The Least Likely Bride

by Jane Feather

  The clock in the castle chapel struck eleven, its gong chiming out across a still night. Olivia’s heart jumped.

  And then the night exploded. There was a crash of a cannon; sparks flew into the air, a shower of orange and red. Muskets fired in rapid succession and then there was a whoosh of orange flame from the battlements. It looked as if the entire castle was on fire.

  And then Olivia saw them. The two black shapes pressed as she was against the wall. They were immediately below the king’s window. Anthony’s tall, dark-clad figure was unmistakable. He wore a black cap pulled down over his bright head, and he seemed to blend into the night, a shadowy part of the night and the wall itself.

  Now it sounded as if a pitched battle was being fought within the walls overhead. Men were shouting, torches wavered, flames rose, crackling and smoky in the night. Anthony had said he would create a diversion, but this was a full-scale war.

  Olivia raced towards Anthony. She called his name, confident that in the chaos above, her own small voice would not reach the battlements.

  Anthony spun around. A knife was in his raised hand. Then the hand dropped as he saw who it was. Olivia stopped, bent double as she tried to catch her breath. Anthony made no attempt to press her to explain herself, and his steady quiet, the aura of calm, had its effect. When she spoke, she spoke clearly and to the point.

  “He’s not here … the king … he’s not here.” Olivia pointed upward to the window. “They moved him this morning.”

  Anthony asked no questions. He seized her hand and ran with her, crouching low to the ground, into the shelter of the trees. Mike raced soundlessly beside them.

  “Well, that was a waste of some splendid fireworks,” Anthony declared coolly as they reached cover. “Gordon and his men did a magnificent job.”

  “Aye,” Mike agreed. “ We could ’ave got five kings away under that cover.”

  “Your ship,” Olivia gasped. “Wind Dancer …”

  “What of her?” Anthony demanded, his calm suddenly banished. Then almost immediately he was in command of himself. He said quietly, “Take a breath, Olivia. Tell me what you know.”

  “They have stationed cannon on the headlands above Puckaster Cove, in case your ship comes into the channel.”

  “Yarrow,” Mike said disgustedly.

  Anthony shook his head. “You can’t blame him, Mike. I’d rather he told what he knew than risk hurt.”

  “Prue wouldn’t ’ave spoken, whatever they did,” Mike stated with the same disgust.

  “That’s as may be.” Anthony was brusquely dismissive. “What else, Olivia?”

  “Soldiers. In ambush on the clifftop in case you come ashore.”

  “Or leave the shore,” he said with a short laugh. “On the clifftop? Are you certain?”

  Olivia nodded. “That’s what they said. Anthony, what are you—”

  But he had turned from them and walked away through the trees. The king’s cause was lost.

  But his ship! His men! Adam, Jethro, Sam … they were his lifeblood, his family. He owed them everything he had. Wind Dancer, precious though she was, was nothing compared to his friends. And yet, to save his friends, he had to save his ship. He turned back. His expression was calm, his eyes cool and gray as a still, dawn sea.

  “Sam will have left the dinghy in the cove. I can evade the ambush by taking the path from Binnel Point. It’ll bring me to the beach without going near the cliff above the cove,” he said crisply. “I’ll have a few minutes to get the dinghy into the water before they realize I’m there.”

  “They’ll fire on you,” Olivia said. “When they see you pushing the dinghy out, they’ll fire on you.”

  “Once he’s hoisted sail, the master can outmaneuver anyone,” Mike said. “He did summat like it afore. In Tangier. They was after ’im fer …” He stopped and coughed. “Can’t quite remember what.”

  Anthony gave him an ironical smile. “How discreet you are, Mike.”

  “Oh, I don’t care if you’d invaded the sultan’s harem,” Olivia exclaimed. “I only want to know if it worked.”

  “I am here.” Anthony bowed, his eyes gleaming with that reckless light that she now knew so well. “Here and … uh … intact, as I’m sure you can vouch for.”

  “So it was the sultan’s … oh, why must you joke at such a time?”

  “Because, my flower, there is always time to laugh. And laughter calms the nerves.” He touched her cheek in habitual fashion and in habitual fashion she leaned her face into his palm. His eyes grazed hers.

