the ducks, the next she was being carried away. The senselessness and the speed of it all had been terrifying. And Olivia had done nothing. She thought she had screamed, but only once. And it had been a futile gesture. It had brought no help.
“Did they try to catch you?”
Another headshake. “I don’t know what I c-could have done,” she whispered.
“There were three men, you said before. What could you have done against three men?” He frowned down at her, but he was lost in his own thoughts. It didn’t make any sense to him. Why would anyone want to kidnap Portia? And then it occurred to him that it was the second time someone had made off with her in the last few weeks. It was very curious. She’d escaped the last abduction unscathed, but this sounded very different. It sounded planned. The kidnappers had known which of the two girls they wanted and they’d gone about the business with careful deliberation. And with a calculating violence that chilled him. Did they intend harm to Jack’s daughter?
It could so easily have been Olivia. Absently, he reached out and stroked a strand of hair from Olivia’s forehead. Her eyes, wide and dark, regarded him in surprise, and he realized that it had been a very long time since he had made such a gesture of affection.
“Try to sleep,” he said, and was about to kiss her brow when he became aware of Diana’s rigid figure at his side. Instead he stepped away from the bed, saying in his usual tones, “You’ll feel better after some rest.”
“Will you find her, sir?”
“I have men scouring the countryside,” he replied. “If she can be found, they will find her.”
“B-but will they hurt Portia?” Olivia’s voice was urgent, her dark eyes huge and pleading in her wan face.
“I hope not,” was all the reassurance he had.
“Come, my lord. The child needs to sleep.” Diana laid a hand on his arm, urging him to the door. He glanced once again at the bed. Olivia had slipped down again and closed her eyes. She was lying still as a statue beneath the tightly tucked white sheets.
“I am doing everything I can, Olivia,” he reiterated, wishing there was more he could say. Then he followed his wife from the chamber.
“My lord… my lord!” Giles Crampton’s urgent hail came from behind him as he turned toward his own bastion room.
Cato paused. “What is it?”
“This.” Giles flourished a rolled parchment. “ ‘Twas just delivered, m’lord.”
Cato took the paper and immediately felt a tremor of premonition. “Who delivered it?”
“A shepherd’s lad, sir. Said it ‘ad been given ’im by a man in armor who told ‘im to wait till sunset afore he brought it.”
Cato clicked his tongue against his teeth. “No sign of the girl, I suppose?” He turned to the door of the bastion room.
“Vanished like she was never ‘ere,” Giles said. “No one saw ’ide nor ‘air of any of ’em.”
But Cato didn’t appear to hear him. He was staring at the seal on the rolled parchment. It was the eagle of the house of Rothbury. That earlier quiver of premonition lifted the fine hairs on his nape. He broke the seal and unrolled the paper. The missive was short and to the point. Granville’s daughter, Olivia, was held hostage. The price of her ransom: all the Rothbury revenues held by the marquis of Granville, together with a full accounting of all such revenues since the stewardship of the Rothbury estates was given into the hands of George, Marquis of Granville.
Cato began to laugh. He laughed and laughed, flinging himself in a chair and giving himself up to the utterly glorious contemplation of his enemy’s total rout. Instead of Olivia, they held a nameless bastard orphan-a relatively inoffensive girl, to be sure, but with no redeemable value to anyone.
He became aware that Giles was watching him uncomfortably from the doorway, clearly wondering if his master was having some kind of seizure. Cato told him the situation in a few words, and Giles grinned.
“Wonder what the murderin‘ bastard’ll do, sir.” Then his expression changed, his eyes narrowing. “Quite a coincidence that ’tis the second time ‘e’s grabbed ’er, wouldn’t ye say, sir?”
Cato frowned. “The first time was an accident and this time he wasn’t after her, he was after Olivia.”
“Aye, mebbe so. But ‘e didn’t do ’er no ‘arm last time. ’Appen he’ll not this time.” Giles shuffled his booted feet. “Who’s to say she weren’t in league wi‘ ’im, m’lord? Mebbe she was to decoy Lady Olivia to where they could grab ‘er, but summat went wrong.”
Cato stared at the sergeant. Giles had a suspicious mind and he’d certainly hinted darkly about Portia’s last encounter with Decatur. But it was impossible to believe she’d been sucked into some Decatur plot… or was it?
What did he know of her? She had no money, no visible means of support, except his charity. Maybe she had fallen under Decatur’s spell when they’d met on the road. She wouldn’t be the first woman to do so.
He strode to the window as the door closed behind Giles, and stood looking out into the darkness. His mind showed him the rolling hills and the undulating path to the Decatur stronghold as clearly as if it were broad daylight.
One of these days, they would have the final reckoning, Decatur and Granville. Cato’s eyes hardened as he stared out into the night.
Chapter 8
But the sound of the closing door below galvanized her. She jumped up and went to the chamber door, opening it gingerly. There was complete silence. Rufus Decatur had gone out and left her alone.
