The Least Likely Bride

“I know what you are… or at least, I know what you are not,” she corrected.

“So, how did you discover about the oratory?”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“I think I have.”

She supposed that in the absence of a denial, she had an affirmative. “A little boy was so excited about his toy ship that he let some things slip while he was playing.”

“Ah, one of the Barker brood.” He took up his oars again. “An inherent risk, but one I consider reasonable.” He frowned at her. “So, how does Lord Granville’s daughter view this matter?”

“I don’t know,” Olivia said. “I haven’t asked her.”

Anthony’s crooked smile flashed.

Chapter Twelve

Anthony turned the boat in the narrow passage. “Can you swim?”

Olivia shook her head. “No. I grew up in Yorkshire. No one swims in Yorkshire. I’d never even seen the sea until we came here.”

“Then it’s time you learned.”

“I thought we were going to play chess.”

“That too.”

Then Olivia saw the gap in the cliff. It was a very narrow arch. The boat shot through it with one pull on the oars, and suddenly they were in a small sandy cove, open to the sea, but protected on three sides by the overhang of the undercliff.

Olivia gazed at the great red ball of the setting sun dipping into the sea just beyond the jagged rocks of the Needles. After the confines of the chine it was like being on open sea once more.

Anthony smiled at her rapt pleasure and pulled into the beach. “In those clothes, you can manage to scramble ashore unaided,” he commented.

“Do you like them?” She stood up and the boat rocked alarmingly.

“They have their advantages,” he said judiciously. “But on the whole I prefer you naked. As you know, in general I like to use nude models.”

Olivia began to feel as if things were slipping away from her again. She had thought she had been so much in control of this encounter, but now she wasn’t so sure. “I have no intention of sitting for you,” she stated. “Nude or otherwise.”

“Take your shoes and stockings off before you paddle ashore,” he instructed as if he hadn’t heard her.

Olivia did as he said but found that her fingers were clumsy.

“You should roll up the britches too.”

Sucking in her lower lip, Olivia rolled the britches to her knees. The pirate gave her his hand and she jumped into the shallow water. It was delightfully warm and the ridged sand was both hard and soft against her unaccustomed soles. She paddled to shore while Anthony hauled the boat up onto the sand.

“What is all this?” Olivia gestured in amazement to the collection of objects on the beach.

“A chessboard,” he pointed out. “Then supper. I trust you like roast chicken. And blankets and pillows for a night under the stars.”

The chicken looked utterly inedible by anything other than a fox, although it did seem to be plucked. “You’re going to c-cook that?”

“I’m an expert,” he assured her. “You’ll find driftwood along the tideline. Pick smaller pieces as well for kindling.”

Olivia hesitated. She looked across at the setting sun; she felt its rays on her face, the sand beneath her feet. And slowly, inexorably, the skeins of the dream wrapped themselves around her once more.

She set off up the small beach in her rolled-up britches, scrunching her toes into the sand. She gathered pieces of wood with all the care another woman might have given to the selection of embroidery silks, and returned triumphant.

“See, I have little pieces here and bigger ones for later.” She dropped her armful onto the sand.

Anthony had constructed a fireplace of flat stones and had threaded the chicken on a long stick that would serve as a spit. He laid the fire, struck flint on tinder, and within minutes the fire glowed and the chicken was in place across the stones.

“So, now we play chess.” He set the board on another flat stone and sat cross-legged in front of white’s pieces. “You, I believe, have the disadvantage this game.”

“Hah!” Olivia said, dropping to the sand. “I never lose, even when I play black.”

“This time you will,” he said with confidence. “And then I shall teach you to swim. In exchange, you will sit for me. I shall draw you, sitting just as you are on the sand, with your hair up like that… but without the clothes.”

Olivia glanced at him, her face touched by the fire’s light. “If I win, I shall say whether you may or may not.”

“You always have that right,” he said quietly, his eyes now grave as they met hers. “Always, Olivia.”

And she knew that she did. With this man, she had the rights to her body, to her responses. It was for her to decide.

“Make your move,” she said.

Anthony moved pawn to king four.

“Oh, how conventional,” Olivia crowed as she made the standard response.

“I save my surprises for later,” he murmured.

And then an hour later, as the sun sank into the sea, he said almost to himself, “You are the very devil, Olivia. I could have sworn I had you two moves back.”

“I’ll offer you a draw,” she said, grinning. “Take it while you can.”

“You have no choice but to agree to a draw,” he pointed out with perfect truth. “There’s no way you can win any more than I can.”

“Oh, I was hoping you wouldn’t realize that.”

“Don’t add insult to injury,” Anthony said, leaning sideways to turn the chicken. “And don’t forget we have one more game to play.”

“Why would you want to endure another crushing defeat?” Olivia asked in mock astonishment.

