The Least Likely Bride (4 page)

Olivia turned back to the cabin. The quilt was a cumbersome covering and without conscious intent she opened one of the cupboards in the bulwark. It contained plates and glass and silverware. Another yielded a pile of lavender-strewn linen. She rifled through it. Shirts, nightshirts, kerchiefs. Something here would do.

She shook out a nightshirt. The master of the ship was a tall man, and the garment would almost serve her as a gown. It was a matter of a minute to pull it over her head and tie the silk ribbons at the lace collar. The sleeves were
far too long and wide, and she rolled them up to her elbows. The hem of the nightshirt brushed her ankles and billowed around her in what seemed like acres of material. But even this makeshift dress made her feel much less vulnerable. She turned back to the pile of linen in the cupboard and selected a crimson kerchief. It made a passable sash and brought the voluminous folds somewhat under control.

There was a small mirror set into the bulwark above a marble-topped washstand, and Olivia peered at her reflection. She was even paler than usual and her black eyes seemed exceptionally large, with bruised shadows beneath. Her nose, the long Granville nose, always a prominent feature, struck her as particularly so today.

She took an ivory comb from the washstand and pulled it through her hair. The black ringlets were hopelessly tangled, resisting all her efforts at tidying. Her hair needed to be washed; it was dull and lifeless, the lank hair of a bedridden invalid.

Olivia found that she resented her appearance. So pale and wan and slightly grubby, she thought, as if she’d just crawled out from beneath a damp stone. Her skin was still sore in places, and when she explored the tight ache at the back of her thigh, she found a thick bandage.

Her fingers touched it lightly and that flush crept over her skin again. He had bandaged her hurts. He had cleansed her, attended to her most intimate needs. She could feel his hands upon her now, almost as vividly as if the memory were reality. He called himself a physician, but Olivia had never met a physician quite like the master of
Wind Dancer
.

And what had he been offering her just before he’d left her? Something he had said he knew she wanted. He talked in riddles and yet his words struck a chord
somewhere deep inside her, a chord she could as yet put no name to.

Riddles must be solved. With a swift movement, Olivia tossed aside the comb, caught the thick, tangled mass of her hair, and tugged it behind her head. She used another of his linen kerchiefs, a blue one this time, to bind the curls tightly away from her face, and gazed again at her reflection. Her pale countenance stood out in stark relief against the bright scarf. She bit her lips, hoping to put some color into them, and pinched her cheeks with the same aim. It didn’t help.

She turned away from the mirror, nibbling her thumbnail. He had talked of showing her things that Lord Granville’s daughter would never see in the ordinary course of events. More riddles.

And why did she still feel this strange detachment, not from this craft as it skipped over the sea, not from the warmth of the sun on her face and the vibrant awareness of her body, but from who and what she had been before she stepped into thin air?

She conjured Phoebe in her mind’s eye. Phoebe would look at her anxiously from her round blue eyes, her hair as always escaping from its pins. Phoebe would be frantic with worry. Phoebe would think Olivia was dead.

She opened the hand that still held the ring, pressed into her palm. If she could send it to Phoebe, then Phoebe would know that there was nothing to worry about. She glanced out of the window again, at the bright water. She’d need a homing pigeon to send that message, and she didn’t make a habit of carrying such birds around with her.

And yet, for some reason, Olivia’s concern for her friend’s anxiety seemed distanced, separate from the self that stood in this cabin, going God only knew where. She
could do nothing to allay Phoebe’s fears, and her concern seemed to slip away from her like water on oiled hide. Her overwhelming sensation as she stood in the sunlight, inhaling the sweet scents of the sea, was of elation. Of promise. Of expectation.

“M
Y LADY,
Lord Charles is crying.” The nursemaid spoke softly, almost hesitantly, in the doorway to the gallery where the marchioness of Granville was pacing from one end to the other, pausing at each open window to stare down into the sun-dappled drowsy garden.

Phoebe put a hand to her breast as the baby’s thin wail instantly set the milk flowing. “Give him to me.” She took the infant, nuzzling his round cheek. “Is he teething? His cheek is so red.”

“I believe so, my lady. I’ve rubbed a little oil of cloves on the gum to ease the soreness.”

