Anthony surveyed him in silence. His face was expressionless except for his eyes, and what Brian read in those eyes filled him with a cold dread.
“So you like to play with little girls,” Anthony said softly. “Tell me about it, Mr. Morse.” He jerked the folds of material from Brian’s mouth. “Do explain the fascination for me.”
Brian spat pieces of lint from his mouth. “So my little sister has been telling tales to her lover, has she? I never thought she’d turn whore. She always swore she’d never have anything to do with a man.” Somehow he managed to sneer even through his fear.
Anthony’s hands closed around Brian’s throat. The long, slim fingers squeezed. Hands that could hold a ship steady into the wind in the teeth of a gale. Brian gasped like a gaffed fish. His chest was so tight he knew it was going to burst. Spots danced before his eyes. He could feel them bulging. The hands squeezed tighter. And then the black wave swamped him.
Anthony took his hands from Brian’s throat. He flexed his fingers, then massaged his palms with his thumbs.
“You have killed him.” Olivia stepped forward, her voice flat. “You killed him.”
Anthony shook his head. “I have never yet managed to kill in cold blood, however great the temptation,” he said. “Besides, I would rather condemn this piece of vileness to a living hell.”
He reached into his pocket and took out a small vial. “Hold his head, Adam.”
Adam put an arm behind the unconscious man’s neck and lifted his head on his wrist. Brian’s mouth fell open as his head fell back. His neck was livid with the marks of Anthony’s fingers.
Anthony tipped the contents of the vial down the opened throat, and the unconscious man swallowed convulsively. “That will keep him out for twelve hours.”
He stood up and addressed the three men who stood beside the limp figure. “Put him on a cart and carry him to Yarmouth. Seamew is waiting with her other passenger for the noon tide. Give this to her master.” He dug into his pocket again and took out a leather pouch. It clinked as he passed it over.
Olivia’s gaze was riveted by the immobile bundle that was Brian. Now, looking at him, it was hard to imagine how he had terrified her. He looked so old and yellow and lifeless.
Anthony glanced up at the full-risen sun and turned back to Olivia. “You will be missed, I fear.”
Olivia dragged her eyes from Brian. “I’ll find an explanation,” she said absently. She was thinking how it didn’t much matter now. Anthony would be gone from the island in a matter of hours.
“I’ll be off to Yarmouth, then, see about the Yarrows,” Adam said. “I’ll find a fishin‘ boat in Ventnor to sail me round.”
“How are you going to get into the castle?”
“Crab pots,” Adam said laconically. “Powerful fond of crabs, is the cook. An‘ she’ll tell me a thing or two. Quite gabby, she is.” He sounded faintly disapproving of Mary’s useful vice.
“See who’s on duty. Pete will-”
“Aye, there’s no need to teach yer grandmother to suck eggs,” Adam interrupted. “I’ll ‘ave ’em out of there, don’t you worry.”
Anthony laughed. “I don’t, old man, I don’t. But I need you back on Wind Dancer by early afternoon. You need to tell the crew that there’s been a change of plan. I’ll not return to the ship until I have the king. Warp her out of the chine on the ebb tide and take her into the Channel. Jethro should sail her for Puckaster Cove at nine tonight. He should be in position by ten. But before that, Sam should sail the dinghy and beach her in the cove, so she’s ready and waiting for us.”
Adam nodded and set off back to Ventnor to find a boat to take him to Yarmouth.
Olivia had listened to this exchange in slowly dawning horror. “Anthony, you can’t still mean to rescue the king!” she exclaimed. “Not now that they know.” She looked at him as if he was out of his mind.
“My flower, I have a promise to keep,” he said, taking her hand and walking with her back to the field where they had left Gowan’s horse.
“Don’t be ridiculous! Whoever this woman is, she wouldn’t expect you to do this now. No woman in her senses would.”
Anthony’s response was instant and unthinking. “This is my business, Olivia. My commitments are my affair, not yours.”
She pulled her hand out of his, stopping dead on the lane. “What are you saying?” Her eyes were bewildered. How when they had talked of love could he dismiss her concern so curtly?
He read her confusion and her anger in her eyes and moderated his tone as he tried to explain. “I’m the master of a ship, Olivia. Men rely on my decisions. I must make those decisions alone and take their consequences myself. It’s always been like that for me, and, believe me, I learned the lessons the hard way.”
“So you never listen to advice?” she demanded in disbelief. “You never change your mind?”
“Of course I do,” he said with a touch of impatience. “But the final decisions are mine.”
Her father would have said the same, Olivia reflected. She frowned, thinking of what Anthony had just said. “You learned the hard way. As a child, you mean? From your parents?”
“You could say that.”
Olivia lost all patience. “Damn you, Anthony!” she cried. “Isn’t it time you explained some things to me? Don’t you owe me something?”
Anthony gazed across her head, over the hedge to the sea, but he saw little of the scenery. How to explain what it was like to be an outsider, to belong nowhere? How to explain that to Olivia, whose own place in the world was so firmly entrenched? How could she understand?
“My mother and father were killed on the night of my birth. Ellen and Adam took care of me,” he said distantly.
“Is Ellen the one who would have you rescue the king?”
“A woman of a most powerful conviction,” Anthony said. “And since I owe her more than I could ever repay, I will do whatever she asks of me.”
“How were your parents killed?”
“They were murdered.”
“In Bohemia?”
“Yes… Does that satisfy you, Olivia? I don’t wish to discuss this further.”
She struggled to understand what that night must have been like. That night of violent death and birth. So much blood, she thought. There must have been so much blood.
“But… but what of your grandparents, of other family?”
“I have no other family,” he said flatly. “Ellen and Adam are my friends and all the family I need.”
She heard the bitter finality in his voice.
“I don’t believe Ellen would ask this of you if she knew the danger you were in now,” Olivia stated shrewdly. She saw from the quick flicker of his eyes that she had hit truth.
He began walking again briskly as he spoke. “Be that as it may, I keep my promises. And I don’t like to give up a plan halfway.
“That’s foolhardy.” She was half running now to keep up with his rangy stride.
“No. Dangerous maybe. But as you know, the most dangerous enterprises are the most satisfying… and,” he added, “more often than not, the ones most likely to succeed.” He turned in to the field where the chestnut was grazing peacefully among the cows. “I have made certain changes to the original plan,” he conceded. “In light of changed circumstances.”
Olivia waited until he’d caught the chestnut and brought him back to the gate. “They’ll ambush you.”
“Maybe. But I’ll take precautions. They can’t know exactly when I’m going to make the attempt. Only the men of Wind Dancer know that. And they can’t know how I plan to do it, because only those same people know that… Up you get, now.” He took her by the waist and lifted her onto the horse.
“Please don’t do this,” she said as he mounted behind her. “I am so afraid for you.”
“O ye of little faith,” he mocked, reaching around her to grab the mane. “I was going to create one diversion on the battlements, but now I intend to stage a performance that will have every soldier and officer in the castle utterly occupied for the few minutes it will take the king to make his move.”