The Least Likely Bride

by Jane Feather

  Adam threw a snowy cloth over the table, lit an oil lamp, and set out two places. “There y’are, then. I’ll bring the meat.”

  “My lady Olivia …” Anthony drew back a chair for her with a punctilious bow.

  Olivia couldn’t resist a little curtsy, laughing inwardly at the thought of her bare feet and her strange gown. The master of Wind Dancer seemed to know exactly how to change her mood. With a word, a gesture, a smile, he drew from her whatever response he wished. And while part of her resented such manipulation, another part of her was entranced.

  Adam set down on the table a platter of sliced roast mutton studded with slivers of garlic and sprigs of rosemary, a bowl of potatoes baked in their skins in the embers of the fire, and a salad of field greens and mushrooms.

  “Oh,” Olivia said. “I don’t think I have ever been so hungry.”

  “Well, eat slowly,” Anthony cautioned. “Your belly’s had almost nothing in it for three days. You don’t wish to be sick.”

  “I couldn’t possibly be sick,” Olivia said, spearing a slice of mutton on the tip of her knife. “It smells so wonderful. Adam, you’re a genius.”

  For once, the elderly man’s expression softened and his mouth took a slight curve. “The master’s right,” he said gruffly. “Your belly’s shrunk, so go easy.”

  Olivia shook her head in vigorous denial and took a large bite of meat. It tasted as wonderful as it smelled. She ate a potato smothered in butter and wiped the grease from her chin with the back of her hand, too hungry to worry about the niceties of the napkin on her lap.

  Anthony refilled their glasses and watched her. There was something undeniably sensual about her robust enjoyment of her dinner. He thought of the blithely exuberant way she’d hurled herself across the netting between Wind Dancer and Doña Elena that morning to join in the fray. It was as if Olivia Granville, separated from all that had protected and enclosed her, had discovered a new self. Would she bring that same robust enjoyment to bed? he wondered.

  A smile touched his lips as he thought of her declaration that she would remain unwed. It was an absurd intention for a young woman of her family background. And yet, as he examined her countenance, took in the firmness of her mouth, the set of her chin, he thought that maybe she would manage it. He was certain Olivia Granville thought for herself.

  “What are you looking at?” Olivia asked, suddenly aware of his scrutiny.

  “Oh, I was just enjoying your enjoyment,” he said carelessly, leaning back in his chair, lifting his glass to his lips. “Rarely have I seen a gently bred maiden devour her dinner with such gluttony.”

  Olivia flushed. “Was I being greedy?”

  “No.” He shook his head and leaned over to put another potato on her plate. “I’m just wondering what else you devour with such enthusiasm.”

  Olivia put a slab of butter on the potato and watched it melt. “Books,” she said. “I devour books.”

  “Yes, I had gathered that.”

  “You have a considerable library in your cabin. Where did you go to school?” Olivia was rather pleased with the sly question that she thought would give her some clue to the pirate’s background.

  Anthony merely smiled. “I’m self-taught.”

  Olivia looked over at him. “I don’t believe you.”

  He shrugged. “That is as you please.” He reached over to refill her glass. “Do you wish me to show you how to navigate by the stars?”

  This was too interesting a prospect for further probing. Olivia nodded eagerly.

  “Come here then.” He stood up with his glass and went to stand behind the helmsman at the wheel. He slipped one arm around Olivia’s waist and drew her backwards, so she stood with her back against him. “Now, you see the North Star?”

  Olivia tried to follow the lesson, but for once the sharpness of her mind seemed blunted. She was aware only of the body at her back, the warmth of his arm at her waist, the wine-scented breath rustling against her cheek as he pointed out the constellations. The stars all seemed to merge and she felt stupid as she struggled to grasp concepts that would ordinarily have been perfectly simple for her.

  The hand at her waist moved upward against her breast, and she drew a swift breath. But he said nothing, merely continued calmly with the lesson, his hand pressing against the soft swell of her breast.

  “You interested in puddin’?”

  “Oh, yes,” Olivia said almost jumping away from the encircling arm. “What is it?”

