Read Betrayed by Your Kiss Online

Authors: Laura Landon

Betrayed by Your Kiss (6 page)

BOOK: Betrayed by Your Kiss
4.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Chapter 6

Olivia stared at him, absorbing every detail of the man standing in front of her. Time seemed to stop as her mind whirled in confusion. The emotional part of her, the part that knew how essential it was to protect her heart, said this couldn’t be true. Damien couldn’t be alive. The more rational part of her mind, the part that was forced to face reality, knew it was. For four agonizing years, the man she’d loved had let her believe she’d sent him to his death.

“Why? Why did you let me think you’d died?”

His features didn’t change. The dark expression on his face remained closed. Missing was the warmth she’d once seen in his eyes. Absent was the laughter she’d heard in his voice. Gone was the closeness she’d felt even when he wasn’t near her. Olivia kept her gaze focused on him, searching for some hint of the man to whom she’d given her heart so long ago.

That man was gone. In his place was a stranger. A man with skin bronzed from years of being out of doors. A man who was as hardened on the inside as he was on the out.

A long, jagged line ran across the left side of his face and down his neck. He let her focus on it, as if waiting for her to recoil from the sight of him. She didn’t. And it angered her that he thought she would.

As if he’d given into her perusal long enough, he turned his face away. He looked across the room at Captain Durham and Haywood.

“Please excuse us,” he said. His voice contained an icy chill that she’d never heard before.

He pushed open the door to the room where he’d been hiding during the reading of the will. Without a glance in her direction, he stood in the doorway and waited for her to enter.

Olivia walked past him on legs that felt weak and made her way across the room to stand in front of a window. She needed light. She needed to look out onto things that were familiar. Onto busy London streets bustling with people rushing about, doing their everyday business. She needed to watch the carriages go by on their way to planned events. She needed to see a world of normalcy instead of trying to survive in a world gone mad.

She clutched her arms around her middle and held herself perfectly still, terrified that if she let go of her rigid stiffness, she might fall apart. She nearly shattered when the door clicked behind her.

For a long time, she couldn’t bring herself to face him. The silence in the room threatened to suffocate her. Olivia thought he might not want to start this conversation any more than she did. It was as if he knew, just as she did, that even the slightest move, the faintest noise would have the same catastrophic results as the first shot of a battle. And so she waited until she couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Why did you let me believe you were dead?” she asked again when she realized he wouldn’t be the first one to speak.

“I
was
dead. The whole world thought so.”

Olivia spun around and glared at him. But his face was turned from her.

“You look remarkably well for someone who’s been dead nearly four years. Did you once, in all that time, think to let me know you had survived?”

“No.”

His answer stole her breath, then ignited her fury.

With his face averted, he stood as lifeless as a statue, as emotionless as a boulder of granite. She clenched her fists and faced him squarely. “Then why did you come back now?”

With a slight lift of his chin, he showed the first reaction. The corners of his lips lifted to form a cynical grin. A grin tinged with malice. “Why do you think? To get everything I should have had upon our marriage.”

“My father’s possessions mean so much to you? My father’s land and his ships were enough to bring you back from the dead, but I wasn’t?”

“You showed me the extent of your . . . concern, when you betrayed me.”

Olivia sucked in a breath. “I agreed to send you with Captain Durham because Strathern wanted you dead.”

“You sent me away because you didn’t think I could face Strathern on my own. You didn’t think I could defend myself. You sent me away because you didn’t trust me enough to believe that I loved you more than your father’s ships!”

“Trust had nothing to do with it. Strathern would have killed you. He’d already put—”

He slammed his fist against the top of the table. “Then he would have killed me! It would have been better than the world thinking I’d run because I was a coward!”

He glared at her, his blue eyes glowering with resentment. “Have you discovered who fathered Cassandra’s babe?”

Still stunned, she shook her head.

“Did you even search for an answer? Or were you so convinced I was the guilty party you didn’t even bother looking?”

“I knew you weren’t the father of her babe.”

“Liar! You thought it from the minute Strathern accused me. I saw it on your face.”

Olivia reached out to steady herself against one of the wooden chairs around the large table. He took a step toward her.

“Well, it doesn’t matter any more, does it? Strathern is dead. He went to his grave believing I was responsible for his daughter’s death.”

