Olivia crossed her arms over her breast in a convulsive hug. “I don’t know if I’m brave enough, Anthony.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a slight reassuring shake. He smiled down at her. “Yes, you are. You’re a pirate; you jumped over a boarding net to disarm a galleon full of Spanish soldiers without turning a hair. This is nothing. You’ll go up and knock on his door. Call out to him so that he’ll come to the door. We’ll be right behind you. When he unlocks the door, we’ll barge in. We get him out of the inn with no one being any the wiser, and on the noon tide he and his friend Channing will be on their way to another life.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It is. Trust me.”
“I do,” she said. “But I’m still frightened of him.”
She had thought she’d overcome her fear of Brian after Portia had shown her how to make a fool of him all those years ago in Castle Granville. Portia had drawn the monster’s teeth, and when Olivia had seen him again in Oxford, she’d been able to deal with her revulsion. But she hadn’t then remembered why it was that she loathed him, why she was so frightened of him. Now that she had remembered, it was as if she was back in that hideous time, dreading the sound of his voice, his step, expecting them every waking minute.
“Trust me, Olivia.”
Olivia gave a little shrug of surrender.
Anthony lifted her easily onto the back of the chestnut and swung up behind her. He circled her waist with one arm and twisted his fingers securely into the animal’s mane. “Hold tight, we’re a little later than I intended.”
Olivia clung to the mane as the horse galloped flat out across the field, along the clifftop, over St. Boniface Down.
Just above the little village of Ventnor atop Horseshoe Bay, Anthony eased the chestnut to a halt. He dismounted and lifted Olivia down.
“Won’t the farmer wonder what happened to his horse?”
“No, he’ll know I have him. I left him a sign.” Anthony led the pony into a field where a herd of cows lying on the wet grass raised their heads and gazed with bovine lack of interest at the new arrival. Anthony sent the horse off to pasture with a slap on the flank.
“A sign? What kind of sign?” Olivia couldn’t help being intrigued despite her anxiety.
Anthony laughed. “Crossed sticks, if you must know. Sometimes it’s necessary for me to make free with an islander’s possessions or hospitality. If they know it’s me, they don’t fret.”
“Do you think of yourself as an islander?” She followed him back to the path, the wet grass swishing around her ankles.
“No. You have to be born and bred for that. I was born many miles from here.”
“Where?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Bohemia.”
“Bohemia!”
“Strange birthplace, don’t you think?”
And now Olivia could detect a tension in his voice, a threshold that she was fast approaching. She pressed nevertheless. “You grew up there?”
“No. I grew up just across the Solent,” he replied in a dismissive tone. “The Gull’s on the main village street. My men should be in the taproom already.” He was walking a little ahead of her, and Olivia knew she’d gone as far as she could with her questions. And, indeed, as she drew close to Brian, she could concentrate only on mastering her anxiety.
The village street was deserted. The fishermen would be checking their crab pots in the bay, but the rest of the world was barely awake. The front door of the Gull stood open, however.
“Stay here, it’s best if you’re not seen for the moment. You don’t look too much like one of my crew.” Anthony clasped the dark cascade of Olivia’s hair at the nape of her neck in explanation.
“If I did, I would hardly be bait for Brian,” Olivia observed, tossing her head.
Anthony threw her a grin over his shoulder as he went into the inn, and it was all the response she needed.
She stood back on the street and looked up at the shuttered windows of the inn. Behind one of those slept Brian Morse. He had tried to kill her father. Phoebe had been there in Rotterdam, when Brian had ambushed Cato. Phoebe had probably saved her husband’s life. Cato had believed that he had killed Brian in the duel, but he had refused to make certain. Cold-blooded killing was not his way. And Brian Morse had come back to life. Back to torment his stepsister as he’d tormented her in childhood.
Not anymore, Olivia resolved, digging her hands deep into her britches’ pockets. Not anymore.
Three of Wind Dancer’s crew sat with Adam on stools at the bar counter. Anthony nodded to them and they nodded back. A wizened old man filled ale tankards, muttering under his breath.
“So, old friend, did we drag you from your bed betimes?” Anthony said cheerfully, tossing a handful of coins onto the counter.
The man’s face cracked into the semblance of a smile as he scooped the coins into his palm. “Aye, master, but it wouldn’t be the first time.”
“And it won’t be the last, I daresay.” Anthony hitched himself onto a stool. “You’ve a guest, I hear.”
“Aye.” The man’s expression soured. “ ‘E’s a regular tightfist.”
“He lodge above?” Anthony gestured with his head to the stairs.
“Best chamber in the ‘ouse. At the ’ead of the stairs,” the man said. “Up an‘ down them stairs I goes, at ’is beck an‘ call. An’ never a sign o‘ thanks.”
Anthony tutted sympathetically. “Fetch me a pint of porter, Bert.”
The man pulled the pint and set it on the counter.
“And if you could see your way to getting a bite of breakfast for my friends and me, we’d be more than grateful.”
“Been busy this night, then?” The man looked curious.
“Aye, we been stoppin‘ a wreck,” Adam responded. “An’ mighty sharp set we be.”
“Damned wreckers!” Bert spat into the sawdust behind him. “There’s some blood puddin‘ an’ a few suet dumplin’s from last night.”
“If ye can heat ‘em, we can eat ’em,” Adam said definitely.
Bert shuffled off to the kitchen.
“So now what?” Adam demanded of Anthony.
“Olivia is going to get our man to unlock his chamber door. As soon as he does so, we grab him. Derek, we’ll use your cloak to swaddle him. There’s rope behind the counter there, around the beer barrel. We’ll use that to bind him. Once he’s bound and gagged, you get him out of the village. Then I have something to send him to sleep.” Anthony patted his pocket.
“So who is this bloke?” Adam inquired.
Anthony’s face was suddenly bleak. “I may tell you one day.”
“An‘ mebbe I don’t want to know,” Adam muttered. “So best get on wi’ it.” He gestured significantly towards the kitchen, where Bert could be heard banging pots.
Anthony nodded and went out to Olivia. “He’s in the chamber at the top of the stairs. Run up and knock on the door. Call out to him, so he knows it’s you. We’ll be right behind you.”
Olivia glanced up again at the shuttered windows, a considering frown drawing her thick black brows together. “D’you know which window is his?”
“I think the one in the center, from what I know of the inn.”
“Then I have a better idea,” she said firmly. “I’ll throw stones at the shutters until he wakes up. He’s bound to come to the window to see what’s going on. When he sees me, I’ll beckon him and he’ll come downstairs. He’s bound to.”
“If you think that’s a better plan,” Anthony said.
“I do. It keeps me out here for a start.” Olivia bent to pick up a large round stone. She hurled it at Brian’s shuttered window with such force that the wood splintered.
Anthony raised an eyebrow and strode back into the inn. “Ready, gentlemen?”
Soft-footed they mounted the stairs and pressed themselves against the wall on either side of Brian Morse’s door.
Outside, Olivia hurled stones merrily at the shutters. Her aim was amazingly true, she discovered. It took four crashes before the shutters were flung open and Brian Morse stood there in his nightshirt. The man she saw bore little resemblance to the Brian she remembered. This man had white hair and a face creased with suffering. But his eyes were the same, his mouth was the same, and the power of his malevolence jumped out at her.