  “Rhubarb pie.” Adam set a pie dish on the table with a jug of thick cream. “Lord, you ’ad an appetite on you,” he muttered, surveying the wreckage of the table.

  “It was very good.” Olivia sat down and reached for the pie knife. Her heart was beating too quickly and she thought her voice sounded a little squeaky as she asked as casually as she could, “Are you going to have some pie, Anthony?”

  He came back to the table. “Funny, but I’d have thought the fascinations of astronomy would have held your attention rather longer. But then, no one makes a rhubarb pie to rival Adam’s.”

  Olivia put a large slice of pie on her plate and made no response. She felt as if she’d been cut loose from everything that had made sense of her life hitherto. And she didn’t know what to make of any of it. The only thing she did know was that her blood was racing, and despite the confusion, she felt more alive than she’d ever felt before.

  Four

  “SO WHAT DOES the message say?” The questioner put a spill to his pipe, and the acrid smell of strong tobacco filled the taproom.

  “Jest that if’n we’re interested in sellin’ what we culled, then ’e’ll be ’ere in the Anchor at the end o’ the week.”

  “And how does he know there was any culling?” The questioner was young, dark haired, swarthy of complexion. He was dressed in a suit of turquoise silk and wore his hair in the Cavalier style, tumbling to his shoulders in elaborate curls, glistening with pomade. He drew on his pipe in the smoke-wreathed room and surveyed his interlocutor through cold green eyes.

  The man shrugged. “Doubt it’s a secret, sir. Message come the mornin’ after. Thought you’d want to know.”

  “Of course I want to know!” There was a snarl to the well-bred voice. “We need customers, you dolt! But how do we know it’s not a trap?”

  The other man shrugged and lit his own pipe of rather more noxious tobacco. “Dunno, sir. Reckon that’s your business. Ours is to cull.”

  The young man was silent in the face of this truth.

  “There’s been no one sniffing around? No awkward questions?”

  “No, sir. ’Twas pitch black that night an’ the storm was strong. Ship could ’ave gone aground on ’er own. But the whole island reckons ’twas a wreckin’ job,” he added. “Jest can’t prove it.”

  “And whoever’s buying knows it was a wrecking job,” the young man mused. “And he knew whom to contact? Who brought the message?”

  “Didn’t ’ave no name, sir. An’ he was all swaddled in a cloak, with the ’ood pulled down. ’Twas an ’ot night too,” the man added reflectively. “But ’e was an island man. Spoke like an island man.”

  “Mmm. Landlord, bring me a pint of porter,” the young man bellowed suddenly across the counter.

  “Right y’are, sir.” The host of the Anchor, who had been listening to a conversation that held no secrets for him, slapped an overfull tankard on the counter before the customer. “I was expectin’ me casks, sir,” he said in an unconvincing whine. “Any sign of when I might be gettin’ ’em?”

  “You’ll get them when I have them,” the other snapped, taking up the tankard. He drank deeply and stared up at the blackened ceiling rafters, watching the smoke curl from his pipe. He’d been expecting a delivery from the French coast for over a week, and it was hard now not to believe that something had happened to the boat. Her captain had always been reliable in the past, but the smuggling trade was far from a certain business. Which was why those who needed a more assured income
and could banish moral scruple augmented their smuggling with wrecking. Godfrey, Lord Channing, had never been troubled with moral scruple.

  He had customers for his smuggled goods, like George of the Anchor here, who had already paid well for the overdue consignment. If it didn’t arrive, he’d be facing an ugly situation. These were not patient men. He looked at the landlord with new eyes and didn’t like what he saw. The man had the face of a prizefighter overly fond of his drink, with a roughly broken nose, bloodshot eyes, and a complexion crimson with broken veins. His hands, busy with an ale keg, were massive.

  Godfrey felt a faint tremor of alarm. If his unsatisfied customers on the island joined forces with their grievances, life could become most unpleasant.

  But there was hope. If this interest in the profits of the wreck was genuine and not a trap, then he had a way out. Even after the wreckers themselves had taken their commission, there would still be a decent profit left for the brain behind the muscle.

