The Least Likely Bride b-3

by Jane Feather

  “Granville, you were once loyal,” the king said sadly. “A most loyal friend.”

  “I am loyal to my country, Sire, and I would continue to stand your friend,” Cato said in the same quiet voice. “I will leave you to your preparations.” He bowed low and stepped out of the chamber.

  Colonel Hammond made his own obeisance and followed. The servant he had sent for Godfrey Channing was waiting in the corridor.

  “Lord Channing, sir, he wasn’t in ‘is chamber. His man said his bed ’asn’t been slept in.”

  “Good God!” Hammond exclaimed. “How could that be?”

  “It seems unlike the man,” Cato observed. “He’s always been most assiduous about his duties. However, it seems we must do without him for the moment. Who else can you send to Newport?”

  “Latham. He can keep a still tongue in his head.” The colonel sent the messenger for his other equerry. “D’ye care to break your fast, Granville, while we wait for the king to complete his toilette?”

  Brian Morse gazed up into the face of a man he’d never seen before. A man he felt sure he would never wish to see again.

  The man knelt beside Brian as he lay bound, swaddled tightly in the thick, heavy folds of a cloak, under a dripping hedge some half mile from the village of Ventnor. Brian had been carried to this spot, his mouth stopped with the folds of the cloak. Three men had carried him as easily as if he were a baby.

  Anthony surveyed him in silence. His face was expressionless except for his eyes, and what Brian read in those eyes filled him with a cold dread.

  “So you like to play with little girls,” Anthony said softly. “Tell me about it, Mr. Morse.” He jerked the folds of material from Brian’s mouth. “Do explain the fascination for me.”

  Brian spat pieces of lint from his mouth. “So my little sister has been telling tales to her lover, has she? I never thought she’d turn whore. She always swore she’d never have anything to do with a man.” Somehow he managed to sneer even through his fear.

  Anthony’s hands closed around Brian’s throat. The long, slim fingers squeezed. Hands that could hold a ship steady into the wind in the teeth of a gale. Brian gasped like a gaffed fish. His chest was so tight he knew it was going to burst. Spots danced before his eyes. He could feel them bulging. The hands squeezed tighter. And then the black wave swamped him.

  Anthony took his hands from Brian’s throat. He flexed his fingers, then massaged his palms with his thumbs.

  “You have killed him.” Olivia stepped forward, her voice flat. “You killed him.”

  Anthony shook his head. “I have never yet managed to kill in cold blood, however great the temptation,” he said. “Besides, I would rather condemn this piece of vileness to a living hell.”

  He reached into his pocket and took out a small vial. “Hold his head, Adam.”

  Adam put an arm behind the unconscious man’s neck and lifted his head on his wrist. Brian’s mouth fell open as his head fell back. His neck was livid with the marks of Anthony’s fingers.

  Anthony tipped the contents of the vial down the opened throat, and the unconscious man swallowed convulsively. “That will keep him out for twelve hours.”

  He stood up and addressed the three men who stood beside the limp figure. “Put him on a cart and carry him to Yarmouth. Seamew is waiting with her other passenger for the noon tide. Give this to her master.” He dug into his pocket again and took out a leather pouch. It clinked as he passed it over.

  Olivia’s gaze was riveted by the immobile bundle that was Brian. Now, looking at him, it was hard to imagine how he had terrified her. He looked so old and yellow and lifeless.

  Anthony glanced up at the full-risen sun and turned back to Olivia. “You will be missed, I fear.”

  Olivia dragged her eyes from Brian. “I’ll find an explanation,” she said absently. She was thinking how it didn’t much matter now. Anthony would be gone from the island in a matter of hours.

  “I’ll be off to Yarmouth, then, see about the Yarrows,” Adam said. “I’ll find a fishin‘ boat in Ventnor to sail me round.”

  “How are you going to get into the castle?”

  “Crab pots,” Adam said laconically. “Powerful fond of crabs, is the cook. An‘ she’ll tell me a thing or two. Quite gabby, she is.” He sounded faintly disapproving of Mary’s useful vice.

