The Hostage Bride

Portia drew aside and allowed the troop to pass her, then she galloped Penny back along the path to the stile.

The stubble field sloped upward and as Penny crested the summit, Portia saw Rufus a short way over the lip of the hill. He sat his horse, gazing down into the valley immediately below. He was utterly immobile and there was something so forbidding about his shape in the lowering afternoon, she began to wish she’d stayed with George.

She was about to turn back when he swung round suddenly in his saddle. His eyes, staring at her across the space that separated them, were like empty holes. The blackness of a terrible rage seemed to envelop him.

She knew nothing about him. He’d told her so only yesterday… was it only yesterday? And she hadn’t realized how true it was until now. The fragile intimacy of their night together was shattered like crystal.

“Come here, then, and see what you’ve come to see,” he called, his voice bitter and mocking.

Portia didn’t want to go and yet she had to. She was drawn toward him as if by some devil’s enchantment. She walked Penny down the slope until the mare stood alongside Ajax. The chestnut was trembling, his hide rippling along his neck and over his flanks.

“So, you’ve a mind to look upon Granville work,” Rufus said. “Well, look, then!” He pointed with his whip.

Portia looked down into the valley and saw a blackened ruin. What had once been soft red brick was charred; tumbled walls, their edges jagged, still showed the form of the mansion that had once stood there. Toppled chimney pots lay in the weed-covered grassy courtyards. Between scattered blue-gray slates of roof tiles, shards of window glass still glimmered in the grass. Parkland, once fenced and planted, was now an overgrown wilderness of ragged bushes, and the once neat gravel sweep that had led to the great Elizabethan front door was choked with weeds.

Portia gazed at this stark destruction in stunned silence.

“I was born in that house.” Rufus began to speak, his voice savage, his eyes pitiless as they rested on her white face. “I was eight years old when the Granvilles murdered my father as he stood in his own front door. Eight years old when they put a torch to a house whose foundations had been laid on that land before the Conquest. I was eight when the Granvilles drove the Decaturs into the hills like wild beasts.”

“Jack told me your father killed himself,” Portia said, her voice so parched she could barely form the words. “George Granville didn’t kill your father, he killed himself.”

“Yes, he killed himself to avoid the dishonor of a traitor’s death,” Rufus stated. “He killed himself so his son wouldn’t see his father beheaded on Tower Hill for a crime he did not commit. And the man whose hand he had shaken in friendship over twenty years as surely killed him as if he’d fired the pistol himself.”

Portia glanced once at his face and then looked away, staring down at the ruined house. It was impossible to look upon his countenance and not be terrified by its expression. He didn’t seem to know she was there anymore.

“George Granville, as reward for his betrayal, received the stewardship of all the revenues of the Rothbury estates.” He continued to speak into the air around her. “I had thought to force Granville to return those revenues in exchange for his daughter. Instead of which…”

He stopped and glanced over at Portia, his eyes unreadable, before continuing with a softness that belied the savagery of his words, “I swore to take my father’s vengeance, and so help me God I will do it. I will see that sewer rat crawl for his father’s treachery.”

In horror, Portia knew that he meant every word. But with aching empathy she understood what he had lost. From the age of eight, fatherless, thrust out from his birthright to grow in the harsh world beyond the law, beyond society. A young boy who had seen his father die a dreadful death.

“Your mother?” she said tentatively.

“Died giving birth to my sister, five months after we were driven out.” His tone was bleak, distant. “She died because no one would come to the aid of a hunted outcast, the widow of a condemned traitor. The child died within hours.”

“Oh God.” Portia tried to push away the images of the boy watching his mother, listening to her screams in the agonies of childbirth, helplessly watching her suffering and the death that left him a homeless orphan.

But it was wrong. There would never be an end to it while Rufus remained enslaved to vengeance. It diminished them all.

“Cato did not kill your father,” she said. “He was a boy like you. You cannot hold him responsible for his father’s actions.”

“So speaks a Granville,” Rufus said softly. “How curious that once or twice I’ve managed to forget what you are.”

“I cannot help it,” she said. “I cannot help my blood, Rufus.”

He made no response, just continued to sit Ajax, staring down again now at the ruins of his home. Portia gathered Penny’s reins and spoke the only truth there was. “I cannot help it and you cannot forget it, Rufus. There’s no place for me in Decatur village. I’m no good to you as a hostage, and I cannot be anything else to you. I will always be the enemy.”

He looked across at her, his eyes now bleak. “You’re an hour’s ride due south to Castle Granville. Go back home, back to the Granville hearth where you belong.”

Portia set Penny down the hill, back to the lane, then turned due south. She didn’t look back, but she could still see in her mind’s eye the man sitting his horse at the top of the rise, alone with his vengeance.

While she was simply alone. Returning to an uncertain welcome, to be tormented always by the memory of those moments when she had, however briefly, belonged.

The journey from Decatur village passed in a daze. Portia had to ask the way several times, but found herself very quickly on Granville land. It was not much more than a hour after leaving Rufus that she saw the great gray bulk of Castle Granville on the hill across the valley. She didn’t know how to describe to herself how she felt. Her wretchedness had increased with each mile she put between herself and Rufus Decatur. It was as if she’d been thrust out into the cold, like a baby bird thrown from its nest. It didn’t matter that she told herself she had forced the issue herself… that she had left of her own accord. It didn’t help at all. None of the many and varied miseries of her girlhood had prepared her for this sense of desolation.

