Olivia looked into the anarchic maelstrom on the galleon’s deck and saw Anthony’s bright head. It seemed to be everywhere, and his sword flashed like the archangel’s blade at the gates of the Garden of Eden.

“Will it be all right?” The question spoke itself.

“Aye, never you fear, lady. The master’s never lost a fight yet.” Jethro spoke with stolid calm.

And in truth it seemed that the chaos was dying down, the shouts and screams fading, no longer competing with the squalling gulls. Anthony leaped onto the galleon’s poop deck where the Spanish captain and three other grandees in braided coats and high plumed hats had materialized.

Olivia watched as the pirate swept his victims a flourishing bow, his sword cutting a swath through the air. She caught herself throwing a calculating glance over the side at the bridge of netting. It had looked easy enough, although the water seemed a long way down.

What in the world was she thinking? But reason seemed to have abandoned her. Mad though it was, Lord Granville’s daughter wasn’t going to miss out on any aspect of this adventure. Olivia chuckled to herself as, with a little unconscious toss of her head, she gathered the folds of her makeshift gown into her hands, lifting it well clear of her bare feet. She swung over the rail.

“You can do it in three steps. But expect it to move beneath you.”

At the pirate’s cool tones calling to her from the opposite deck, Olivia looked up. There was both challenge and invitation in his steady gaze. She nodded, biting her lip with concentration, released the rail, and sprang forward. The netting bridge bounced beneath her and she gave a cry, half alarm, half exhilaration, and then she’d reached the galleon in safety, the wind whipping her hair from beneath the blue scarf. She tumbled over the rail to the deck and climbed up to the poop deck.

“Gentlemen, may I present the lady Olivia.” Anthony introduced her with another bow and a flourish of his sword. “She will take your swords, if you’d be good enough to disarm yourselves.” He smiled politely. “A simple precaution, but one I’m sure you’ll understand.”

“This is piracy!” spat the captain in thick accents.

“Precisely,” Anthony agreed. “Piracy on the high seas. Your swords, gentlemen, if you please.”

“I will not dishonor myself to a common pirate!” one of the other three spluttered. “I will die on my sword rather than surrender it to a thief.”

“Then pray do so, sir. It is one of your three options.” The smile that flickered over his lips was one of polite indifference. “You may surrender your swords to Lady Olivia; you may die upon them if you so wish; or I will remove your swordbelts myself. And your britches with them.” His sword flashed suddenly, its point coming to rest against the captain’s considerable paunch.

The man jumped back with a squawk. The sword followed. Three quick cuts and the captain’s swordbelt clattered to the deck.

“If you would be so kind, Lady Olivia,” Anthony murmured. His sword point danced as deftly as a needle, and the buttons on the man’s britches flew to the four winds. He grabbed at his britches as they began to slide, and stood helplessly, glowering, swearing.

The other three stared in loathing and fear at their smiling tormentor.

Olivia picked up the captain’s heavy sword and placed it carefully on the deck some distance from its owner.

Anthony raised an eyebrow at his remaining victims, and his sword point leaped forward jauntily. A second sword fell to the deck; a second man stood helplessly clutching his britches lest they fall to his ankles.

Olivia picked up the fallen sword and put it with the other. Laughter bubbled within her but she tried to emulate Anthony’s cool composure. He stood now leaning against the rail, his sword point resting between his feet as he regarded the two remaining Spaniards.

With an oath, one of them unbuckled his swordbelt, and his companion slowly did the same. Anthony leaned forward and took them. “My thanks, gentlemen. Now, if you would all be so good as to accompany my man to your cabins while we complete our business, we shall leave you in peace all the sooner.” He gestured to the stairs down to the companionway, and Olivia saw a grinning sailor waiting with sword and cutlass.

The man gave the Spaniards an elaborate mock bow. “Thisaway, gennelmen, if’n ye please.”

Olivia, her lip curled, watched them stumble away. Now the amusement was over, she was once more violently aware of the stench coming from the bowels of the galleon. It made her want to retch.

“What preposterous creatures,” she declared. “So pompous in their braid and finery, with their great fat bellies full of food, living off the slave labor of those poor starved, tortured wretches down there.”