  “See who’s on duty. Pete will-”

  “Aye, there’s no need to teach yer grandmother to suck eggs,” Adam interrupted. “I’ll ‘ave ’em out of there, don’t you worry.”

  Anthony laughed. “I don’t, old man, I don’t. But I need you back on Wind Dancer by early afternoon. You need to tell the crew that there’s been a change of plan. I’ll not return to the ship until I have the king. Warp her out of the chine on the ebb tide and take her into the Channel. Jethro should sail her for Puckaster Cove at nine tonight. He should be in position by ten. But before that, Sam should sail the dinghy and beach her in the cove, so she’s ready and waiting for us.”

  Adam nodded and set off back to Ventnor to find a boat to take him to Yarmouth.

  Olivia had listened to this exchange in slowly dawning horror. “Anthony, you can’t still mean to rescue the king!” she exclaimed. “Not now that they know.” She looked at him as if he was out of his mind.

  “My flower, I have a promise to keep,” he said, taking her hand and walking with her back to the field where they had left Gowan’s horse.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! Whoever this woman is, she wouldn’t expect you to do this now. No woman in her senses would.”

  Anthony’s response was instant and unthinking. “This is my business, Olivia. My commitments are my affair, not yours.”

  She pulled her hand out of his, stopping dead on the lane. “What are you saying?” Her eyes were bewildered. How when they had talked of love could he dismiss her concern so curtly?

  He read her confusion and her anger in her eyes and moderated his tone as he tried to explain. “I’m the master of a ship, Olivia. Men rely on my decisions. I must make those decisions alone and take their consequences myself. It’s always been like that for me, and, believe me, I learned the lessons the hard way.”

  “So you never listen to advice?” she demanded in disbelief. “You never change your mind?”

  “Of course I do,” he said with a touch of impatience. “But the final decisions are mine.”

  Her father would have said the same, Olivia reflected. She frowned, thinking of what Anthony had just said. “You learned the hard way. As a child, you mean? From your parents?”

  “You could say that.”

  Olivia lost all patience. “Damn you, Anthony!” she cried. “Isn’t it time you explained some things to me? Don’t you owe me something?”

  Anthony gazed across her head, over the hedge to the sea, but he saw little of the scenery. How to explain what it was like to be an outsider, to belong nowhere? How to explain that to Olivia, whose own place in the world was so firmly entrenched? How could she understand?

  “My mother and father were killed on the night of my birth. Ellen and Adam took care of me,” he said distantly.

  “Is Ellen the one who would have you rescue the king?”

  “A woman of a most powerful conviction,” Anthony said. “And since I owe her more than I could ever repay, I will do whatever she asks of me.”

  “How were your parents killed?”

  “They were murdered.”

  “In Bohemia?”

  “Yes… Does that satisfy you, Olivia? I don’t wish to discuss this further.”

  She struggled to understand what that night must have been like. That night of violent death and birth. So much blood, she thought. There must have been so much blood.

  “But… but what of your grandparents, of other family?”

  “I have no other family,” he said flatly. “Ellen and Adam are my friends and all the family I need.”

  She heard the bitter finality in his voice.

  “I don’t
believe Ellen would ask this of you if she knew the danger you were in now,” Olivia stated shrewdly. She saw from the quick flicker of his eyes that she had hit truth.

  He began walking again briskly as he spoke. “Be that as it may, I keep my promises. And I don’t like to give up a plan halfway.

  “That’s foolhardy.” She was half running now to keep up with his rangy stride.

  “No. Dangerous maybe. But as you know, the most dangerous enterprises are the most satisfying… and,” he added, “more often than not, the ones most likely to succeed.” He turned in to the field where the chestnut was grazing peacefully among the cows. “I have made certain changes to the original plan,” he conceded. “In light of changed circumstances.”

  Olivia waited until he’d caught the chestnut and brought him back to the gate. “They’ll ambush you.”

