None of that made any sense compared to this. This was an inferno and a conversation, all at once. He felt every touch with double ferocity: the way her fingers caressed his hair and then clenched almost painfully if he nudged forward with his hips. Her breath, sweet and smelling of tea and lemons. The little sounds she made in the back of her throat, urging him on, telling him without words that—
He reared up, looking down at her, running a possessive hand down her neck, her shoulders, trailing onto her breast. He felt her shudder under his touch.
She opened her mouth, about to speak, so he put a finger across her lips. The tip of her tongue stole out and touched his finger. He pressed back, just a little, allowed his finger to slip through soft lips into liquid warmth. The groan was torn from his chest, reverberated through his entire body.
It crystallized his thoughts.
“I will not marry Georgiana.” It was blunt because he wasn’t good at words, even though he was a little more fluent around Olivia. Somehow, he could talk to her.
Her eyes flew open and her whole body went rigid. “Oh, God, I’m the worst sister in the world. Let me up!”
He shook his head, dragging his thumb along the curve of her jaw. “Your skin is beautiful.”
“I feel sick to my stomach,” she said, fierce and low. “And you—you’re seducing me!”
“Yes.”
“Stop it. And let me up!”
Reluctantly, he rolled to the side but kept his arm across her body. “I can’t marry her, and it has nothing to do with you.”
“Liar.” She glared at him, and he took a moment to savor it. Olivia was like a flame.
“Actually, I never lie.”
“You’re lying now. If you had never met me, you would have married Georgie and been happy as two bedbugs in a mattress or, more to the point, two alchemists in a laboratory.”
“I can’t know for certain, of course, but I don’t think so. It wasn’t until my mother brought Lady Althea and Miss Georgiana here that I realized I could not simply marry whomever she chose for me.”
“She chose rightly,” Olivia said, stubborn as ever. “You’re perfect for each other. This thing between us is nothing more than a forest fire, as you described it. Temporary. It will burn itself out. Let me rise, please.”
“I don’t believe that I know what love is, at least the sort that people talk about between men and women. But I would venture to say that some people characterize the feeling I had for Evangeline as love. I think care about is a more accurate description, especially if one understands the phrase to include an abiding desire.”
She stilled. Raised a hand, touched his cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t a good marriage. She wasn’t in love with me, and she had a deep urge to be with other men. It was problematic. But I cared about her, even when she made me a cuckold and finally left me. I couldn’t stop. Stupid, I know.”
Olivia leaned over and gave him a kiss that clung to his lips. “Actually, you should be proud of your loyalty. You are wonderful, Quin.”
“No, I’m quite foolish. I should have stopped myself. Somehow.”
“I don’t think anyone has the ability to choose whether or not to fall in love.”
“Exactly,” he said with deep satisfaction. “I agree with you. When I told you that I don’t lie, I meant it.”
She shook her head. “I must return downstairs in case Georgie decides to rejoin the ball.”
“I am telling you something.” He tried to remember what it was, but it felt as if his entire body was focused on the plump, sweet curves of her lips.
“You never lie,” she said, sitting up and breaking their eye contact. “I accept that.”
“I’m not good at . . . interpreting complex statements.”
She pulled up her knees, wound her arms around them, and then rested her chin on them, looking at him curiously. “And yet you’re the most intelligent person I’ve ever met.”
“Only because you haven’t been to university.”
She gave a deep chuckle. “Most people would prevaricate on hearing that compliment, and insist that I was exaggerating.”
“As I said, I don’t lie. The possibility is extremely good that I am the most intelligent person you’ve met. But that doesn’t mean I’m the wisest. Witness the fact that I cared so deeply for Evangeline.”
“A fact that proves you human.”
“It’s a miserable way to achieve humanity,” he said wryly. “My point is that I couldn’t say those vows without meaning them.”
“Vows?” Her eyes changed. “Oh. The marriage vows.”
“ ‘To have and to hold,’ ” he quoted. “ ‘To love and to cherish, till death us do part.’ ”
She swallowed. “Poor Evangeline.”
“She’s in the past now.” And he meant that. “But I can’t say those words to just anyone. They mean a great deal to me. They’re powerful.”
“Even though Evangeline was not respectful of those vows?”
“Yes. Do you know how she died?”
Olivia hugged her knees more closely. “No.”
“She was leaving me. She had decided to run away to France with her current lover, a scrap of absurdity named Sir Bartholomew Fopling.”
Olivia choked.
“I’m not joking,” he said. “Fopling was a most gifted man: he could sing in any number of languages, dance everything worth dancing, and his cravats were always pressed. At any rate, she and Fopling took Alfie with them.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “They left for France even though a storm was brewing. They were warned not to embark, but Evangeline bribed the captain. She was terrified that I was following her, that I would catch her.”
“Are you sure you wish to tell me this?”
“Why not? It’s no more than your maid would tell you if you asked.”
“And were you following her?”
“I almost killed my horse riding him hard, but I was too late. The devil of it is that I still dream of that pier. I’d missed them, and the only thing I could see was the sea, boiling with whitecaps. The boat went down only a mile or two from shore.”
There was a moment of silence. “I suppose,” Olivia said slowly, “that a future duchess should not engage in profanity, especially with regard to the dead. So I would say, Quin, while avoiding curses, that your wife was an ass.”
He could feel a twisted little smile on his lips. “It was a long time ago. Five years. Practically a lifetime.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “One never gets over the loss of a loved one. Especially a child.”
There was no point in answering that comment. It was cruelly true. “At any rate, I can’t marry Georgiana.”
Then he added, just so she understood: “Ever.”
“I think you could grow to love her—or care about her, if you prefer that term.”
“Evangeline was not faithful to me, but I was to her. I was so feverishly in lust with her that there were times when I doubted my own ability to maintain my self-control. Though, of course, I did.”
A shadow crossed her eyes. “Evangeline threw away something that every woman in this kingdom would love to have. She didn’t deserve it.”