The Least Likely Bride

Chapter Fourteen

“Wind Dancer will stand out from Puckaster Cove with Jethro in command. I’ll take the dinghy into the cove myself. Mike will meet me with horses and come with me to bring away the king. We’ll need three horses, Mike.” Anthony laid out his plan to the group assembled in his cabin.

“We’re lookin‘ fer the night of the new moon, sir?”

“Yes, and we’ll pray for a dark one.”

Anthony bent over the chart table. “The tide will be with us at midnight on that night. We’ll create the diversion at eleven. The king will make his escape then, and with fast horses we should be back at the cove within thirty minutes. With a fair wind for the dinghy, we’ll be on board again in time to catch the tide. Adam, you’ll have this cabin prepared for the king.”

“What kind of diversion?” Adam inquired.

Anthony smiled. “One of our friends in the castle will set off a series of small gunpowder explosions on the battlements. I hope it’ll distract the guard on the ramparts long enough for the king to lower himself from his window.”

Adam nodded. The Isle of Wight was strongly Royalist. There were friends of the king among the colonel’s troops at Carisbrooke, just as there were in all the local garrisons on the island. Anthony knew them all.

“So, are your positions clear?” Anthony looked around at his men.

“Reckon so. But, ‘ow are we to talk to the king?”

The puzzled question made Anthony laugh. “I doubt you’ll have the chance to speak to him at all, Jethro. But if you do, a bow and a murmured ‘Your Majesty’ will probably suffice.”

“Lord, never thought to sail wi‘ a king,” Sam muttered.

“Well, if there are no more questions, that’s all for now, gentlemen.”

The men left with the exception of Adam, who began to tidy the cabin.

Anthony cast off the finery he’d worn to the castle. He dressed swiftly in britches and shirt, fastening his dagger at his hip.

“You goin‘ to the girl now?” Adam demanded, regarding these preparations with some dismay.

“Any objections, old man?” The pirate raised a teasing quizzical eyebrow as he pulled on his boots.

“Ye’ve barely three hours before dawn.”

“It’s sufficient.” Anthony winked and Adam tutted.

An hour later he was riding through the night-dark village of Chale. Olivia wouldn’t be expecting him and he knew it was reckless to go so late, but he couldn’t rid himself of the image of her troubled eyes, of the way she’d turned from him, almost as if there was something she would say to him but couldn’t. And he wanted her. Wanted her now with a precipitate urgency that astonished him. He could explain it only by the knowledge that time was running out for them. Once the king was safely in France, Granville would have no reason to stay on the island. And where he went, Olivia went. Anthony’s life was here. When he’d rescued the king, he would return to the life he knew, because what else was there for him? And so now while he could, he would take whatever opportunity offered to love Olivia.

Olivia was sitting on the window seat in her bedchamber when Anthony glided stealthily across the dark garden. She had been sitting there since they had returned from the castle. She was too unhappy to sleep and the nameless dread that hung over her seemed heavier than ever.

She had no sense of Anthony’s approach until she heard a soft scrape on the bark of the magnolia tree. She knew instantly who it was and despite everything her heart jumped with gladness.

“Anthony?”

“Shhh.” His golden head emerged from the glossy leaves, and his gray eyes laughed across the distance that separated them. He put a finger to his lips, then swung himself from the branch onto the window ledge.

“You’re mad to come so late,” she whispered, looking at him in helpless turmoil. “The dogs will be out by six.”

“It’s barely five.” He reached for her. For a moment she held back, confusion, distress, anger twisting in her heart and her head. He smiled at her, a little questioning smile, and without volition she went into his arms. It was as if she had no will. She clung to him, quivering with longing, aware of the urgency of her need, of the little time they had together. The first birdsong of the predawn chorus came through the window as he dropped to the floor with her.

“Kneel up, sweet.” He turned her with his hands at her waist so she had her back to him. He pushed her shift to her waist, caressed her flanks, slid a flat palm between her thighs, stroking deeply in the hot wet furrow of her body. She groaned, fell forward with her hands on the floor, her back dipping as, shamelessly wanton, she pushed backward, opening herself to his caresses.

