the kiss further, to run a finger, a hand, both hands, down the thin linen of her bodice. No corset.
He could hardly bear to look.
And then he did look, and actually groaned softly. “You have—” he said, and had to stop for a moment. “I think yours are the most beautiful breasts I’ve ever seen.”
She glanced down and then at him. Oddly, for someone who seemed as experienced as she was, her cheeks turned pink and she looked self-conscious for a moment. Abashed.
But then she seemed to shake it off. “We need that kite,” she said, pointing at it, which just strained her bodice even more. “Surely, Mr. I’m-not-a-duke, you can reach it?”
Quin wrestled with the part of his body that felt—strongly—that he wanted to reach not for a kite, but for the delectable female body that stood before him. She was still breathing quickly from the climb, or their kisses, or both, and the movement of her breasts bewitched him.
Leaves swayed all around them, creating a little bower, a room whose walls flickered with sunshine and green shadows.
If only there were a bed. He imagined her under him, struggling for breath, her cheeks a wild rose, hair around her head like a pillow.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said sharply. “You mustn’t.”
“How about if I only look like this when we’re high in a tree?” he suggested.
“This won’t happen again.”
“Precisely.” So he looked again, head to toe. “You’re exquisite, Olivia.” He searched for more words, but couldn’t find them, of course. He could never find the right words when he most needed them.
“You are very appealing as well,” she said primly. “Not that it matters in either case, insofar as we are not birds and cannot live in this tree. I’m surprised your family hasn’t come in search of us.”
“Aunt Cecily was asleep in the cart, and I’m fairly sure that Justin is napping in the grass. His kite probably flew off by itself; he is far too lazy to retrieve it from a tree or elsewhere.”
“Please, can you fetch my kite?” she asked, redirecting him to the original reason they had climbed so high.
Obediently, he stretched an arm and wiggled the kite free, managing to avoid tearing the fragile silk. He carefully let it spiral to the ground, controlling its fall through the branches and tossing the spool of string after.
“You are all dappled with leaves and sunlight,” she observed.
“As are you,” he said, running a finger down the curve of her cheek. “If Justin were here, he would make up a poem. I suppose we’d better descend from this tree. I’ll go first, so I can catch you if you fall.”
“Wait,” she said, touching his arm lightly. Her touch sent a pulse of fire straight to his groin. “May I ask you something? What happened when you took the kites from the box, Quin?”
He hadn’t expected that. Though he should have.
“Nothing.”
She let her hand slide up his arm, over his shoulder, curl around his neck. “You don’t want me to pull you off the branch, do you?” Her lips were smiling, but her eyes were serious.
“Time was when I would have begged you to,” he said, the words coming from somewhere outside his control.
She waited.
But he couldn’t bring himself to say more. “We should go back,” he said, knowing the gruffness in his voice was its own confession.
“Did your wife like the kites? Was that one hers?” Olivia nodded toward the red kite on the grass below them.
“No. It was . . .” He had to wait a moment. Slap the layer of black ice back where it belonged until he was able to speak. “That was the nanny’s. She was called Dilys. She was . . . she was . . . she liked bright colors and laughter. She was from Shropshire.”
“Like Riggle?”
“I forgot you met him. Yes, she was his daughter. He’s forgiven me, Lord knows how.”
Her eyes met his, gentle and steady. “I am quite sure there was nothing to forgive. How old was your child?”
“Five.” It came out a harsh whisper, and he cleared his throat, tried again. “Alfie would be ten now.”
“Alfie?” Her whole face transformed when she smiled. “I love his name.”
“He was named after my father: Alphington Goddard Brook-Chatfield. Though I called him Alfie, to my mother’s enormous dismay. Dilys gave him the nickname; she’d been with him from birth. And—” He stopped, momentarily, then said steadily, “at the end as well. They drowned, you see. My wife, too.”
Very delicately, Olivia slipped an arm around his neck. Then she let go altogether and stepped onto his branch. Quin felt a moment of panic, but the limb was stout. And she was close against him, clouding his mind. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Right,” he said, awkward as always. He should know what to say, he thought, frustrated.
Her mouth feathered over his. “Rupert sees his father every Thursday from two to three o’clock. I have the feeling that you saw Alfie more often than once a week.”
“I couldn’t stay away,” Quin said, leaning back against the trunk again, one arm around her waist, the other holding tightly to a branch over their heads. “From the moment I saw him . . . I couldn’t stay away.”
She opened her mouth, but he silenced her with a swift kiss. “Don’t tell me he’s in a better place,” he said, knowing his voice was stony. “Or that I was lucky to have known him as long as I did. Or that he’s an angel. Or that I will meet him again when I cross the Pearly Gates.”
“Is there ever a right thing to say?”
Quin thought about it. “Take me now?”
She laughed, and her laughter smoothed the jagged edges of his grief. “Nice and short. I won’t say anything.” She cupped her hands around his face and pressed a kiss on his lips that was like all the condolences he’d ever received in his life rolled into one.
He couldn’t even speak after.
Her fingers swept up and into his hair, shaking free his ribbon. “Was your hair always white in front, or did it happen from grief?”
“Always there,” he said. “I must have been one of the strangest-looking babies ever born in Kent.”
Her fingers felt possessive of him, stroking through his hair as if she’d owned him. Though that was impossible.
He cleared his throat. “I know that you’re marrying the marquess.” He felt as if his fingers were burning merely because they were touching her back.
She went still. She didn’t move, but he felt as if she was about to step backward, so he tightened his grip. “Olivia! We’re in a tree.”
“We should climb down,” she stated.
“One moment. If you weren’t marrying that marquess,” he whispered into her ear, “I’d change places with you.”
“What?”
“I’d put you against the trunk. I’d—”
“Don’t say it!” she squeaked. “I’m not some sort of acrobat who could . . .”
“Could what?”
“Well. You know.”
“Is this the woman who almost told the entire table a limerick about a young lady who was particularly nimble with a needle?” He could feel laughter in his chest. It was unfamiliar, a bit intoxicating.
“Limericks are just extended jests. I memorize them because they make my mother so very enraged, and that allows me to maintain a small sense of self-possession. Now, could we please get down from this tree? I might as well add that my mother would explode if she could see me now.”