“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?”