With one hand he continued to play with her as he tore open his britches, releasing the aching shaft of flesh. Then he held her hips and slid within her slick and welcoming body with the sigh of a man who has come home.

She rose with him on the tide of ecstasy, her bottom pressed into his belly, reveling in the bruising grip of his fingers on her hips. Little sobs of delight broke from her lips and he moved one hand to grasp the back of her neck, his fingers pushing up into the tumbled fall of her hair. And then her knees gave way and she slipped to the floor beneath his weight, her face pressed to the rug, as the waves broke over her. She tightened her thighs around him, holding him within her, reveling in the deep throb of his flesh, and then he withdrew and she felt the hot stickiness of his seed bathing her bottom and thighs.

Anthony rolled sideways until he was lying beside her on the rug. He reached out to stroke the curve of her cheek, lifting a lock of damp hair from her forehead. “I don’t know what you do to me, my flower. But when I’m with you I’m as uncontrolled as a virgin lad with his first whore.”

Olivia chuckled weakly. “I don’t know quite how to take that.”

“No, perhaps it didn’t come out quite right.” He propped himself on an elbow and lightly stroked her shoulder, her upper arm, feather-light brushes of his fingertips.

Olivia rolled onto her side facing him.

Did it matter what he was?

Surely she could manage to separate this glory, the wonder of this loving, from the wrong that he had done. Piracy, smuggling, they excited her, she embraced them as part of her lover. Why should the other thing be any different?

“Why so serious all of a sudden?” He touched her mouth.

“It’s near dawn.” She struggled to her feet, shaking her shift down.

Anthony rose, fastening his britches. “Something more than the dawn is troubling you, Olivia.”

“Why do you say that?”

He caught the long black cascade of her hair and twisted it around his hand, drawing her to him. “Do you think, after what we’ve shared, that I am not aware of every change in your mood, every shadow in your eyes? Something is troubling you. I knew it at the castle.”

Olivia regarded him without speaking for a minute, then she said, “Your little game seems to be working. They were discussing you at supper. Rufus, my father, and Channing…” She shuddered. “You really have them all fooled. They dismissed you as a nonentity.”

“Good,” Anthony said, frowning at the bitterness of her voice that seemed to have come out of nowhere.

“You’re going to try to outwit my father, and what for? I know you’re not doing it because you believe it’s the right thing to do. You’re just doing it because it’s amusing and I suppose someone’s paying you. You are a mercenary, after all.”

And a wrecker! She turned aside with a gesture of unmistakable disgust.

Anthony’s eyes hardened, and when finally he spoke, it was with a rough edge to his voice. “You don’t appear to know me as well as you thought. As it happens, no one is paying me. Indeed, it’s costing me a small fortune. I am not totally without loyalties, my dear Olivia, whatever you might think. Someone very close to me wishes me to do this. I would not disoblige her.”

Olivia looked at him. “Who? A wife?”

“I am many things, Olivia, but not a betrayer of women.” His voice was icy and Olivia understood that she had touched some deep wound.

She looked out at the faint gray light beyond the window, uncertain what to say or do next. It seemed he had an honorable motive for what he was doing for the king. Loyalty to friends or family. But what difference did that really make to her? In colluding with him, she was betraying her father. Betraying her father for a wrecker.

“What do you believe in?” she asked softly.

“This. You. Now,” he replied.

She turned then to face him. “It’s not enough, Anthony. How is it that I can feel what I do for you when everything about you is so wrong!” It was an anguished cry, her great dark eyes gazed at him, desperately seeking an answer to her question.

But he gave her none. He looked at her for a moment, his eyes now distant. When finally he spoke, his voice was even, neutral almost. “I will ask only that you keep what you know of me to yourself.”

She nodded. There was nothing further to say.

“Thank you.”

And he was gone.

Olivia stood in the empty chamber, her ringers pressed to her mouth, her eyes tight shut as if she could somehow banish the pain, control the wretched confusion of her emotions. Then, shivering, she crept into bed.

