The Least Likely Bride

by Jane Feather

  “Did you bring shoes?”

  “No, I forgot. Your boots are pretty well hidden by your skirt. You only have to get into the house.”

  “Thank you.” Olivia bundled the britches and doublet into the basket. “I’ll join you on the lawn later.” She hurried away with the basket of memories, exchanging a glance with Phoebe as she passed. She slipped into the house by the side door, keeping her head lowered when she passed a maid on the stairs, and reached the haven of her bedchamber.

  She looked at herself in the small mirror. She really did look a fright. Her hair was impossibly matted, and when she tried to brush it a shower of sand fell onto the dresser.

  Now that she’d reached safety, her exhaustion overwhelmed her. Just the effort to raise her arms to brush her hair was too much. She sank down on the bed to pull off her boots, kicked them free of her feet, and then without volition simply fell backwards. She would just lie here for a few minutes in peace and quiet and think about her next move.

  She fell asleep with her legs dangling over the edge of the bed, her head on the quilt.

  Olivia awoke with a start, unsure how long she had slept. She glanced to the window and saw with a shock that the sun was now low. She could still hear the voices of the children from the lawn below the window.

  She sat up. Her eyes felt gritty, her limbs heavy as if she’d been drugged. How much time had she wasted in sleep?

  She struggled off the bed and went to the window. The scene on the lawn didn’t seem to have changed much, although the shadows were now long. The children were still playing in the water; Phoebe and Portia were still sitting beneath the tree. There was no sign of either Cato or Rufus.

  Olivia splashed cold water on her face and renewed her attack on her hair. She managed to get the sand out and braid the tangled mess. She dug the grit out from beneath her fingernails and washed her filthy feet. Then, feeling relatively respectable, she took up a book in an effort to appear to be behaving quite normally and went downstairs and out onto the lawn.

  “Woken up at last.” Phoebe assessed her with an experienced glance as she gathered a blue-lipped Nicholas into a towel. “You were so deeply asleep we didn’t want to wake you. You slept through dinner.”

  “We told Cato that you’d been working at your books until late last night and were really tired,” Portia said.

  “Thank you,” Olivia said. “Did he mind?”

  “He didn’t seem to. It’s not as if he’s not used to it.”

  “No,” Olivia agreed.

  “I won’t ask what’s going on,” Phoebe said.

  “What the eye don’t see, the ’eart don’t grieve over,” Portia observed with a half smile.

  “Precisely,” Olivia said, sitting down on the grass beside them.

  She opened her book. Her head was clear now, the mists of sleep dissipated. It was perhaps an hour to sunset. Anthony was not going to make his move until after ten. He’d told Adam to make sure that the frigate was in the cove by ten.

  A company of soldiers, and cannon to dismast Wind Dancer. While Anthony was on a fruitless rescue mission, he would lose his ship. He would go back to the beach and run into an ambush.

  Olivia’s eyes remained on her book and she turned the pages at regular intervals although she read not a word as her mind raced, examining and discarding possibilities. The Barkers would know if it was possible to stop Wind Dancer from sailing into the trap. The flag at the oratory, if it could be seen at night, would bring someone from the ship, but they needed a much more urgent means of communication. There was no time for the leisurely progress of the sailing dinghy to and from the chine. But there must be some other kind of signal. If Mike was there, he would know.

  Her mind filled with rioting images of soldiers with pikes and muskets, of the sound of cannon and the crash of a fallen mast.

  She closed her eyes and was back with Anthony in his little boat as he ran it up on the beach. She knew the maneuvers so well now. She could almost feel the grab of the sand beneath the boat. She could see him as he jumped over the side, barefoot, the knee buckles of his britches catching the light as he hauled the boat higher on the sand. He was laughing, his crooked teeth flashing in the brown face. A lock of hair the color of golden guineas flopped over his eyes as he bent to his task, and he brushed it aside with a swift careless movement of his long, strong hand.

  She could see him. She could smell him. The memory image was so vivid, so powerful, her senses swam.

  “Olivia? Olivia!”

  Portia’s imperative tone shattered the dream memory into shards of longing.

