She was still safe. Olivia almost cried out with relief. The men’s pace increased and she scrambled down after them, slipping and sliding, heedless of grazes and scratches. A jut of cliff seemed to block the path, but then she saw there was a small gap and Anthony and Mike disappeared through it. She edged through after them and found herself standing above a gently undulating cove at whose entrance rocked the pirate’s ship.
Anthony and Mike jumped lightly to the beach and Olivia, in a shower of pebbles, sand, and gravel, landed beside them. Sweat trickled into her eyes despite the cool breeze from the sea. She listened for a sound, any sound that would tell her her father’s men were gathered in ambush. But she could hear nothing, not a snapping twig, not a breath.
Up on the cliff, Cato gazed out at the elegant ship at anchor.
“Should we give the signal to fire on ‘er, my lord?” Giles as always sounded impatient for action.
“She’s not doing anything illegal or harmful out there,” Cato pointed out. “I don’t see the justification for damaging her when she’s just sitting there. What d’you think, Rothbury?”
Rufus was meditatively chewing on a piece of grass. “We don’t even know for sure that she is this Wind Dancer. We’re too far to read her name.”
“Of course it is, m’lord,” Giles said. “She’s waitin‘ fer someone, or something.”
“Let’s signal them to send a warning shot across her bows,” Rufus suggested. “See how she reacts.”
Giles was already issuing orders to his men to light their flares.
“What the hell’s that?” Anthony looked up at the clifftop as a pattern of lights began to dance across the sea. He had his answer almost immediately. A cannon boomed from the headland and water rose in a great spume of foam just astern of the frigate.
Olivia drew a sharp breath. Anthony turned to her. “They’re on the clifftop. Stay here out of sight until it’s all over, then go home.” He still sounded harsh and angry. He seemed to hesitate, then, as if against his will, he grasped her upper arms and bent and kissed her hard on the mouth. He released her immediately. “Let’s make a dash for the dinghy, Mike.” They ran across the sand, dark figures in the shadows of the cliff.
Olivia now saw the dinghy, pulled up on the sand and concealed from the clifftop by an outcrop of rocks. The first shot came from the clifftop as they reached the rocks. Her heart jumped into her mouth, but they had dodged and ducked and were dragging the dinghy down the beach, keeping low against its side so it served as a shield. But when they had to push it in the water, they would be exposed.
Olivia raced into the middle of the beach. She faced the cliff, waving her arms, leaping in a mad dance of distraction.
Cato stared down in disbelief. The sea breeze pressed her pale gown against her body; her loosened black hair swung around her, obscuring her face. But he knew his daughter.
“Hold your fire!” he bellowed.
“Should we rush the beach, sir?” Giles Crampton was utterly bewildered at what he was seeing. “Get Lady Olivia out of ‘arm’s way?”
“What the hell’s she doing down there?” Rufus demanded.
“God only knows!” Cato hesitated for an instant. The two men had the dinghy in the shallows. Its sail was loosely bundled around the boom. It would take only a few moments to unfurl and hoist.
“Charge the beach!” he ordered. “But there’s to be no firing while Olivia’s there. She’s not to be put at risk.”
Anthony and Mike pushed the dinghy, desperate to get it into water deep enough for them to lower the centerboard and run up the sail.
“Lord love a duck,” Mike muttered. “Whatever’s Miss doin‘?”
“Proving that she makes her own choices,” Anthony said grimly. He shoved with his shoulder and the little dinghy was suddenly properly afloat. The cannon boomed again but he didn’t waste time looking up to see if his ship had been hit. One shot would not sink Wind Dancer. But she needed her master at the wheel.
Now Olivia heard the sound of feet. Feet on the regular path from the clifftop, the one they hadn’t taken coming down to the beach themselves. She ran towards the shore where Mike, up to his waist in water, was pushing the dinghy into the deeper channel, turning it into the wind, as Anthony, already aboard, unfurled the sail from the boom.
The thunder of feet behind her was suddenly so loud it filled her head. Yelling voices, the ominous click of muskets. She spun around, instinctively extending her arms as if to make herself a human shield while Anthony hauled on the sheets to raise the sail.
Silence fell. Olivia turned back to the dinghy. She could feel behind her the presence of the armed troop in a collective breath, a collective shift of feet on the sand.
Anthony seized the tiller. Olivia stood in the surf and slowly turned once again to face the beach, defying her father’s men to rush the boat before she was under sail. She knew she had to wait for just the right moment, to make her move at the only possible moment when it would succeed. When the dinghy was free and under sail, but before she was out of reach.
Anthony stood holding the tiller, then he swung it and the sail caught the wind. He was still standing, looking back at the mass of men on the beach. Their muskets were aimed but Olivia was in the way.
The marquis of Granville stood a few feet in front of his men.
“Olivia?” he said quietly, questioningly.
She looked at him, feeling where she couldn’t see the dinghy moving away from the beach. She felt it as if her skin was being flayed inch by inch.
And she knew that she had no more time.
She held out her hands, palm up in a gesture of helplessness. “Forgive me,” she said simply. “I have no time to explain, but it must be this way.”
Then she turned and plunged into the lapping waves. The dinghy was reaching deeper water. “Anthony!” she yelled as the water reached her waist. “Anthony, damn you! Wait for me. You know I can’t swim!”
Behind her now came Cato’s men, surging through the surf. She was just ahead of them, floundering as the waves swelled against her body and her skirt caught in her legs, hampering her movements.
Anthony brought the boat head to wind. He reached over the stern and lifted her bodily out of the water. Olivia tumbled into the dinghy onto her knees. Anthony moved the tiller and the sail caught the wind again.
“Hold your fire!” Cato bellowed again as his men still plunged through the water in a last-ditch attempt to seize the dinghy.
Olivia had her hand at her throat. “Will they catch us?”
“No, we’re over the shelf now. They’ll have to swim, and we can sail faster than they can swim.”
As if in confirmation the pursuit suddenly stopped. Men stood in the water at the point where the sandy bottom shelved steeply, and watched as their quarry sped from them.
Olivia stared at the scene on the beach. She could see her father standing where she had left him. What she had done was irrevocable. Phoebe and Portia would explain, but would he ever forgive her? Would she ever see him again?
Another boom from the cannon banished all but the present from her mind. “They’re going to blow Wind Dancer out of the water!”
“They seem to be firing across her stern for the present,” Anthony said calmly. “Once I get on board there’ll be nothing to worry about.”
Olivia looked and saw that the frigate now had her mainsail raised. She saw too that they’d dropped the rope ladder over the side, ready for their approach. She could hear on the still night air the strong rhythmic singing as the men turned the winch to haul up the anchor. There was a sense of purpose, but not of alarm. Both here in the dinghy and on Wind Dancer. There seemed little point worrying herself when no one else was.