“So, Lord Channing, how goes your pursuit of Lady Olivia?” The king spoke idly from his carved chair, where he leaned back at his ease, ankles crossed, one beringed hand dangling from the chair arm, the finger and thumb of his other stroking his neat pointed beard. His eyes held a slightly malicious glitter. He was bored and in search of amusement.

“I thought she looked most uncomfortable in your company last evening,” he continued. “Could it be that she’s proving a difficult conquest?”

Godfrey flushed. It was never pleasant to be the butt of the king’s wit. When the king laughed, others laughed with him. He caught a couple of surreptitious smiles, a few behind-the-hand whispers. Everyone was watching him, waiting for his response.

He gave an unconvincing laugh. “The lady was not feeling too well last evening, Sire. I believe like so many young ladies she is inclined to the megrims. Her mood will be altogether changed when next I see her, I assure you.”

His gaze fell upon Edward Caxton and once again he was troubled by the sense of familiarity. Caxton’s smooth countenance gave him no clues, however. Indeed, if anything, it seemed even more vacuous than usual, as if its owner were absent from the present proceedings.

“A changeable maid, is she?” the king mused, still with that glitter in his eye. “Have a care, Channing. A wife with the megrims can plague a man to death, isn’t that so, Hammond?”

“I’m fortunate not to know, Sire,” the governor said, drawing a laugh from the assembled company. “But Lady Olivia is as rich as she’s beautiful. Compensations, eh, Channing?”

Everyone was laughing now and Godfrey had no choice but to laugh with them. “Wives can be trained,” he said, and was disconcerted when the king threw his head back and roared with laughter as if Godfrey had made the most exquisite jest.

The others joined in and Godfrey was left wondering what on earth was so funny about such a truth.

“No, no, Channing. It’s husbands who are trained,” the king said, wiping his eyes. “You will learn, dear boy.”

Godfrey smiled awkwardly, concealing his fury. To be mocked in this fashion was insupportable.

Behind the bland exterior, Anthony was watching Channing carefully. He understood as did no one else in the king’s presence chamber that the lordling was a bad man to make a fool of. He read the chagrin, followed quickly by fury, in Godfrey’s eyes. He saw the white shade around his thin mouth, the little twitch of a muscle in his cheek, even as with an unconvincing bray he joined in the laughter at his expense.

Anthony had decided he would move against Channing in some secret fashion as soon as he could. He had to be kept away from Olivia certainly, but he was also a wrecker and he had to be stopped. An accident or an abduction would be simple to arrange. They could spirit the man away on a French smuggling vessel. Although such a fate was probably too good for him.

Anthony’s lip curled as he contained his impatience. He had no wish to be here playing the pointless game of fawning courtier. His plans were well laid; the king was ready. His Majesty knew what to do when the time came. They waited only for the new moon. But Anthony knew that if he suddenly ceased his sycophantic attendance on the king, it would be noticed. Those responsible for keeping the king’s person secure were alert to the slightest sign of anything unusual.

So far he had played his part well. He knew he’d been investigated. As part of his cover he rented lodgings from a couple called Yarrow in Newport. He had known them for many years, their son had sailed with him several times, and he knew they would have given nothing away. They certainly wouldn’t tell anyone that their so-called lodger had never yet laid his head on the pillow in the chamber abovestairs. The chamber itself would reveal nothing beyond the obvious possessions of a country squire whose conceit was fed by the illusion of being the king’s confidant. There were plenty like him, fawning upon the king in his imprisonment, ignoring the fact that if His Majesty were at liberty, holding court in his palaces, they would never be admitted within the gates.

The king refused to have the windows opened around him, and the heat in the room was growing intense. A fly droned. Anthony swallowed a yawn. He’d had no sleep the previous night. By the time he’d left Olivia, day was all but broken. He’d just managed to get over the wall before the dogs were released. They had caught his scent and followed it to the wall, where they’d jumped and barked uselessly as Anthony rode off.

