The Least Likely Bride

Olivia hesitated, then approached the tub with a sense of helpless resignation. If he did turn around, what did it matter? He’d see nothing he hadn’t already seen. But then he’d had on his physician’s hat, she reminded herself. Whatever hat he was wearing now, it had crowned no physician’s head.

She poured hot water into the tub and drew the nightshirt over her head. She looked quickly over to him, but he was still studiously working on the charts, humming to himself.

Hastily she dipped a piece of towel in the hot water, rubbed soap on it, and sponged her body. It felt so wonderful that she almost forgot that she wasn’t alone. Then she heard a movement behind her and grabbed up a towel to cover herself, an indignant exclamation on her lips. But he’d gone in what seemed like a straight line to the chessboard beneath the window, and he still had his back to her.

“I see you’ve completed the problem,” he observed casually. “It wasn’t a particularly challenging one, I found.”

“Then why didn’t you finish it yourself?” she demanded, drying herself as quickly as she could.

“I was about to, but I was called away,” he replied with an airy wave of his hand. He selected several pieces from the wooden box that stood beside the board and placed them on the squares. “Let’s see how you do with this one.”

Olivia drew the clean nightshirt over her head. Her sigh of relief was audible and Anthony raised his head and looked at her. His eyes held his secret smile. He came over to her and cupped her face in both hands, then he ran his fingers through the mass of damp black curls framing her face, combing and fluffing out her hair. “I told you I was a passable coiffeur.”

He laughed and lightly ran the pad of his thumb over her mouth. “You have such a beautiful complexion. Like thick cream. And your eyes are magnificent. Black and soft as velvet.”

Olivia stared at him. It was the first she’d heard of this. “Are you… are you making love to me?”

“Not yet.” He laughed again and pinched her nose. “I never make love when I’m hungry.”

Olivia stepped away from him, regarding him rather in the manner of a Christian facing the lions. “I think you are a rake,” she pronounced. “And I will not let you make love to me.”

“No?” He raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s an academic question at present.” He turned from her and pulled his shirt over his head. His back was tanned to a deep burnished gold. It was long and slim and tapered.

Olivia felt a curious little tug in the base of her belly. She dragged her eyes away and picked up the emerald sash, tying it around her waist. She heard the clink of his belt buckle and involuntarily looked towards him again.

He tossed his belt to the floor and with one smooth movement pushed his britches off his hips and stepped out of them.

Olivia’s jaw dropped.

“You did say you were accustomed to the male form,” he said. “Without the fig leaves.”

Yes! On paper or cast in bronze. Olivia tried to speak but her throat felt stuffed with cotton. He was bending over the tub, splashing his face. His buttocks, smooth and flat, were as tanned as his back, his thighs dusted with fair curls, the hard muscles rippling in thigh and calf as he braced himself. And she could see between his thighs the dark shadow of his sex.

“The human body is the greatest wonder of creation,” Anthony remarked in the tone of one instructing a pupil. “In all its manifestations, thin, fat, long, short. Every line, every curve, is beautiful.” He turned as he spoke, sponging his torso with the soaped towel that Olivia had used.

Olivia knew a challenge when she heard one. She refused to look away and indeed she couldn’t have dragged her eyes from this perfect example of the human form if she’d wanted to.

Every inch of him had been touched with the sun. Fair hair clustered around his nipples, cloaked his sex. He stood naked before her, alone in this cabin, and yet she realized with a shock of what could only be dismay that he was not aroused.

Her reaction, instead of the requisite maidenly horror at the sight of this naked man, was one of confused disappointment. Did he not find her in the least appealing? He hadn’t behaved as if that was the case, but maybe she was too inexperienced to understand. She felt herself blush even as her eyes drank him in.

“Would you prefer to dine on deck?” he asked as casually as if they were in some drawing room. “It’s a beautiful night and your hair will dry in the breeze.” He turned away from her again, to Olivia’s profound relief. She found his back view much less disturbing. “Could you find me a clean shirt from the cupboard?”

She still couldn’t find her tongue but shirts were a different matter and a welcome distraction. He had wrapped a towel around his loins when she turned back to him with the garment.

“My thanks.” He thrust his arms into it and left it open as he went to another cupboard for a clean pair of britches.

“So, the deck or the cabin?” He cast aside the towel and stepped into the britches. Olivia noticed that he wore no undergarments. Men usually wore drawers beneath their britches. That much she did know from the washing lines around the washhouse.

He buttoned the shirt, leaving it open at the neck, and thrust the tail into the waistband of his britches. He bent to pick up his belt and fastened it at his hip again, adjusting the set of the short dagger in its sheath.

“On deck.” Olivia finally managed to speak, now that the world had returned to more orderly proportions.

“Good.” He went to the door and called for Adam, who appeared almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting outside the door.

“Dinner’ll be ruined,” he grumbled. “What took ye so long?”

“We’ll dine on the quarterdeck,” Anthony said, ignoring the complaining question. “Get young Ned to clean up the cabin while we’re above… oh, and we’ll drink that ‘38 claret, Adam.”

“Oh, aye,” Adam muttered, entering the cabin. “It’s celebratin‘, are we?”

“We have cause for celebration,” Anthony responded.

“Oh, aye?” Adam repeated with a skeptical eyebrow. He glanced rather pointedly at Olivia. “You’ll not be needin‘ yer clothes, I see.”

