She didn't know how to let him know. And she imagined Lyon waiting and waiting for her . . . and when she didn't come . . .

The notion was unbearable.

The timing of the message could, of course, be entirely coincidental.

Or her father, in his own subtle way, had set out to make a point, and had put in motion a plan to protect her.

But they couldn't possibly know anything for certain about her and Lyon.

Then again, she wasn't precisely looking anywhere but at Lyon when she was walking. Or kissing him. For all she knew the entire town had been watching them through field gla.s.ses.

Surely not.

She thought she detected a hush in the kitchen while she was looking down. As if everyone had frozen to watch her reaction.

But when she finally, slowly looked up again, everyone was chewing, or reaching for jam, or holding a sore head (Colin).

Regardless, they didn't know Lyon.

Lyon was determined.

And Lyon was a planner.

And if they thought it would be this easy to keep them apart, if indeed this was the intent . . . they didn't truly know her.

"What does Mrs. Sneath want, Olivia?" her mother asked.

"She'd like me to visit a new family!" she said brightly. "I'm very much looking forward to it."

THE CHURCH SERVICE that Sunday was interminable, made slightly less interminable by the presence of a particular pair of shoulders and a beautiful fine head for Olivia to stare at throughout the service.

She might have imagined it, but she thought they vibrated from the strain of not turning about to look at her.

And when at last they had been set free from their weekly duty, and everyone had stood and shuffled out of the church, she paused a moment, as if peering fondly in at all her buried ancestors, and dumped her prayer book from her hands.

She dropped to her knees.

Lyon Redmond, who just happened to be strolling by at that precise moment, dropped to his to pick it up for her.

"Mrs. Sneath moved me to the O'Flahertys," she whispered. "Two o'clock on Tuesdays."

He said nothing. He merely picked up her prayer book and placed it back in her hands, then touched his hat once when she muttered thanks.

It took superhuman discipline not to open her book during the walk home. It took superhuman discipline not to run all the way home, for that matter.

But once there, she scrambled up to her bedroom and gave her prayer book a good hard shake.

A little strip of foolscap fluttered out.

Meet me at three o'clock tomorrow by the stand of oaks near the O'Flaherty's. I know a clearing.

She clutched it to her with a delighted laugh. Somehow he had found out. He had, as always, been prepared.

"I WAS SO worried you thought I abandoned you," she said breathlessly, as she ran to greet him. He took her hands in his, because they could now.

They could and oh, how they would, touch each other.

"I knew you wouldn't, Liv. I knew something must have happened. So I paid Mrs. Sneath a visit, and we had a little chat about the virtues of charity. I made a small donation, and then I told her that my sister Violet was interested in volunteering to deliver food baskets. She was so shocked and dazed by this possibility that it was easy enough to winkle from her which families needed help and which young ladies were doing the helping."

She laughed, imagining poor Mrs. Sneath, who would consider Violet Redmond a challenge and a project. "Did you think I was frightened off by all the kissing?" she teased.

"Good G.o.d, no. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist coming back for more."

She pulled her hands away and gave him a playful little shove, and he dodged her, grinning.

And then he took her hand gently in his, lacing his fingers through her fingers, so casually intimate, so precious an act, they fell silent.

And he led her to the clearing. The point of a clearing was to be alone, and it seemed such an obvious statement of what they intended to do once they got there that this kept them silent, too, tense and eager and abashed.

People rarely ventured into this part of the woods, but Lyon, as a boy, had explored nearly every inch of them.

"Voil, Liv!"

And they ducked through a hedgerow.

She gasped. "Lyon, it's like a fairy ring!"

They were now all but entirely enclosed by serendipitous shrubbery, and elm and oak treefiltered sunlight poured down on them. Beneath them was a lovely, seductive cushion of moss and fallen oak and hawthorn leaves, perfect for sprawling.

"I discovered it when I was a boy. I always knew the knowledge would one day prove useful."

He whipped off his hat and shook off his coat. He sank down onto the soft carpet of moss. He folded his coat neatly and gave it a pat, and she delicately knelt upon it.

They were both a bit too shy to set upon each other at once.

"Here. Put your head in my lap," she ordered him.

"Very well. If you insist."

He did and it was bliss to be cushioned by her thighs.

"This is perfect, Liv."

She stroked his hair away from his forehead again and again and softly again, and he sighed with pleasure.

"Let's stay here forever," she said.

"All right," he murmured.

"I'll decorate. We'll make it look like your house in Spain."

"Very well," he agreed, drowsily happy.

"Mrs. Sneath tells me the Duffys' baby is well again, Lyon. She's going to be just fine. They were able to get a doctor in to see her and pay for better food, it was your watch was responsible, I'm certain of it, though the landlord has been all that is discreet and of course neither Mrs. Sneath or Mrs. Duffy have a clue who their anonymous benefactor might be. And Mr. Duffy vows he's going to find permanent work, Mrs. Sneath says."