Anthony sheathed his sword and came over to her. He had blood on his cheek, and he took from her his handkerchief that she still held, and dabbed at the cut.

“On that subject, should we hand the ship and her masters over to the slaves and let them do what they will with them? Or should we put the masters aboard one of their longboats to fend for themselves? Their fate is in your hands.”

Olivia considered. “Perhaps the slaves would murder them if they had the chance?” she muttered. “Do you think that’s likely?”

“Highly likely.”

“That seems like divine retribution,” she said savagely.

“You don’t think maybe that losing their cargo, their slaves, and their galleon would be punishment enough?” he suggested. “The freed slaves would have the galleon and we could leave them some doubloons so that they could go where they wished.” He raised an interrogative eyebrow.

“I don’t think you’re nearly bloodthirsty enough for a pirate,” Olivia observed. “But perhaps we should let them go their separate ways.”

“So be it.” He turned and leaned over the rail, calling down an order, and in minutes came the ring of steel on steel, a steady rhythmic hammering, as men set to work breaking the slaves’ manacles.

Olivia hung over the rail, watching the activity. Anthony’s men were bringing things up from the depths of the galleon, boxes and crates and bundles. They moved them across to Wind Dancer in a smooth operation that looked as if it had been performed many times. The galleon’s crew were assembled in the waist of the ship, and a few of the pirate’s crew were disarming them, moving cheerfully among them, chatting and whistling as if they were at a tea party.

“What about the holes in the ship’s side? Will it not sink?”

“Not if its new owners know anything about patching,” Anthony said carelessly. “They’re less than a day’s sail from Brest.”

“Brest?” Olivia tried to picture the French coast. How far from the Isle of Wight was Brest? She thought it was beyond the Gulf of Saint-Malo. How long would it take to sail back home?

Home. It was a concept so distant and so unreal, it seemed that it existed in another life. Suddenly she felt very tired as the surge of excitement ebbed. She glanced at the netting bridge with a tremor of apprehension. It looked very unstable now and very, very high above the churning blue-green water.

“Too tired to make it alone this time?” Anthony spoke at her side, and she looked up quickly to catch that little flicker of a smile in his eye.

“How do you know?”

“I make it my business to know what might be troubling the members of my crew,” he said. “Particularly my newest and most inexperienced member.”

“I thought I was very good at disarming villains,” Olivia protested, forgetting her fatigue for a minute.

“Oh, you were. A natural,” he assured her. “A pirate to the manner born. Only pirates, you see, think of their victims as the villains.”

“And I just fell into that way of thinking,” Olivia said in tones of wonderment. “Isn’t that amazing?”

“Oh, I knew it all along,” he replied airily. “Come, let me take you back. I can see that you’re thinking longingly of your bed.”

It was perfectly true, although Olivia still didn’t know how he could so accurately pinpoint her uppermost thought. He took her elbow and walked her down to the rail in the main body of the ship.

Olivia regarded the netting doubtfully, her heart beating uncomfortably fast. The distance seemed to expand and contract before her eyes, and it astonished her now that she had leaped across it as nimbly as a monkey a mere half hour earlier.

And then as she hesitated, despising herself for her apprehension, Anthony swung her into his arms, holding her securely against him. “This won’t take a second,” he said, and with that cheerful whistle between his teeth he leaped across the gap, his feet just once touching the netting bridge.

“There, now you may seek your bed, and when you awake, we will be on our way and we shall dine on… on… oh, whatever Adam has planned for us.” He held her against him for a moment, and she could feel the steady beat of his heart against her breast.

Then he set her on her feet and swiftly pulled away the blue scarf that had come loose around her hair and was threatening to blow off into the wind. He tied it around her neck. “I’d hate to lose it, it’s one of my favorites.” He put his hands at her waist and stepped back, surveying her crimson sash. “That one is growing on me.” He left her then and Olivia knew he would be smiling.

Thoughts of bed were now irresistible. She was too exhausted for hunger, too exhausted even to consider the unreality of her present circumstances. She left the quarterdeck and climbed down the companionway, her legs so heavy it was hard to lift them. The cabin was sun-splashed and peaceful, and without a second’s hesitation, Olivia fell onto the bed, dragging the quilted coverlet over her.