“You knew Strathern died?”

“I knew.”

Olivia felt as if another spike had been driven through her heart. Strathern died less than a year after Cassandra’s death—less than a year after Damien left. She pressed her fist to her stomach as if she might be ill. He’d known for more than three years that it was safe to come home.

The room suddenly lost some of its brightness. Olivia wasn’t sure if the sun had gone beneath a cloud, or if the fury she felt obliterated it from her view.

Damien pulled out one of the chairs at the opposite end of the table and sat, stretching his long, muscular legs out in front of him.

“It was quite clever of your father to word his will the way he did, leaving us no choice but to marry in order to keep the ships.”

She sucked in a deep breath. “Yes, quite clever. And yet not really so binding. We must marry
only
if we both intend to keep the ships.” Olivia turned and leveled him with a glare filled with all the bitterness that was tearing her apart. “A choice I’m not sure I’m prepared to make.”

His dark brows arched in a menacing line. “Are you telling me you would consider giving everything up?”

Olivia clutched her hands into the folds of her skirt and swallowed hard. Could she give up the estates, the land with the people she’d come to love over the years? And the ships? She’d loved the ships since she’d first stepped aboard the wooden deck of a mighty vessel as a little girl. She was never at such peace as when she was down at the docks or standing aboard one of her father’s ships with the deck rolling beneath her feet and the wind whipping through her hair. How could her father expect her to give up the ships? She couldn’t do it.

The ships were her solace. The harbor was where she went to feel close to her father. To Damien. The ships were what she and Damien were going to build their life around. Their future. It was a passion they both shared. Why would her father give her an ultimatum that would take that away from her?

Olivia turned her head and lifted her gaze to Damien’s. She thought she saw a smile cross his face. Thought for just a moment she spied a hint of humor. A hint of smugness, as if he knew what giving up the ships would cost her. And he enjoyed her misery.

The Damien she’d loved and adored before was gone. And in his place there was a cruel and unforgiving stranger. A man she didn’t even like, let alone think she could ever love again.

“Don’t be too rash, Olivia. Marriage to me can’t be all that bad, can it? You were prepared to do it before, and quite happy about it, if I remember correctly.”

His words stung like nothing she could recall. “Why are you doing this?”

He lifted his eyebrows in feigned confusion. “Doing what?”

“Expecting us to marry. Demanding the ships.”

“Because they’re mine.”

His eyes turned cold as ice, his voice hard as stone. “I spent four years waiting for the day I could come back to get everything you took away from me. I thought of nothing else during those long, agonizing days except returning to claim what would have been mine if you had only stood at my side and not betrayed me.”

Olivia staggered under the resentment she heard in his voice. For a long moment, she could do nothing but stare at him in disbelief. Did he really believe she’d cared so little for him? But when she looked into his eyes, she knew he did.

She didn’t have the strength to face his anger. She turned her back on him and walked to the window. More people bustled past. More carriages rumbled down the street. Life went on as if nothing out of the ordinary could disturb it, while here in this room, her world was crumbling around her.

She didn’t turn around to face him. She didn’t think she could bear to see the hard look in his eyes, the cold disdain on his face.

“I only have to marry you if I want what my father intended I should have.”

“And if you don’t marry me before the six week deadline is up, you lose not only the ships, but the chance to marry and have a home and family of your own.”

His words were like the twisting of a knife once he had it embedded in her flesh. She slowly turned. “You are only partially right, my lord. I may lose my father’s ships if I don’t marry you, but you are not my only, nor my last, chance at a home and family.”

His dark brows arched in a dangerous line. “Are you telling me there is someone else you intend to marry?”

“What I am planning is hardly your concern.”

“Oh, it is my concern, Olivia. A groom is always concerned when his bride informs him she has plans to marry someone else.”

The air she needed to breathe lodged in her throat. “When I marry, my lord, you most certainly will not be the groom. You had that choice once before and lost it.”

“I did not lose it. It was taken away from me.”

“No! You could have come back to claim your right any time during the last four years and chose not to. Now it is too late. It will be a cold day in hell before I will consider taking your name again. A cold day in hell before I will ever be the fool I was once.”

“If anyone was the fool, it was I! And you know nothing of my reasons for not returning!”

