The Least Likely Bride (27 page)

Pirate. Smuggler. Wrecker.

She could hear his voice saying so carelessly how easy it was for a ship to run afoul of the rocks off St. Catherine’s Point. Just like the wreck that had been driven to its doom the night before she’d fallen into the air just above the point.

And the morning after, she had fallen at the feet of
Wind Dancer
’s watchman, just a short way down the coast from the point. So easy to have lured the ship onto the rocks and then to have transported the spoils to the safety of the chine. So very easy.

Piracy. Smuggling. Those were beyond the law. Olivia knew that they were dirty and dangerous, and men were killed in their pursuit. And she knew too that for most smugglers, wrecking was a mere sideline. She knew that, it was island lore, but she couldn’t grasp it. Not with Anthony. Anthony could not …

She felt sick. A great unstoppable wave of nausea. She pushed past him blindly, desperate for the commode.

Anthony moved to hold her head as she retched miserably, but she shook him off with such desperation that he left her. He remembered too well the miseries of his own first overindulgence, and he wouldn’t add to her mortification.

He went up on deck thinking of the morning’s auction. At dawn they would come, the merchants and shopkeepers, the tavern keepers and the private buyers. They would
come in their small boats to examine his wares, and they would bid well for them. He would pay his crew, pay the pensions and bonuses to the men who worked for him, men who were his friends, and he would put aside what he needed to live as he chose. And the rest would go to Ellen to be disbursed to the Royalist insurgents where she and her vicar saw fit.

And on the next night of the new moon,
Wind Dancer
would take the king of England to France.

Anthony yawned, stretched, and took himself below. Olivia was curled in the far corner of the bed. He undressed by the dimmest of candlelight and slipped in beside her. He reached to roll her into his embrace, but she seemed surrounded by an invisible thorn hedge. Assuming that in her nausea she needed to be left utterly alone, he turned away from her. But he was unable to fall asleep until he had gently moved his back against hers.

A
NTHONY ROSE BEFORE DAWN,
leaving Olivia asleep. He dressed and went on deck, where Adam had soap and hot water waiting for him.

“ ’Ow’s the lass?” Adam handed him the razor.

“Asleep. I hope she’ll sleep it off.” He bent to the small mirror Adam held up. “I suppose I should have stopped her. But she’s not a child. It’s a lesson we all learn sometime.”

“Not Lord Granville’s daughter, I reckon,” Adam stated, and there was no disguising the hint of disapproval in his voice.

Anthony carefully shaved above his top lip, then he set down the razor and took the towel Adam handed him. “She knows what she’s doing as much as I do, Adam.”

“Aye, as little; that’s what’s bothersome,” the other said. “Ye’ve missed a bit, jest under yer chin.”

Anthony dipped the razor in the hot water again and applied himself anew. He knew from his earliest years that there was no point entering into an argument with Adam.

The buyers came as the sun rose. They gathered in the hold, all aware that they were buying contraband, no one interested in its provenance.

Olivia could hear the bustle as she lay dry-mouthed with pounding head, desperate to return to a sleep that would not come. She heard the scrape of the boats against the ship’s side, the feet on the deck, the voices, the comings and goings down the companionway. She couldn’t hear what was happening in the hold, but she could guess.

A wrecker.

He had said so, as casually as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if, of course, she would know it anyway. She knew he was a smuggler and a pirate, what more natural than that he should turn his hand to a bit of wrecking now and again?

If she turned her head, she could see the gown, the slippers, the stockings that she had worn during the enchanted hours of last evening. To whom had they belonged? What women, dashed to their deaths on St. Catherine’s Point, had treasured that green gown, those silk stockings, those satin slippers?

Nausea rose anew and Olivia struggled over the high sides of the bed and stumbled across the cabin to hang uselessly over the commode. She had never felt so ill, so achingly aware of every pulse and joint in her body. And she felt so bereft of hope, of happiness, of even the ordinary expectations of the little satisfactions of everyday life. She had swung high on the pendulum of entrance-ment. Its downward swing brought misery in exact proportion to the joy.

