“Twice.”
“Oh.”
He gave her a little squeeze and pressed a smile against her hair. Her thoughts were plainly clear to him. “Are you going to ask why I was there, or would you rather assume I’ve already had my evil way with you.”
“Evil way?” she said, realizing she was being teased. She turned in his arms and raised her face to him.
“There’s nothing evil about your way. That’s the problem. Looking at you, I can believe that I might have done anything for you…or to you. That’s the sort of way you have about you.” Dangerous, she wanted to say, but not evil. He was darkly attractive in a manner that captured her attention and her imagination, and even frightened her a little because of her response to it. She was intrigued by the light gray eyes with their dark blue rings, the penetrating predator eyes that often seemed to look through her rather than at her.
Although she remembered little of her past there were two things of which she was certain. In spite of the fact that Nathan Hunter was a convict, he was not an evil man, and she loved him absolutely.
“So,” she said, “if I didn’t let you ravish me in my bedroom, why did I let you in at all?”
Nathan laughed softly and immediately felt her attention drop to his mouth. His smile vanished. “I don’t think I’m going to tell you,” he said softly. “The doctor said there are some things you should remember for yourself.”
Her voice was husky, matching his, and all she could think about was his mouth. “How convenient for you.”
“Yes.” He bent his head and his lips hovered above hers. “Yes,” he repeated. His mouth slanted across hers, hard and hungry and wanting. He held her close so that she seemed a part of him rather than apart from him. And all the while he pleasured himself with her kiss he knew that what he was doing to Lydia was his greatest crime. He never once considered turning back.
They broke apart rather shakily as the deck beneath them jerked suddenly, then rolled and swayed with a greater pitch than before. TheAvonleiwas underway. Lydia went to the padded storage bench, knelt on it, and peered out the porthole. Moonlight was reflected on each crest wave, breaking and scattering every time a wave unfolded on shore. Outside the line of her vision was the city. She craned her neck to catch a glimpse.
“Would you like to go on deck?” Nathan asked. “You could bid farewell there.”
She shook her head and moved away. Her place was with her husband now. “There’s no one I want to see, nothing I want to say.”
Only because she couldn’t remember, Nathan thought. She knew she had parents because Nathan had told her. She knew they didn’t approve of Nathan because he had shared that as well. But Lydia thought she had left her family behind to marry him. There was no memory of Brigham Moore, the shooting, or the sleeping powder that had nearly killed her.
She didn’t know that Nathan had awakened at dawn, groggy and disoriented, discovered Brigham lying on the marble apron of the fireplace and her on the floor of the sitting room, her body blocking the door and the key lying beside her open palm. Like Brigham, she had barely been breathing, but there was no blood to explain it. Nathan put Lydia in his bed and went in search of Dr. Franklin, the only physician he knew in San Francisco whose silence could be bought.
It was more than twenty-four hours before Lydia came out of her deep sleep, and by that time Nathan had moved her to the orphanage. Using the confidentiality of the confessional, Nathan shared Lydia’s crime with the priest as well as his plan to protect her. While Samuel Chadwick had a troop of men, including George Campbell, searching the city for Lydia and Nathan, they were receiving sanctuary, if not a blessing, from Father Patrick.
Nathan did not know what to expect when Lydia woke. He considered a number of scenarios during those critical twenty-four hours when he thought she might die and prayed that she wouldn’t. In the end, everything he imagined fell far short of the mark because Lydia hadn’t even known her own name. That’s when Nathan understood he had been given another chance. The lies were told, one after another, until there was no turning back without losing her forever.
Dr. Franklin warned Nathan that Lydia might recover her memory any time or never. Nathan didn’t dwell on either possibility. He made arrangements to leave the country with her on theAvonlei.At his insistence Lydia penned a brief note to her mother and Samuel, telling them that she had married Nathan, that she was safe and happy, and that she hoped they could be happy for her. He gave that note and one he had written to Pei Ling to Father Patrick to be delivered upon their departure. Nathan suspected that in a few hours Samuel Chadwick would understand everything, and perhaps forgive him a little. The other possibility, that Sam would send someone to kill him for abducting his daughter, Nathan preferred not to think about. He did not want to spend the remainder of his life jumping at shadows. His eyes fell on Lydia.
Not when there were so many other things he wanted to do. “Would you like a bath?” he asked.
“Really? I could have one here?”
Nathan smiled because her pleasure was so evident, her eyes so guileless. “I think it can be managed.” He had paid a great deal for their passage so Lydia could have every amenity, and there weren’t many to be had on a Pacific voyage. Surely this small request could be arranged. The captain of theAvonleiwas amiable in a gruff, bearish sort of way. He took on passengers to help defer a few costs. TheAvonleiwas first and foremost a cargo ship and Nathan suspected she did a profitable business in the opium trade in addition to carrying silks and tea from the Orient, and wool and lumber from Australia.
A copper-rimmed tub arrived in just under ten minutes. It required ten more minutes to fill. The captain sent along a white linen tablecloth to line the inside of the tub and a jar of lavender-scented bath salts. Lydia knelt beside the tub and added the salts, swirling them in the water with a lazy circling motion. “Do you think this belonged to the captain’s wife?” she asked, setting the jar on the floor.
“I don’t think he’s married.”
“A mistress then,” she said with a worldly air. It was at odds with the heat in her cheeks. Nathan laughed and she glanced over her shoulder at the sound. There was a dimple at each corner of his mouth and she imagined that she must have fallen in love with him very easily. “I wish I might always make you laugh. I can’t think of a better purpose for my life right now.”
Her very words erased Nathan’s smile, but Lydia had turned back to her bath and didn’t see. “Would you mind terribly if I had the cabin to myself for a little while?” she asked. “I’m feeling a bit nervous about…about—”
He hunkered down beside her. “I know,” he said. “I confess I’m feeling a bit nervous myself.”
“Oh.” Her arm stopped circling in the water. “But you’ve done it before.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Well, yes,” he admitted slowly. “But not with you.”
She looked at him shyly, her eyes not quite able to hold his gaze. “I might disappoint you.”
Nathan tipped her chin upward and kissed the corners of her mouth. “The only way you can disappoint me is by not being up to your neck in water when I return. I’ll give you ten minutes, then I’m coming in to scrub your back.” His mouth lingered a moment longer on hers and then he was gone.
