The Least Likely Bride b-3

by Jane Feather

  Anthony shrugged. “Either or neither.”

  “But you’re for the king,” she insisted. “You talked of my father as the king’s jailer.”

  He regarded her through narrowed eyes. “I have no time for this war. The country has been soaked in blood for close on seven years, brother against brother, father against son. And for what? The dueling ambitions of a king and a Cromwell.” He gave a short, rather ugly laugh. “I’m a pirate, a smuggler, a mercenary. I sell my ship and talents to the highest bidder.”

  His bitter tone and the cynical statement chilled her to the marrow. She said almost desperately, “How am I to go home?” Her fingers shook as she peeled the egg and it slipped to the table. She picked it up again, flushing.

  “What is it?” he asked quietly, and his eyes were once more soft, the bitterness gone from his expression.

  Olivia just shook her head. How could she speak of something that she had held locked inside her for so long? And how to speak of it to the man who had forced the vileness back into her life, now as vivid in memory as it had been in reality during that dreadful year of her childhood?

  “If you don’t wish to draw attention to yourself, how am I to go home?” she repeated, removing the last shard of shell from the egg.

  Anthony carved ham. Hurt warred with anger, and anger won because for as long as he could remember, he had protected himself from the hurt of rejection. If this was the way she wanted it to be, then he wouldn’t fight for her confidence. He had more important things to concern him. Olivia Granville could come and go in his life and leave barely a trace. So, for once he’d been mistaken. His instincts had been awry. As Adam had said, there was always a first time. He would let the little innocent go back to her calm, privileged life. She’d suffer no untoward consequences, he’d made sure of that.

  “May I offer you a slice of ham?” he asked coldly.

  “Thank you.”

  He laid a slice on her plate, then said in the same cool tone, “One of the crew who has family on the island will take you ashore, where you’ll be met and driven home. The story you will tell will not be far from the truth. You lost your footing on the cliff and fell to the underpath. The farmer, Jake Barker, found you, took you back to his cottage, where they tended you. Mistress Barker has some experience of physicking. She has more children than I’ve ever been able to count.”

  A smile flickered in his eyes for a bare instant. Then it was gone and he was continuing in the same cold tone. “You will say that you had no recollection of who you were for several days. When you regained your senses, they drove you home. You will, of course, be suitably grateful to the Barkers for their care and attention, and will, I trust, ensure that Lord Granville rewards them.”

  It was as if he were giving her a lesson in noblesse oblige because she couldn’t be trusted to recognize such obligations herself. Olivia flinched at the frigid tones but she could do nothing to change this atmosphere. She couldn’t begin to frame the words. Her skin seemed to have shrunk on her skeleton and become too small for her.

  “My father is not at home.” But they would have sent for him, she thought. As soon as she had disappeared, Phoebe would have sent for him, so he could be there now. And however difficult it was going to be to face him and to deceive him, nothing could be worse than being with the pirate now.

  Olivia had no knowledge of this man. The master of Wind Dancer was once again transformed. She couldn’t imagine this man laughing. Showing tenderness. His face had changed, the skin drawn tight over his cheekbones and around his jaw. That golden hair, caught once more in the ribbon at his neck, threw his face into harsh relief under the bright sun. There was no softness in this man. No laughter.

  “Well, I trust you or his wife will honor his obligations in his absence.” Anthony lifted his tankard to his lips.

  His tone was so insulting, Olivia wanted to dash the contents of her own tankard into his cold, sardonic face. She pushed back her chair and stood up. “Excuse me.” She stalked off the quarterdeck, her head high, her cheeks flushed with anger.

  Anthony gazed out over the railing towards the island. It was taking greater shape now, and he thought he could distinguish the vicious rocks of the Needles at its farthest western point. They were approaching the maelstrom around St. Catherine’s Point, but on a brilliant summer day there was no threat from those hidden rocks.

  He had an appointment in the Anchor with the brain behind the wreckers. He took a slow sip from his tankard. Was it a brain or just a vicious, greedy man who had struck lucky?