“You are so cocky!” he exclaimed. “I think it’s time for some cold water.” He bent and took her hands, pulling her to her feet. “Get your clothes off, I’m going to teach you to swim.” He began to discard his clothes.

Olivia watched him for a second, then slowly she shrugged out of her doublet and unbuttoned her chemise.

“Let me help you.” Naked he came over to her and slipped the chemise from her shoulders. The cool air brushed her breasts and her nipples peaked. He looked down at her, a question in his eyes. His hands went to the buttons of her britches, but slowly, giving her time.

Olivia touched his mouth with her thumb.

He pushed the britches over her hips and down, his hands lightly brushing her skin. She stepped out of them and stood naked on the sand, every inch of her skin exquisitely sensitized, anticipation trembling in her belly, tightening her thighs.

Anthony drew her against him. His hands moved down her back without urgency, again giving her time to draw back.

But Olivia no longer needed time. She slipped a hand down his belly. The muscles of his abdomen contracted and his sex sprang alive under her touch. She leaned into him, loving the warmth of his skin, the hardness of his body, the little breeze that came off the water to make her even more conscious of her own nakedness.

“Perhaps swimming should wait,” she murmured, licking the little hollow of his throat, tasting the salt and the sea.

“There is a way to combine both,” he whispered against her cheek, as he moved his lips to the corner of her mouth. Then his tongue darted into her ear, making her squirm with delight.

“Come.” He took her hand and led her into the water. He led her out until the little waves broke against her calves, and then he drew her into a hard embrace, holding her immobile against his length as his tongue drove deep within her mouth and she moaned softly against his lips. Now there was an urgency to his hands on her body, a fierceness to his caresses.

Olivia shivered as the coolness of the evening air bathed her heated skin. Her toes scrunched into the soft wet sand, and her nipples rose against his chest. He held her buttocks and they tightened against his palms as he pressed her to him so that his penis moved against her thigh.

She shifted, parting her legs to give him entrance, her guiding hand leading him within.

“Put your arms around my neck.”

Olivia obeyed eagerly and he caught her behind the knees, lifting her off the sand as he slid within her. His hold moved to her bottom, supporting her on the shelf of his palms. Fleetingly Olivia wondered if anyone could see them, two naked lovers in the surf, joined in flagrant lust, then she couldn’t have cared if they were exposed on the public stage. She sucked on his lower lip as if it were a ripe plum, then nibbled, little teasing tugs of her teeth as she rode his hips. He kept very still, unmoving inside her, filling her, becoming part of her.

And long long before she was ready, he loosened his hold and she slid down his length with a little sigh of disappointment.

He laughed gently at her expression as she looked up at him in startled discontent. “Don’t worry, my flower. The best is yet to come.”

Taking her hand again, he led her deeper into the water. When the water reached the top of her thighs, he drew her close against him again, an arm encircling her waist as he pushed up her chin with his free hand and for a long minute gazed down into her face. Her tongue lightly touched her lips, her dark eyes held his gaze, and he read his own passion reflected in their velvet depths.

Was this passion what his father had felt for Elizabeth of Bohemia?

His father had thrown consequences to the devil when he’d pursued that passion. And the innocent had suffered those consequences.

Anthony closed his mind to a reflection that only ever brought bitterness. He had Olivia here. She was no part of his past, bore no blame for his father’s impulses. And whatever devils had been pursuing her after their last loving, it was clear from the desire in her eyes, the hunger of her responses, that they were, for this moment at least, vanquished.

He kissed her and her eyes closed. His hand moved from her chin to trace the outline of her breasts rising clear of the water that cooled and stroked her lower body. Gently, he rolled her hardening nipples between thumb and forefinger, increasing the pressure until she moaned and shivered, the throbbing heat of her body in sharp contrast to the cool, lapping sea.

He bent her backwards over his encircling arm as his free hand slid downward over her smooth white belly. His fingers twined in the soft dark triangle at the apex of her thighs. His knee nudged her legs apart to receive the cold caress of the sea even as his fingers followed the water, probing deeply, insistently, until her moans became little sobbing cries of delight. The sea became as much an instrument of her pleasure as his hand, and he used it, drawing her backwards into deeper water still, where she floated against his arm, her body opened, abandoned to the dual caresses.

She drifted, her eyes closed, now only a mindless sensate being at one with the water that held her and explored her with intimate searching fingers indivisible from her lover’s.

She was barely aware as Anthony cradled her against him, carrying her back to the water’s edge. He laid her down in the shallow, creaming surf. The sand shifted beneath her under the rhythmic progression and retreat of the little waves. She reached up for him, lifting her hips as he drove fiercely within her, to possess her so utterly that she had no sense of her self existing outside