Jane Feather - The Least Likely Bride

He flipped it open to the title page. “Olivia Granville.” He held it for her so she could see where she herself had inscribed her name. “Aeschylus… not what I would call light reading.” He raised an interrogative eyebrow, the smile still playing about his mouth. “So, Lord Granville’s daughter is a Greek scholar?”

“You know my father?” Olivia rested her head on her drawn-up knees. She had the feeling that there should be some sense of urgency about this conversation, but somehow she could find none. She still felt remote, detached.

“I know of him. Who on the island doesn’t know of the marquis of Granville? Such a conscientious jailer of His Sovereign Majesty.” An ironic note entered his voice, and the smile was less pleasant.

Olivia flushed. It seemed she was in the company of a Royalist sympathizer. “My father negotiates with the king for Parliament,” she said stiffly. “He is no jailer.”

“No?” Both eyebrows lifted, then he laughed again. “On politics, we shall agree to differ, Olivia… Oh, by the bye, this was in the pocket of your gown. I put it in the book for safekeeping.” He reached over and handed her a small ring of braided hair. “I would have put it on your finger, but I was afraid it might become unraveled and I assumed it had some special value.”

Olivia took the ring. “Yes, it does.” She held it tightly in her hand and it seemed to impart some greater sense of reality. The ring belonged to another world, to people who still seemed remote, but it helped her to feel grounded again. She waited for him to ask for an explanation, but he didn’t, merely continued to perch on the table, lightly drumming his fingers on the highly polished surface.

“And what of your name?” she demanded, still stung by his tone when he’d spoken of her father, and yet still inexorably drawn to him as if with reins of silk.

“I am the master of Wind Dancer . You may call me Anthony, if it pleases you.”

He made it sound as if he’d plucked the name from the air and didn’t mind whether it was his or not. “Wind Dancer?” Olivia queried, seizing on this as one question that might bring enlightenment.

“My ship. You are aboard her and I’m afraid you’ll have to remain so for a few more days.” He picked up a piece of paper and a quill from the table beside him, rising in leisurely fashion from the edge of the table. “It was not what I had intended, but we were obliged to set sail this morning, so I can’t return you home until we return to safe haven.”

As he moved away from the table, Olivia saw how tall he was, his head almost brushing the ceiling of the cabin. He was very lean, the ruffled sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his elbows revealing strong brown forearms. His manner was relaxed, casual almost to the point of carelessness, but Olivia felt the power contained in the long, spare frame. A sense that he did nothing without purpose for all his air of easy indifference.

It had been his hands on her body. His were the cool, competent hands that had touched her so intimately, had lifted her, anointed her, held her head for the bitter draft that had brought her sleep. Her skin prickled again and a soft flush crept up her neck at memories she would rather not have.

He continued to talk casually from somewhere behind her, and she was glad not to have to look at him as the memories of his attentions rose with stark clarity.

“The cliffs on this side of the island can be hazardous. There are deep clefts and gullies that are concealed beneath the undergrowth. One false step and you can slip to the undercliff and beyond. I imagine you were so deep in your Greek that you didn’t notice where the cliff gave way. But you were fortunate. You slid into a cleft and it delivered you neatly at the feet of one of my watchmen on the undercliff.”

Olivia pushed her hair away from her face. “When?”

“Three days ago.” He began to whistle softly between his teeth as he stood behind her.

Three days ! She had lain here for three days! “But… but Phoebe… everyone… they will be frantic!” Olivia exclaimed. “Did you send word?”

“No. There are certain difficulties,” he said, sounding quite unconcerned about them. “But we will find a way to return you as soon as possible.”

Her father was not at home. He had gone again to war. The Scots were threatening to cross the Border in defense of the imprisoned King Charles, and there were renewed Royalist uprisings across the land. Sporadic and ill-thought-out as they were, they nevertheless posed a serious threat to Parliament’s ultimate victory. But if Lord Granville away at the wars was unaware of his daughter’s disappearance, Phoebe would be beside herself with worry.

“I must go home,” Olivia said, her desperation wildly at odds with her companion’s apparent calm indifference to her situation. “You must put me ashore at once.”

“Believe me, if I could, I would,” the master of Wind Dancer said, and continued to whistle softly from somewhere behind her.

“Where are my c-clothes?” Olivia demanded with a rush of anger. “I want my c-clothes!” she insisted, swiveling around to glare at him, too angry now to care that the stammer that had plagued her since childhood had escaped the rein she had finally and so painstakingly managed to put upon it.

He frowned down at the paper in his hand almost as if he hadn’t heard her, then said coolly, “Adam is doing what he can with them. You fell a long way and they’re much the worse for wear. But I have hopes of a miracle. Adam works wonders with the needle.”

He looked up, the frown still between his fair brows, then he nodded and smiled, tossing the paper and quill onto a stool beside the bed.

Olivia stared at the paper. “That’s… that’s… that’s my back !” she exclaimed. It was an ink sketch of her bare back, curved as she’d rested her head against her knees. It was her nape, the dark hair falling forward over her shoulders; her shoulder blades sharply delineated; the line of her spine; the indentation of her waist and the flare of her hips; the beginning of the cleft at the base of her spine.

It was all there in just a few deft strokes of the quill.

Outraged, she stared up at him, at a loss for words.

“Yes, I’m rather pleased with it,” he replied. “The lines are particularly graceful, I think.”

“How… how c-could you? You c-can’t go around drawing people’s backs… their bare backs… without asking!” She found her voice finally in a stumbling cascade of anger as she belatedly fell back against the pillows.

“It was irresistible,” he said. “You have a beautiful back.” He smiled at her with all the indolent benignity of a tabby cat.

Olivia stared at him, clutching the sheet to her chin. “Go away.” She flapped her hands at him like a desperate child shooing away an importunate duckling.

He did not do so, however, but perched again on the edge of the table, long legs stretched out before him, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his britches. His thick gold hair was caught at his nape with a black velvet ribbon, and his throat rose strong and brown from the open collar of his shirt. There was a glimmer of amusement in the gray eyes, a flicker of the fine mouth that showed her crooked white teeth.

“I don’t think this maidenly outrage really suits you,” he said. “It was only your back and you forget perhaps that I have been tending you for three days.”

Olivia felt the color mount again to her cheeks. “It is ungentlemanly to remind me.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “I have been called many things in my time, Olivia, but not even my most partisan friend would call me a gentleman.”