  “Forgive me. I was daydreaming.”

  “That was fairly obvious, duckie. In fact, I thought you were asleep. It’s time for supper.”

  Olivia became aware of nursemaids retrieving their charges and wondered how she hadn’t noticed either the summons that had brought them or their arrival. Childish protests rose on the air as the little ones were borne away.

  “We’re going to the kitchen for our supper,” Luke announced. “We don’t eat in the nursery.”

  “No, of course you don’t,” Portia agreed readily. “But whatever you do, don’t annoy Mistress Bisset. Our own supper depends on her good temper.”

  “We don’t annoy her. She loves us,” Toby declared extravagantly. “She wishes we belonged to her. She said so.” The boys ran off, tackling each other, rolling in the grass and leaping up again in one continuous blur of movement.

  “It’s true, she does,” Phoebe said, dusting grass off her skirt.

  “Everyone loves them. They’re Rufus’s.” Portia sounded more than a little smug.

  “I think I’d better change my dress before supper. It seems to have acquired bits of Nicholas’s sucked gingerbread.” Phoebe peered at an unbecoming smear on her skirt. She shot Olivia a quick glance.

  Olivia closed her book and jumped to her feet. “Is my father in the house?”

  “No, he and Rufus returned to the castle after dinner.”

  “Then I’m going out now,” Olivia said. “I have something to do.”

  Portia and Phoebe exchanged a glance. “You need to eat something,” Phoebe said practically.

  It had been a long time since breakfast in the Gull in Ventnor, Olivia realized. “I’ll take some bread and cheese from the supper table. But I have to go.”

  “Will you be back by the morning?”

  Olivia looked at them bleakly. She would do what she had to for the pirate tonight, and then one way or another he would be gone from her. “I expect so,” she said.

  Twenty

  OLIVIA TOOK BREAD, cheese, and cold beef from the supper table, together with an apple, and left the house through the side door.

  Eating her makeshift supper, she strolled into the stable yard, ducked casually into the tack room, and took a rope halter from the row hanging on the wall. She held it against her skirts and as casually as before left the stable yard, again drawing little attention from a pair of grooms who were playing knucklebones on an upturned water butt.

  She made her way to the pasture where the ponies had been put to graze during the warm summer nights. Her own pony, a dappled mare, was placidly cropping the grass under the hedge a few feet from her.

  “Grayling,” Olivia called softly, holding out the apple.

  The pony looked up and then walked over to her. Olivia held out the apple on the palm of her hand, and Grayling lifted it off delicately between her thick velvety lips. Olivia slipped the halter around her neck and led her to a tree stump.

  Grayling showed no objection to being ridden bareback. Olivia tucked her muslin skirts securely beneath her to protect herself from the pony’s coarse hair and clicked her tongue, guiding the mare to the gate onto the lane.

  She hoped she remembered the way to the Barkers’ farm. She hadn’t been concentrating too well the previous time; there had been too many things on her mind. However, she found she recognized a crossroads and knew to take the right-hand lane. It l
ed her through the small hamlet that she remembered as being about ten minutes away from the cattle track that led to the Barkers’ farm.

  It was dusk as she rode into the farmyard. It was quiet, no children tumbling on the straw-strewn cobbles, the chickens, ducks, and geese shut away from the fox for the night. But the farmhouse door stood open to let in the evening breeze.

  Olivia dismounted and looped Grayling’s halter over a fence post, then she approached the door. She knocked and peered into the kitchen. It was deserted and her heart sank. Were they all abed already?

  She knocked louder and then called softly, “Anyone home?” To her relief came the clatter of booted feet from the ladder staircase at the back of the kitchen.

  “Who the ’ell’s callin’ at this time o’ night?” A man Olivia didn’t recognize came into the kitchen, tucking his shirt into the waist of his britches.

  She got a good look as he came closer, and saw Mike’s features in the older face.

  “Goodman Barker?”

  “Aye, an’ who wants ’im?” He peered at her in the half-light.

  “Olivia Granville. Lord Granville’s daughter,” she added when he seemed at a loss. “Is Mike here? I have to speak to him.”