  “What of Wind Dancer?” she said urgently. “Once they see you, they’ll certainly fire the cannon at her, if they haven’t already destroyed her.”

  The light disappeared from his eyes. “I learned long ago not to anticipate disaster; it’s a waste of energy. Jethro will know what to do until I can take command.” Anthony turned for his horse. “Mike, escort Olivia home and then go home yourself. Wind Dancer will make sail for France as soon as I’m aboard her. We’ll return to the chine in a month or so and—”

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, master, but I’m not goin’ to leave you. Ye’ll need ’elp pushin’ the dinghy off. Besides, I go where Wind Dancer goes.”

  Anthony hesitated beside his horse, one hand on the pommel, the other holding the reins. He spoke to Olivia, who had gone to Grayling. “Can you find your own way home?”

  “That’s a stupid, if not an insulting, question. I found my own way here, of course I could find my way home. But I’m not going home.”

  Anthony had mounted his horse. “What do you mean?”

  Olivia spoke slowly and clearly. “I mean that if my father’s men are in ambush above the beach, and I am down on the beach with you, pushing you and your boat out, they are not going to shoot.”

  “They’ll recognize Miss on the beach,” Mike said as he took the point.

  “Exactly. If my father’s not there, the men are bound to be under Giles Crampton’s command. He’ll recognize me immediately.” She grabbed Grayling’s mane, jumped, and hauled herself across the mare’s back, scrambling herself astride, scrunching her skirts beneath her.

  “And just how are you intending to explain that to your father?” Anthony demanded.

  “That’s my problem,” she said. “Like you, I make my own decisions, and I accept their consequences.” She flung his own words back at him with a certain satisfaction. “My commitments are my affair, Mr. Caxton.”

  It was dark among the trees but she could see his eyes flare, his fine mouth harden. “Don’t you dare follow me,

  Olivia,” he said with a low-voiced ferocity that she had never heard from him before. “Come, Mike.” He turned and galloped his horse out onto the downs.

  Mike gave her a little shrug of resignation and followed.

  Twenty-one

  OLIVIA KICKED GRAYLING’S FLANKS and pursued them. The castle was still in an uproar, fires hurling flames into the darkness, gunpowder exploding in rhythmic succession.

  Olivia kept the men in view but stayed well back. She didn’t know if Anthony was aware that she was following, but she didn’t care. Everything seemed very clear to her now. At some point in this wild night, the emotional turmoil of the last weeks had smoothed out, the maelstrom had become a millpond. She didn’t question herself or what she was about to do. And she wasn’t going to waste time and mental energy on discussing her epiphany with Anthony.

  It was half an hour later when Anthony and Mike drew rein on the clifftop. It was a place unfamiliar to Olivia. And it was deserted, the only sound the occasional mew of a gull. The crescent moon shone on the quiet sea and there was the sense that the world held its breath. Anthony and Mike dismounted and Olivia brought Grayling up to them.

  Anthony looked at her. “Why?” The single word cracked like a pistol shot.

  “Because you need my help,” Olivia said simply, swinging down from her horse. Her legs quivered after her two long rides, and she had to stiffen her knees when she stood on the gro
und. “Where are we?”

  It was Mike who answered her. “Binnel Point, miss.” He went to the very edge of the cliff and, kneeling, pulled aside a thick patch of undergrowth. Olivia saw a pale trail, barely thicker than a hand’s span, creeping downward through the undergrowth. It reminded her of the path she had taken to the wrecker’s beach. Such a short time ago, and yet it felt like someone else’s lifetime.

  “We takes the path, miss. It winds a good bit along the cliff afore goin’ through an ’ole in the cliff just above the beach at Puckaster Cove.”

  “So we avoid the ambush on the clifftop.”

  “That is certainly the hope,” Anthony said dryly. He took her shoulders in a hard grip. “I do not need you, Olivia, do you understand that?”

  “Well, you see, I think you do,” she responded. She reached up and put her hands over his. “Should we not go now? Every minute we wait, the ship is in danger.”

  “I do not need you to remind me of that,” he declared, his frustration obvious in eyes and voice.

