The Hostage Bride (6 page)

“Toby did!” Luke swiped his forearm across his button nose. “He
always
does it ’cause he’s older.”

“I’m
better
at it than you, ’cause I’m older.” Toby sounded very sure of his ground.

“But how’s Luke to get better at it if he never gets any practice?” Rufus pointed out, aware of the sudden frigid gust of wind whistling around the corner of the house from the hilltop. “The eggs will have to wait now. It’s breakfast time.”

Ignoring the barrage of protests, he tightened his hold on their collars and propelled them ahead of him toward the low stone building that contained the mess.

The children’s mother had died soon after Luke’s birth. Elinor had been Rufus’s regular bedmate for five years. She hadn’t lived in the village, but their relationship had transcended the simple financial exchange that characterized his dealings with Maggie and the other women of Mistress Beldam’s establishment. Her death had affected him deeply, and in the face of all practicality, once Luke was out of swaddling clothes, Rufus had taken the boys himself. A martial encampment was hardly the perfect place to bring up two small children, but he had sworn to their mother that they would bear his name and he would take care of them himself.

Mind you, their futures would be a lot rosier if their father’s gamble paid off and his lands were restored to him by a grateful monarch, Rufus reflected with cold cynicism, ushering the children into the crowded aromatic warmth of the mess.

P
ortia pulled the hood of her cloak tighter around her
face, against the sleet-laden wind whipping down through the Lammermuir Hills. Her horse blew through his nostrils in disgust and dropped his head against the freezing blasts. It was late morning and she hoped they would stop for dinner soon, but there were no signs of comforting habitation on this stretch of the Edinburgh road, and Portia’s companions, the dour but not ill-disposed Giles Crampton and his four men, continued to ride into the teeth of the wind with the steadfast endurance she’d come to expect of these Yorkshiremen.

It had been a week since Sergeant Crampton, as he called himself, had come to the Rising Sun. She’d been drawing ale and dodging the wandering hands of the taproom’s patrons when this burly Yorkshireman had pushed open the door, letting in a flurry of snow and earning the grumbling curses of those huddled around the sullen smolder of the peat fire….

“Mistress Worth?”

“Who wants her?” Portia pushed the filled tankard across to the waiting customer and leaned her elbows on the bar counter. Her green eyes assessed the newcomer, taking in his thick, comfortable garments, his heavy boots, the rugged countenance of a man accustomed to the outdoors. A well-to-do farmer or craftsman, she guessed. But not a man to tangle with, judging by the large, square hands with their corded veins, the massive shoulders, thick-muscled thighs, and the uncompromising stare of his sharp brown eyes.

“Crampton, Sergeant Crampton.” Giles thrust his hands into his britches’ pockets, pushing aside his cloak to reveal the bone-handled pistols at his belt, the plain sheathed sword.

Of course, Portia thought. A soldier. Talk of England’s civil war was on every Scot’s tongue, but the fighting was across the border.

“What d’ye want with me, Sergeant?” She rested her chin
in her elbow-propped hand and regarded him curiously. “Ale, perhaps?”

“Drawing ale is no work for Lord Granville’s niece,” Giles stated gruffly. “I’d count it a favor if ye’d leave this place and accompany me, Mistress Worth. I’ve a letter from your uncle.” He drew a rolled parchment from his breast and laid it on the counter.

Portia was conscious of a quickening of her blood, a lifting of her skin. She had had no idea what Jack had written to his half brother, but it had clearly concerned her. She unrolled the parchment and scanned the bold black script.

Giles watched her. A lettered tavern wench was unusual indeed, but this one, for all that she looked the part to perfection with her chapped hands, ragged and none too clean shift beneath her holland gown, and untidy crop of orange curls springing around a thin pale face liberally sprinkled with freckles, seemed to have no trouble ciphering.

