And slowly the waves of delight receded, leaving only the sucking sounds of the surf, and Olivia shivered in Anthony’s arms as he gathered her against him. “That was a most unusual swimming lesson,” she murmured.
He laughed softly and stood up, pulling her up with him. “Come, quickly now.” She stood, disoriented, still caught in the half-world of her dissolution. Anthony grabbed her hand and pulled her back into the water, swiftly washing the sand off her back, intimately but without lingering, cleansing the nooks and crannies of her body.
“Run in,” he instructed. “There are towels beside the fire. I’m going to swim.” He turned her to the beach, giving her a playful smack of encouragement, and Olivia returned to her self.
She ran for the beach, leaping over the little waves, her teeth chattering, her skin prickled with goose bumps. The wonderful rich smell of roasting chicken rising on the air, the crackle of crisping flesh, the hiss as fat dripped into the fire, made her hungrier than she would have thought possible. A magnificent hunger, a glorious feeling, as the lethargy of afterglow fought with the physical stimulation of cold water and the evening air on her bare wet skin.
There were towels, as Anthony had said. She grabbed one and rubbed herself dry, watching the sea, watching the swimmer cleaving the water with powerful strokes.
She waited for the black cloud of revulsion to envelop her. But the residual glories of loving were untarnished.
She stepped closer to the fire, warming the backs of her legs as Anthony rose from the waves and came running up the beach, water streaming from his hair.
Olivia gazed at him, loving every line of his body, the little buttons of his nipples, the hard, flat planes of his belly, the soft, quiescent sex in its nest of gold curls, dark now with water, the long, muscular length of his thighs.
“Stop that!” he said, laughing as he reached for a towel and rubbed himself dry briskly if somewhat perfunctorily. “It’s enough to embarrass a man.”
“Oh, pah!” Olivia scoffed. “I thought you were the one who adored the human body, fat, thin, stooped, straight. All the most wondrous creations. Isn’t that what you said?”
“And it’s true enough,” he said, snatching the wet towel from her. His eyes touched her body, lingering over every inch.
Olivia shivered and he bent to pick up another towel.
“You’ll catch your death!” Roughly now he rubbed her all over, turning and twisting her as if she were a rag doll, bending her over his forearm to dry her back and buttocks and down the length of her thighs.
When he was satisfied, he tossed aside the towel and picked up a blanket, wrapping it securely around her. “There now. You’re all ready for bed.”
“I thought you were going to draw me.” Olivia huddled closer into the rough wool of the blanket.
“In the morning, when the sun will warm you.” He threw more wood on the fire. The chicken skin hissed and crackled. “This’ll be ready soon.”
“Oh, good. I’m famished.” She sat down beside the fire, wrapped in the blanket.
Anthony opened a basket and took out a loaf of bread, cheese, a flagon of wine, and two pewter goblets. He poured the wine, a pale creamy canary, and broke bread. “We eat with our fingers tonight.”
“How else.” Olivia took the goblet and the crusty hunk of bread. It smelled as if it had just come out of the oven. “Aren’t you going to wear a blanket too?”
“I don’t find it cold,” he returned with one of his secret little smiles.
“Then you c-can’t object if I feast my eyes upon you,” she mumbled through a mouthful of bread and cheese.
Anthony merely laughed and squatted beside the fire, using the tip of his dagger to test the chicken. The firelight danced over his deeply tanned skin, illuminated the knobbly curve of his spine, sent a finger of light into the dark secret shadows of his loins.
Olivia, curled up in her blanket, drank wine and gazed at him with unabashed lust. She thought suddenly of Godfrey Channing, of what he would think if he could see her thus. And she thought of Brian, probing the thought as if it were an aching tooth, waiting for the nerve to blossom with pain.
Anthony levered a leg away from the body of the bird, watching the color of the juices. “Are you cold?” He didn’t look up as he spoke and yet somehow he’d felt the change in her, and he dreaded looking at her, seeing the revulsion, the withdrawal once again in her eyes.
“No,” she said, resting her chin on her drawn-up knees. “No, not in the least.” Her voice was firm.
Only as he felt the relief seep into him did Anthony realize how much he had been afraid. He began to pull the roasted chicken apart with his fingers, slicing the breast with his dagger, piling the richly fragrant meat on two large flat pebbles.
They ate and drank in the firelight as the moon rose high, sending a silver river of light across the sea.
Later, Olivia lay in the circle of his arm between the blankets. She was sleepy and yet her eyes refused to close. The star-filled night was too beautiful. After their loving, she was filled with such peace and contentment that not even the certainty of its ephemeral quality could spoil her languid joy. It was as if her wounds had been closed. This was the memory she would carry with her. Many years from now she would still remember how it felt to lie here under this rough blanket in the glow of the fire, listening to the lullaby of the waves breaking on the shore, with Anthony’s body against hers, her head in the hollow of his shoulder, his legs twined around hers. Many women… most women… never knew such piercing joy, however long they lived.
This one intense passion would last her lifetime, and it must be better than years of the bland and ordinary unenlivened by even a glimpse of the glory that could be between a man and a woman.
Olivia closed her eyes at last and was surprised to find that tears squeezed from beneath the lids. She hadn’t realized she was crying soundlessly as she talked herself into acceptance of a future reality where this passion could not possibly exist. Lord Granville’s daughter and Anthony Caxton could not enjoy each other in the real world, only in the dream that they had spun for themselves.
It was just before dawn when she awoke, and she was alone under the blanket. She sat up in the gray light, holding the blanket to her. There was a definite chill in the early morning air. Off to the east, the as yet invisible sun drew a thin red line on the horizon. As she watched, the line spread and the sky glowed red and orange, and then the great ball of the sun peeped above the horizon. It rose rapidly until it was all there, casting a brilliant red light upon the flat surface of the sea.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
She turned at Anthony’s voice behind her. He was dressed now and held two fish dangling from their hooks. “Breakfast,” he said, bending to kiss her upturned face.
“I have to…”
“There are rocks behind you and the sea in front,” he said, tossing the fish to the sand and squatting to rekindle the fire from the faint glow of the embers.
Olivia stood up, dropping the blanket. She stretched luxuriously, watching his deft, competent hands at their task. The fire flared and he took up the fish again and carried them to the water to clean them.
Olivia watched him for a minute, then, remembering her need, made her way to the seclusion of an outcrop of rocks. When she came back, he already had the fish on flat stones cooking over the fire.
She dressed and it felt strange to be clothed once more.
“There’s water in that other flagon, if you’re thirsty.” Anthony gestured to the basket.