A fancy on her part, Nathan thought. Their first meeting had been in an alley and she hadn’t had a good look at him until he’d coerced her into his hotel suite. Far from thinking she belonged with him, she had run the other way. Humoring her, Nathan asked, “How could you be so certain?”
How could she? she wondered. It had seemed so clear to her at the time, knowledge that she had in her fingertips, a sense of knowing that could hardly be defined in plain words, more certain than intuition, more rational than instinct. “I can’t explain it,” she said finally, “but it’s real. I feel it now. I couldn’t belong to anyone else…ever.”
“Liddy,” he said softly. He wanted to say that she shouldn’t think of being his forever, that things could change, and that he was not everything she imagined him to be. But he couldn’t tell her. However briefly, she believed he was kind and good, patient, generous, and loving, and Nathan was reluctant to let her see he was none of those things. “Liddy,” he said again, helplessly, inadequately, and kissed her full on the mouth.
The taste of him lingered long after he withdrew. Lydia snuggled against him as he turned on his side and pulled her close. She fell asleep almost immediately, lulled by the ship’s constant rocking, peaceful inAvonlei’scradle. Nathan finally slept because he was exhausted.
He came awake hard,wanting her. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she didn’t let him have her. Take her anyway probably. He wanted her that much.
It didn’t come to that. Coming awake by slow degrees, Lydia turned in his arms naturally and moved with sinuous grace against him, a sleek cat with her eye on the cream, circling her master’s leg. Lydia did everything but purr as she took him inside her. His thrust was powerful, deep. Her back arched, her nails pressed white crescents into the taut, warm flesh of his shoulders. Throwing back her head, Lydia felt the driving force of his body become hotter and harder. She wrapped her legs around his flanks and matched the rhythm of his desire.
Nathan felt her all around him, her hands, her arms, her legs, and more intimately, the velvet center of her, and still it was not enough. He had her heart, her trust, her love, and he had none of it fairly. Suddenly he was angry, blindly, irrationally angry, and his only outlet had already been set in motion.
He ignored her wimper, thrusting in her deeply, touching her womb. His mouth was hard on her skin. He drew hotly on her slick and salty flesh, bruising her with kisses. He said her name like a curse, spilling into her, the planes of his face rigid with tension as he gave Lydia his seed.
In the aftermath he was silent except for his harsh breathing, motionless except for the hand that caressed her hip.
Lydia lay on her back and turned only her head toward him. She stared, trying to fathom his expressionless, implacable eyes.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked to fill the silent void.
She wondered why he asked the question when he didn’t seem to care about her answer. He hadn’t hurt her, but it was almost as if he had wanted to. Finally she said, “No.”
Nathan turned on his side and propped himself on one elbow. The hand at her hip moved to her hair. He drew strands of it across her shoulder. “Yes,” he said. “I did.”
But he didn’t apologize, Lydia noticed, or explain his actions; yet there was an expression that briefly entered his eyes and she thought it was regret. She would have to be satisfied with that for now. Beyond the certainty that she belonged with him, Lydia realized she knew little about Nathan Hunter. And before? she wondered. What had she known about him before she lost her memory? Nathan told her himself that their courtship had been brief, spanning only a few months. “Have I ever known you well?” she asked.
Nathan’s fingertips smoothed her brows and traced the graceful arch of her cheekbone. His knuckle pressed lightly against her chin, brushed her bottom lip. He felt her beautiful dark blue eyes on him, curious and expectant. “As well as most,” he said. “Better than some.”
His flippancy made her frown. Had she angered him in some way? “That’s no answer.”
“No, it’s not.” He hesitated, and finally the question was pulled from him, as if against his will. “What is it you want to know?”
Lydia evaded his exploring hand while she sat up. She drew part of the sheet with her and leaned against the wall. Brushing back a lock of hair that had fallen across her cheek, she asked, “You told me you were a convict,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me about the scars?”
So shehadfelt them. Nathan followed Lydia’s lead and sat up, hitching a blanket around his waist. He started to reach for his shirt, which was hanging on the corner post of their bunk, then stopped. Shrugging, he withdrew his hand. What did it matter? She knew they were there. He had hoped in the dark she wouldn’t learn about them. He remembered trying to stop her from touching him there, but he hadn’t been quick enough. Her hands had felt so good on his back—tender, gentle. Lydia’s hands were healing, her touch a balm.
“How should I have brought the matter up?” he asked. “I turned back the lamps so you wouldn’t be offended.”
“Offended? Do you really think I’m as delicate as all that?” She pulled the sheet aside and pointed to her knee. “Here. I have a scar. An ugly one, too.” It was the shape of a half moon, almost two inches long, and raised above the smooth skin around it. “I wanted to be so beautiful for you, and I saw this, and—”
Seeing it, Nathan smiled. He leaned toward her, bent his head, and brushed the scar with his lips. “You are beautiful for me,” he said.
Lydia looked up at him as he raised his head, not quite believing what she heard.
“Don’t cry,” he said as she blinked back tears. “Why are you crying? What did I—” But she had launched herself into his arms and he stopped questioning and simply held her.
She hardly knew why she was crying herself. Lydia couldn’t have explained it to Nathan. He gave her one corner of the sheet to wipe her eyes as her muffled, hiccupping sobs gradually stopped. “I love you,” she said, her voice hushed. “I may not remember falling in love, but Iknowabout this feeling I have for you.”
Nathan’s arms tightened around her. His cheek rested against her hair. “There has never been anyone in my life like you, Lydia. No one so gentle or giving, honest and innocent. Sometimes…sometimes I think it’s all been a mistake, that you can’t possibly love me, and I...” He fell silent.
“Yes?”
“Nothing.” He didn’t tell her that he was frightened when he thought of her not loving him, not needing or wanting him. Nathan could not make himself that vulnerable, not for anyone, not even for Lydia. “You wondered about the scars,” he said.
He would tell her about the ones on his back, of course, but Lydia knew now that there were other wounds that had never quite healed, and she knew he would not speak of those. She would have to be patient if she hoped to understand the man she loved. Laying her palm against his chest, Lydia waited.
“I got these stripes while working Van Dieman’s Land,” Nathan told her. “Tasmania they call it now. As if changing the name could change the bloody stink of hell’s own island. I labored near Hobart, felling Huon pine for ship timber. Sixty and seventy feet tall some of it was, and so large around that three men could barely ring the trunk. All-day labor, sixteen hours in the summer, twelve in the winter, was the schedule we kept most times. I cut myrtle that the wheelwrights needed and celery-top pine for masts and spars for the shipbuilders. Van Dieman’s Land was rich in resources and, God knows, the labor was cheap.