He had thought to catch a nap for an hour or two in the morning, but sleep had eluded him. He understood Olivia’s difficulty with divided loyalties, but he didn’t understand the depths of the bitterness that had fueled her attack. She had been accusing him of something else, something more than simply being her father’s opponent. She had said everything about him was so wrong.

It was such a denial of what he had believed they shared. Such an abrupt turnabout from the idyllic day and night they had spent on the beach and at Portsmouth.

Once before, she’d withdrawn from him without explanation, and he still had none, although he’d pushed it to the back of his mind with the resumption of their loving. But this attack he was not going to suffer in silence. There had been no time last night, and he’d been too taken aback, to probe. But he was not going to leave it there.

“I would have music, Hammond,” the king declared with a yawn. “Gentlemen, leave me. I would soothe my soul with music.”

The assembled company bowed and filed from the chamber as the musicians entered. The governor took a seat on the opposite side of the chamber from His Majesty and rubbed his eyes wearily as the three players tuned their instruments.

“Guarding your sovereign is proving somewhat tiring, I see, Hammond,” the king observed with that same slightly malicious glint.

“It is my duty to my sovereign, to the Parliament, and to the kingdom to use the utmost of my endeavors to preserve your person, Sire,” Hammond returned, sitting up straight in his chair.

“But a sadly wearisome duty it is,” the king said, and this time Hammond made no demur.

Godfrey strode down the staircase into the great hall. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. It had been hot as hell in the upstairs chamber, and the mockery he’d had to endure had set up a fire in his belly that raged like a furnace.

He left the great hall and bellowed to a soldier to bring his horse to the gatehouse. He was going to visit Lady Olivia. He was going to prove to the laughing court that he was not easily scorned. If the lady was surrounded by her friends, their children, all the vigorous defenses of domesticity, then he would insist on a private interview. He had publicly declared his suit; her explanation for why she wouldn’t entertain it had been no explanation. It was perfectly reasonable for him to ask for more.

He rode fast, goading his horse with spur and whip as he vented his frustration. He rode up to the front door of Lord Granville’s house, dismounted, and ran up the steps. He was about to bang with his whip on the door and controlled himself with some difficulty. He couldn’t afford to give the wrong impression. He was a calm, courteous suitor come to inquire after the lady. He should have brought something. A token of courtship. He glanced around. A rosebush bloomed along the driveway. He could see no one around on this hot afternoon.

Godfrey ran back, hastily plucked three of the finest blooms, and returned to the door. He knocked firmly but without urgency.

Bisset opened the door. He recognized the visitor and bowed. “Good afternoon, Lord Channing. Lady Granville is from home.”

“I had hoped to see Lady Olivia.” Godfrey smiled, glanced meaningfully at his little bouquet.

Bisset had no reason to deny his lordship. He had been received by Lady Granville and must therefore have the marquis’s permission to call.

“Lady Olivia is in the orchard, I believe, sir.” He stepped outside and gestured to the side of the house. “Just beyond the lake, behind the stand of poplars.”

“Thank you. It’s Bisset, isn’t it?”

“Yes, my lord.” Bisset bowed again.

“Could you ask someone to water my horse while I’m with Lady Olivia.”

“Certainly, my lord.”

Godfrey slipped a golden guinea into the butler’s hand and ran boyishly down the steps with his roses.

Olivia rested her back against the apple tree that spread its shade above her. She could hear the soft plash of the fountain in the ornamental lake on the main lawn, but the orchard was cool and fragrant, the sunless grass lush.

Phoebe had gone into the village on a pastoral errand. She was often in demand with her stillroom skills, her open purse, and her ready compassion that extended as easily to helping out in the stable or cowshed as it did to lending a sympathetic ear at the kitchen table.

Portia had gone riding with the children, and Olivia was glad of the solitude. Her abstraction since she’d returned from her adventure troubled her friends, and she hadn’t the energy to dissemble, not yet. They assumed it was because she was facing the fact that her time with the pirate was by its very nature ephemeral. And that was a part of her unhappiness, certainly, but only a very little part now.