He must think her safely tucked up and fast asleep after the excitements and hurts of the day, she thought. Unless, of course, he assumed that she would be far too intimidated to take advantage of the unlocked door. In which case he was much mistaken.
She tiptoed across the large bedchamber and descended the narrow wooden stairs. The remains of her supper had been cleared away, the fire had been banked, and a fresh candle lit on the mantelpiece. Perhaps he didn’t intend to be gone long.
She glanced toward the curtain across the corner of the room and then, unable to smother her curiosity, tiptoed over, drawing it aside. The children were sleeping like puppies, curled around each other under a mountain of covers. They still had their coats and jerkins on, she noticed with a flash of disapproval. Janet Beckton would have forty fits. The idea, despite her predicament, made her grin. This tumbled cot in Rufus Decatur’s brigand cottage was a far cry from the neat nursery at Castle Granville.
She peered down at the sleeping faces beneath their identical thatches of fair hair. She remembered the bright blue eyes and thought they bore a strong resemblance to their father. There must be a mother somewhere-a woman not granted the dignity of a wedding ring.
Her lip curled as she stepped away, letting the curtain fall back. Women were apparently accorded little honor in this place.
Her heart was fluttering as if a flock of butterflies had taken up residence in her chest. She ran to the door and opened it a crack, peering out into the deserted lane. The sky was as cloudless as it had been all day, brilliant starshine and moonlight flooding the village, glittering on the icy surface of the river. She could hear voices, laughter, music, coming from the building with the ale bench, the place she had decided was the mess. If they were all drinking themselves into a merry stupor, she might have a chance at escape.
She slipped into the deserted lane, hugging the wall at her back. She would need a horse. There was no way she could escape on foot, not over the harsh and desolate landscape she’d seen on the journey here.
It was bitterly cold, and the thick, comforting smell of wood smoke hung in the air. She glimpsed golden light behind shuttered windows and occasionally the fragrant aroma of cooking as she hurried along the lane, keeping to the shadows. In those warm and cozy cottages, there were people sitting by fires, eating supper, sharing jokes, secure in their own place, in the camaraderie of their own kind.
Portia had grown up knowing herself to be an outsider, with no place of her own, no family to define her in the world. There was Jack, of course, but Jack wasn’t family in the way it was generally understood. He was simply the cause of her existence. She had tagged along behind him in exchange for a haphazard affection and a vague means of support… until she was old enough to support both herself and Jacks addiction. Now, as she flitted alone down the darkened lane, imagining the scenes behind the shuttered windows, her usual sense of isolation rose with renewed force. She was trying to escape from a place where she didn’t belong, to return to a place where she didn’t belong. The irony of the various situations in which she found herself usually amused her. It was a good defense against unhappiness. Tonight it failed her.
She was listening for a horse’s whicker, her nose twitching for the smell of a stable. And she found it soon enough.
Not one stable but an entire block of them in the center of the village, a neat, swept, cobbled yard in front of the building. But she saw immediately that her chances of taking a horse without detection were nonexistent. Light showed from both ends of the block, and the tack room door stood open. She could hear voices, the rattle of dice, and as she clung to the shadows, she saw a man emerge into the yard, unbuttoning his britches. He relieved himself against the wall and returned to the tack room.
Portia slipped back into the lane and disconsolately turned her step toward the river. She didn’t know why, except that it was a destination and she was not yet ready to accept defeat and creep back to her prison.
But when she stood on the bank, backed against the dark trunk of a leafless oak tree, excitement stabbed her. The frozen expanse meandered through the village, snaking away beyond the village boundaries, starlight glittering on its surface way into the distance. Way beyond the Decatur stronghold.
Rivers went places. Rivers were thoroughfares. There would be habitation, other villages even, along the banks of this one. If only she still had her skates…
Then she saw it. A sledge beached on the bank, its wooden runners curved and smooth as silk. Portia darted across, bending low to the ground although there was no sign of human activity here, no lit windows pouring sound and illumination. The riverbank was utterly deserted.
The sledge was piled with skins. It couldn’t have been better. If she couldn’t find other shelter, she could curl up in them until daylight, once she’d left the Decatur boundary far behind. Her heart surged. She knew now that she was going to succeed. This sledge and its perfect cargo had been put there by fate. She was destined to escape.
But how to propel it? Did they use dogs or ponies? Or did they pull it themselves? They’d need skates to do that.
Then she saw the pole, propped against the rear of the sledge. It was like a barge pole and presumably operated in the same way. One pushed oneself along the ice with thrusts of the pole. So simple… so wonderfully convenient.
Portia glanced nervously behind her, suddenly thinking this was all too good to be true. Maybe it was a trap, some devilish trap of Decatur’s to catch her trying to escape. She had no reason to trust him… to believe him when he said he wouldn’t hurt her. Prisoners of war were treated well enough unless they tried to escape. Then all the rules of safe conduct went by the board. If she was caught, what would they do to her? She would be fair game… if not for Decatur, then for his lawless band of savages. Sweat pricked on her forehead despite the cold.
