"Perhaps you best stop here," she said, a bit awkwardly.

He slid the basket from his arm to hers into a fraught silence, because there was far too much to say and it seemed there would never be enough time. And their arms brushed, briefly, and yet deliberately across each other, and it really was only like throwing kindling onto the fire.

That little touch rendered both of them mute for a moment.

"Miss Eversea . . ."

"Olivia."

"Olivia."

He said this gravely. Accepting it with the ceremony such favor deserved.

And he smiled slowly, which made her flush to her roots.

Her eyes were a shade bluer than the sky, and her lashes, when she lowered them, cast a shivering shadow on her cheek.

"Olivia, I . . ."

He stopped. He could have finished the sentence in a million ways.

"I usually bring a basket to the Duffys every Tuesday, after the meeting for the Society of the Protection of the Suss.e.x Poor," she said in a rush.

And then she whirled and dashed off, stopping once again to stretch up to touch a leaf. "We meet again, spring!" she said.

He gave a short laugh and watched her go.

And then he whirled around and though he mostly walked nearly all the way home, he occasionally leaped a few low fences just for the devil of it.

And he stopped just once, to touch the "O" he'd carved into the elm tree.

Chapter 8.

Six weeks before the wedding . . .

"HERE ARE FOUR SHILLINGS." Olivia dropped them one at a time into the cup shared by the beggars against Madame Marceau's wall. "I hope you will buy something hot to eat with it. Do consider going to Suss.e.x, if you would like to work and live quietly. This should be enough for mail coach fare."

She stepped back abruptly.

"This may be the last you see of me. Farewell."

The bandaged beggar never lifted his head or spoke, and she wondered again if he even could. Perhaps he couldn't even hear. But he raised his hand and brought it down in a slow blessing. It was like watching a curtain lower on a portion of her life.

Madame Marceau was clever and busy and she congratulated herself on the hiring of Mademoiselle Lilette, for she and Olivia had established a rapport.

Mademoiselle Lilette was whistling softly as she pinned. As it so happened, she was whistling "The Legend of Lyon Redmond," and it was just too much today.

"Mademoiselle Lilette, may I ask you not to whistle that song?"

"I am so sorry. Do forgive me. It is very lively, the song, non?"

"Oh yes," Olivia said blackly. "Very lively indeed."

A p.r.i.c.kly, raw little silence ensued.

"Forgive me, Miss Eversea, if the subject is a peu difficile, but you are the only woman I know for whom a song was written. He was a lively man? As lively as the song? This Lyon Redmond?"

Was he lively? She did not want to think about Lyon during the final fitting of her wedding dress.

No, he wasn't lively.

He'd been life itself.

She never talked truthfully about him. She only talked around him, in generalities. No one had known him the way she had.

Suddenly she wanted someone to know.

"He was a surprising man. A . . . vivid . . . man who was also very disciplined. He was very clever and alarmingly quick. He was tender-hearted. And he did so want to see places. He had a wonderful laugh. He would . . . he would have enjoyed the song. I hope-"

She stopped.

"You hope?"

She'd nearly run out of ability to speak about him.

"I hope he did." Her voice was husky now. "See places."

She did, G.o.d help her. He might have died in a ditch. Or he might in fact be riding the Nile on a crocodile. She had entertained every imaginable scenario over the years. She imagined him again on the deck of a ship. It gave her some small measure of comfort, even as a hair-fine filament of anger ran through the picture: no matter where he was, he wasn't here, and he had gone without her.

"Was he brave? Was he good?"

Mademoiselle Lilette seemed a trifle too curious.

But Olivia closed her eyes. She couldn't find it in her to mind at the moment.

And she, as she'd once told someone else, never lied.

"Yes." Her voice was thick. "Very brave. And very good."

She didn't know how long her eyes remained closed.

She opened them, because when she closed them she saw his face again in the rain, in the dark.

She slid Landsdowne into place in her mind's eye instead. His dear face and dark eyes.

"I had a great love, once," Mademoiselle Lilette volunteered softly, hesitantly.