Olivia took a step closer to him, her fury nearly consuming her. “I know you did not care for me enough to let me know you were alive. Now, it is too late for us! It was too late the minute you made the conscious decision to let me believe you were dead.”

She saw the muscles in Damien’s jaw clench before he rose and moved toward her. For the first time, Olivia noted an unevenness in his gait. It wasn’t quite a limp, yet she could see it was an imperfection he’d become quite adept at concealing. He stopped when he was nearly upon her.

He meant to intimidate her with his towering height and broad shoulders, but she stood up to him.

“We will marry, Olivia. I will have the estates,
and
the ships,
and
you!”

Olivia reached out to the nearest chair to steady herself. Her father and Captain Durham had been right when they’d told her Damien would never forgive her if she sent him away, but she thought the love she and Damien shared could weather any disaster that threatened them.

What a fool she’d been.

She pushed herself away from the chair she clung to and stepped around him as she made her way to the door. She had to get out of here. Had to get away from him.

“We have six weeks until the deadline. I would begin making plans if I were you.”

She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then threw open the door and left. For the first time since she’d put him aboard the
Princess Anne
, she wished she’d let him stay in England and take his chances with Strathern.

C
hapter 7

Damien lifted the brandy to his mouth and finished the last few drops before setting the empty glass back on the table. From the moment he’d left Haywood’s office, he’d wanted nothing more than to find some remote corner and get roaring drunk. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t. Not until he had this whole mess sorted out in his mind. Not until he was well on his way to getting his life back.

Damien thought of Olivia’s boast not to marry him. She evidently had someone else in mind. Someone to whom she’d given her heart. Damien raked his fingers through his hair. The thought of her with another man made his blood boil. She was wrong if she thought he’d let her marry someone else. She was still his. Even if she didn’t want to be.

He sprang from the chair in his cabin aboard the
Angel’s Wings
, then grasped the corner of the table when his left leg refused to support him. He muttered an oath more vile than those he usually said when his injuries limited him, but today seemed to warrant every curse he knew. Being near Olivia again after nearly four years of dreaming about her every single day had taken its toll on his emotions. He didn’t want to feel the same passion for her that he had when she’d betrayed him, but the woman he faced now wasn’t the girl she’d been four years ago. The Olivia of four years ago would never have stood up to him like she had today. The Olivia from before would never have slapped him.

Damien paced the length of his cabin to stretch his legs, then sat back down in one of the two matching oversized leather chairs and rubbed his thighs. When the cramping of his muscles eased, he dropped his head back against the chair with a heavy sigh. Bloody hell, but she’d become a courageous beauty.

Damien pictured the expression on her face when she’d first seen him. When she’d first realized he was alive. The color had drained from her face, turning her creamy, clear complexion a pale white against the rich mahogany of her hair.

Oh, her hair. He knew beneath that trim, black velvet bonnet, her hair was pulled into a loose knot that, when released, would hang nearly to her waist. How many times he’d fantasized pulling the pins that held the thick, heavy lengths. How, in the months while he fought for his life, he’d envisioned twining his fingers through her hair as he held her to him, fanning it out around her as she lay beneath him.

While his breathing went in and out in a rush, he experienced an uncomfortable heaviness he swore he would never again allow himself to feel. He relived seeing her oval face turn toward him in disbelief, her huge, brown eyes staring at him in confusion. Then her upper teeth clamped against her lush lower lip, and her daintily rounded chin trembled—until she recovered and her shock changed to outrage, then open fury.

Well, now she knew what it felt like to be deceived by someone she loved. Now she knew what it meant to have her world pulled out from beneath her and be left to flounder in despair and confusion. And she’d know what it was to be helpless to control her future. He’d spent four years dreaming of this day and he would celebrate every second of it.

Only he hadn’t bargained on the pangs of guilt and regret that accompanied the satisfaction.

He brushed the uncomfortable emotions aside and listened for Durham, who he had sent out to be his legs, to gather information Damien couldn’t gather for himself. It was too soon for him to show his face. Too soon for his miraculous return from the dead to be the fast-spreading topic of conversation in every parlor in London. He had too much to do before he could battle the curiosity seekers and the busybodies who would vie for a glimpse at the recently resurrected Earl of Iversley.

