She reached the beach and stood with her back to the cliff. As she watched the battle she recognized some of the men from her days on Wind Dancer. A curious cold detachment came over her. There were a few shapes lying still on the sand, but she couldn’t seem to see them as human bodies. It was as if she were divorced from reality. When men began to run past her towards the path she’d just descended, fleeing muskets fired in the air behind them, she made no attempt to conceal herself. They ran shouting and screaming into the wind, leaving the pirate’s men in possession of the beach. Of Anthony there was no sign.

Vaguely she realized she was shivering, her teeth chattering, yet she didn’t really feel cold. She felt nothing. She gazed out at the black water. There were two boats, just this side of the rocks, and their oarsmen seemed to be racing against each other. Then there was a crash as they met and a confused crescendo of shouts. Men rose, flourishing oars as weapons while the sea boiled around them, then as she watched one of the boats seemed to topple sideways. Its crew just slid into the sea, vanishing below the white-topped surf.

And then she heard the loud melancholy sound of the bell buoy carried on the wind. And the victorious rowboat struggled back to the beach.

The man who jumped ashore first was Anthony.

Olivia gazed at the tall, slender figure; his hair, torn from its ribbon, whipped in the wind around his face; his shirt and britches were plastered to his body. He was barefoot.

And he was the most beautiful sight.

She came to herself as if waking from a deep sleep. She ran across the beach towards him, calling his name.

Anthony spun around. He stared in disbelief as she hurtled against him, her arms flying around his neck, her soaked body pressed to his. “Olivia?” He spoke her name as if it were a question, even as he held her against him. “Olivia? What are you doing here?”

He held her against him, his bare feet braced in the sand, his hands splayed across her back as he looked down into her face. His sodden hair clung to his cheek and forehead, and his eyes glittered with the lingering ferocity of the battle he had just fought.

The wonderful sound of the bell clanged its warning across the waves. “I love you,” Olivia said. “I came to tell you I love you.”

“Dear God!” He continued to look at her in utter disbelief. Would he ever understand this mercurial woman? “Why now? Why here?”

“I’m so happy. I c-can’t tell you how happy I am.” Olivia smiled up at him, her eyes radiant through the sheeting rain.

Anthony shook his hair away from his face. “This is all very sudden, my flower, gratifying I grant you, but very sudden. I am totally confused as to-”

He broke off as Mike and Jethro came down the path from the clifftop, driving in front of them the man Olivia had seen light the beacon.

It was Godfrey Channing, and Mike held a pistol against his back.

Anthony glanced down once at Olivia. “You shall explain later,” he said. He stepped away from her and took a small dagger from the sheath at his hip. He walked over to where Channing stood on the sand.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Lord Channing at his merry work again,” Anthony said.

Godfrey stared at him, hatred in his eyes. He saw Olivia as she approached across the sand, and with a vile oath he lunged at Anthony, a knife in his hand.

Anthony’s dagger slashed across Godfrey’s wrist, and the knife fell to the sand. “You might have disarmed him, Mike,” the pirate murmured, kicking the knife away.

Abashed, Mike apologized. “I thought I had, master.”

“I expect he had it up his sleeve,” Anthony observed.

Godfrey held his bleeding wrist and a stream of obscenities poured from his lips.

“Olivia, you’d better block your ears,” Anthony said over his shoulder. “Our friend has no respect for a lady’s finer sensibilities.”

“Whore!” Godfrey spat at Olivia as she drew closer. “Trollop!”

Anthony hit him in the mouth with his closed fist. “You will speak only when spoken to, my friend,” he said almost pleasantly.

“He was at the beacon,” Olivia said in bewilderment. “He lit the beacon.”

“Precisely so.”

“He’s a wrecker?”

“Precisely so.” Anthony smiled and it was a most unpleasant smile. “Olivia, why don’t you make yourself useful, since you’re here.”

“Doing what?” Olivia couldn’t tear her fascinated, horrified gaze from Channing. He had no power to frighten her now, but he horrified her. His eyes were as cold and hateful as ever, even though she could tell that he was himself frightened. He reminded her of a cornered snake, scared but dangerous.

“Help my men tidy up the beach. There are some wounded; they need to be disarmed. You are, as I recall, rather adept at disarming villains.” A very different smile flickered across his mouth, and his eyes were suddenly warm as they rested on her face.