  The goodman regarded her suspiciously and just then his wife’s voice called imperatively, “Who is it, Barker?”

  “The Granville miss,” he called over his shoulder. “Wants our Mike.”

  Goodwife Barker came down the ladder backwards. She wore a voluminous nightgown; her hair was tucked into a cap. “What’s it you want, miss?” she demanded.

  Olivia took a deep breath. “Goodwife, they’ve moved the king to Newport. Anthony doesn’t know it and I know he’s going to Carisbrooke tonight to try to rescue the king.”

  The Barkers looked at her in bewilderment as if trying to comprehend what she was saying.

  Olivia continued urgently, “Wind Dancer is in danger. They have cannons on the headland to sink her when she sails into Puckaster Cove.” She had the feeling that if she paused for a second, the woman would cut her off and send her packing. “Mike must know how to send a message to the ship so she won’t drop anchor.

  “We have to warn the ship!” she repeated, hoping at last to see some light of understanding in the goodwife’s suspicious stare. “And we have to stop Anthony from going to the beach. If someone from here can send the signal to the ship, I’ll go to the castle and warn Anthony.”

  Goodwife Barker said, “ ’Ow d’ye know this, miss?”

  “I overheard my father, Lord Granville, talking about it.” She tried for patience, but it deserted her and she exclaimed, “For God’s sake, woman, is Mike here?”

  Goodman Barker answered her. “He’s wi’ the master.”

  Olivia used a barnyard oath that she’d picked up from Portia. “Do you know how to warn the ship?”

  Both Barkers shook their heads. “Our Mike’s the only one ’ere what knows the signals,” the goodwife said.

  “An’ he’s wi’ the master,” the goodman repeated, still shaking his head.

  Maybe it was too late for the ship, but she could still keep Anthony from walking into an ambush. “I have to go to the castle to warn Anthony.” She was calculating times and distances as she spoke. “Tell me which road to take from here. I only know the way from Chale. There must be a way to get to the castle without going back through Chale. Across the downs … some other route.”

  “Our Billy ’ad better go wi’ you. Over Bleak Down and across the Medina. ’Tis the quickest way.” The goodman spoke up with what Olivia thought was probably uncharacteristic authority. He turned to his wife and demanded sharply, “Fetch Billy, woman!”

  The goodman went past Olivia to the door. He looked up at the sky. “ ’Tis close on ten. Ye’d best get a move on. It’ll take ye an hour at least.”

  His wife was already at the foot of the ladder. “Billy! Our Billy, get down ’ere quick!”

  “Eh, Ma, what’s up?” A sleepy Billy stumbled down the steps in his nightshirt. His eye fell on Olivia still standing by the door. “Lor’! ’Tis Miss!”

  “Ye’ve to show Miss the way to the castle, across Bleak Down.” His mother thrust a pair of boots at him.

  “I needs me britches,” Billy protested, turning back to the steps.

  “Jest be quick about it.”

  He was down again in a minute and sat on the bottom step to pull on his boots.

  “Aye. Now fetch an ’orse. Get goin’!” His mother gave him a shove to the door.

  “All right, all right, I’m goin’!” He ran off, the untucked tail of his shirt flapping behind him.

  Olivia’s heart was beating too fast; anxiety coursed through her veins as she waited for Billy to reappear with his horse. She stepped out into the farmyard, her arms crossed over her breast. There was a new moon, a crescent sliver hanging low on the horizon.

  Billy on a round cob trotted into the yard, and Olivia ran for her horse. She unlooped the halter and Goodman Barker gave her a leg up. “God go wi’ ye, miss.”

  Goodwife Barker hurried over to them, her face creased with anxiety. “Now, our Billy, y’are not to go to the castle. ’Tis bad enough our Mike’s there, puttin’ himself in danger and all for nowt. Jest get Miss across the down and over the river.”

  Billy looked a trifle disgusted but he shrugged in half acceptance. “Come on, then, miss.” He kicked the cob’s round flanks and the animal broke into a lumbering trot. Grayling followed with a prancing step.

