fingers.
“Careful!” he warned, sounding genuinely concerned. He took the meat with his own bare hand and blew on it. “Try it now.” He held the succulent morsel to her lips, and in a kind of daze Portia opened her mouth to take it. It was delicious, the skin crisp and slightly scorched, the meat beneath juicy and tender. She savored it with all the delicacy of one who really relished her food, forgetting their surroundings in the moment of pleasure and failing to see the appreciative glimmer in her companion’s eyes as he watched her.
“Good?” he inquired, his voice so low it increased the sense of their complete intimacy in the thronged and noisy yard. He licked his fingers and then, with a little frown of concentration, rubbed the pad of his thumb over Portia’s lips and chin, where there was a smear of meat juice. The skin of his thumb was roughened, and her mouth tingled beneath the firm pliancy of his touch. For a fleeting instant his palm cupped her cheek and she could feel the swordsman’s calluses against her own delicate skin. The fine hairs on her nape lifted, a current of tension jolted her belly, then his hand dropped from her face. She watched, mesmerized, as he deliberately licked his thumb again, before sheathing his dagger and replacing his glove.
Slowly the world stopped spinning and she struggled to renew her grasp on reality. “What do you want here?” she demanded yet again.
“Oh, I am, how does the bard put it…? ‘A snapper up of unconsidered trifles,’ ” he replied with a nonchalant gesture that seemed to encompass the entire scene.
“You’re spying?”
“If you choose to put it that way,” he agreed.
“But Lord Granville will have you hanged!” She had a sudden vivid image of Granville’s soldiers descending upon them in this quiet corner. One man, even one as powerful as this one, would be helpless. They’d beat him to a bloody pulp before… She’d seen hangings. She knew what a body looked like swinging from a gibbet, the head at an unnatural angle, tongue protruding, face blue, eyes popping… She felt queasy and the meat she’d just eaten with such relish felt like greasy lead in her belly.
“Granville will have to discover me first.” Rufus’s eyes traced her face, where the freckles stood out against her pallor with the intensity of her expression. “What is it?” he asked involuntarily, seeing the horror in her slanted green eyes. “You look as if you’ve seen the devil.”
“Perhaps I have,” she said, snapping back to herself. “The devil as Rufus Decatur. Don’t you realize that all I have to do is raise my little finger and Lord Granville’s men will fall on you like flies on a carcass?”
“But you’re not about to betray me, are you, Mistress Worth?” He moved his arm and the folds of his cloak caught around her again, so that she was somehow drawn closer to his body.
This strange and disturbing proximity made her feel implicated in his presence in the heart of enemy territory. She struggled to banish the feeling, demanding, “Why would I not?”
“Oh, several reasons,” he said with a tiny smile. “For one, I don’t believe you have it in you to condemn a man to death.”
“I could condemn a Decatur,” she snapped, wishing she could move away, but the wall was at her back, his body like a shield in front of her, the cloak and the buttress separating her from the rest of the world, isolating her in this intimate seclusion. “You forget, I’m a Granville, Lord Rothbury.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t forget that. Nevertheless…” His smile deepened and she saw the little creases around his eyes, white against the weather-bronzed complexion. “Nevertheless, we have something in common, you and I,” he said softly. “I don’t belong here, but neither, my sweet, do you.”
It was such a startling truth, Portia simply stared at him.
Rufus chuckled. “Cat got your tongue?” He caught her chin on one finger and with a swift movement bent and kissed her mouth. “To seal a bargain between outcasts,” he said, straightening. As he did so, he allowed the cloak to fall away from her and stepped back from the buttress, opening a door onto the world again.
The loss of isolation, the returning sense of space, was so sudden, Portia felt momentarily dizzy. Her head was whirling. She could no more make sense of what had just happened than she could have read Chinese.
Rufus glanced around and said casually, “Is that Granville’s daughter? The girl in the blue cloak?”
The question broke whatever charm had kept Portia in thrall. With a flash of panic she remembered who this man was. A deadly enemy, a lethal menace to the welfare of any Granville. “Why do you wish to know?” Her voice sounded croaky and she cleared her throat.
“A matter of interest.”
“What possible interest could Olivia be to you?” Portia moved as if she could somehow block Decatur’s view of Olivia, although she knew it was futile.
“Not much,” he returned with a careless shrug. “Granville’s girl children don’t hold much interest. If and when he sires a son, that would be different.” He shrugged again. “Farewell, Mistress Worth.”
Abruptly he turned from her and shuffled off through the throng, his homespun cloak hunched over his bent and deformed back… the veritable incarnation of a frail old peasant.
Portia stood still amid the raucous merrymaking, trying to find herself again. She was adrift in a maelstrom of confusion from which she understood only one thing. She’d been manipulated. Rufus Decatur had twisted her emotions, piqued her senses, and laughed at her as he’d done so. He’d treated her with the careless familiarity of a man who knew he could twist any woman around his little finger. And she’d allowed him to do it. She had enough experience of the way men trifled with women to have known what was happening, and yet she’d allowed Rufus Decatur to make mock of her.
Furious with herself and with Decatur, she made her way to Olivia, her eyes ablaze. At this moment she would happily have betrayed Rufus Decatur, but the old man in the homespun cloak was nowhere to be seen.
The
“Who’s looking after the boys?” Will inquired, shaking snow off his cloak inside the cottage doorway.
“They’re with Silas tonight… at least I hope they are,” Rufus added, closing the door behind him. “It’s where they’re supposed to be.” He went through into the scullery at the rear of the room to fetch a pitcher of mead.
Will chuckled, divesting himself of his dripping outer garments. “Someone’ll have an eye out for them.”
