Page 52 of The Butterfly
“Hmm,” she mumbled, tightening her hold on him. “Hungry. We slept through dinner.”
He snorted. “Wefuckedthrough dinner. We slept through dessert.”
She giggled at that, shifting one of her legs and reminding him just how entangled they were. The remnants of dried tears remained upon her face, but her eyes were clear and bright, her cheeks rosy with the glow of a well-loved woman.
“Aside from hungry … Are ye all right?”
“I am more than all right, Niall. I am … sublime. And it is all thanks to you.”
“No. Ye were bold enough to take what ye needed. Ye’ve always been the braver of the two of us, really. I was always too afraid I’d hurt ye, that once would never be enough, or—”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she argued, reaching up to stroke a lock of hair back from his face. “The past is behind us, Niall. Bertram, the Fairchilds, my stepfather … all of it. I just want you. It is all I’ve ever wanted.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead, letting them linger as he inhaled the freshly washed scent of her mingled with his own smell, which had rubbed off and become as much a part of her as her own. “Ye’ve always had me, Livvie. Even when you left Dunvar, I was with you. My heart’s always been in your hands.”
“I want to ask you something, but I am afraid I don’t have the right.”
Niall frowned. “Ye can ask me anything ye want.”
She paused for only a moment before letting the words out in a rush. “Were their others … women, I mean? Not that I’d hate you if there were … and God knows I was too much a mess for you to have found satisfaction withme. In truth, a part of me hates to think of you—”
“There were others,” he blurted, before he could lose his nerve. “Whores … maids … but not often, and it was never with anyone I ever cared about, or laid with more than once, or—”
Placing a hand against his face, she shook her head. “You do not have to explain. It has been five years, and you had a right to seek whatever comfort you could find.”
“That’s just it,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “It was never comforting. It wasnae often, either. Those women … they were vessels for me and nothin’ more. I never cared for a single one as much as I did you—never fucked one without wishin’ she was you. And I never stopped feeling like a bastard for it.”
“Don’t,” she urged, giving him a short, swift kiss. “That time in our lives is over. We have each other now, and none of that has to matter anymore.”
He returned her kiss, a weight lifting off his shoulders now that he’d told her about that part of his existence. It had never sat right with him, using the occasional whore to satisfy his physical needs. Knowing she did not hold it against him made him feel a bit less of a bastard.
“I know that things may not be the way we planned,” she went on. “I know that I may not be who I was, but … I want it to be different when we go home. I want … I don’t know, Niall, something good. For me, and you, and Serena.”
He gave her a little squeeze, allowing the hope he’d kept at bay for so long to grow and swell. There were so many uncertainties—such as the fact that Bertram’s threat still hung over their heads. But, he now had every reason to believe they would be all right. Perhaps not the future they’d wanted, but something better.
“It’ll be different,” he promised her. “But we’ll speak of it later. For now, I s’pose I ought to feed ye before ye collapse in my arms.”
Rolling onto her back, she pulled the bedclothes up over her chest. “A bite would be wonderful, thank you.”
He tucked her in more comfortably and went to throw his legs over the side of the bed, crouching to grasp his breeches. “Will ye be all right until I come back?”
His voice held a bit of the trepidation he still felt at leaving her alone. She seemed all right now, but he could not forget what had occurred that afternoon. Her weight shifted on the bed, and he turned to glance over his shoulder, finding her crouched behind him, the covers fallen to pool around her hips. Her nudity stirred his blood, even so soon after he’d just had her.
“If you’re afraid to leave me, I’ll understand,” she replied. “I feel fine, Niall … more myself than I have in a long while. If it makes you feel better, I will tell you that there is one last bottle of laudanum in the open trunk in the dressing room. You may dispose of it as you see fit, and there won’t be another drop here to tempt me.”
Despite trusting her good mood and steady demeanor, Niall crossed to the dressing room, pulling his shirt on as he went. The odor of laudanum still hung heavy in the air here, reminding him too much of what he’d found when he had last stepped into it. Swallowing past the nausea welling in his chest, he crouched before the trunk he found hanging open, bits of clothing strewn out of it. The empty bottle she had drained lay tangled up with a nightgown, so he retrieved it, holding it in one hand while rifling for the other. He found it and carried it back into the bedchamber with the empty one.
Olivia had left the bed and stood near the hearth with a poker in hand, using it to stoke the dying flames. She had pulled on a dressing gown, the fire casting shadows over half of her face as she straightened to face him.
“I thought we could throw it in here,” she said in response to his questioning glance.
Holding the bottle up between them, he studied the red-brown liquid sloshing about inside. Odd, how something so innocuous had ruled their lives, and how its elimination had changed so much in such a short time.
“Are ye sure?” he asked, glancing back up at her. “Ye needed this for a while. If ye decided ye needed it again, I’d never begrudge ye, and neither would Adam.”
She reached out to take the bottle from him, her hand shaking as she gazed upon it. For a long while, neither of them spoke, Niall watching Olivia while she studied the laudanum, her eyes unreadable and her expression neutral. In a split second, he wondered if she might change her mind—uncorking the stopper and chugging its contents in a fit of deranged madness. Could he give her up for good then, forcing himself to realize that what they’d just shared could only be temporary? Could he watch her destroy herself again?
His worries were assuaged when she turned to face the fire, swiftly flinging the bottle into the hearth. The sound of the glass shattering echoed through the silence of the room, the flames sparking, then sputtering and popping as the scent of the substance filled the room. It made his stomach turn, but he ignored the sensation, coming to her side and taking her hand in his. She threaded her fingers through his and leaned into him.
