Ben crossed the bridge in long strides. “I told you to keep a watch on her. I told you not to allow her from your sight. I told you— Where is she?”
Sully’s thick brows rose. Creighton drew the tip of a pen out from between his teeth and pointed it down the dock.
“Right there, my lord.”
Ben’s heart halted, then stumbled to life anew. She stood beside the next vessel along the quay, looking up at its decks, her carriage erect, the hood of her cloak tossed back onto her shoulders. Sunlight poked through the loosening cloud cover, slanting across her face and form and rendering her almost ethereal.
But she was far from that. She was the single true reality Ben had ever known, the most precious, recklessly steadfast, and divinely beautiful creature imaginable. Even with a monkey perched on her shoulder.
The animal’s head turned toward him. Octavia’s gaze followed, lit with emotion. Ben moved forward.
“My lord.” Creighton cleared his throat. “Your weapon?”
Ben grinned, shoved the sword into his secretary’s hand, and headed toward the only past, present, and future he had ever wanted.
Chapter 26
HOMEWARD BOUND SHIP. A vessel when returning from a voyage to the place from whence she was fitted out.—Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine
Tavy struggled for breath. Ben’s face was flushed with life and so beautiful it hurt to look at him.
Lal jumped from her shoulder and skipped along the planking to meet him. With a gentle hand, Ben put the animal off him and halted before her. His gaze scanned her then came to her eyes. He smiled, and Tavy’s heart opened, a blossom beneath sun.
“You rescued me,” he said.
“I thought it was about time I returned the favor.” They stared at one another. “He capitulated so easily. You did not really need rescuing, did you?”
“I think I have needed rescuing by you my entire life, Octavia Pierce.”
“That is a very nice thing to say, but I don’t imagine it is true.” She spoke to prevent herself from leaping into his arms, like the monkey.
“Is Crispin’s confession real?”
She nodded.
“He gave it to you and you came here to help me. What did you imagine you would find?”
“I had no idea. I did not even know you would be here. But I had to come.”
“Octavia, I am sorry.”
“For what? Leaving me in the middle of the night to go carry on with another woman?”
He looked surprised for a moment, then his measured gaze said all.
“Priscilla Nathans told me,” she said. “And, no, I did not believe her. Not for more than a minute, anyway.”
“A minute.” He seemed to consider the notion. “I suppose I should be glad for the brevity of your mistrust this time.” His lips crept into another slight curve.
Octavia’s heart turned over. “You were in danger because of what I asked. Because Lord Styles hoped to harm me. I do not want to be a liability to you, Ben. I could not bear it.”
“Liability?” His voice deepened. “You are the reason those girls will not die on their way to India, the reason they are not being shipped away from home and into unwilling servitude. You are the reason I have put my father and brother’s deaths to rest, that their murderer will finally pay for it. The reason Constance can now live her life as she should. I would not have done any of it had you not shown me.”
“But I am not good at deception. I cannot play these games any longer.”
“This is not a game, Octavia. This is my heart that you stole and I can no longer live without. I have done many things I do not like in service to others, and I finally understand why, and why I must continue. But I cannot if losing you again is the price.”
She barely breathed. Words would not come. Remarkably.
“I am sorry, Octavia, not only for leaving you in the middle of the night but for leaving you seven years ago.”
“S-Seven years ago?” she whispered.
“I was head over heels in love with you then. I still am, more and more each day.” His mouth shaped a gentle smile, the flash of white teeth like that first day in the Madras market. “How could I not be?”
A sob of joy caught in her throat. The air all around seemed to shimmer, golden and dazzling in the crisscrossed shadows. She stared at his perfect face, his beloved face, and the present embraced the past in a sumptuous tangle. Early evening breeze rattled lines against spars, sailors called to one another across planking, a bell tolled and the scent of brine rose from the river, a cacophony of sensation Tavy melted into, every pore in her body opening fully to life again, finally.
“I know about Abha,” she somehow managed to utter.
“He told you.” Ben’s shoulders seemed to relax.
“All these years from thousands of miles away you have been protecting me,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He stepped close, his black eyes glimmering in the setting sun, vulnerable, his soul crystal clear through them. “Because until last night I was not certain the news would be welcome to you. Put me out of my misery finally, shalabha. Accept me. I am yours, as I always have been. I need you to be mine.”
“Oh, Ben.” She rested a palm upon his chest, then her brow. “I feel weak all over.”
He drew in a deep breath, touched his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her face to meet his gaze, wrapping his arm about her. “Then allow me to hold you until you regain your strength.”
“Rescuing me again?” A quivering smile. “You know, it is very difficult for a woman to resist a man who rescues her so many times.”
“I suspected that.” He pulled her to him tight and his heart beat hard and steady beneath her fingertips. “I love you, Octavia,” he murmured against her cheek. “I love you.” He captured her lips and kissed her so sweetly and with such sublime seduction of heart and body that she could only surrender willingly, happily, as she had at the beginning with him, when the world was wide and love could be plucked from the heavens if one were adventuresome enough to reach for it.
Her smile was radiant. “Take me home, Ben.”
“Where to? Madras or Kent?”
“Wherever you are.”
“You have my promise, shalabha. Forever.”
Epilogue
The marchioness leaned into the main deck rail and loosened the ribbons on her bonnet, setting a flurry of gold-red locks free. Sea spray and smoke from the Madras manufactories ahead tangled in the tropical air and in her nostrils, beckoning. Sprawled in a comfortable pale mass on the East Indian coast, Fort St. George commanded the harbor, surrounded by palm trees and town houses and screened by dozens of ships. She loved this sight, the sight she craved and that held her spellbound now, as on that first time she sailed toward it a decade ago.
She sensed her husband’s approach from behind. He slipped his hands around her waist, then his arms, and she leaned back into his warmth.
“So, we arrive.” His voice was peaceful.
“I have been thinking,” she said, months of shipboard contentedness now transformed into jittery anticipation. “What if you are unhappy here? What if it all seems horridly alien to you after so many years?” She turned from the scene of tropical heaven before her to an even more intoxicating sight.
His eyes sparkled beneath the equatorial sun, his expression pacific. “Then you will remind me and it will become familiar once again.”