She glanced at the book in her lap. Usually Plutarch’s Lives had the power to take her away from everything, but this afternoon the usual magic was absent. She should have brought a text that challenged her. Plato perhaps-

“Ah, I find my lady alone, communing with nature.” A shadow fell across her, blocking out the light filtered through the leaves of the apple tree.

Olivia knew the voice. “Lord Channing. How… how…” She looked up. His swarthy, slightly soft, courtier’s face smiled down at her. It was the smile that terrified her. There was no warmth, no genuine feeling. His close-set eyes seemed to have a strange light behind them. A predatory light that brought back a host of evil memories.

She rose to her feet, her book falling to the grass. She could hear two gardeners talking as they weeded the beds at the edge of the orchard. She had only to call and they would come at once. She was not alone but the unreasoning fear swamped her. He wouldn’t hurt her. Of course he wouldn’t. He had no reason to do so. He wasn’t Brian. But Brian had had no reason to hurt her either.

“Roses, my lady.” He presented his bouquet. “A rose for a rose.”

Automatically Olivia took the proffered flowers. She looked down at them as if she didn’t know what they were. She murmured, “Thank you. But you must forgive me, Lord Channing, I have to return to the house.”

“Not yet. You must do me the courtesy of hearing me out.” He laid a restraining hand on her arm.

Olivia shook her arm free. “No,” she said. “I explained last night that I cannot accept your suit. You must let me go, sir.” She turned, gathering up her skirts to hurry from him.

He caught her wrist, saying softly, teasingly, “Don’t run from me, little rabbit.”

Olivia stared at him, for the moment unable to move. The flowers fell from her fingers. The significance of what he’d said wouldn’t penetrate her brain. He was smiling, his fingers uncomfortably tight on her wrist. He moved a hand to catch her chin, tilting her face towards him.

“A kiss,” he said. “You won’t deny me that. A chaste kiss, my little rabbit.” He bent down and his mouth filled her vision, distorted and huge.

“Brian!” she whispered. Panic swamped her. Olivia raked his face with the nails of her free hand as she twisted away from him. He gave a cry of outrage and released her chin. She wrenched her wrist free and ran, her breath sobbing in her chest. She didn’t slow her pace even though she sensed he wasn’t following her, and burst through the trees into the bright sunlight of the driveway almost under the hooves of an approaching horse.

“Olivia!” Anthony hauled back on the reins, and his alarmed mount came to a halt inches from where Olivia stood, staring up at him through the tumbled mass of her hair, her eyes wild with panic.

“What’s happened?” He dismounted, glancing quickly around. They were out of sight of the house around a bend in the drive.

“Brian,” she gasped. “It’s Brian.”

“What’s Brian? Who’s Brian?” Frightened at her pallor, at the wildness in her eyes, he moved swiftly to gather her into his arms.

“He’s not dead,” she said. “He c-can’t be dead. He sent that… that c-c-creature… He c-called me ‘little rabbit.’ Only Brian c-called me that…” The words flooded without sense from her lips as she clung to Anthony’s rock solid body. His arms were tight around her, he stroked her, hair, not knowing what else to do.

It was hard at first to make sense of what she was saying, but slowly he began to grasp the nightmare. Such a dark and dreadful nightmare revealed under the hot sun and brilliant blue sky of this summer afternoon. She wept into his shirt as he held her, stroked her, soothed her with little murmurs, kissed her tear-drenched eyes when the words no longer came and she shivered in his arms, silent at last.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I c-couldn’t. I c-couldn’t bear to remember it. That first time, on the ship, in the morning it all c-came back to me.”

“Dear God!” he said softly, finally understanding what had driven her from him.

“But he’s not dead,” she said, raising her head from his chest. “Don’t you see that? He must be here somewhere.”

“It could have been just coincidence, Channing using those words.”

“No!” she cried, shaking her head violently. “No, it isn’t, I know it isn’t. Channing even looks like him. It’s as if he’s c-come back in Channing’s body.”

“Now you’re being foolish,” he chided gently, rubbing her back as she trembled like a sapling in a gale.