There was his title to restore and Damien looked forward to a confrontation with his cousin with immense anticipation. If half of what Haywood told him were true, Damien was going to take great pleasure in beating the usurper within an inch of his life before he sent him packing, before he made him suffer for the advantage he’d taken of Damien’s mother and her hospitality, before he made him account for every pound he’d lost gaming. But first he needed to know exactly what he was facing with Olivia. With his competition.

Damien rose from his chair and paced the cabin again. How long did it take to have a few drinks and find out a little information? Damien listened, then heard footsteps. He focused his eyes on the door and breathed a sigh of relief when the captain walked in.

Durham shook the rain from his slicker and tossed it and his hat over a hook on the wall. Then he walked to a table where three decanters sat in a deep tray. He poured liquor from one of the bottles into a glass and brought the decanter over to where Damien stood and offered to refill his glass, too.

“Am I going to need this?”

“Probably.”

Damien waited for Durham to refill his glass, then cradled it in his hand. “What did you find out?”

The captain sank down onto the other cushioned chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him. After he’d taken a hefty swallow, he looked at Damien. “Olivia’s name’s been linked to the Marquess of Rotham. As to how serious it is, you’ll have to ask someone more in the know than the blokes I bought drinks for all evening. I can only tell you the comment was made that the relationship was serious enough to cause speculation up and down the waterfront as to what might happen if there were a merger of two of the largest shipping fleets in London.”

Damien felt a stab of anger fueled by a wave of something even stronger. He refused to admit it might be jealousy. Jealousy was an emotion that resulted from feelings of affection between two people. There was no affection left between Olivia and him. How could there be after what she’d done?

Damien tightened his fingers around the glass in his hand, then forced himself to relax his grip. His calm was short-lived.

“There’s more,” Durham said.

Damien’s attention flashed to Durham’s face, and he looked at the frown that covered the captain’s forehead. “What?”

“Olivia is in danger.”

Every muscle in Damien’s body tensed. “Why?”

“According to talk at the Anchor’s Down, Pellingsworth Shipping has been plagued by some mysterious incidents for quite some time.”

“What sort of incidents?”

“A couple months ago, the
Andora Jane
sailed with half a cargo. And the morning the
Viking’s Lady
was supposed to set sail, almost one-third of her crew failed to show. Then last week, the
Conquest
had to turn back when all the spare rigging was frayed. There have also been some shorted shipments and unexplained cancellations. And just this morning, the port authorities came to search the hold of the
Daring
.”

“For what?”

“They didn’t say.”

“Did they find anything?”

“No. But they’re suspicious now. They’re the bane of every captain that sails. Hard to tell when they’ll make their next surprise inspection. A little money under the table is usually the only way to keep them away.”

“Did you know any of this was going on before now?”

Durham shook his head. “She didn’t mention it once. Not even in the letter she sent asking me to come back for the reading of her father’s will. Every time I inquired, she assured me everything was fine.”

Damien rubbed his aching thighs. “When did these plagues start?”

“Evidently not long after her father died. Talk has it, though, they’re happening more often of late and the mishaps are getting more serious. There was even a fire aboard the
Viking
the night she pulled into port. It could have been worse, but the first mate forgot a silk shawl he’d brought back from China for his mother’s birthday and went back to get it. He saw smoke and raised the alarm before the fire did much damage.”

Damien fought the familiar wave of panic at the mere mention of a fire and took another swallow of the brandy in his glass. “Does anyone have any idea who might be behind these accidents?”

“There’s a lot of speculation, but nothing anyone can prove. It could be someone who doesn’t think a woman should be running a shipping business. There’s still more than a few superstitious old tars who think having a woman anywhere near a ship is bad luck.”

“What do you think?”

Durham took another swallow of his drink and sighed heavily. “I think it sounds like someone’s trying to discredit the lady. Or ruin her. Or scare her off so she’ll sell.”

“Competition?”

Durham shrugged his shoulders. “Possibly, but why now? Unless they think she’s an easy mark now that her father’s dead.”

“Then it’s someone who doesn’t know her well, or they’d realize they picked the wrong person.”

Damien walked to the other side of the cabin. His leg was more stiff than usual, although the brandy was helping the pain.