She rode up to the wicket gate and the sentry peered at her suspiciously. She identified herself and it had a galvanizing effect. The gate swung open and the sentry grabbed Penny’s reins, yelling over his shoulder, “Fetch Sergeant Crampton. The girl’s back.”

Portia wearily dismounted and stood in the gatehouse, waiting for Giles. It seemed a less than ceremonious welcome for a miraculously returned hostage.

Giles bustled in. He’d been in the middle of his dinner and still carried a checkered napkin. He stared at her, his jaw dropping, and it was a minute before he demanded, “Where’d you spring from?”

“I escaped,” she said. “Why am I being kept here, Sergeant?” It was an attempt at hauteur and it had some effect on the sergeant.

“Lord Granville’s at dinner,” he said huffily. “But we’d best get along. Come wi‘ me.”

Portia refrained from telling him that she knew her way to the dining parlor perfectly well, and submitted to being escorted like an escaped prisoner.

Within the dining parlor, Cato was wearily trying to entertain Brian Morse. Diana had been transformed from the first moment of their visitor’s arrival. Brian had brought with him the sanctified odor of the court. His dress was fashionable, his manner elaborately courteous, with more than a hint of flirtation to lend it spice. Diana was in her element, radiant and glowing. Cato was not.

“If you care to go hawking, Brian, I could – ” Cato broke off at the sound of voices outside the oak door. He recognized Giles Crampton’s vigorous tones and was on his feet with an unabashed eagerness as the door opened.

The sergeant filled the doorway. “Beggin‘ yer pardon for disturbin’ yer dinner, m’lord, but-”

“No matter, Giles.” Cato cast down his napkin. He couldn’t see Portia’s cloaked figure behind the sergeant’s bulk. “Come, let’s go to my chamber. If you’ll excuse me, my dear.” He offered his wife a hasty bow and strode to the door. Then he stopped in astonishment.

“Portia! Good God, girl! How did you get here?”

“She just turned up, m’lord,” Giles said, before Portia could speak. “Just turned up at the wicket gate wi’out a word of warnin‘.”

“I would imagine a warning might have been difficult,” Cato said slowly, trying to take in this extraordinary reappearance, and what it could possibly mean. “Are you well, child? Not hurt?”

Portia shook her head but said in perfect truth, “No, but I own I’m weary, sir. It’s a long story.”

“Yes, of course. Come, we’ll discuss it in private.”

“What is it, my lord?” Diana’s curious tones came from the table behind him.

“Portia has returned,” Cato said. “A most extraordinary thing… but until she can tell me what happened, I can tell you nothing, my dear.” He closed the door firmly at his back. In almost the same movement, he swept Portia ahead of him down the corridor toward the bastion room, Giles marching a step behind.

Inside, with the door firmly closed, Cato surveyed Portia with the same puzzled astonishment. “What happened?”

“I wasn’t the right hostage,” she said. “But I expect you knew that.”

“Yes, I gathered the bastard Decatur was after Olivia.” His eyes narrowed. “You were not molested in any way?”

Portia shook her head. “The abduction itself was rough, but I had nothing to complain of in my treatment once we reached Decatur village.” She met his gaze steadily.

“She said she escaped, m’lord.” Giles was regarding her sharply.

Portia hesitated and Cato’s eyes narrowed. “That’s right,” she said. How could she possibly have explained the truth?

“She was ridin‘ a blood mare, m’lord,” Giles commented. He was still looking at Portia, and it was with clear suspicion.

“A Decatur horse?”

“Yes.” It was Portia who answered.

“Did you steal it?”

“I suppose you could say that.” She swayed slightly and grabbed the back of a chair. She wasn’t up to this interrogation. Not tonight. “I thought of it as merely borrowing.”

“Escapin‘ from Decatur village ain’t easy,” Giles put in. “Mebbe they was lookin’ the other way.”

Portia looked at him in confusion. What was he implying?

“The horse must go back,” Cato declared. “I’ll not give Decatur the opportunity to accuse me of theft.”

“We could lead ‘er most o’ the way there, then let ‘er find ’er own way back, sir.”

“Yes, together with a message for friend Decatur,” Cato said grimly. He turned back to Portia. “What happened to your clothes?”

Portia glanced down at her unorthodox attire. “My own were ruined during the abduction,” she explained. “These were all that were available in Decatur village. There aren’t any women there,” she added.

Cato nodded. “I had heard that.” He regarded her closely. “Did you learn anything useful while you were there?”

“I don’t know what you would consider useful, my lord.”

“Did you have the sense of a military encampment?”

“A very efficient one, sir. And they’re flying the king’s standard.”

Cato stood frowning at Portia in her indecorous garb, her hair a wind-whipped tangle. Was she telling him the truth about her escape? There had been that telltale hesitation. Could this surprising return be part of some deeper plan of Decatur’s? How could a slip of a girl manage to escape the Decatur stronghold? And steal a Decatur blood mare. He couldn’t fathom the girl. She was his brother’s child, and she looked at him now with his brother’s eyes. Could he trust her? He didn’t know.

He noticed her white knuckles as she gripped the back of the chair, and the great dark rings beneath her eyes. Whatever had brought her back, she was utterly exhausted.

“We’ll talk at length later,” he said, waving her to the door. “Olivia will be glad to see you. She’s been worried about you, and I understand from Lady Granville that she’s been ailing and is