  A cynical smile touched his lips. If the man was a greedy fool, then he’d be easy to outwit. A sharp brain… that was another matter.

  Olivia no longer interested him. She had failed him. Or he had failed her. It had ceased to matter. Interludes, however pleasant, could not be allowed to influence decisions.

  “I’ve finished the dress. Not quite up to me usual standard.” Adam interrupted his master’s reverie, holding up Olivia’s gown. He gave a disdainful flick at the work he didn’t consider satisfactory. “Not much else t‘ do wi’ it, though.”

  “I’m sure Lady Olivia will be suitably grateful,” Anthony said distantly.

  “Oh, so that’s the way it is.” Adam regarded Anthony with a knowing eye. “So what ‘appened, then? Thought all was sweetness an’ light wi‘ the lady.”

  “Take her her clothes, Adam.”

  There was a weariness to the instruction that Adam recognized. Recognized and hated to hear. He hesitated. “What’s amiss?”

  “I wish I knew.” Anthony stared across at the island. Then he shrugged. “What does it matter? I thought… but I was wrong.” He gave a short laugh. “There’s always a first time, isn’t that right, Adam?”

  “If’n you say so.”

  “I thought that was what you said,” Anthony declared savagely. But he made the declaration to empty air. Adam was already climbing down the ladder to the main deck.

  Olivia stood over the chart table. She puzzled over the notations Anthony had made beside the charts, trying to make sense of them. They related to the sextant and the compasses, that much she knew. The island was there on the charts, as were other bodies of land that didn’t mean anything to her. And the water was in different shades of blue marked with numbers. She lost herself in the puzzle. It was safe, clean, numbing. When the door opened, she was so absorbed she didn’t notice immediately.

  “Did what I could wi‘ yer clothes.”

  Olivia turned from the chart table, saying with as much warmth as she could muster, “Oh, I’m sure they’re perfect, Adam.”

  “Doubt ye’ll think that when you look at ‘em.” He laid her gown and petticoats on the bed.

  Olivia went over to look at them. “They do seem rather short,” she said doubtfully.

  “By the time ye’d finished yer tumblin‘, there wasn’t much left to work wi’.”

  Olivia heard his disappointment and picked up the sadly reduced garments. “No, of c-course not. You’ve done wonders, Adam. At least I’ll be able to go home looking halfway decent.” She gave him a brilliant smile.

  Adam nodded. He didn’t like that smile. The girl was at some edge and it wouldn’t take much to push her over. She hadn’t been on that brink before. Probably explained Anthony’s dark expression. The master of Wind Dancer hadn’t looked like that in quite some time.

  “Well, put ‘em on an’ see ‘ow they do,” he said, turning to one of the bulkhead cupboards.

  “How long before we land, Adam?”

  “Bless ye, we don’t land.” He turned back with the shoes she had been wearing at the time of her fall. “These’ll still do, but the stockin’s were in shreds. Reckon ye’ll ‘ave to manage wi’out.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Olivia said impatiently, taking them from him. “Why won’t we land?”

  Adam regarded her in silence. He didn’t know how much Anthony had told her of the chine where Wind Dancer had safe haven, and he wasn’t about to b
lurt out their secrets.

  Of course, Anthony had said that she would be taken ashore, Olivia remembered. “Is there a cove, then?” she pressed.

  “Not fer me to say.” He gave her a nod and left.

  Olivia, once more alone, knelt on the window seat watching as the island grew clearer. She would never see the pirate again once she’d left Wind Dancer. It was as it must be. As she wanted it to be. As she needed it to be.

  She got off the window seat and went to the bed to examine her mended clothes. They would do. Once out of the pirate’s nightshirt, clothed in her own garments, she would feel like herself again. This thing that had happened between herself and the pirate would cease to exist.

  And then she began to shiver. Once before she had tried to make a thing that had happened cease to exist.

  She threw off the nightshirt and scrambled into her clothes. Gown and petticoat ended at midcalf, but Adam’s needle was skilled and the rents were almost invisible. She thrust her bare feet into her shoes. They felt strange, unnatural almost, after the time she’d spent barefoot… so carefree, so lost in entrancement.