  “Then let us go.” She broke free of his grasp and headed for the cliff path where Mike stood. She felt a powerful burst of exhilaration, the same she had felt whenever she and the pirate went adventuring.

  Anthony overtook her. “Stay behind Mike,” he instructed her. “When we get to the beach, you will stay on the path. You can see everything, but you will not be seen. Understand that, Olivia. You will not show yourself. I have no need of your help, and you will only hinder me. I’m not going to lose my ship for some childish impulse of yours.”

  It was harsh but Olivia said nothing. She took her place on the path behind Mike. After two steps, she turned and went down backwards; it was far too steep for a head-on descent. Soon she had no time or inclination for exhilaration. The path seemed to wind sideways and down forever. But the men didn’t stop and she wasn’t going to show weakness herself by pausing to catch her breath. Once she turned carefully to look out over her shoulder at the smooth waters of the Channel, where the sea lay silver under the starlight. Wind Dancer rocked gently at anchor at the mouth of the cove.

  She was still safe. Olivia almost cried out with relief. The men’s pace increased and she scrambled down after them, slipping and sliding, heedless of grazes and scratches. A jut of cliff seemed to block the path, but then she saw there was a small gap and Anthony and Mike disappeared through it. She edged through after them and found herself standing above a gently undulating cove at whose entrance rocked the pirate’s ship.

  Anthony and Mike jumped lightly to the beach and Olivia, in a shower of pebbles, sand, and gravel, landed beside them. Sweat trickled into her eyes despite the cool breeze from the sea. She listened for a sound, any sound that would tell her her father’s men were gathered in ambush. But she could hear nothing, not a snapping twig, not a breath.

  UP ON THE CLIFF, Cato gazed out at the elegant ship at anchor.

  “Should we give the signal to fire on ’er, my lord?” Giles as always sounded impatient for action.

  “She’s not doing anything illegal or harmful out there,” Cato pointed out. “I don’t see the justification for damaging her when she’s just sitting there. What d’you think, Rothbury?”

  Rufus was meditatively chewing on a piece of grass.

  “ We don’t even know for sure that she is this Wind Dancer. We’re too far to read her name.”

  “Of course it is, m’lord,” Giles said. “She’s waitin’ fer someone, or something.”

  “Let’s signal them to send a warning shot across her bows,” Rufus suggested. “See how she reacts.”

  Giles was already issuing orders to his men to light their flares.

  “WHAT THE HELL’S THAT?” Anthony looked up at the clifftop as a pattern of lights began to dance across the sea. He had his answer almost immediately. A cannon boomed from the headland and water rose in a great spume of foam just astern of the frigate.

  Olivia drew a sharp breath. Anthony turned to her. “They’re on the clifftop. Stay here out of sight until it’s all over, then go home.” He still sounded harsh and angry. He seemed to hesitate, then, as if against his will, he grasped her upper arms and bent and kissed her hard on the mouth. He released her immediately. “Let’s make a dash for the dinghy, Mike.” They ran across the sand, dark figures in the shadows of the cliff.

  Olivia now saw the dinghy, pulled up on the sand and concealed from the clifftop by an outcrop of rocks. The first shot came from the clifftop as they reached the rocks. Her heart jumped into her mouth, but they had dodged and ducked and were dragging the dinghy down the beach, keeping low against its side so it served as a shield. But when they had to push it in the water, they would be exposed.

  Olivia raced into the middle of the beach. She faced the cliff, waving her arms, leaping in a mad dance of distraction.

  Cato stared down in disbelief. The sea breeze pressed her pale gown against her body; her loosened black hair swung around her, obscuring her face. But he knew his daughter.

  “Hold your fire!” he bellowed.

  “Should we rush the beach, sir?” Giles Crampton was utterly bewildered at what he was seeing. “Get Lady Olivia out of ’arm’s way?”

  “What the hell’s she doing down there?” Rufus demanded.

  “God only knows!” Cato hesitated for an instant. The two men had the dinghy in the shallows. Its sail was loosely bundled around the boom. It would take only a few moments to unfurl and hoist.