But she had felt this way before. Many times before. Throughout her childhood. One minute she had been happy, contented, deep in her books or her play, and then it would happen. This great black cloud would come out of nowhere, and there was no more happiness, no more contentment. She hadn’t known then where it came from, hadn’t connected it with those dreadful moments at Brian’s
hands, but she knew it now. And this time the black cloud was of Anthony’s making.

She crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over her head. Her misery was her own fault. After Brian had touched her, she had always felt that she was somehow to blame; now she felt that same unfocused guilt. She had been a naive fool, allowed herself to be entranced by Anthony, invited him to entrance her, just as she had once believed that she had invited Brian’s violations. Believed that if she’d done something, said something different, they wouldn’t have happened.

I
T WAS MID-MORNING
when Anthony came down to the cabin. He came in quietly, glancing towards the still figure in the bed. He hesitated, wondering whether to see if she was awake, but then, slipping into the habit he had acquired when Olivia had slept through the draft he had given her, he sat down at his table to work through the figures of the auction. It had been a very successful operation. He had paid Godfrey Channing eight hundred, but he had made seventeen hundred. Enough to please Ellen. Whether it was enough to sweeten the taste in his mouth from his dealings with the lordling was another matter.

Olivia felt rather than heard Anthony in the cabin. Her back still held the memory of his. His particular fragrance was in the air. Her curled and unhappy body still responded on a deep instinctual level to the knowledge of its partner so close.

Somehow she had to face him. Had to get off the ship and go home. And yet she didn’t know how to wake up. How to show herself. She didn’t think she could bear to look at him.

“Drink this, Olivia.”

He had come to the side of the bed with a cup in his hand. Olivia turned over, holding an arm over her eyes.

“It
will
help.”

“I’m not sure anything could,” she muttered even as she dragged herself up onto an elbow, keeping her eyes closed, afraid of what they would reveal if he looked into them. “When will we get back to the island?”

“By nightfall.” Anthony held the cup to her lips. “My poor sweet, does the light hurt that badly?”

“Terribly,” she murmured, thankful now for the excuse of her bodily ills.

“Never mind, you’ll be in your bed by midnight.”

“What is this?” Olivia sniffed the acrid contents of the cup.

“A hangover cure.”

She drank it. There were some ills he could ameliorate.

T
HERE WAS A SOFT LIGHT
in her bedchamber. Someone had left a candle burning. Olivia stood at the foot of the magnolia calculating her climb. As she’d expected, it was going to be more difficult than the descent, but she’d climbed rope ladders onto frigates, jumped across boarding nets. She could do this. Phoebe had said she would leave the side door open, but this would be a safer way into the house. There would be no chance at all of running into anyone.

She jumped for the lowest branch, caught it with her arms, swung her legs against the trunk, and hauled herself up so that she hung over the branch. It was hard against her belly … just as Anthony’s shoulder had been as he’d carried her up over the side of
Wind Dancer
.

She threw out her legs, swung sideways, and straddled the branch. The rest was easy.

“So there you are, duckie.” Portia came to the window
as Olivia emerged from the magnolia. “Did you have a delicious time?”

“Delicious.” Olivia jumped down. Her face was in shadow as she bent to acknowledge Juno’s exuberant greeting. “Is all well?”

“Cato and Rufus aren’t back yet. Phoebe and I have disposed of the food Mistress Bisset sent up and sat vigil around the bedcurtains. No one’s asked any awkward questions.” Portia struck flint on tinder and lit candles.

She lit the two-branched candlestick that Anthony had used for the chess game. Olivia moved into the shadows as Portia raised the candlestick.

“What’s wrong, Olivia?” Portia’s voice sharpened.

“I drank too much wine last night.” Olivia laughed slightly, keeping her face averted from the light.

“That’s all?” Portia set the candlestick on the mantelshelf. Her green-eyed gaze was uncomfortably penetrating.

Olivia turned to the bed, drawing aside the curtains. The soft white solitude offered by her deep feather bed was the only thing she desired. Bigger, deeper, more comforting than any passion.

“There’s no future to it, Portia.”