Portia remembered Cato Granville from that hot afternoon in London when they’d beheaded the earl of Strafford. She remembered the boathouse, the two girls: Phoebe, the bride’s sister; and Portia’s own half cousin, Olivia. The pale, solemn child with the pronounced stammer. They’d played some silly game of mixing blood and promising eternal friendship. She’d even made braided rings of their hair. She seemed to remember how they’d all had the most absurd ambitions, ways by which they’d ensure their freedom from men and marriage. She herself was going to go for a soldier and maintain her independence by following the drum.

Portia almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of that childish game. She’d still had the ability to play the child three years ago. But no longer.

Her uncle was offering her a home. There didn’t seem to be any conditions attached to the offer, but Portia knew kindness never came without strings. But what could the illegitimate daughter of the marquis’s wastrel half brother do for Lord Granville? She couldn’t marry for him, bringing the family powerful alliances and grand estates in her marriage contracts. No one would wed a penniless bastard. He couldn’t need another servant, he must have plenty.

So why?

“Lady Olivia asked me to give
you
this.” Sergeant Crampton interrupted her puzzled thoughts. He laid a wafer-sealed paper on the counter.

Portia opened it. A tricolored ring of braided hair fell out. A black lock entwined with a fair and a red.

Please come.
They were the only two words on the paper that had contained the ring.

This time Portia did laugh aloud at the childish whimsy of it all. What did games in a boathouse have to do with her own grim struggle for survival?

“If I thank Lord Granville for his offer but would prefer to remain as I am …?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Then, ’tis your choice, mistress.” He glanced pointedly around the taproom. “But seems
to me
there’s
no
choice for a body with half a wit.”

Portia scooped the ring back into the paper and screwed it tight, dropping it into her bosom. “No, you’re right, Sergeant. Better the devil I don’t know to the one I do….”

So here she was three days’ ride out of Edinburgh, service-ably if not elegantly clad in good boots and a thick riding cloak over a gown of dark wool and several very clean woolen petticoats discreetly covering a pair of soft leather britches so she could ride comfortably astride. Midwinter journeys on the rough tracks of the Scottish border were not for sidesaddle riders.

Sergeant Crampton had given her money without explanation or instruction, for which Portia had been grateful. She didn’t like taking charity, but the sergeant’s matter-of-fact attitude had saved her embarrassment. And common sense had dictated that she accept the offering. She certainly couldn’t have journeyed any distance in the clothes she had on her back.

Despite the bitter cold and the constant freezing damp that trickled down her neck whenever she shook off her hood, Portia was pleasantly exhilarated. It had been several years since she’d had a decent horse to ride. Jack had been very particular about horseflesh, refusing to provide either himself or his daughter with anything but prime cattle, until the drink had ended both his physical ability to ride and his ability to keep them from total penury with his skill at the gaming tables.

“Y’are doin’ all right, mistress?” The sergeant brought his mount alongside Portia’s. His eyes roamed the bleak landscape even as he spoke to her, and she sensed an unusual tension in the man, who was generally phlegmatic to the point of apparent sleepiness.

“I’m fine, Sergeant,” Portia replied. “This is a miserable part of the world, though.”

“Aye,” he agreed. “But another four hours should see us home. I’d not wish to stop before, if ye can manage it.”

“Without difficulty,” Portia said easily. She was accustomed to hunger. “Is there danger here?”

“It’s Decatur land. Goddamned moss-troopers.” Giles spat in disgust.

“Moss-troopers! But I thought they’d been run out of the hills years ago.”

“Aye, all but the Decaturs. They’re holed up in the Cheviots, where they prey on Granville land and cattle. Murdering, thieving bastards!”

Portia remembered what Jack had told her of the feud between the house of Rothbury and the house of Granville. Jack had had grim memories of the father he and Cato had shared. A man of unbending temperament, a harsh disciplinarian, a father who had no interest in gaining the affection of his sons. But Jack had had even less regard for Rufus Decatur, Earl of Rothbury, and his outlaw band. It was one area of agreement between Jack and his half brother. Nothing that had happened in the past justified the lawless actions and private malice of Decatur and his men. They were a scourge on the face of the borderlands, no better than the criminal bands of moss-troopers who had been hunted down and exterminated like so many rats in a stubble field.