“Aye.” Rufus filled two tankards with mead and handed one to his cousin. He was not concerned about his sons’ whereabouts. They’d be somewhere in the encampment under someone’s eye. They ate at whatever table happened to be closest when they were hungry, and rolled themselves into balls of sleep wherever they happened to fall. It was a somewhat haphazard method of growing up, but Rufus couldn’t see that it was doing them any harm.
“Drink, and we’ll sup in the mess in a while.” Rufus raised his tankard in a toast. Will saw that his cousin’s expression was now reflective, somber even, and he prepared himself to hear what Rufus had gleaned during his sojourn to Castle Granville.
Rufus stood before the fire, one booted foot on the fender. Melted snow puddled on the clean-swept floor, but he didn’t seem to notice it. “Granville and his cronies are setting up a collection for Parliament,” he said tersely, carrying his tankard to his mouth.
“Where from?”
“Across the county. Charter, Fairoaks, and Preston have a long reach.”
“They’ve joined with Granville?” Will’s eyes widened as he absorbed the implications of this.
“Aye. They’ll be plundering York, Nottingham, Bradford, and Leeds in the name of Parliament. They’ll know exactly whom to call upon, exactly who can be turned in their favor.”
Rufus refilled his tankard and gestured to the pitcher, inviting Will to help himself. His mouth was a thin line, almost invisible within his beard, and his voice was without expression. “Fairoaks was talking of gathering church plate… chalices and suchlike. They’ll get quite a pretty haul, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Will felt his shoulders stiffen in apprehension. He didn’t like the way Rufus was talking; all the humor, the daredevil amusement had left him, and both voice and countenance were as hard as agate. Rufus was going somewhere with this account of his discoveries, and Will couldn’t guess where. But it was not a happy destination, that much he knew.
“Burghers’ wives will give up their jewels; merchants will yield silver plate, pewter, gold, anything that can be melted down or sold. And Granville’s going to be collecting lead and iron for bullets and cannon.”
The blue eyes were ciphers as they rested on Will’s face. “And where else do you think Granville’s going to be looking for revenue, Will?”
Will swallowed uneasily under the pitiless gaze. He was expected to come up with an answer, but he couldn’t think what would be the correct response.
Rufus drummed his fingers on the mantelpiece, his short, well-shaped nails clicking against the wood, waiting for Will to catch up. After a moment’s silence, he prompted softly, “Presumably, Granviile will contribute from his own resources too.”
“Well, yes, I suppose so,” Will said, frowning as he wrestled to find the answer that would satisfy his cousin. “He’s raised his own militia, and that’ll cost a pretty penny. And if he’s establishing his own armory…”
“Yes, I would imagine Cato is intending to make free with any source of revenue he can lay hands on,” Rufus said, and his voice now would have corroded alchemist’s gold.
Will stared at him as the implication slowly became clear. “You… you think he’ll use Rothbury?”
Rufus’s eyes were fixed on a point above Will’s head, but even so the younger man shivered at the deadly venomous spark flickering across the cold blue surface.
“Why wouldn’t he?” Rufus said in the same corrosive tone. “Why wouldn’t he?” He moved abruptly toward the table, swinging one booted foot, and a stool skittered across the flagged floor to fall on its side against the wall. “Cato Granviile holds the stewardship of the Rothbury estates. Why wouldn’t he use their revenues to support his own cause?”
Will rarely saw his cousin’s almost legendary temper, because Rufus had learned many years ago to keep it well under control. But he sensed now that Rufus was very close to the brink, and Will understood why.
“He holds the stewardship for the crown,” he suggested tentatively. “Surely he couldn’t divert such revenues to use against the crown.”
“Why not?” Rufus demanded. “The man’s a cheat, a liar, a traitor. He’s broken his oath of fealty to his sovereign. What possible moral code do you think he has? Don’t be naive!” He paced the room, and the walls seemed to close in on Will as his cousin’s powerful presence and enraged spirit filled the space until it seemed it couldn’t possibly contain him.
Suddenly Rufus slammed his clenched fist against the wall and a shelf of crockery above shivered, setting pewter and stoneware rattling against each other. Will, for all that he knew that he personally was safe from any explosion, began to wish he could slip from the room unnoticed.
“I will not permit it,” Rufus said, and his voice was now as quiet and as venomous as an adder’s sting. “That cur will not divert Rothbury revenues for his own purposes. I will have those for the king. And when he’s gathered his treasure, then I will have that too. I will have every piece of silver, every golden guinea, every jewel, every lead bullet and steel pike that he collects. I will have them for the king.”
Will didn’t know whether he should respond. His cousin didn’t seem to be speaking directly to him; this soft, vicious promise was a personal one. But Will couldn’t help himself. Into the ensuing silence, he said hesitantly, “How?”
Rufus came back to the table, and his eyes now were alight, the terrifying tension of his contained rage gone from his powerful frame. “I’ve a plan as nasty and as devious as Cato Granville himself, Will.” He picked up his tankard and drained it, before hooking a finger into the handle of a stone jar and hefting it from the shelf, holding it against his shoulder as he drew the cork with strong white teeth.
“Are you man enough for this, Will?” He gestured with the jar, his voice teasing, but Will had the feeling that the question applied to more than his ability to drink the powerful Scottish spirit made from malted barley that could put a strong man under the table within an hour.
He pushed his tankard forward and Rufus filled it halfway. “You’ll need a few more years under your belt before you can take much more than that, lad,” he said, perching on the edge of the table, taking a deep swallow from the jar before putting it beside him. “Right, what could Cato Granville have that he would value above all else?” A bushy red eyebrow lifted.