  “So, ye’ll be comin’ to meet wi’ him, then, sir?” the landlord asked.

  Godfrey didn’t deign a response.

  “I’ll be able to point ’im out to ye, sir,” the landlord continued. He shot a sly look at Godfrey. “Anythin’ I can do to ’elp, like.”

  Godfrey was not taken in by this generous offer. He slammed his empty tankard and still-smoldering pipe on the counter and stood up, regarding the landlord with distaste. He snapped, “I can take care of my own business.”

  The landlord touched his forelock, radiating mockery. “Then I can expect me cognac soon, honored sir?”

  “Damn your insolence! You’ll get your cognac.” Godfrey threw a coin on the counter. The door slammed on his departure.

  A man who’d been sitting in the inglenook rose to his feet and left in Godfrey’s wake. He limped badly, leaning heavily on a stick. Yet despite his obvious disability, he caught up with Godfrey before he had mounted his horse.

  “A word with you, Lord Channing,” he said softly.

  Godfrey spun around. “How do you know my name?”

  The man who had addressed him regarded him with a malicious smile, his small brown eyes glittering. His countenance bore the deep lines of one who has known pain. At first Godfrey thought he was an old man.

  “I made it my business to know,” the man responded, and his voice was that of a much younger man than his appearance indicated. “Wrecking and smuggling are not the best ways in which to improve one’s fortunes,” he observed conversationally.

  Godfrey’s heart raced. Was he about to be arrested? He stared at his interlocutor.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll not blab,” the man said with an unpleasant chuckle. “But I think I might be able to offer you a surer route to fortune.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Not yet, no. But let us walk a little and I’ll explain.”

  Godfrey looped the rein again around the tethering post. There was something almost mesmerizing about the stranger, something in the eyes that drew him in. This, too, was a man not given to moral scruple.

  “Forgive the slowness of my gait,” the man said, limping into the lane.

  “What happened to you?”

  “A duel,” Brian Morse replied, his voice low and grim. “I have a plan that will serve both our purposes, my lord, if you’ll give me a hearing.”

  IN THE ANCHOR, the remaining customer mused, “Reckon that smugglin’ boat of ’is has gone astray.” He stared hopefully into his now empty tankard. “Reckon it’s our friend what took it, don’t you, George?” He pushed his tankard around in a circle.

  “You want another, you pay for it, Silas,” the landlord declared.

  With a grimace Silas dug into his pocket for a farthing. He placed it on the counter with the air of one donating his life’s blood.

  The landlord scooped it up, then picked up the tankard and refilled it from the keg, filling one for himself at the same time. “Aye,” he said, wiping foam from his mouth after a long draft. “Reckon it is our friend. But it’ll take more than that young lordling”—he gestured contemptuously to the door from which Godfrey had left—“to outwit ’im!”

  “You know what I think …” the customer said, staring fixedly at the bottles behind the counter. “You want to know what I think?”

  “I might if you’d up and say it.”

  “I think, George, that you’d do best to switch yer orders to our friend, ’stead of that clothes’orse.”

  “Aye, mebbe,” the landlord replied. “But answer me this, Silas. Is it better fer a man to deal wi’ a greedy fool, or wi’ a man as dangerous clever as our friend? That’s what I asks meself.”

  “You wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of our friend,” Silas agreed, nodding solemnly. “An’ a man can always outwit a fool.”

  “Aye, an’ put the frighteners on ’im too. Can’t do that wi’ our friend, I reckon.”

  “No.” Silas shook his head vigorously. “An’ any road, our friend ain’t in the smugglin’ business so much these days, is ’e? Used to be there wasn’t a boat went over to France from the island wi’out ’is say-so, but he’s other fish to fry these days, I reckon.”

  He gazed down into his tankard before pronouncing, “O’ course, if’n a man wanted a cask of cognac an’ a morsel o’ that Valenciennes lace fer ’is woman, our friend could get it fer ’im, that’s fer sure. But ’tis not ’is regular trade, like.” He looked up thoughtfully. “D’ye reckon our friend’s tried ’is hand at wreckin’ an’ all? Pays better than smugglin’.”