Phoebe nodded. She sat on a broad padded window seat and unlaced her bodice as the baby dived hungrily, still wailing, towards the source of nourishment.

“Is Nicholas still asleep?”

“Aye, my lady. I’ll bring him to you as soon as he wakens from his nap.”

“He played hard this morning,” Phoebe observed with a fond maternal smile.

“He’s a right little devil, that one … such a bundle of energy,” the nursemaid declared in a tone that implied only approbation. She curtsied and turned to leave the gallery.

“There’s no message as yet from Lord Granville?” Phoebe asked the question although she knew she would have been informed the instant such a message arrived.

“Not as yet, my lady. Sergeant Crampton thinks his lordship is at Westminster, but he’s sent another messenger to Maidstone in case his lordship is with Lord Fairfax.”

Phoebe sighed and the baby dropped the nipple with an indignant wail.

“Try not to worry, m’lady. It’s bad for the milk,” the nursemaid said anxiously. “It’ll make it thin and maybe even cause it to dry up.”

Phoebe tried to force herself to be calm as she settled the infant to the breast again. “Giles has no news from the search parties on the island?” Again she asked a question to which she knew the answer. Giles Crampton, her husband’s trusted lieutenant since the beginning of the war, would have reported any information immediately.

“Not as yet, madam.” The nursemaid curtsied again and left.

But someone must have seen Olivia. Phoebe stroked the baby’s head as he sucked, trying to calm him even through her own agitation. How could she possibly just disappear off the face of the earth? She hadn’t taken a horse, so she couldn’t have gone too far. And besides, the island was so small. Surely she couldn’t have been abducted?

But that was her main fear. A few years ago, way back at the beginning of this interminable war, an attempt had been made to abduct Olivia and hold her for ransom. The abductor had taken the wrong girl … or, it might be said with the benefit of hindsight, the right girl, since Portia, Lord Granville’s niece, was now her onetime abductor’s ecstatically happy wife.

With Cato away, Phoebe felt responsible. She knew he wouldn’t hold her so, but Olivia was her husband’s
daughter as well as her own dearest friend, and in Lord Granville’s absence, Lady Granville was supposedly his locum in the household. But Cato never objected to Olivia’s roaming unattended. The island was safe. It was occupied by Parliament’s forces, whose presence was everywhere, the inhabitants were peaceful although for the most part staunchly Royalist; and the king’s imprisonment in Caris-brooke Castle was being conducted with the utmost grace and civility.

So where was Olivia? If she’d been hurt, someone would have found her. She’d have found some way to send a message home.

Phoebe moved the child to her other breast and leaned her head against the window frame, looking down into the garden. The scent of wallflowers rose thick and sweet from the bed planted beneath the window; a small fountain played musically in the center of the pond set in the middle of the lawns. It was a soothing and peaceful scene that didn’t lend itself to thoughts of violent abductions, hideous injuries.

She concentrated all her thoughts on Olivia, with whom she’d lived for close on six years. She knew Olivia almost as well as she knew herself. They were bound by ties that transcended mere friendship. Phoebe closed her eyes and pictured Olivia, with her penetrating black eyes, the little frown of concentration that had almost permanent residence between her thick black eyebrows, the full bow of her mouth. She allowed Olivia’s presence to fill her mind so that she could almost feel her beside her.

The baby had fallen asleep, allowing the nipple to slide from his rosebud mouth. Phoebe cradled his head in the palm of her hand as she slipped her free hand into the pocket of her gown. Her fingers closed over the little ring of braided hair that she carried always. Portia had taken
locks of their hair and made three rings at the very beginning of their friendship when they’d all sworn they would never succumb to marriage and the ordinary lot of women. Two of them had succumbed to marriage, but definitely not to the ordinarily submissive role of married women. Only Olivia remained with her oath completely inviolate. And knowing Olivia, she would probably remain so, Phoebe thought.

Portia had braided the rings as a joke, making them mingle their blood in a vow of eternal friendship. Phoebe knew that Olivia, like herself, always carried her ring. Portia probably didn’t; it was a little too sentimental and whimsical for the soldierly Portia. But as she held the ring, Phoebe knew that if any harm had come to Olivia, she would know it in her bones. And the knowledge just wasn’t there.