“I borrowed these,” Olivia said with an attempt at dignity. “But when I leave the ship, I’ll need my own c-clothes.”

“And when’ll that be? I ask meself,” Adam muttered, taking a bottle and two glasses from a cupboard. “ ‘Ere, you want to take these up.” He thrust bottle and glasses at Anthony, who took them meekly.

“Come, Olivia.”

“When will it be?” she asked, going past him through the door, holding up her voluminous skirts as she stepped over the high threshold.

“When will what be?” He followed her, leaving the door open to the sounds of Adam banging around in the cupboards, collecting plates and cutlery.

“When I leave Wind Dancer,” she said impatiently. “When you stop kidnapping me.”

“Oh, is that what I’m doing?” he said as they climbed the companionway and emerged on deck. “You tumble down the cliff and fall unconscious at the feet of one of my watchmen. We succor you and minister to your wounds, and that’s called kidnapping.”

“You knew who I was; you could have sent word and someone would have fetched me.” The real world was intruding again without her agreement, forcing the magic of wonderland into retreat.

“Ah, but you see I have no visiting cards. Pirates in general don’t pay calls on the local gentry,” Anthony explained solemnly. His gray eyes gleamed with amusement, vanquishing her unwitting edge of antagonism.

“Oh, you’re absurd!” Olivia declared, climbing up to the high quarterdeck. “You kidnapped me and took me off to the high seas and my family will all think I’m dead, and even if I ever do get back to them, my reputation will be ruined.

“Not that that will matter,” she added. “Since I never intend to get married, and only potential husbands worry about such things.”

Anthony listened to this stream of words as he uncorked the bottle and poured the rich ruby wine into the two glasses whose long stems he held between the fingers of his free hand. He took the scent of the wine with a critical frown, then nodded and passed a glass to Olivia.

“I trust a vow of celibacy doesn’t also involve a vow of chastity. The two are not synonymous.” He regarded her over the lip of his glass.

Olivia took a larger gulp of wine than she’d intended, and choked. Anthony solicitously thumped her back.

“Take it easy. It’s too fine a wine to quaff like small beer.”

“Oh… oh, I didn’t!” Olivia protested. “It went down the wrong way.”

“Ah, I see.” He nodded and leaned back against the rail, looking up at the star-filled sky. “What a beautiful night.”

It seemed he’d dropped the topic of chastity, and Olivia took a more moderate sip of her wine. The sky was deepest blue with a crescent moon low on the horizon and the broad diffused swath of the Milky Way directly above them. The helmsman stood at the wheel, and Wind Dancer, once more true to her name, seemed to be playing in the wind over the swelling sea. “Do you navigate by the stars?”

“A less disturbing topic, eh?”

“Do you use the stars to navigate by?” she repeated determinedly.

“After dinner I’ll show you how,” he said, drawing her to the rail beside him, out of the way of Adam and two other sailors, who clambered onto the deck with a table and chairs and a basket of plates and cutlery.

Adam threw a snowy cloth over the table, lit an oil lamp, and set out two places. “There y’are, then. I’ll bring the meat.”

“My lady Olivia…” Anthony drew back a chair for her with a punctilious bow.

Olivia couldn’t resist a little curtsy, laughing inwardly at the thought of her bare feet and her strange gown. The master of Wind Dancer seemed to know exactly how to change her mood. With a word, a gesture, a smile, he drew from her whatever response he wished. And while part of her resented such manipulation, another part of her was entranced.

Adam set down on the table a platter of sliced roast mutton studded with slivers of garlic and sprigs of rosemary, a bowl of potatoes baked in their skins in the embers of the fire, and a salad of field greens and mushrooms.

“Oh,” Olivia said. “I don’t think I have ever been so hungry.”

“Well, eat slowly,” Anthony cautioned. “Your belly’s had almost nothing in it for three days. You don’t wish to be sick.”

“I couldn’t possibly be sick,” Olivia said, spearing a slice of mutton on the tip of her knife. “It smells so wonderful. Adam, you’re a genius.”

For once, the elderly man’s expression softened and his mouth took a slight curve. “The master’s right,” he said gruffly. “Your belly’s shrunk, so go easy.”

Olivia shook her head in vigorous denial and took a large bite of meat. It tasted as wonderful as it smelled. She ate a potato smothered in butter and wiped the grease from her chin with the back of her hand, too hungry to worry about the niceties of the napkin on her lap.

Anthony refilled their glasses and watched her. There was something undeniably sensual about her robust enjoyment of her dinner. He thought of the blithely exuberant way she’d hurled herself across the netting between Wind Dancer and Dona Elena that morning to join in the fray. It was as if Olivia Granville, separated from all that had protected and enclosed her, had discovered a new self. Would she bring that same robust enjoyment to bed? he wondered.

A smile touched his lips as he thought of her declaration that she would remain unwed. It was an absurd intention for a young woman of her family background. And yet, as he examined her countenance, took in the firmness of her mouth, the set of her chin, he thought that maybe she would manage it. He was certain Olivia Granville thought for herself.

“What are you looking at?” Olivia asked, suddenly aware of his scrutiny.

“Oh, I was just enjoying your enjoyment,” he said carelessly, leaning back in his chair, lifting his glass to his lips. “Rarely have I seen a gently bred maiden devour her dinner with such gluttony.”

Olivia flushed. “Was I being greedy?”