“What are you going to do?”

“Have a little talk with Lord Channing. There’s something he needs to tell me. I would prefer you were not here. Besides, a little work will warm you up.”

Olivia hesitated. Anthony said quietly, “Go, Olivia.”

“I want to know what he knows about Brian,” she said, standing her ground.

“So do I.”

She looked once again at Godfrey, demanding with soft ferocity, “Is Brian here, on the island?”

Godfrey made no answer. He spat blood onto the sand.

“Olivia, would you go, please? I want to get this over with.”

“No, I want to stay,” she said. “I want to hear what he has to say. I need to hear it.”

“Very well,” Anthony said shortly. He turned back to Godfrey and his eyes were pure agate. He wiped his dagger on his britches and said softly, “So, where will I find Brian Morse?”

Godfrey stared back at him in silence. Anthony nodded to Mike, who seized Godfrey’s wrists, dragging them behind his back. Jethro roped them together. Anthony placed the tip of his knife against Godfrey’s ear. “I wonder whether simply slitting your ears would be sufficient penalty for a wrecker. Maybe I should just remove both of them, and then slit your nose? Mark you indelibly as a felon.” He drew the tip of the dagger behind Godfrey’s ear, leaving a thin red line.

Godfrey was sweating and Olivia realized that Anthony had known her better than she’d known herself. Much as she loathed Channing, she couldn’t watch this. She turned and ran off down the beach towards the men dealing with the wounded. A scream shivered through the rain behind her.

It seemed a very long time before Anthony walked back along the beach. Olivia was on her knees beside one of the wounded men. She didn’t look up as Anthony stood beside her. She noticed how long his bare sandy feet were, the big toes slightly knobbly, and she wondered why she’d never noticed them before. “Did he tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Is Brian on the island?”

“Yes.”

Olivia looked up at him then. “Where?” she whispered. Her eyes were suddenly haunted, her earlier elation vanquished by the thought of Brian’s proximity.

“In Ventnor, apparently.”

“He came back to hurt me… or my father,” she said with conviction. “He must have some plan, some-”

“It seemed he had the idea that you would make the perfect wife for Channing. The perfect rich wife. His idea, if I understood our friend aright, was that he would share in the financial windfall.” He shook his head in mock amazement. “The ideas people come up with.”

“It would be more than that,” Olivia said. “Not just the money. He’d want to hurt us in some other way.”

“And what better than seeing you married to a man like Godfrey Channing? I doubt the Granville pride could stand the truth.”

“Vile man. You hurt him, didn’t you?”

“As much as was necessary,” Anthony responded calmly. “And he is now walking to Yarmouth, tied to Mike’s stirrup, where he will take ship to the Sublime Porte. I think he might find it quite difficult to find his way home from there.”

“The Turks will probably sell him into slavery,” Olivia said in awe. “Isn’t that what they do with foreigners?”

“Quite possibly. It seems a well-deserved fate. I was thinking he and Mr. Morse might care to make the journey together.”

“But… but how could that happen?”

“With a little ingenuity, my flower.” He laughed at her astounded expression. This was the Anthony she had first known. A man with rakehell amusement in his eyes, a merry quirk to his mouth; a man exhilarated by whatever life had to offer, certain of his utter competence to deal with whatever twist and turn fate presented him. This was the Anthony from the early dream days of entrancement, and her spirit rose to join his as it had done then.

He pushed her soaked hair from her face and said, “I shall need your help to enhance my ingenuity.”

“How?”

“Nothing too difficult. I’ll explain all in good time.”

He bent over the wounded man, examined the wound in his shoulder. “You’ll live long enough for the hangman,” he said dismissively. “You and the rest of your murdering friends.”

He stood up, took Olivia’s hand, and pulled her to her feet. “Adam?”

“Aye?” Adam came over to them.

“What’s the damage?”

“Tim ‘as a scratch, ’an it looks as if Colin’s broke a finger.”

“That’s it?”

Adam nodded. “Sam’s gone fer the watch. They’ll pick up this lot.”

“Good, then let’s get dry. Tell the men to find berths in the village. We’ll not get back to Wind Dancer in this.”

Adam glanced at Olivia. “Like a bad penny, you are,” he said. “What in ‘ell’s teeth are you doin’ out ‘ere?”