  “Maybe. But I’ll take precautions. They can’t know exactly when I’m going to make the attempt. Only the men of Wind Dancer know that. And they can’t know how I plan to do it, because only those same people know that… Up you get, now.” He took her by the waist and lifted her onto the horse.

  “Please don’t do this,” she said as he mounted behind her. “I am so afraid for you.”

  “O ye of little faith,” he mocked, reaching around her to grab the mane. “I was going to create one diversion on the battlements, but now I intend to stage a performance that will have every soldier and officer in the castle utterly occupied for the few minutes it will take the king to make his move.”

  He laughed softly at the thought and Olivia knew she had lost this battle. If he believed he could do it, then he would do it. And he would succeed. She had to believe that.

  “And when you have the king, when you’ve taken him safely to France, will you c-come back?” Her voice sounded thick.

  “I come and go,” he said obliquely. “But this is where my ship has her anchorage. Where my friends are, where my crew have their families.”

  “And if the king isn’t here, then my father will leave,” she said, gazing straight ahead as the chestnut cantered across the clifftop. The sea was very blue, sparkling with the morning sun, and the Dorset coast stood out so clearly it was almost as if one could reach across the dazzling water and touch it.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “It is as it is.” Softly he quoted her earlier words, “Things being as they are. You being who you are, me being who I am.”

  “What would you say if I said I would come with you?”

  Anthony was silent for a minute, then he said, “I would be afraid that once the dream faded, as it must, you would not be happy.”

  “And I would hamper you, constrict you,” she stated, her eyes still on the sea. The blue seemed fuzzy and she realized it was filtered through tears.

  “I would worry that you were regretting the life you’d left. Your family, your loyalties, your place. Those are not mine and they mean nothing to me.”

  He fell silent. Olivia stared ahead, feeling his hard body at her back. Was he right? Were passion, love, not strong enough to overcome such odds? But they had lived a dream, it had never been more than that. And one woke up from dreams.

  “If we stayed on the island,” she said. “If we stayed on the island, then whenever you came back we could live the dream again.”

  “But you cannot stay.”

  “Would you wish to dream again?”

  For a minute he didn’t answer her, then he said, making his voice flat and distant, “There was never a future to this. We both understood that. Be happy with what we’ve had. Carry the memories, as I shall.”

  It took half an hour before they reached the boundary of Lord Granville’s property. A half hour in which their thoughts hung heavy and unspoken. As they approached the orchard, Olivia said, “Stop here.”

  Anthony drew the chestnut to a halt and dismounted. He lifted Olivia down and held her hands. “I know of no other answer,” he said. “I would not be responsible for your unhappiness.”

  “And I would not be responsible for yours,” she returned. Slowly she drew her hands from his. “Say goodbye. Say it now.”

  He cupped her face and kissed her gently. “Farewell, Olivia.”

  “Farewell.” She brushed his mouth with her fingertips, lingering as if to imprint forever the feel of his mouth on her skin.

  Then she turned and ran from him. If he succeeded this night, the Granvilles would leave the island. She couldn’t bear to think then of Wind Dancer slipping into her chine in the darkness, when she herself was not asleep or wakeful in her bed in the house in Chale. Waiting for his return. She couldn’t bear to think of Wind Dancer on the open sea, with her master at the wheel and the deck beneath his feet, his hair blown back from his face, his strong throat bared to the wind as he looked up at the sails.

  She couldn’t bear to think of him sailing away from her.

  But she must bear it, because one couldn’t live entranced forever.

  Anthony stood for a long time in the lane after she had disappeared into the trees. Had he been right? But he knew that he had. First would have come disillusion that would usher in contempt and then bitter dislike. They would have learned to hate each other as they pulled in different directions. There was no place for Olivia in his life, and he could not live hers. But he thought as he turned to go that his heart would break.

  Olivia darted through the orchard, heading for the garden and the back stairs, hoping, although it seemed a forlorn hope, that she wouldn’t be seen in her strange garb by any of the servants.

