Jane Feather - The Least Likely Bride

“Not that that will matter,” she added. “Since I never intend to get married, and only potential husbands worry about such things.”

Anthony listened to this stream of words as he uncorked the bottle and poured the rich ruby wine into the two glasses whose long stems he held between the fingers of his free hand. He took the scent of the wine with a critical frown, then nodded and passed a glass to Olivia.

“I trust a vow of celibacy doesn’t also involve a vow of chastity. The two are not synonymous.” He regarded her over the lip of his glass.

Olivia took a larger gulp of wine than she’d intended, and choked. Anthony solicitously thumped her back.

“Take it easy. It’s too fine a wine to quaff like small beer.”

“Oh… oh, I didn’t!” Olivia protested. “It went down the wrong way.”

“Ah, I see.” He nodded and leaned back against the rail, looking up at the star-filled sky. “What a beautiful night.”

It seemed he’d dropped the topic of chastity, and Olivia took a more moderate sip of her wine. The sky was deepest blue with a crescent moon low on the horizon and the broad diffused swath of the Milky Way directly above them. The helmsman stood at the wheel, and Wind Dancer, once more true to her name, seemed to be playing in the wind over the swelling sea. “Do you navigate by the stars?”

“A less disturbing topic, eh?”

“Do you use the stars to navigate by?” she repeated determinedly.

“After dinner I’ll show you how,” he said, drawing her to the rail beside him, out of the way of Adam and two other sailors, who clambered onto the deck with a table and chairs and a basket of plates and cutlery.

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 Dona 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.

“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.