  She went to the window again, kneeling up to watch their approach to the island as it grew more and more distinct. She recognized St. Catherine’s Point. She often walked along the cliff path to the headland above the point. Just a few days ago, before the wreck, she and Phoebe had taken a picnic up St. Catherine’s Hill. It had been a steep climb to the top of the down from where they could look out across the Channel to the Dorset coast.

  Would she tell Phoebe the truth of what had happened? It was almost impossible to imagine keeping anything from the woman who had been her dearest friend for so long. Someone who shared her life in its most intimate details.

  The door opened behind her and Anthony came in. “I have to close the windows and draw the curtains.” His voice was cool and neutral. “And I’m afraid you must stay in here. Our destination is secret. No one who is not of this ship can be aware of it.”

  He was almost accusing her of treachery. Anger was a much easier emotion to indulge than the wretchedness of a revulsion she could not explain.

  “I know it must be somewhere above the cliff path where I fell,” she retorted. “It’s insulting to imagine I would betray your anchorage to anyone.”

  He shrugged indifferently and leaned over her to pull the windows closed.

  Immediately Olivia slid off the window seat, ducking beneath his arm as she moved away from him. It was as if she could not bear to be near him; a muscle twitched in Anthony’s cheek and his eyelid flickered, but Olivia was not looking at him and saw nothing.

  He drew the curtains across and the light was immediately muted. “We will reach our anchorage just after dark.”

  He struck flint on tinder and lit the oil lamp above the bed. “I need to remove the stitches from your leg. I would leave them for your own physician, but the farmer’s family who have been caring for you these last days would not have had the skill to stitch the wound themselves or the coin to pay a physician. There would be questions.”

  “It seems illogical that you trust me enough to lie about what happened on this ship, and yet you insist upon hiding your anchorage from me.”

  Anthony had taken the wooden casket from the cupboard. He said in a tone of near indifference, “I trust your instincts for self-preservation. I can’t imagine that you would risk the scandal that would result from the truth of your disappearance, however careless you say you are of your reputation. But if you do so choose, then what you know will do me no harm, as long as you do not also know how to find me and my ship.”

  Olivia thought now that even if she could explain why things had changed between them, it would make no difference. This man had no forgiveness, no compassion, no understanding in his eyes. She had offended him and that was sufficient. But how could she have been so mistaken in him? And yet in all honesty she knew that he must also be feeling that way about her. She had shown him a person who didn’t exist, one who could embrace entrancement and yield to passion. So she had deceived him.

  “Come.” He opened the box and took out a pair of thin scissors. “This will take no time.”

  Olivia raised her skirt and petticoat and this time there was no suppressed excitement, no sense of a dangerous lust. It was a matter-of-fact business that, as he had said, took no time at all.

  He closed the casket with a snap. “Adam will stay with you to ensure that you’re not tempted to draw back the curtains.”

  “I need no jailer,” Olivia protested. “I will not look if you do not wish it.”

  He paused at the door. “If you will not give me your confidence, how should you expect me to give you mine?”

  She had no answer and turned from him with a shake of her head.

  Adam came in with a large basket of mending. He sat stolidly on the window seat and began to sew. After a minute Olivia returned to her cogitations over the charts.

  Wind Dancer crept along the coastline, tucked beneath the cliff in the deep channel known only to island mariners. In the shadow of evening she passed St. Catherine’s Point. As the sun dipped well below the horizon she slid past small deserted coves under minimal sail. And then she vanished into the cliff.

  Olivia felt the cessation of motion. She heard the rattle of the anchor chains. Adam had refilled the oil lamp several times during the hours they’d been immured in the cabin. He had offered no conversation and Olivia herself had been disinclined for any. She had lost herself in the charts until they were as easy to read for her as for any experienced mariner.

  “Reckon we’d best get ready to go on deck.” Adam broke the long silence, laying aside his needlework.