  She was so absorbed in her unhappiness that she nearly stepped into the path of her father and Rufus before the sound of their voices alerted her to their presence in the orchard. She froze, her heart banging against her ribs. Cato was talking to Rufus above little Evie’s importunate demand that her father carry her. They were so close, a mere row of fruit trees away.

  Olivia almost without thinking scrambled into the branches of a crab apple tree whose massed foliage provided a perfect screen. The two men turned into the aisle and strolled towards Olivia’s tree, deep in conversation.

  “How did the king take his removal?” Rufus asked, swinging his small daughter onto his shoulders.

  “With dignity, as always,” Cato replied. “Newport barracks is rather more primitive than Carisbrooke, but he affected not to notice.”

  “We found nothing at Puckaster Cove, or anywhere close to it,” Rufus said, adjusting his hold on Eve’s ankles as she bounced to grab a crab apple from the tree.

  Evie pulled at the apple, bending its branch low.

  Olivia shrank back against the tree trunk, holding her breath. Then the branch bounced back again as the men passed beneath the tree, and she breathed again.

  She leaned forward to catch the continued conversation as it drifted back to her. The men were walking slowly and she could hear their words clearly.

  Rufus was saying, “We combed the area; although we didn’t find anything it still looks a likely spot. A deep cove, deep channel at the mouth, sheltered by two headlands. Shall we set a watch over it? Could you take that crab apple away from Eve? It’ll give her the bellyache and I’ll never hear the last of it from Portia.”

  “I’d like to catch the man,” Cato said, reaching up to take the crab apple from Eve’s small fist. “Even though the king’s out of his reach, I’d still like to catch him; he sounds a nasty piece of work whichever way you look at it. Since he won’t know that we’ve moved the king, he still might make his attempt and we might grab him in the act. Here, Evie, this is a nice ripe pear.” He plucked the fruit and gave it to the child, who accepted the replacement with serene good humor.

  “Then we’ll give it a try. I suggest we station cannon on each headland. They’ll be positioned to blow the ship out of the water if she comes into the channel. And for the next couple of nights, we’ll put men in ambush on the clifftop. If he comes out, we’ll catch him.”

  “I suppose Godfrey Channing didn’t join your expedition
?” Cato inquired.

  “No. Hammond asked me the same question. He seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.”

  “Very odd. We’d best send out search parties. It seems likely he’s met with an accident.”

  Not the kind of accident they’d ever imagine, Olivia thought fleetingly as she craned from her perch to watch them break out onto the lawn.

  Now she climbed down slowly, trying to make sense of what she had just heard. They had moved the king. Tonight Anthony was going to go to Carisbrooke to rescue the king, but the king wasn’t there anymore, he was in Newport. And Wind Dancer would sail all unknowing into Puckaster Cove and be smashed to pieces by Parliament’s cannon.

  She was exhausted; her sleepless night and the aching misery of their final parting seemed to overwhelm her. But she could not give in. Somehow she had to get this information to Anthony. But how in the name of God was she to do it? She had no idea where he was going after he’d left her. Since he’d changed his plans, he would presumably have extra preparations to make. He wasn’t going back to his ship, so where would he be?

  She tiptoed through the trees to the edge of the lawn, where a screen of bushes marked the boundary of the orchard. From this concealment she looked out at the scene on the lawn. Phoebe and Portia were sitting in the shade of an oak tree while the children splashed in the ornamental lake, running under the fountain with shrieks of glee as Juno chased them, waving her unruly feathery tail. Cato and Rufus had joined the women and stood talking to them under the tree.

  Olivia wondered if they were asking where she was. Her absence would have been remarked upon. She hadn’t thought it would matter once Anthony was safe. But he wasn’t. She forced her tired mind to think clearly. If only she was wearing proper clothes, she could saunter out from the trees and say she’d been for a long walk and had fallen asleep in the sun… anything would do. But she had to change her clothes. And then she could decide what to do next.

  Juno began to run round and around, chasing her tail with exuberant enthusiasm. Olivia picked up a stick and threw it towards the dog.