The sledge was heavier than it looked, and Portia was breathless by the time she’d managed to heave it down the bank and onto the ice. She was continually looking over her shoulder, expecting at any minute to see someone racing out of the darkness to challenge her. But the riverbank remained deserted and quiet, although strains of music and voices drifted through the still and icy moonlit night.
Once on the ice, the sledge became as light and maneuverable as a child’s boat. Slipping and sliding, Portia pushed it into the middle of the frozen stream, then climbed in and took up a position at the rear, the pole clasped firmly between her hands. She pushed off and the sledge with astonishing power shot away, gathering momentum across the ice. It was miraculous. She barely needed to push at all once it was moving. It occurred to her that of course she was going downstream, out of the high hills, so there was an advantage in the slope of the riverbed. Pure jubilation made her heart sing as the craft sped beneath her and the houses and lights of Decatur village whistled past.
The
The sledge slid beneath his tree and he observed that the figure who drove it had acquired the knack of the pole. The sledge was fairly skimming along, singing over the ice. He recognized the vehicle as belonging to Bertram, the trapper, who sold his skins in Ewefell, some twenty miles downriver. Bertram wouldn’t be best pleased at losing both his sledge and a week’s worth of work.
Not that the sledge and its driver would get very far. The hilltop sentry’s torch had already flared in acknowledgment of the signal, and the master would be alerted within ten minutes.
It took less than ten minutes for Rufus to be informed of the illegitimate traffic on the river. And it took no time at all for him to guess who had given his sentries a little excitement in their customarily dull night watches.
He was in the middle of his supper, good food, wine, and company going some way to assuage the irritations of the day, and this piece of news did nothing for his temper. “God’s grace! How far does she think she’s going to get?” he demanded of the company in general. “Surely she can’t imagine she can dance out of here on a stolen sledge without anyone being any the wiser?”
“Seems that she does,” Will commented. “Shall I fetch her back?”
“No, dammit, I’ll go.” Rufus swung his leg over the bench at the long table and cast his napkin aside. “I was enjoying that lamprey pie,” he remarked with another surge of irritation. “The devil take the girl! I’m damned if I’m going to ruin my supper.” He swung back to face the table and took up his fork again.
“Jed, fetch my horse. I believe I’ll let her get to the third watch before we stop her. Let her think she’s getting away with it,” he said, adding with a degree of savagery, “the shock’ll be all the greater.”
Jed, who’d brought the message, saluted and left the mess for the stables to saddle Ajax.
Rufus finished his lamprey pie, but Will could see that his cousin was no longer enjoying his supper and he could find it in his heart to feel a little sorry for Mistress Portia Worth.
“Right.” Rufus pushed aside his empty platter and stood up. “I’d best get this over with.” He strode to the door, swinging his cloak around him, his expression grim. For two pins he would have let the girl go. She was no use to him. But something wouldn’t allow him to let her get the better of him. When he was ready to let her go, he would do so. But he wasn’t ready yet. And besides, she had stolen a sledge, not to mention what was on it. Theft was one of the deadly sins among Decatur men.
Jed was holding Ajax at the door. He held the master’s stirrup as Rufus vaulted into the saddle. “I sent a runner to the watchmen, m’lord. They’ll not stop ‘er till ye gives the order.”
“Good.” The great chestnut plunged forward under the nudge of his rider’s heels.
The third watch was three miles from where Portia would have started from. Rufus rode away from the bank, parallel to the river. He had plenty of time. It would take a strong-muscled man the best part of an hour to accomplish that distance poling the sledge. Against all inclination, he caught himself almost admiring the dauntless spirit of the girl. She must have had no idea how far she’d have to go before she was safely out of Decatur territory.
He rode up to the third watch and drew rein beneath the hide. He called softly upward. “How far away is she?”
“About two hundred yards, sir.”
Rufus rode Ajax to the riverbank and sat there, motionless in the moonlight, watching the approach of the sledge.
Portia didn’t see him immediately. The effort of poling was consuming all her attention. What had seemed easy at the beginning was now arduous, her arm muscles and shoulders aching, her hands sore, even through her gloves, as they gripped and pushed the pole. She raised her head wearily, wondering whether she was far enough from Decatur village to risk stopping and resting. The great horse, his immobile rider, filled her exhausted vision. They stood there on the bank a few yards ahead of her like accusers from the Day of Judgment.
She felt sick. Her palms were suddenly clammy. She could think only of how unfair it was. She had been so sure she would succeed, and now there he sat, waiting for her.
Could she pole past him, gather enough speed to skim away? But she knew she couldn’t outrun the stallion. It would be futile to try. Futile and undignified… if there was any dignity to be salvaged from this hideous situation. Paradoxically, her fear gave her some kind of courage. She would not show him she was afraid.
Portia raised her pole from the ice, and the sledge came to a gentle stop in the middle of the river. She sat down on the pile of hides and waited.
Rufus dismounted and stepped onto the ice. He walked carefully, deliberately across to the sledge and stood looking down at her. “Just what do you think you’re doing, Mistress Worth?”
“Running away,” Portia replied with a snap. “What did you think?”
“I had rather come to that conclusion myself,” he agreed with a deceptively amiable smile. “Once again, I’m forced to note that you don’t seem very good at it.”