Ah! Perhaps this was the source of the questions. "What became of him?"

"I do not know. He disappeared one day." She snapped her fingers. "Like that. I have never married."

"Oh, Lilette . . . I am so sorry." Olivia's heart squeezed painfully.

"Merci, Miss Eversea. You are very kind."

There was a little silence.

"Surely one day . . . you are still young . . ." Olivia ventured.

"Perhaps. But my heart, she cannot seem to see anyone else."

Oh G.o.d. Olivia wondered what her life would be like if she'd ever dared explain that to her family that way: My heart, she cannot seem to see anyone else.

And then had quietly retired from life. There! Done with that nonsense.

Instead she'd endured years of bouquets and wagers in betting books. She'd dodged suitors neatly, charmingly, and had managed to hide the greater part of herself for years.

Until her cousin Adam Sylvaine, the vicar, had given her the miniature she'd once given Lyon. He'd said he was not at liberty to tell her how it came into his possession. All she knew was that Lyon had somehow relinquished it, and he'd once vowed he never would.

It had broken the spell. She had decided then to do something to rejoin life.

And life for any woman typically meant getting married and having a family.

"I'm sorry that you lost him, Mademoiselle Lilette. Truly."

She reached down a hand, and found Lilette's hand coming up to squeeze hers.

"Mais bien sr, I am strong."

Olivia couldn't see it, but she sensed a Gallic shrug from down around the area of her hem.

There was a hush, honoring lost loves.

"Mademoiselle Lilette . . ."

"Oui, Miss Eversea?"

She was almost afraid to ask the question. She'd never known another soul she could ask, and she was half afraid of the answer.

And finally she did.

"How did . . . how did you go on?" Her voice was nearly a whisper. "When you knew he was gone?"

She had never met another soul who could possibly answer that question.

Mademoiselle Lilette was quiet for a time.

"I have my pa.s.sions, too, you see. If you are a pa.s.sionate woman, you find things to care about, for you cannot help yourself. As you have, yes? For the strong, we do go on."

Olivia couldn't speak. It had taken all of her nerve to even ask that question, and she hadn't yet found her voice again.

"Your heart is healed, non, Miss Eversea? The song, it is silly nonsense, and you should not let it trouble you. You will be happy, Miss Eversea, you will see. You are marrying a fine man."

Olivia was not willing to discuss the condition of her heart. "One of the finest of men I've known."

"And you are fortunate."

"I am fortunate."

"And only the grandest of women are sung about."

Olivia snorted at that. "There I fear our opinions must diverge. I wish more than anything for a little time away from songs and wagers and prints and all this nonsense. It's everywhere I turn. If only I could escape for a week or two to catch my breath . . . so I can be married with a clear mind."

"Perhaps a trip to the country?"

"Another country, perhaps," Olivia said mordantly. "My home is in the country, in Pennyroyal Green, Suss.e.x. I would have to go very far to escape the nonsense, as we've agreed to call it. It seems to have saturated London and its environs. Then again, my mother might not even notice I've gone and I've hardly been very helpful lately. My nerves are making me shrewish."

She was still talking when she noticed Mademoiselle Lilette was motionless for some time.

"Miss Eversea?"

"Yes?"

"We are fini."

Well, then. She and Mademoiselle Lilette were the first to see her stand up in her wedding dress.

The seamstress turned her around by her shoulders ceremoniously and aimed Olivia at the mirror.

The dress was a masterpiece of gossamer, flowing simplicity. The tiered sleeves were short and ever so slightly puffed and trimmed in silver lace. They looked as dainty as little fairy bells perched on her shoulders. A train flowed behind her like mist-a train, not cobwebs-and silver ribbon gleamed at the neckline, the hem, the waist. The hem was caught up in little loops of silver ribbon, with just a scatter of beading. She was to wear white kid gloves.

She hardly recognized the girl who stared back at her. White-faced, dazzled. Haunted.

"I would certainly marry me," she said.

Mademoiselle Lilette smiled.

"You are beautiful, Miss Eversea. Surely it is all anyone should require of you right now."

It was time to think about Landsdowne.