So just what was Olivia up to?

O
LIVIA LEFT THE CABIN,
barefoot, in her borrowed raiment. She had to clutch the wall of the narrow corridor once or twice when the vessel broke into a particularly exuberant dance across the waves and her still rather wobbly legs threatened to give way.

A ladderlike staircase was at the far end of the corridor. Sunshine puddled onto the floor at the foot of the steps, pouring from an open hatchway where Olivia could see a wedge of blue sky and the corner of a white sail.

She scrambled up the steps and emerged blinking onto the sun-soaked deck under the vivid blue brightness of the morning. The decking was smooth and warm beneath her bare soles, and the wind caught her makeshift gown, pressing it to her body one minute, sending it billowing like a tent the next.

Olivia looked around at the orderly bustle of men
laughing and singing as they handled blocks and tackle, shinnied into the rigging, spliced rope. No one seemed to notice her as she stood at the head of the companionway, wondering where to go.

Then she heard a familiar voice calling out an order, and she looked behind her to see the master of the ship on the high quarterdeck, standing behind the helmsman at the wheel.

The golden head was thrown back as he looked up at the sails, feet apart, legs braced on the moving deck, hands clasped behind his back, eyes narrowed against the sun. His tones were calm and unhurried, but his posture, his expression, were both taut and alert.

Olivia hesitated for a moment, then made her way to the ladder leading to the quarterdeck. She climbed slowly, needing to catch her breath at every step, but despite slightly shaky legs she felt as free and light as one of the seagulls wheeling and diving overhead.

“Well, what a resourceful creature you’ve turned out to be,” Anthony observed as she stepped onto the dazzling white decking. His eyes crinkled, a smile gleamed as he took in her costume.

“Do you mind?” Olivia grabbed the rail as a gust of wind filled the big mainsail and the ship heeled sharply.

“Not in the least. It’s an ingenious use of a garment for which I myself have no use at all,” he responded with a careless gesture.

Abruptly Olivia wondered where he’d been sleeping while she’d been occupying his bed. A slight flush warmed her cheeks and she turned her studied attention to the landscape.

“You don’t mind my coming up here?” She shaded her eyes to look out across the expanse of water, welcoming the breeze that cooled her cheeks.

He shook his head. “Not if you feel strong enough. But don’t forget that you’ve spent three days on your back.”

“I feel perfectly strong,” Olivia asserted, reflecting that it was not entirely true.

Anthony didn’t believe her; she was still far too wan for robust health, and he knew better than anyone how much essence of feverfew, wormwood, and poppy juice he’d poured down her resistant throat in the last few days.

“I only look so pale and limp because I’ve just left my bed,” Olivia said, reading his shrewdly assessing gaze correctly. “I need to bathe and wash my hair. I feel grubby.”

He nodded with a little accepting shrug. “That can be arranged later. We might even be able to find you some fresh water.”

“Hot water?” she asked eagerly.

“That might present more of a problem. But if you speak really nicely to Adam, it could be forthcoming.”

“Galleon on the port bow,” a voice sang out from way above Olivia’s head. She looked up into the rigging and made out a tiny figure standing on a ledge way at the top of the mizzenmast.

“Ah, good!” the master of
Wind Dancer
said with obvious satisfaction. “Now we’ll wear ship, Jethro.”

“Aye, sir.” The helmsman began to turn the wheel.

Anthony kept his eyes on the mainsail now, whistling softly between his teeth, then he said crisply, “Olivia, hold the rail, we’re ready to go about.”

“Go about where?” Olivia looked puzzled. Where was there to go?

He only laughed. “I forgot you’re a landlubber. Just hold the rail as the great boom swings over.”

Olivia did as he said, and clung tightly to the railing as he called a series of incomprehensible orders that took men swarming into the rigging, loosening shrouds as the
frigate swung into the wind. The massive boom hung in the air for a moment, the mainsail empty of wind, then as the helmsman put the wheel hard over, the wind caught the sail and the boom swung to starboard with a thump. The sails filled once more and
Wind Dancer
skipped along on her new tack.

Now Olivia could see that the painted ship she’d noticed from the cabin was much closer, sailing straight towards them, it seemed.