  Olivia brought Grayling up beside Billy’s cob as they left the cart track at the end of the farm and turned onto the lane. “Your father said it would take us an hour to get there, Billy?”

  “Oh, Pa’s not much of a rider,” Billy said scornfully. “It might take ’im an hour, but I reckon we can do better than that, miss. We goes this a-way.” He turned his horse to push through a hedge and they were in an open stretch of land where the trees were scrawny and bent by the wind’s frequent onslaughts.

  “ ’Tis called Bleak Down,” Billy told Olivia. “There’s no villages around ’ere, the wind is powerful fierce in the winter.”

  By mutual consent they put their horses to the gallop and rode neck and neck. The wind whistled past Olivia’s ears, caught her thick black hair, pulling it loose from its ribbon so it flew out like a raven’s wing behind her. Her heart seemed to race in rhythm with Grayling’s beating hooves across the rough turf.

  Was it already too late for Anthony to get a message to Wind Dancer? He had told Adam that the ship must be in position by ten. She would already be sailing into the mouth of the cove, under the cannon. Anthony must have some way of signaling her to leave. But there would be soldiers stationed on the clifftop, waiting …

  There would be a way … a way … a way … The refrain filled her head, blocking out all other thought as she clung to the pony’s mane, keeping low on Grayling’s neck to encourage her speed. A narrow ribbon of dark water loomed suddenly in front of her.

  “We ’ave to ford the river,” Billy shouted, not drawing rein. “ ’Tis low at this time o’ year. Jest follow me.”

  Grayling followed the cob into the water. They didn’t slacken speed and Olivia’s skirts were soaked as the cob kicked up water ahead of her and Grayling leaped through the spray. But there ahead of them now loomed the great mass of Carisbrooke Castle up on the hill, the giant keep on its high motte towering from the northwest corner.

  Olivia thought rapidly. The king’s chamber was, had been, in the north curtain wall. Anthony and Mike would be waiting with their horses somewhere close to there, somewhere right under the battlements. It was madness! she thought with a surge of fury. Other people had tried to rescue the king and failed miserably.

  But then, Anthony was not other people. If it could have been done, he would have succeeded. If the king were there, ready to do his part, he would be away to France within the hour.

  “Leave me here, Billy,” she instructed crisply. “I’ll go the rest of the
way alone.”

  “Eh, I could ’elp a bit, miss,” he said hopefully.

  “Your mother wants you back. So go. I don’t have time to waste.”

  “Ma’s jest a worrier,” he said.

  “With good reason. Now go!”

  Her voice was fierce enough to send even the reluctant Billy back the way he had come.

  Olivia headed for a line of trees that marched along the spine of the down. The moon was obscured by clouds for the moment, but the trees would conceal her approach if the moon suddenly shone clear.

  Just where would Anthony be? The gatehouse was very close to the southern end of the north wall. There would be soldiers patrolling the ramparts. She could see the flicker of torches on the battlements. Her heart pounded so fiercely she thought she would be sick. And yet her head was clear and cold, her thinking sharp and bright as an icicle.

  As she guided Grayling at a walk under the line of trees, she heard the whicker of a horse. Immediately she drew rein. Grayling lifted his nose and gave a curious snort at the presence of his own kind.

  “Where are they?” she murmured, her ears straining to catch a sound. Faintly she heard the muffled shuffle of hooves, and then the faintest chink of a bridle. They were coming from a group of trees that stood very close to the battlements.

  Olivia dismounted and led Grayling towards the trees. She had no idea what she would find. It could as easily be a party of Lord Granville’s troopers as Anthony and Mike.

  There were three horses tethered in the copse, placidly cropping the mossy grass. Three horses, positioned for a quick getaway.

  Olivia tethered Grayling close to them and then crept on tiptoe out of the copse. The moon came out as she emerged under the grass-covered curtain wall beneath the north battlements. She could see the king’s barred window high up beneath the rampart. There was no light in the window. Torches still flickered on the battlements above.

  If she hugged the wall, she would be concealed from a watcher on the ramparts. She moved at a crouch, making herself as small as possible, towards the wall beneath the king’s window.