“Come here then.” He stood up with his glass and went to stand behind the helmsman at the wheel. He slipped one arm around Olivia’s waist and drew her backwards, so she stood with her back against him. “Now, you see the North Star?”
Olivia tried to follow the lesson, but for once the sharpness of her mind seemed blunted. She was aware only of the body at her back, the warmth of his arm at her waist, the wine-scented breath rustling against her cheek as he pointed out the constellations. The stars all seemed to merge and she felt stupid as she struggled to grasp concepts that would ordinarily have been perfectly simple for her.
The hand at her waist moved upward against her breast, and she drew a swift breath. But he said nothing, merely continued calmly with the lesson, his hand pressing against the soft swell of her breast.
“You interested in puddin‘?”
“Oh, yes,” Olivia said almost jumping away from the encircling arm. “What is it?”
“Rhubarb pie.” Adam set a pie dish on the table with a jug of thick cream. “Lord, you ‘ad an appetite on you,” he muttered, surveying the wreckage of the table.
“It was very good.” Olivia sat down and reached for the pie knife. Her heart was beating too quickly and she thought her voice sounded a little squeaky as she asked as casually as she could, “Are you going to have some pie, Anthony?”
He came back to the table. “Funny, but I’d have thought the fascinations of astronomy would have held your attention rather longer. But then, no one makes a rhubarb pie to rival Adam’s.”
Olivia put a large slice of pie on her plate and made no response. She felt as if she’d been cut loose from everything that had made sense of her life hitherto. And she didn’t know what to make of any of it. The only thing she did know was that her blood was racing, and despite the confusion, she felt more alive than she’d ever felt before.
Chapter Four
“So what does the message say?” The questioner put a spill to his pipe, and the acrid smell of strong tobacco filled the taproom.
“Jest that if’n we’re interested in sellin‘ what we culled, then ’e’ll be ‘ere in the Anchor at the end o’ the week.”
“And how does he know there was any culling?” The questioner was young, dark haired, swarthy of complexion. He was dressed in a suit of turquoise silk and wore his hair in the Cavalier style, tumbling to his shoulders in elaborate curls, glistening with pomade. He drew on his pipe in the smoke-wreathed room and surveyed his interlocutor through cold green eyes.
The man shrugged. “Doubt it’s a secret, sir. Message come the mornin‘ after. Thought you’d want to know.”
“Of course I want to know!” There was a snarl to the well-bred voice. “We need customers, you dolt! But how do we know it’s not a trap?”
The other man shrugged and lit his own pipe of rather more noxious tobacco. “Dunno, sir. Reckon that’s your business. Ours is to cull.”
The young man was silent in the face of this truth. “There’s been no one sniffing around? No awkward questions?”
“No, sir. ‘Twas pitch black that night an’ the storm was strong. Ship could ‘ave gone aground on ’er own. But the whole island reckons ‘twas a wreckin’ job,” he added. “Jest can’t prove it.”
“And whoever’s buying knows it was a wrecking job,” the young man mused. “And he knew whom to contact? Who brought the message?”
“Didn’t ‘ave no name, sir. An’ he was all swaddled in a cloak, with the ‘ood pulled down. ’Twas an ‘ot night too,” the man added reflectively. “But ’e was an island man. Spoke like an island man.”
“Mmm. Landlord, bring me a pint of porter,” the young man bellowed suddenly across the counter.
“Right y’are, sir.” The host of the Anchor, who had been listening to a conversation that held no secrets for him, slapped an overfull tankard on the counter before the customer. “I was expectin‘ me casks, sir,” he said in an unconvincing whine. “Any sign of when I might be gettin’ ‘em?”
“You’ll get them when I have them,” the other snapped, taking up the tankard. He drank deeply and stared up at the blackened ceiling rafters, watching the smoke curl from his pipe. He’d been expecting a delivery from the French coast for over a week, and it was hard now not to believe that something had happened to the boat. Her captain had always been reliable in the past, but the smuggling trade was far from a certain business. Which was why those who needed a more assured income and could banish moral scruple augmented their smuggling with wrecking. Godfrey, Lord Channing, had never been troubled with moral scruple.
He had customers for his smuggled goods, like George of the Anchor here, who had already paid well for the overdue consignment. If it didn’t arrive, he’d be facing an ugly situation. These were not patient men. He looked at the landlord with new eyes and didn’t like what he saw. The man had the face of a prizefighter overly fond of his drink, with a roughly broken nose, bloodshot eyes, and a complexion crimson with broken veins. His hands, busy with an ale keg, were massive.
Godfrey felt a faint tremor of alarm. If his unsatisfied customers on the island joined forces with their grievances, life could become most unpleasant.
But there was hope. If this interest in the profits of the wreck was genuine and not a trap, then he had a way out. Even after the wreckers themselves had taken their commission, there would still be a decent profit left for the brain behind the muscle.
“So, ye’ll be comin‘ to meet wi’ him, then, sir?” the landlord asked.
Godfrey didn’t deign a response.
“I’ll be able to point ‘im out to ye, sir,” the landlord continued. He shot a sly look at Godfrey. “Anythin’ I can do to ‘elp, like.”
Godfrey was not taken in by this generous offer. He slammed his empty tankard and still-smoldering pipe on the counter and stood up, regarding the landlord with distaste. He snapped, “I can take care of my own business.”
The landlord touched his forelock, radiating mockery. “Then I can expect me cognac soon, honored sir?”
“Damn your insolence! You’ll get your cognac.” Godfrey threw a coin on the counter. The door slammed on his departure.
A man who’d been sitting in the inglenook rose to his feet and left in Godfrey’s wake. He limped badly, leaning heavily on a stick. Yet despite his obvious disability, he caught up with Godfrey before he had mounted his horse.
“A word with you, Lord Channing,” he said softly.
Godfrey spun around. “How do you know my name?”
The man who had addressed him regarded him with a malicious smile, his small brown eyes glittering. His countenance bore the deep lines of one who has known pain. At first Godfrey thought he was an old man.
“I made it my business to know,” the man responded, and his voice was that of a much younger man than his appearance indicated. “Wrecking and smuggling are not the best ways in which to improve one’s fortunes,” he observed conversationally.
Godfrey’s heart raced. Was he about to be arrested? He stared at his interlocutor.
“Don’t worry, I’ll not blab,” the man said with an unpleasant chuckle. “But I think I might be able to offer you a surer route to fortune.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Not yet, no. But let us walk a little and I’ll explain.”
Godfrey looped the rein again around the tethering post. There was something almost mesmerizing about the stranger, something in the eyes that drew him in. This too was a man not given to moral scruple.
“Forgive the slowness of my gait,” the man said, limping into the lane.
“What happened to you?”
“A duel,” Brian Morse replied, his voice low and grim. “I have a plan that will serve both our purposes, my lord, if you’ll give me a hearing.”
In the Anchor, the remaining customer mused, “Reckon that smugglin‘ boat of ’is has gone astray.” He stared hopefully into his now empty tankard. “Reckon it’s our friend what took it, don’t you, George?” He pushed his tankard around in a circle.