Godfrey Channing stood in the trees and watched in cold jealous rage. Only a lover would hold a woman like that. She was clinging to Edward Caxton with all the intimacy of a woman who’d just climbed out of his bed. She was no virgin, she was a whore who’d given herself to a nobody, a mere country squire, a foppish nitwit with neither fortune nor lineage. He took an involuntary step forward out of the shelter of the trees.

As if sensing the movement, Caxton raised his eyes, looked over Olivia’s head towards the trees. Godfrey stepped back hastily but not before their eyes had met. It was a brief contact but it was enough. Channing now knew what was familiar about the man. He’d seen those eyes before, been subjected before to that hard, sharp, contemptuous look.

This man who called himself Edward Caxton was the man who’d bought his culling. Just as the foul fisherman had not been what he had seemed, so Edward Caxton was not the insipid, fawning hanger-on in the king’s presence chamber that he seemed. And he’d taken his prize from him.

Olivia took a deep sobbing breath as she felt Anthony’s sudden alertness. “Is he there? Did he see us?”

“Don’t worry about him.”

“But if he saw us, he’ll tell people.”

“I’ll take care of Godfrey Channing,” Anthony said grimly. “Did he hurt you?”

“He tried to kiss me.” She shuddered again, scrubbing her hand across her mouth. “I’m so frightened of him. He must know Brian. He must. How else would he know to call me that? Brian must have told him what he did to me; they must have talked about me. And now he’ll tell everyone that he saw us together.” Her voice was rising alarmingly and Anthony hushed her gently.

“I’ll take care of it,” he repeated.

“How?” She looked helplessly at him.

“Just trust me.” He paused, then said deliberately, “In this at least you can trust me to do something without the promise of financial reward.” Both eyes and voice challenged her for an explanation.

The warmth of a minute earlier vanished, leaving Olivia cold and empty again.

She answered the challenge with one of her own. “Why did you c-come here? Won’t you draw attention to yourself? If my father was home, he’d ask questions. I thought you needed to avoid that.”

“I happen to know he’s not here.”

“Yes, I suppose you would know that. You must have spies.”

“Yes, I do.” He looked at her in frustration, controlling his anger at her arid tone. It seemed he’d solved one puzzle, only to be faced with another. “Is that part of what makes me so wrong for you, Olivia?”

“You said yourself you’re no gentleman. You don’t act by the rules of honor,” Olivia said slowly.

“Is that what this is about?” he demanded. “It never seemed to trouble you before.”

“In the dream, such a thing as acting honorably didn’t seem to matter,” she said. “But now I’m awake I find that it does.”

Honor! His father had dishonored his mother. Their child had been born in dishonor. His father’s family under the shield and buckler of honor had rejected the dishonored infant, abandoned him without a qualm to survive or not.

Anthony said bitterly, “Honor is a luxury not everyone can afford, my dear Olivia. And when I see how much dishonor is perpetrated in the name of honor, I’m glad it’s beyond my reach.”

“My father is honorable,” she said in a low voice. “He would not do a dishonorable act.”

Anthony looked at her bleakly. There seemed nothing to say to this unspoken comparison.

“I will leave you here,” he said, his voice without expression. “I will take care of Channing and see what I can discover about this Brian character. Spies have their uses,” he added with an ironic smile. He turned and mounted his horse, riding off down the driveway without a backward glance.

Olivia went slowly back to the house. She had accused Anthony of dishonor. But what other word was there for a wrecker? The most despicable, cowardly act of thievery. Piracy and smuggling-they were swashbuckling, daring. Piracy certainly was thievery; smuggling was not considered such. Smugglers merely deprived the loathed revenuers of their equally loathed taxes. Even her father took delivery of smuggled cognac.

She thought of the taking of the Dona Elena. That had been stealing, no question. But he had stolen from barbarians. He had freed the slaves, given them the ship. It had seemed at the time like a fair fight, a legitimate cause.

She sat on the window seat, looking out through the open window at the sea. She felt emptied of all emotion; even her fear of Brian had faded somehow. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. The day was sunlit and yet it seemed gray. The sea sparkled and yet it seemed dull. Everything was lifeless and pointless.