  “Aye, could be, but there’s no tellin’. Powerful close-mouthed, ’is men are,” George declared. He tapped the side of his nose and winked. “Howsomever, what d’ye wager it’s our friend what’s after that young lordling’s culling? He’s such a clever ’un, it’d be like ’im to let someone else do the work fer ’im.”

  “Could be,” agreed Silas.

  The two men drank to this consensus and lapsed into contemplative silence.

  “WHY DON’T YOU go below now? You can barely keep your eyes open.” The pirate leaned back in his chair, a glass of cognac cupped in his hands, regarding Olivia with a slight smile.

  Olivia stifled a yawn. It was true, she was very sleepy. The remains of dinner had been cleared away, and while Anthony sat savoring his cognac, she had been drifting in a half sleep to the music of the wind in the rigging and the motion of the ship on the gentle swell of the night sea.

  “It’s such a perfect night,” she said, looking up at the sky. “You never see stars like this on land.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “When will we get back to the island?”

  “If the wind holds fair, we’ll sight land by noon tomorrow.”

  “And will it hold fair?”

  He shrugged and smiled. “That’s hard to say. The wind is a fickle mistress.” He called softly to the helmsman. “What do you think, Jethro? Will the wind hold fair for us?”

  “Might drop towards dawn.”

  “What am I to say at home?” Olivia cupped her chin on her elbow-propped hands. “How am I to explain things?”

  “Why don’t we cross that bridge when we reach it?” Anthony leaned over and brushed the curve of her cheek with a fingertip. “Are you so anxious to break free of en-trancement, Olivia?”

  She shook her head. “No, but this is just a dream and I must wake up sometime.”

  “Yes, you must. But not before noon tomorrow.”

  “I suppose there wouldn’t be much point waking up yet, since I’m still kidnapped,” Olivia observed gravely.

  “Precisely so…. Go to bed now.”

  Olivia pushed back her chair and rose reluctantly. “I would like to sleep under the stars.”

  “You would be cold.”

  “Even with blankets?”

  “Even with blankets.”

  Olivia continued to hesitate, looking at him as he sat at his ease swirling the cognac around the crystal. He returned her gaze, that smile deep
in his eyes, and something else that she couldn’t read. It was a promise of some kind. She was aware of a quiver in her belly, a strange tightening in her thighs.

  She turned to the steps leading down to the main deck. “Good night.”

  But he didn’t return her farewell.

  The cabin had been cleaned and tidied, the lantern above the bed lit, throwing a soft golden glow over the polished wood and the rich colors in the Turkey rugs. The windows had been closed and damask curtains drawn across them.

  Olivia pulled back the curtains and flung open the windows again. It was too fresh and beautiful a night to shut out. She turned back to the cabin. There was clean linen on the bed; the covers were turned down invitingly. She fingered the emerald sash at her waist, then untied it, folded it carefully, and replaced it in the cupboard in the bulwark. She began to untie the ribbons at the neck of the nightshirt when her eye fell on the chessboard.

  Anthony had set up another chess problem, she remembered now. She went over to look at it, twisting the silken ribbons around her fingers as she gazed down at the pieces in frowning concentration. It was definitely not as immediately solvable as the previous one.

  A deep yawn took her by surprise, and Olivia lost interest in the problem. In the morning, when her mind was fresh, she’d solve it in a minute. A problem she couldn’t solve in a minute was what she was to sleep in. Her makeshift gown felt too much like a gown now to do double duty, and besides, she would need it in the morning.

  She’d slept naked ever since she’d arrived on Wind Dancer, and Olivia, on reflection, could see no reason to do any different tonight. She pulled the nightshirt over her head, folded it as carefully as she had folded the sash, and put it away, then she climbed over the wooden sides and into the bed. The sheets were cool and crisp and the bed was wonderfully familiar.

  She turned onto her side and closed her eyes only to realize that the lantern was still lit. But what did it matter? She was too tired to be bothered by such a soft glow, and it would go out in its own time when the oil was burned …