  “Charge the beach!” he ordered. “But there’s to be no firing while Olivia’s there. She’s not to be put at risk.”

  Anthony and Mike pushed the dinghy, desperate to get it into water deep enough for them to lower the center-board and run up the sail.

  “Lord love a duck,” Mike muttered. “Whatever’s Miss doin’?”

  “Proving that she makes her own choices,” Anthony said grimly. He shoved with his shoulder and the little dinghy was suddenly properly afloat. The cannon boomed again but he didn’t waste time looking up to see if his ship had been hit. One shot would not sink Wind Dancer. But she needed her master at the wheel.

  Now Olivia heard the sound of feet. Feet on the regular path from the clifftop, the one they hadn’t taken coming down to the beach themselves. She ran towards the shore where Mike, up to his waist in water, was pushing the dinghy into the deeper channel, turning it into the wind, as Anthony, already aboard, unfurled the sail from the boom.

  The thunder of feet behind her was suddenly so loud it filled her head. Yelling voices, the ominous click of muskets. She spun around, instinctively extending her arms as if to make herself a human shield while Anthony hauled on the sheets to raise the sail.

  Silence fell. Olivia turned back to the dinghy. She could feel behind her the presence of the armed troop in a collective breath, a collective shift of feet on the sand.

  Anthony seized the tiller. Olivia stood in the surf and slowly turned once again to face the beach, defying her father’s men to rush the boat before she was under sail. She knew she had to wait for just the right moment, to make her move at the only possible moment when it would succeed. When the dinghy was free and under sail, but before she was out of reach.

  Anthony stood holding the tiller, then he swung it and the sail caught the wind. He was still standing, looking back at the mass of men on the beach. Their muskets were aimed but Olivia was in the way.

  The marquis of Granville stood a few feet in front of his men.

  “Olivia?” he said quietly, questioningly.

  She looked at him, feeling where she couldn’t see the dinghy moving away from the beach. She felt it as if her skin was being flayed inch by inch.

  And she knew that she had no more time.

  She held out her hands, palm up in a gesture of helplessness. “Forgive me,” she said simply. “I have no time to explain, but it must be this way.”

  Then she turned and plunged into the lapping waves. The dinghy was reaching deeper water. “Anthony!” she yelled as the water reached h
er waist. “Anthony, damn you! Wait for me. You know I can’t swim!”

  Behind her now came Cato’s men, surging through the surf. She was just ahead of them, floundering as the waves swelled against her body and her skirt caught in her legs, hampering her movements.

  Anthony brought the boat head to wind. He reached over the stern and lifted her bodily out of the water. Olivia tumbled into the dinghy onto her knees. Anthony moved the tiller and the sail caught the wind again.

  “Hold your fire!” Cato bellowed again as his men still plunged through the water in a last-ditch attempt to seize the dinghy.

  Olivia had her hand at her throat. “Will they catch us?”

  “No, we’re over the shelf now. They’ll have to swim, and we can sail faster than they can swim.”

  As if in confirmation the pursuit suddenly stopped. Men stood in the water at the point where the sandy bottom shelved steeply, and watched as their quarry sped from them.

  Olivia stared at the scene on the beach. She could see her father standing where she had left him. What she had done was irrevocable. Phoebe and Portia would explain, but would he ever forgive her? Would she ever see him again?

  Another boom from the cannon banished all but the present from her mind. “They’re going to blow Wind Dancer out of the water!”

  “They seem to be firing across her stern for the present,” Anthony said calmly. “Once I get on board there’ll be nothing to worry about.”

  Olivia looked and saw that the frigate now had her mainsail raised. She saw too that they’d dropped the rope ladder over the side, ready for their approach. She could hear on the still night air the strong rhythmic singing as the men turned the winch to haul up the anchor. There was a sense of purpose, but not of alarm. Both here in the dinghy and on Wind Dancer. There seemed little point worrying herself when no one else was.

  The wind was much brisker as they approached the mouth of the cove. She shivered. “Why is it that I always get soaked when I’m with you?”

  “For some reason I find you exceptionally appealing when you’re wet,” Anthony said solemnly. “It must play to my mermaid fantasies.”