Portia folded her hands in her lap and shivered, aware of the sweat of effort drying on her skin beneath her torn cloak and bedraggled gown. Now that she was still, the cold air knifed her and she wished he wouldn’t just stand there looking at her with that shark’s smile on his mouth and the speculative consideration in his eyes. He was angry; she could feel it as she could feel the stabbing gusts of icy wind. He’d told her he was a man of uncertain temper… she’d seen the shadow of that temper several times already. And now he was just torturing her with this ghastly suspense. His eyes glinted at her, chips of blue like the moonlight sparking off the icy surface of the river.
“What are you going to do?” she demanded.
“Do?” Rufus raised an eyebrow. “What do
Portia compressed her lips. “Just get it over with,” she muttered, wishing now that she’d chosen to remain on her feet. Sitting here with him towering above her wasn’t helping matters in the least.
“The sledge and the hides belong to Bertram.” Rufus tapped the back of one gloved hand into the palm of the other, making a rhythmic slapping sound in the quiet night. “He’ll expect to see everything back where he left it in the morning, so you’d better get moving.”
“Get moving?” Portia regarded him with dawning horror as she began to have an inkling of what he meant.
He nodded. “Take it back, Mistress Worth. We don’t tolerate theft in Decatur village.”
“But it’s upstream!”
“Yes, I believe it is.” He stepped away from the sledge. “I’ll ride along the bank beside you… just in case you get any other foolish ideas.” His teeth flashed white within the shadow of his beard, but it was still a far from friendly smile.
Portia glanced down at her hands. The leather in the palms of her gloves was splitting, and her palms stung. Grimly she stood up, took the pole to the back of the sledge, and pushed off. The craft moved barely a foot. It was as if the runners had been blunted or wrapped in rags. She bit her lip and pushed again.
From the bank, Rufus stood watching her efforts for a minute, then he swung astride Ajax and set the horse to a slow walk, keeping pace with the sledge’s laborious progress. Slowly his punitive anger died. The girl had been exhausted before she’d begun this mad enterprise, and what she was enduring now must be unadulterated torture. Once again, he was stirred to reluctant admiration by her indomitable spirit. He remembered telling her in Castle Granville that they were alike, he and she. That recognition now vanquished his anger. He would have done just what Portia Worth had done in a similar situation.
It was still damnably irritating, though, to have to spend the shank of his evening chasing after her. His irritation rang in his voice as he called out to her, “Portia, leave the sledge and come over here.”
Portia ignored him, setting her teeth, thrusting the pole against the ice. If she stopped, she would lose what little momentum she had. She could see no lights ahead of her now and guessed that the village had retired for the night. Thoughts of the little bed in the apple loft, of fire and candlelight, danced in her head. She closed her mind to everything but the need to drive the sledge across the ice.
Rufus’s irritation grew closer to anger again. “God’s grace, girl! Will you do as you’re bid?” His voice roared across the river.
This time she looked up and saw that he’d drawn rein and was standing in the stirrups, hands cupped around his mouth to amplify his words.
“Why?” she demanded, still pushing.
Of all the obstinate creatures! “Because I say so,” Rufus bellowed. “Now come over here at once!”
Portia flung aside the pole and stepped out of the sledge. She no longer cared what further torments the master of Decatur had in mind. She was half dead with cold and exhaustion and decided that the other half would be a welcome relief. She slipped and slithered to the bank and stood there, hands on her hips, glaring up at him. “Now what?”
Rufus leaned down from the saddle. “Give me your hand and put your foot on mine.”
Still Portia hesitated, warily examining his countenance. It was not particularly reassuring. Could he really have relented and be offering her a ride back to the village?
“If I have to dismount, Mistress Worth, one of us is going to regret it,” Rufus declared. He clicked his fingers impatiently.
It seemed she was damned if she went and damned if she stayed. Portia scrambled up the bank and took the large hand, her fingers curling painfully around his. With her last vestige of strength, she managed to lift her foot high enough to gain purchase on his boot in the stirrup, then she was sailing upward without much help from her own muscles to land on the saddle in front of him.
“Are you just going to leave the sledge there?” she demanded. “I thought you said Bertram, or whatever his name is, will expect to find it where he left it.”
Rufus was astounded. Did nothing squash her? Then he felt her shiver, felt the rigidity of her thin frame. She had half turned to look up at him as she threw her challenge, and the moonlight caught her white face, and he saw the strain in the slanted green eyes, and the fear beneath the defiance. Without thinking, he raised his hand and lightly cupped the curve of her cheek in his gloved palm. Her eyes widened. The fear receded and something took its place. Puzzlement that yet contained a flicker of anticipation. And he knew she was remembering as was he that teasing kiss in the court of Castle Granville. It hadn’t meant anything. Of course he hadn’t meant anything by it.
His hand dropped from her cheek, and with a brisk gesture, he wrapped his cloak around her thin, shivering frame and urged Ajax into a canter.
Portia tried to hold herself upright, to deny her fatigue. Her cheek was still warmed by that strange little caress, but every instinct told her it had been as much an aberration as the stroking paw of the tiger. He had teased her and manipulated her in the castle ward, and he was just doing the same now. It obviously pleased him to taunt her, and she couldn’t understand why she had for a minute allowed herself to believe that it was a genuine gesture. He must have seen her gullibility in her eyes.
“Sit back, for pity’s sake!” Rufus pulled her backward against him with an impatient movement. “I’m not a porcupine.” He held her so tightly she had no choice but to slump against his broad chest. She could feel his heart beating strongly against her ear and her own seemed to slip into the same rhythm, sending her into a strange daze.
In less than ten minutes they were riding into the darkened village, and Portia from within her numbed trance thought with a shudder of how long it would have taken her to propel the sledge, in the unlikely event that she’d been able to do it.
