The Accidental Bride (34 page)

“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 defence 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, still whistling 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 shoulderblades 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 belatedly she 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 opened 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 un-gentlemanly 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.”

Olivia sank deeper into the feather bed that enclosed her. “Then what are you?”

“Apart from a reasonably skilled physician, a man who lives off the sea,” he responded, folding his arms as he regarded her with that same secret amusement. But there was a hint of speculation now in his regard.

“A fisherman?” Even as she asked, she knew it couldn’t be so. Nothing so mundane as fishing could capture the interest of this man.

“I go after a more challenging catch than fish,” he told her. He touched his fingertips to his mouth in a reflective gesture, before saying slowly, “I believe there are things about such a life that would speak to you too, Olivia. Will Lord Granville’s Greek scholar of a daughter allow herself to be entranced for a few days?”

Olivia heard the challenge beneath the musical cadence of his voice. And she knew it was not lightly spoken for all the smile and the little ripple of amusement. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“Oh, but I think you do, Olivia.” He looked at her keenly. “Maybe you don’t feel it as yet, or perhaps you don’t yet understand it. It may seem strange to you at first, but I promise that if you will allow yourself, you’ll come to see and understand many things that Lord Granville’s daughter would never see and understand in the ordinary course of events.”

He came over to the bed and bent over her. His fingers brushed her cheek in a fleeting caress. Olivia looked back into his eyes and that strange sense of connection returned. She knew nothing of this man and yet she felt as if she had been waiting to know him for a long time . . . as if this moment in the sun-filled cabin was always going to happen. Her scalp lifted with premonition and her palms were suddenly clammy. And yet despite the prickle of fear, she felt elation. As heady as it was confusing.

THE ACCIDENTAL BRIDE
A
Bantam Book / July 1999

All rights reserved.
Copyright ©1999 by Jane Feather.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.

eISBN: 978-0-307-42615-4

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