The Least Likely Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

she asked, she knew it couldn’t be so. Nothing so mundane as fishing could capture the interest of this man.
    “I go after a more challenging catch than fish,” he told her. He touched his fingertips to his mouth in a reflective gesture, before saying slowly, “I believe there are things about such a life that would speak to you too, Olivia. Will Lord Granville’s Greek scholar of a daughter allow herself to be entranced for a few days?”
    Olivia heard the challenge beneath the musical cadence of his voice. And she knew it was not lightly spoken for all the smile and the little ripple of amusement. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
    “Oh, but I think you do, Olivia.” He looked at her keenly. “Maybe you don’t feel it as yet, or perhaps you don’t yet understand it. It may seem strange to you at first, but I promise that if you will allow yourself, you’ll come to see and understand many things that Lord Granville’s daughter would never see and understand in the ordinary course of events. Things that will show you much that you do not yet know about yourself.”
    He came over to the bed and bent over her. His fingers brushed her cheek in a fleeting caress, and there was a light in his eyes like the glow of a fire. “I know these things about you, because I know them about myself,” he said.
    Olivia looked back into his eyes and that strange sense of connection returned. She knew nothing of this man and yet she felt as if she had been waiting to know him for a long time … as if this moment in the sun-filled cabin was always going to happen. Her scalp lifted with premonition and her palms were suddenly clammy. And yet despite the tingle of danger, she felt elation. As heady as it was confusing.
    “Yes, you do see it,” he said quietly. “You feel it too …” His tone changed suddenly, became brisk at a sharp knock on the door.
“Enter.”
    A grizzled man, short and squat, with powerful shoulders and corded arms, came into the cabin. He glanced incuriously at Olivia and gave her a nod. “The
Doña Elena
is in sight, sir. And the wind’s backing to the southwest.”
    “I’ll be up directly. Oh, and, Adam, our guest was wondering about her clothes,” the master of
Wind Dancer
said, stretching in the sunlight.
    “I’ll be done soon enough,” the older man said. “But there’s other things to fuss with at present.”
    “True enough.” Adam departed, and his master strolled to the door, saying cheerfully over his shoulder, “I must go to work, Olivia. Don’t be alarmed by what you may hear in the next hour or so. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” With that he left, closing the door behind him.
    Olivia sat up slowly in the now empty cabin. She looked around more carefully this time, noticing the richness of the furnishings. There was nothing ostentatious in the large space, but everything looked to be of the best. The sun glinted off the bright windowpanes and accentuated the glow of beeswax on the furniture, the floor, and the paneled bulwarks. There were shelves lined with books set into the bulwarks, silver handles to the cupboards below them.
    The man had given her a first name, but it seemed hehad plucked it from the air as a matter of convenience. Simply so that she would have some way of addressing him. He was no gentleman, or so he said, yet everything about him bespoke privilege and authority. He was master of a ship. His voice was pleasant and harmonious, no rough edges, and his hands, so long and fine, were not those of a laborer or a man who had come up from the ranks of plain seamen.
    So what was he? Who was he?
A man quite out of her ken, that much she understood.
    Olivia pushed aside the covers and sat up, pulling the quilted coverlet around her. She stood up, and nearly fell down again as the motion of the floor beneath her took her by surprise. Her knees were alarmingly like butter and her head spun a little as she took a tentative step towards the table. Three