“They’re still as active, then?”

“Aye, and worse than usual these last months.” Giles spat again. “Cattle-thieving murderers. Decatur, that devil’s spawn, will be usin’ the war for ’is own ends, you mark my words.”

Portia shivered. She could see how a world at war could lend itself to the pursuit of a powerful personal vendetta. “Is Lord Granville for the king?”

Giles cast her a sharp look. “What’s it to you?”

“A matter of interest.” She looked sideways at him. “Is he?”

“Happen so,” was the short response, and the sergeant urged his mount forward to join the two men who rode a little ahead of Portia. The other two brought up the rear, giving her the feeling of being hemmed in. It seemed her father’s half brother wanted her protected—a novel thought.

She slipped her gloved hand into the pocket of her jacket beneath her cloak. Olivia’s braided ring was still wrapped in the screw of paper, and Portia had found her own in the small box where she kept the very few personal possessions that had some sentimental value—her father’s signet ring; a silver coin with a hole in it that had been given her as a child and that she believed had magic powers; a pressed violet that she vaguely thought her mother had given to her, except that she had no image of the woman who had died before Portia’s second birthday; an ivory comb with several teeth missing; and a small porcelain brooch in the shape of a daisy that Jack had told her had belonged to her mother. The box and its contents were all she had brought with her from Edinburgh.

What was Olivia like now? She had been such a serious creature … unhappy, Portia had thought at the time, although it was hard to understand how someone who had never known want could be unhappy. Olivia had been worried about her new stepmother, of course. Phoebe, the bride’s sister, had certainly had a very poor opinion of her elder sister. Portia wondered if Olivia was in some sort of trouble. And if so, did she really think Portia could be of any help? Portia, who had enough trouble keeping her own body and soul together and her spirits relatively buoyant.

Portia’s stomach rumbled loudly and she huddled closer into her cloak. A week of regular and substantial meals had lessened her tolerance for an empty belly, she reflected.

A shout, the thudding of hooves, the crack of a musket, drove all thoughts of hunger from her mind. Her horse reared in panic and she fought to keep him from bolting, while around her men seemed to swarm, horses whinnying, muskets cracking. She heard Sergeant Crampton yelling at his men to close up, but there were only four of them against eight armed riders, who quickly surrounded the party, separating
the Granville men from each other, crowding them toward a stand of bare trees.

“Now, just who do we have here?”

Portia drew the reins tight. The quivering horse raised its head and neighed in protest, pawing the ground. Portia looked up and into a pair of vivid blue eyes glinting with an amusement to match the voice.

“And who are you?” she demanded. “And why have you taken those men prisoner?”

Her hood had fallen back in her struggles with the horse, and Rufus found himself the object of a fierce green-eyed scrutiny from beneath an unruly tangle of hair as orange-red as a burning brazier. Her complexion was white as milk, but not from fear, he decided; she looked far too annoyed for alarm.

“Rufus Decatur, Lord Rothbury, at your service,” he said solemnly, removing his plumed hat with a flourish as he offered a mock bow from atop his great chestnut stallion. “And who is it who travels under the Granville standard? If you please …” He raised a red eyebrow.

Portia didn’t answer the question. “Are you abducting us? Or is it murder you have in mind?”

“Tell you what,” Rufus said amiably, catching her mount’s bridle just below the bit. “We’ll trade questions. But let’s continue this fascinating but so far uninformative exchange somewhere a little less exposed to this ball-breaking cold.”

P
ortia reacted without thought. Her whip hand rose and
she slashed at Decatur’s wrist, using all her force so that the blow cut through the leather gauntlet. He gave a shout of surprise, his hand falling from the bridle, and Portia had gathered the reins, kicked at the animal’s flanks, and was racing down the track, neither knowing nor caring in which direction, before Rufus fully realized what had happened.