Godfrey waited for her to answer him, and he waited in vain. He realized he was looking foolish, standing with his hand on the doorknob, and with a short nod he left the parlor.
“What an unpleasant man,” Portia observed.
“Yes, isn’t he?” Olivia agreed readily. “He gives me the shivers.”
“He seems harmless enough,” Phoebe said, adding, “for a popinjay.”
“My father thinks he wants to pay court to me,” Olivia told Portia.
Portia went into a peal of laughter. “Then I can only commend his enterprise. He doesn’t know, of course, that you’re sworn to celibacy.”
Celibacy but not chastity! The pirate’s lightly teasing words rang in Olivia’s mind, and idiotically she felt herself blush. She glanced at Phoebe, who wore her air of unwonted gravity again.
Portia caught the glance and her eyes narrowed. “I detect secrets.”
“Olivia has been adventuring,” Phoebe said in an undertone, mindful of the children.
“Oh, sounds interesting.” Portia examined Lady Granville’s rounded, serious countenance with a quizzically raised eyebrow. “You look as if you don’t approve, duckie.”
She cast an eye over at Olivia and saw her confusion and distress. “I think I’ve arrived just in time,” she observed, and turned to the children. “Luke, Toby, take Alex and Eve into the garden and give Juno a run.”
The two elder boys obliged cheerfully, and the three women were left in relative peace.
“Now…” Portia sat on the arm of a chair. “Let’s hear it.”
Rufus Decatur and Cato were walking the length of the terrace, deep in conversation. The children, Juno, and the two Granville hounds exploded through the glass doors from the parlor. Rufus paused to watch with a paternal eye as they chased across the terrace and into the trees.
“Luke… Toby… don’t leave the garden,” he called after them. “And don’t let Eve get into any trouble.” He got a wave in response and laughed slightly. “She’s a real tearaway, that one. Always hip deep in trouble. It seems to seek her out.”
“Takes after her mother,” Cato observed.
“You may have a point.”
The two men glanced through the open door into the parlor. The three women were sitting in a circle, heads together, so intent on their conversation they were oblivious of their audience.
“I wonder what they’re talking about,” Rufus murmured.
“Oh, domestic matters probably… teething babies, difficulties with servants, complicated embroidery stitches,” said Cato with a chuckle.
Rufus laughed at this absurdity. “The soldier, the poet, and the scholar. What a trio.”
“An inseparable trio,” Cato commented before resuming their earlier discussion. “So, there’s talk off the island as well as on it about a renewed attempt to get the king away.”
“Aye, the army’s full of rumor, but this one seems to have some teeth.”
“But no one has a name for whoever’s behind it.”
Rufus shook his head. “I hear only that he’s well respected, well connected, and something of a brigand. He’s talked about with the kind of awe people reserve for folk heroes. William Tell or Robin Hood.” He shrugged. There had been a time when he too had had such a reputation.
“But he’s on the island?”
“Some say yes, some say no. He’s a mystery.”
Cato nodded. “A mystery who can defeat even Giles Crampton’s network of informants. Well, we’ll just have to watch and wait. And keep the king under even closer observation. I’ve set a spy in place, Hammond’s equerry… Godfrey Channing. Have you met him?”
Rufus shook his head. “I know the name.”
“He seems to have a knack for keeping his eyes and ears open. And he’s good at interpreting the king’s moods. You know how His Majesty’s moods reflect what’s going on. When he’s cheerful and optimistic it tends to mean he’s got some plan a-brewing.”
“Aye,” Rufus agreed. “It’s not that he’s stupid, just that he considers it beneath his dignity to pretend. Is he still negotiating with the Scots, d’you think?”
“I’m certain of it. And Channing said that the king knew when the Scots crossed the Border, so information’s getting to him somehow. And there’s money coming from somewhere too. These damned pockets of rebellion across the country are being funded from somewhere… soldiers are being paid.”
“Paid soldiers fight with a damn sight more enthusiasm, and they don’t much care who the paymaster is or even what they’re fighting for,” Rufus observed. “While Parliament’s armies go unpaid and mutinous, the king’s supporters are fighting with full bellies and heavy pockets.”
Cato nodded. “Every time I think the end is in sight, it drifts away again.”
“We’ve a long way to go yet,” Rufus said wearily. “You’d think seven years of bloodshed would be enough, wouldn’t you?”
It was a rhetorical question.
Anthony surveyed the booty from the cave, piled high in Wind Dancer’s hold. “What do you think Ellen would like, Adam?”
“Lace.”
“If I give her lace, she’ll only use it to make me more nightshirts.”
“They ‘ave their uses. The lass looked right pretty in ’em,” Adam commented slyly.
“That’s as may be,” Anthony responded. “But to return to Ellen…”
“The silk’s too rich fer ‘er tastes. She’d like a nice bolt of kersey or some such. She’s not one for folderols… O’ course, she’s not agin‘ a drop o’ cognac or a nice flagon o‘ that there madeira.”
“Well, that’s easily supplied. And a couple of bottles of burgundy too. Maybe she’d like one of the cashmere shawls. Keep the drafts out in winter.”
“Aye, mebbe so. You goin‘ to visit now?”
“You’re coming too, I’m assuming.”
Adam looked pleased. “Wasn’t sure I was asked.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, man! When would I visit Ellen without you?”
Adam merely shrugged, gathered up the gifts for Ellen, and followed Anthony out of Wind Dancer’s hold.
The dinghy with two sailors at the oars knocked gently against the side of the ship. Anthony jumped down into the boat, reaching up to take Adam’s burdens. Adam followed with rather less agility.
The oarsmen pulled strongly towards the mouth of the chine. Beyond its mouth they hoisted the sail and kept close in to shore until they turned in to a shallow cove, running the boat up on a tiny sandy beach. The cliffs rose steeply on three sides, almost overhanging the beach so that it would be invisible from the clifftop.
Anthony picked up the gifts and stepped onto the beach, reaching forward to give Adam his hand as the older man hauled himself over the side of the boat and stepped gingerly over the rivulets onto dry land.
“We’ll be back ‘ere tonight, master.” The sailors prepared to push the dinghy back into the water.
“Aye. But don’t look for us until well after nightfall.”
Adam huffed and puffed up the nearly invisible trail to the clifftop. They passed a watchman sitting, knees drawn up, gazing out to sea. Like his fellows stationed along the undercliff path, he carried a pipe that would give warning to Wind Dancer of any untoward visitors from land or sea.
“Morning, Ben.”
“Mornin‘, sir.” The watchman offered a half salute. “Mike’s at the top wi’ the ponies.”
Anthony nodded and continued the climb. They would ride across the island to Yarmouth and from there sail across the Solent, past Hurst Castle on its spit of sand, and up the Keyhaven River. Ellen’s cottage was in the tiny hamlet of Keyhaven, and it was there that Anthony had grown up, tumbling in and out of boats almost as soon as he could walk, absorbing the seaman’s craft whenever Ellen released him from the learning that she insisted a gentleman’s son, even an illegitimate gentleman’s son, should acquire.
Smuggling was an active trade along the Hampshire coast as well as on the Isle of Wight, and Anthony had taken to the business as naturally as a duck to water. Within a year he had made enough money to buy his own small craft, and soon after, the men who had plied the trade for themselves in small and inefficient ways had joined forces with him, accepting his leadership. The acquisition of Wind Dancer had followed quickly, and the pirate had taken to the high seas in search of richer game.