“What are you going to do, lad?”

“The only thing I can. Find out who’s behind this before Olivia gets hurt.”

Durham set his glass down and rose to face Damien. “You’d be wise not to let anyone know you’re back. At least until your mother knows you’ve returned. That’s not news you want her hearing through the gossip mill.”

“When are you scheduled to leave?” Damien asked. Pellingsworth Shipping had signed a very lucrative contract to bring back three shipments of French wine from Bordeaux, and the captain was due to set sail soon.

“In three days on the
Wayward Lady
. They’re loading cargo right now. But I’ll find someone else to captain the ship. I don’t want to leave you.”

“No,” Damien said, waving his hand. “You need to be on board. With all the accidents that are happening, we can’t trust these shipments to anyone else. Besides, you’ll only be gone two weeks.”

“Be careful, lad. Don’t take any chances you don’t have to.”

“I won’t.”

“And be careful with her, too. She’s been through enough.”

“Haven’t we all?”

“Perhaps it would be best to forget the past and put what happened behind you.”

Damien ignored Durham’s comment and sat back down in his chair.

With a shake of his head Durham walked away. “I’ll check on that cargo tonight. Then I’ll spend the night aboard the
Wayward Lady
to make sure nothing happens. With all that’s gone on, it might not hurt to keep a closer watch on things.”

Damien watched Captain Durham put his slicker and hat back on and leave the cabin. He took another long swallow of the brandy and kneaded the muscles in his right thigh, which always hurt worse than the other.

The lamp burned low and soft, casting flowing shadows across the room, reminding him of shaded evenings in a gentler time. He tried not to think of her. Tried to keep his mind focused on what he had to do. On the loose ends he needed to tie up.

He couldn’t rush in and claim Olivia like he’d originally intended. Revealing himself would have to wait. He needed to keep his identity a secret until he knew who was behind the accidents. Whoever it was wouldn’t be nearly so careful if they thought Olivia was a defenseless female. And they’d make a mistake.

Then, when Olivia and Pellingsworth Shipping were out of danger, he’d marry her and have the life she’d stolen from him nearly four years ago.

Damien stretched his legs out in front of him and laid his head against the back of the chair. It was Olivia’s face he saw when he closed his eyes. Olivia’s eyes looking down on him. Olivia’s lips smiling back at him. Lips he’d dreamed of kissing every night in his sleep.

Damien let his fingers trail down the left side of his face, over the wide, jagged scar that ran at an angle from his temple, across his cheek, and down his neck. The scar that pulled awkwardly at his flesh. At least she hadn’t screamed in horror when she’d seen it. In fact, she’d barely seemed to notice.

Damien threw the remaining liquor to the back of his throat and rose stiffly from his chair. With a self-deprecating oath, he shrugged into his jacket and stepped out on deck. He needed fresh air. He needed something other than being penned in by four walls and a past life of memories he couldn’t escape.

So he walked, without knowing where or why, in hopes he could escape the nightmares that haunted him.

Olivia glanced up from her paperwork and looked at the clock on the shipping office wall. She hadn’t intended to stay here this long—hadn’t even intended to come here tonight. But after her shocking afternoon, she needed to be here, in her father’s office at Pellingsworth Shipping, surrounded by memories of everything that was his.

She rubbed her hand over her eyes and faced the possibility that in less than six weeks, the shipping company might no longer be hers.

Olivia leaned back in her chair and considered her choices. She could either marry Rolland and forfeit everything to Damien, or she could marry Damien and condemn herself to a life with a man who no longer loved her.

Why had her father written such a stipulation into his will? He knew how much she loved the harbor. Knew how much she loved coming to the shipyards to oversee the comings and goings of ships and the cargoes they carried all over the world. And her father had essentially given it all to Damien, leaving her no choice but to marry him to have a connection to it.

BOOK: Betrayed by Your Kiss
4.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

GrandSlam by Lily Harlem and Lucy Felthouse
Dead Spots by Melissa F. Olson
Piecemeal June by Jordan Krall
Where the Heart Leads by Sawyer, Kim Vogel
One Mad Night by Julia London
Dragon Gold by Kate Forsyth
Dear Sylvia by Alan Cumyn
Summer According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney
Shatter Me by Anna Howard