Jane Feather - The Least Likely Bride

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.

“My 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 Carisbrooke 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?

Olivia 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.