"Thank G.o.d." He meant it. About the baby. Though he had no faith at all in Mr. Duffy.

He opened his eyes.

The angle of the sun was such that he could see the shadow of Olivia's nipples against her sheer bodice, pushed up by her stays. Just inches away from his eyes.

The blood roared into his head and into his groin and he closed his eyes again and thought of Mrs. Sneath and he didn't hear a word Olivia said after that.

"Lyon?"

She must have asked him a question. She could have said a dozen things he hadn't heard.

He opened his eyes again.

She was gazing down at him with some concern.

"Olivia. Lie down beside me."

His voice sounded abstracted in his own ears. As if it was coming from under water.

He rolled from her lap and stretched out on his side, and she stretched out on her side next to him, and smiled softly.

For a moment that seemed suspended in time, they simply gazed into each other's eyes, untenably happy.

And then he tentatively reached out and softly trailed a finger along the tender inside of her arm, following the faint blue road of her vein. Her skin was a satiny miracle, glutting his nerve endings with pleasure. All the weeks of restraint had taught him to savor minutely. To be a connoisseur, and not a glutton. To see every part of her as infinitely desirable.

The day they made love, the earth would shake so hard new continents would form.

He skated his nails all the way along her arm and watched the gooseflesh rise. Her eyes went dark and huge and fascinated.

And then he leaned over and placed a hot kiss in the bend of her elbow.

She sighed and closed her eyes.

And then he moved his mouth to kiss the thumping pulse in that tender, satiny secret place beneath her ear.

And he watched her nipples go erect, and her hips shifted and she drew her knees up restlessly, hunger building.

He leaned over and covered her glorious pillow of a mouth with his, taking a slow, slow, deep, searching kiss, and she threaded her fingers through his hair, skating her nails softly over the back of his neck, which made him mad with l.u.s.t and sent little rivers of flame through him. He moved his lips to her throat, and he dragged them lower, and lower, until he touched his tongue to that alluring shadow just above where her b.r.e.a.s.t.s swelled softly.

She drew in a sharp breath and arched, and he knew what she wanted, but he couldn't. He would have literally killed a man for the privilege of pulling down her bodice and closing his mouth over her nipple.

He didn't dare. He didn't trust himself. He knew the logic of l.u.s.t, and once he saw her naked breast he would have convinced himself that mounting her was the next most reasonable step, and he knew Olivia was pa.s.sionate enough to get lost in the moment.

And she trusted him. This was the thing he cherished the most.

And while it was faintly absurd, as if they needed to treat all the most delicious parts of their bodies as if they were injured, or covered in thorns and therefore to be avoided at all costs, it was also more erotic than anything he'd ever before experienced.

He was already shaking.

"Oh G.o.d, Liv," he whispered.

He slid his lips back up to hers, then moved them to her throat again, then traced her ear with his tongue until she whimpered softly, her body rippling. She sighed his name, beseeching. He pulled her body against his, and slid a hand down to her hip, and cupped it, pressing her hard against him, letting her feel his stiffening c.o.c.k at the join of his legs. He thrust subtly against her, and her head went back on a gasp.

The l.u.s.t was electric in the back of his throat.

She wrapped her arms around his head, and their lips met and parted, feasted and caressed, as they folded their bodies tightly together and side by side found a rhythm, a graceless, deliberate, grinding friction comprised of thrusting and circling hips that became faster, and harder, more painful, more exquisite.

Her breath was in tatters. "Lyon . . . Lyon, I . . . Lyon, please . . . Oh G.o.d . . ."

Oh, to feel her hands on his c.o.c.k.

Or her mouth on his c.o.c.k.

Her sweet, soft mouth on his c.o.c.k.

It was this that made him thrust against her harder, more swiftly. And that was when she screamed softly, hoa.r.s.ely, her release whipping her upward with its force, her fingers digging into his arms.

He went rigid then as his own release broke over him, wave after glorious wave of it. He heard her name in his voice, a tattered groan of raw pleasure.

And then they were floating in that ether of bliss that was the aftermath.

He closed his eyes, spent. She curled into his arms and their chests rose and fell in tandem.

And when he breathed, in came the lavender and sweetness and sweat that was Olivia, and it was inconceivable that he wouldn't wake like this every morning for the rest of his life.

He opened his eyes at last. To find her eyes still dark and dazed and dreamy, a soft smile curving her mouth. She was watching him.

He gave a short pained laugh. "Liv, my love. You may be the death of me."

She said nothing.

She knew this wasn't actually funny.

For either of them.

The lightness between them been usurped by this fraught hunger. It would only build and build upon itself the more they were together, and would only make them eventually hate each other if they couldn't fully satisfy it, or do something reckless-even more reckless than this-and regrettable.

But oh G.o.d, the pleasure while they were doing that regrettable thing would be unforgettable.

Possibly even worth it.

And that, as Lyon had said earlier, was a very dangerous way to think.