The Least Likely Bride

“I can see how that would be.” He looked out over the rail, the secret amusement in his eyes deepening.

“What of the galleon’s c-cargo?” Olivia asked, dismissing scholarship for the moment. “Is it very rich, do you know?”

“Very,” he agreed as solemnly as before. “I select my catches with some care. She’s carrying gold doubloons and silks from the Indies. I feel sure I can put them to better use than can her Spanish masters.”

“And will you set free the slaves?” she pressed.

“If you wish it.”

“I do.” Olivia nodded vigorously. “That seems to me an object much to be desired.”

“Then we will augment piracy with a little philanthropy,” Anthony stated. He turned to the helmsman at the wheel behind him. “Jethro, I think it’s time we took her wind.”

The man licked a finger and held it up to the wind. “Oh, aye, sir. Come up on the starboard bow, then, shall us?”

“That’s my idea.” Anthony took the wheel from the helmsman.

“What is it that you’re going to do?” Olivia came to stand beside him.

“You see the direction of the wind. It’s coming from her right, from the starboard side. If we come up alongside her on that side, we’ll steal her wind and her sails will flatten. She’ll have only the oars to keep her under way. And while she’s helpless, we shall board her.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Olivia said consideringly. “Do you have guns?”

“A battery on either side. But we’ll get really close before we run ‘em out. The more confused they are about our intentions, the better.” He glanced up at the sun and said with a curve of his mouth, “Perfect timing, though I say it myself.” He made a minute adjustment to the wheel.

“What do you mean? How’s it perfect timing?”

“The Spaniards enjoy their midday meal,” he replied, and his smile took a cynical twist. “A heavy dinner where the wine flows free invites a long siesta. We’ll catch them with their bellies full and their heads muddled.”

Olivia abruptly realized that she was famished. “Do you not eat at midday on Wind Dancer?” she asked involuntarily.

“Oh, are you hungry?” He glanced down at her. “I forgot you’ve had nothing solid to eat for three days. We will dine in style when the engagement is over. The cookstoves are out at present.”

They were gaining on the galleon now, and Olivia became aware of a different atmosphere on Wind Dancer. The men in the waist of the ship were no longer laughing and singing. They were moving silently into positions against the rails, standing shoulder to shoulder, tense and purposeful. And now Olivia could see the line of guns and the gun ports that for the moment remained closed.

As they came closer to the galleon, she saw how the other ship’s sails began to flap. “Oh, yes, you are stealing her wind!” she cried softly.

Then a voice hailed them across the narrowing stretch of water. A stout man in flounced petticoat britches, his coat smothered in gold braid and silver buttons, had emerged from the companionway onto the galleon’s poop deck. Olivia couldn’t understand the language but the tone was unmistakable. The Spanish captain was livid as his sails flapped uselessly. He waved a soiled table napkin as if it might do the work of his empty sails as he bellowed through a megaphone.

And then Olivia smelled it. A vile cesspit stench that reminded her of rotting meat and the unmentionable filth of the kennel. She covered her mouth, choking, her hunger vanished.

Anthony pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her, advising grimly, “Cover your mouth and nose.”

The frigate was almost alongside the galleon, and Anthony called, “Starboard guns… nets… let’s waste no time, gentlemen.”

And things happened very fast. There was a great rattling as the guns rolled forward into the ports, and boarding nets flew through the air, grappling irons hooking onto the side of the galleon.

The Spaniard was screaming and hopping from foot to foot on the poop deck. Olivia could now hear the violent creaking of the oars under frantic arms, the vile crack of a whip, the ugly groans and cries as scarred backs were lacerated anew. Men on the galleon raced to throw off the boarding nets, but even as they did so, the pirate’s men were swarming across the now narrow gap.

“Starboard guns… fire!”

The deck beneath Olivia’s feet shook under the booming cannonade, and she would have lost her footing had Anthony not thrown out an arm and clasped her tightly against him as he swung the wheel, bringing Wind Dancer impossibly close to the galleon. So close it seemed she must ram the other ship. The sound of splintering wood filled the hot summer air as the frigate’s guns tore into the galleon’s side.

Olivia looked up at him and he laughed down at her and she realized she was not frightened, only filled with a wild elation.

Then Jethro, the helmsman, appeared as if on command and took the helm, and Anthony drew his sword. With a swift movement, he bent and took Olivia’s chin on the palm of his hand and kissed her mouth. “Piracy seems to suit Lord Granville’s daughter.”

Before she could answer, he was gone, swinging himself over the rail, across the stretched netting, to leap into the midst of the thronged Spaniards on the opposite deck.

Olivia, wonderingly, touched her mouth where he’d kissed her. A man had never kissed her on the lips before. She clasped her arms around her body with a little shiver. But it was of excitement, not fear. She looked at Jethro and saw that his countenance was utterly calm, utterly confident. He swung the frigate’s head into the wind so that her sails emptied and she came to a stop, bobbing gently alongside the Spanish vessel.

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