“Ah.” Portia understood. “No,” she said. “How could there be? Lord Granville’s daughter and a pirate in some cozy domestic setting?
Impossible.
That’s why Phoebe’s so troubled. It’s not so much your pirate’s somewhat unsavory means of earning a living. She doesn’t want you to be hurt…. Oh, neither do I, of course … but it’s easier for me to see that you must decide for yourself.” She put her arm around Olivia’s shoulders.

“You do understand,” Olivia said quietly.

“How could I not?” Portia squeezed her shoulders.

Could she tell Portia about the wrecking?
No, she
couldn’t. It was too shaming. That she had allowed herself to be lost with desire for a man she didn’t understand at all … a man who could do such a thing.

“Will you see him again?”

“I don’t know,” Olivia replied.

Portia regarded her in silence for a minute, her eyes concerned. “It might be better to make a clean break now,” she suggested.

“Yes,” Olivia agreed.

Portia waited for her to go on, and when she didn’t, she said, “I can see you need your bed. I’ll leave you to it.” She kissed her and went to the door. “Oh, by the bye, Lord Channing came a-calling. In saffron silk.” She raised an ironic eyebrow. “With a gold plume to his hat. Quite the dandy, he is. He seemed quite put out when we said you were busy with your books and not receiving visitors.”

A shiver went down Olivia’s spine.

“Someone walk over your grave?” Portia inquired, her hand on the door.

“Does he remind you of Brian?”

Portia considered, her head to one side. “In what way?”

“His eyes. They’re so small and cold and hard. When he smiles it’s not really a smile at all. Just like Brian.”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to look at him more closely next time. I can’t say I like him, though. He kicks dogs. Sleep well, now.” Portia went out, Juno on her heels.

Olivia sat down on the bed. Her head ached fiercely and she felt beset on all sides.

Anthony himself had sailed her to the cove just below Chale. He had walked with her to the boundary of the estate and left her to skirt the orchard and go in through the gate in the kitchen garden. To her relief he had seemed to accept her silence and had not questioned her mood.

Olivia guessed he had put it down to the ill effects of her unwise evening.

He’d kissed her good night and said with one of his quiet smiles that she should look for him at Carisbrooke the next evening if she chose to attend the king’s presence.

Olivia didn’t know whether she would or not. She didn’t know whether she could bear to see him again. The black cloud enveloped her. He seemed to have a hand in everything that was unsavory, unlawful, immoral. What had once seemed amusing, exciting about his lifestyle and his view of the world now struck her as tawdry, as
wrong
. Everything about him was in direct opposition to her father, his beliefs, his honor, the way he lived his life. The way hitherto she had lived her own. And Anthony was going to try to rescue the king. She knew this and she had to keep this knowledge from her father. By keeping silent, she was colluding in a wrecker’s plot to outwit him.

C
ATO AND
R
UFUS RETURNED
the next morning. “You’re looking well, Olivia,” Cato observed as he passed her in the hall, noticing how her glowing complexion had a golden tinge to it. “Have you been out in the sun?”

“We’ve been taking the children for picnics,” she said.

“Ah, that would explain it.” He smiled. “I was just talking to Phoebe and Portia. They are attending the audience at Carisbrooke this evening. Will you accompany them?”

Olivia hesitated. Maybe her father could help her with one of her problems. “I would come willingly, but Lord Channing troubles me.”

“In what way?” Cato frowned.

“I don’t like him, sir,” she said simply. “And I don’t want him for a suitor, but I don’t know how to tell him that when he hasn’t actually declared himself. I was wondering if you might put him off for me.”

“It’s hard to put him off if he hasn’t declared himself.”

“I know, but maybe if you told him in passing that I intend never to marry, he’ll take the hint,” she suggested.

Cato shook his head in some amusement. “You’ll have to forgive me, Olivia, if I don’t take that too seriously. At some point you’ll change your mind. But you may rest assured I’ll make no attempt to press you to do so.”

He thought how like her mother she was. The same thick creamy complexion and black hair. Olivia had his own dark eyes, but they took their velvety quality from her mother. She had inherited from her father the long Granville nose and a certain determination to her mouth and chin. Additions that added distinction and character to her otherwise conventional beauty.