  Olivia followed him on deck. It was very dark and she could see only the faintest sliver of sky and the smallest pinprick of a star. Almost as if they were in some kind of a cave. The night air was warm and felt enclosed. Very different from the brisk freshness of the open sea. But it was still sweet, and she could detect scents of sea pinks, the warm grass of the clifftop, honeysuckle and clover. They may not have landed, but land was not far distant.

  “Are you ready?” The master of Wind Dancer spoke at her shoulder and she turned her head, meeting the steady gaze of those deep-set gray eyes.

  A wash of sadness, of remorse, of longing for what might have been surged over her. “Forgive me,” she said involuntarily.

  “For what?”

  It was so cold, so unforgiving. Wordlessly she just shook her head.

  “Can you climb over the rail?”

  “Yes.”

  “The boat’s waiting below. I’m afraid they’re going to have to cover your eyes until you’re put ashore.”

  Olivia made no response. What could it possibly matter now what they did? She went to the rail and looked down in the darkness to the small single-masted bobbing boat. “Should I go now?” Her voice was without inflection.

  “Yes.” He offered her no help as she swung over the rail and lowered herself into the boat. She looked up at him. His face was pale in the darkness, his eyes glittering like gray ice. Then he took the kerchief from around his neck, balled it tightly, and tossed it down into the boat. One of the crew picked it up.

  The linen was warm over her eyes. The scent of him was so powerful her stomach dropped. She inhaled in the soft darkness and there was a space, a clear space where entrancement was so strong, so clear, that the horror of the past was no longer there. She could feel his body against hers, his hardness against her softness. His lips. She felt faint, dizzy, and clung to the edge of the thwart.

  “You all right, miss?”

  The concerned voice brought her back. “Yes, thank you. Will we soon be there?”

  “In a while.”

  Olivia listened to the soft plash of the oars as they rowed away from Wind Dancer. The wind was suddenly fresher and she heard the crew hoisting sail. She had no sense of direction, or even of time after a while. Someone began to hum softly and was joined by another. It was a
sweet melody. And then the humming stopped. Sand grabbed the bow of the dinghy and there was a jarring stop.

  “May I take this off now?” Olivia put her hands to the blindfold.

  “Aye, miss.”

  She untied it and blinked into the half-darkness. She had no idea where they were, except that it was a small cove. The sea was black; cliffs rose high on three sides. But she could see the sky again and the mass of stars. Of Wind Dancer there was no sign, but that was hardly surprising. She’d been in the sailing dinghy for quite some time.

  The men jumped out of the boat, hauling it up onto the beach. They were solicitous as they helped her out onto the sand. “It’s a bit of a climb up the path, miss.”

  “That’s all right, I c-can manage,” she said, smiling at the man who had spoken. He looked so anxious.

  “Ye want us to wait fer ye, Mike?”

  “Nay, I’ll spend t’night at ‘ome.” The man called Mike started off across the beach towards a thin white line in the cliff. “This way, miss. The cart’ll be waitin’ at the top.”

  Olivia followed, stuffing Anthony’s kerchief into the pocket of her gown.

  Anthony surveyed his image in the mirror in his cabin. He adjusted the curling mustache now gracing his lip and with a frown took a dark pencil to his eyebrows.

  “What d’you think, Adam? Will it do?” He spoke in the broad accents of the island people.

  “Aye.” Adam spoke gruffly and handed him a sailor’s knit cap. “That’s it wi‘ the girl, then, is it?”

  Anthony didn’t reply. He busied himself tucking his hair under the cap, pulling the brim low. “I think I look sufficiently villainous,” he observed. “The blackened teeth are a nice touch, don’t you think?”

  “Thought you said she was different.”

  “Damn your eyes, Adam! I don’t wish to discuss it!”

  “Touched ye on the raw, then?” Adam was unperturbed by his master’s roughness. He’d nursed him from the moment of his birth, changed his breechclouts, fed him milk from a dropper, kept him safe through the dreadful flight from Bohemia after the Battle of the White Mountain. Kept him safe and delivered him to his father’s family in their grand mansion on the Strand in London.