He caught her eye and asked anxiously, “Not too tired?”
“No, not in the least, sir. It’s pleasant to be out in the fresh air.”
He smiled, reassured, and Olivia returned to her thoughts.
The farmyard was bustling. Children tumbled with chickens and a litter of puppies on the straw-covered dirt. Two yellow dogs raced to the trap, barking frantically.
“Quiet! Get off!” A woman emerged from the house and chased the dogs off with a broomstick. They ran yelping into the barn.
“Goodwife Barker?” Cato inquired pleasantly, for the moment remaining on horseback.
“Aye, sir.” She regarded him warily before her gaze took in the trap, its driver and passenger.
Olivia took matters into her own hands and jumped down from the cart. She advanced on the lady, holding out her hand. “Goodwife Barker, this is my father, Lord Granville. He has come to thank you himself for your kindness to me.”
Comprehension was immediate. “No need fer that,” the woman said, taking Olivia’s proffered hand. She was a woman of ample girth, and her bright intelligent eyes were like shiny currants in her round face. “ ‘Twas only what any Christian body would have done.”
Cato dismounted. “I stand in your debt, goodwife.”
“That ye don’t, sir. Ye’ve more than paid yer debts,” she replied, dropping him a curtsy. “I’d not looked fer payment, but I’ll not say it came amiss.” She nodded at Giles, who remained in the pony trap. “Good day to ye, sir.”
“Good day, goodwife.”
“D’ye care for a glass of elderflower wine, my lord?” There was no air of subservience about Goodwife Barker as she offered the hospitality of her farmhouse to the marquis of Granville.
“My thanks.” Cato accepted with a smile, well aware that a refusal would cause grave offense.
“The lass knows the way,” she said casually, gesturing that Olivia should precede her.
A large square kitchen occupied the entire ground floor of the farmhouse. The cooking fire was built high, pots on trivets simmered merrily, and the rich smell of baking came from the bread oven set into the bricks of the fireplace. The room was as hot as the oven itself. There seemed to be children everywhere, crawling babies, tottering toddlers, and several older girls who were busy at domestic tasks.
“You have a large family, goodwife,” Cato observed, stepping carefully over an infant who seemed to have fallen asleep where she sat on the floor.
“Oh, aye. My man, Goodman Barker, likes to think he has enough of his own to manage the farm and the fishing without hired help,” she said placidly, taking a flagon from the dresser.
“Is he here? I’d like to meet him. To thank him myself.” Cato perched on the corner of the massive pine table. The perch was a trifle floury but it seemed safer than remaining on his feet when he might tread on a soft body.
“Bless ye, no, m’lord. He’s out from sunup to sundown, rain or shine. He’ll be bringin‘ in the crab pots about now. Like ’e was doin‘ when he found your daughter on the undercliff.” She set two pewter cups on the table and filled them with wine. She handed one to Olivia, saying blandly, “This’ll put strength in you, dearie.”
Olivia took it with a smile of thanks. Mike’s mother had the situation well in hand, and there was nothing here to arouse Lord Granville’s suspicions.
Something tugged at Olivia’s knees. A determined baby was trying to pull himself up on her skirt. She set her cup on the table again and bent to gave him her hands. He hauled himself to his feet with a squeal of delight. She knelt on the stone-flagged floor still holding his hands to steady him, and then she saw something that sent a shiver down her spine.
A small boy was playing with a wooden ship a few feet away from her. It looked to Olivia’s eye to be an exact replica of Wind Dancer. The baby tugged at her hands, clearly demanding that she help him walk, so she obliged, guiding his shaky steps over to where his brother was playing.
She could hear Cato questioning the farmer’s wife pleasantly about the farm and her husband’s fishing. Neither of them were taking any notice of her.
“What’s that you have?” she asked, sitting down on the floor beside the child with the ship, taking the baby onto her lap.
“ ‘Tis a frigate,” the boy informed her with a note of scorn for her ignorance. “I’m puttin’ up the tops’l now.” He pulled on the fine strings that served as shrouds and hauled up the topsail. “See?”
“Who made her for you? One of your brothers?”
“Our Mike,” he said. “ ‘E sails in a ship like this.”
“Oh.” Olivia nodded. “Does your ship have a name?”
“I calls ‘er Dancer.”
“That’s a splendid name. Where does she sail to?”
“ ‘Cross the sea to France, mostly.”
“Does she have an anchorage on the island?”
“Aye.” The boy began to turn the wheel. “I’m goin‘ to sail ’er on the duck pond in a minute.”
“Is that where she has her anchorage?”
“In a duck pond?” The child burst into exaggerated gusts of laughter. “Y’are daft, you are.”
“Well, I don’t know much about ships,” Olivia said. “Can I come and watch you sail her?”
“If you like.” He scrambled to his feet.
Olivia set the baby on the floor and followed the child out of the kitchen and across the farmyard to the duck pond. He squatted at the edge, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he very gently pushed his pretty toy onto the green water.
A soft breeze filled the sails and little Wind Dancer skipped a little until an indifferent duck blocked her path.
The boy waded in, holding up the legs of his britches, gave the duck a careless smack on the beak, and set his ship going again.
“So where does she have her anchorage?” Olivia asked as he came back to her.
“In a chine,” he said.
A chine. Of course. The island cliffs were studded with these deep gorges known as chines. Narrow tongues of water that disappeared into the cliff and in many cases were not visible from the sea, or from the cliff above. She’d heard that smugglers used them to unload their goods in secrecy. And now she remembered the enclosed feel to the air, the thin sliver of sky that was all she’d been able to see from the deck of Wind Dancer when they’d dropped anchor. The pirate’s frigate had its own secluded harbor in a chine. A chine somewhere below where she’d slipped off the cliff.
“When Pa doesn’t need our Mike, ‘e sends a message to the master that ’e can go on Dancer. Sometimes the master sends a message to our Mike. Sometimes he’s gone fer a month or more, our Mike,” the child added, taking up a stick and poking his little ship loose from some pond weed.
Olivia had some familiarity with the minds of children and understood that this boy had invested his toy with all the realities of the big ship.
“How do they send messages?” she heard herself ask.
“Leaves ‘em up on Catherine’s Down. At the oratory, I ’eard ‘em say. There’s a flag.” The little ship keeled over under a gust of wind, and the child lost interest in the conversation. He waded once more into the pond to rescue his vessel.
He seemed to have forgotten Olivia. But he was clearly a case of little pitchers having big ears, Olivia reflected. In such a large family in such a small house, it was hardly surprising a bright child would hear things he shouldn’t, things whose importance he didn’t understand.
Olivia returned to the farmhouse, where Cato had finished his wine and was preparing to take his leave. Olivia came in, momentarily blinded by the dimness after the bright sunshine. “That’s a fine wooden ship Mike made,” she observed. “I was watching his brother sail her on the duck pond.”
“Aye, he’s good with ‘is ’ands, is our Mike,” the goodwife responded, her eyes suddenly sharp as they rested on Olivia, standing in the doorway.