The Hostage Bride

Olivia could barely contain her excitement. When Brian appeared in the dining parlor, she tried not to look at him too openly, but it was very hard to keep secret her laughter and the delicious thrill of anticipation.

Brian responded to Diana’s greeting and apologized for being so late at the breakfast table and barely glanced at Olivia when she murmured a stammered “Good morning.” He shot Portia a look of pure venom. She responded with a demure half curtsy.

Olivia watched him closely, and every time he wriggled, every time he moved a hand down below the level of the table and she could guess he was scratching between his thighs, she had to stifle her laughter. His expression grew increasingly pained as the dulling effects of the hot bath faded and the full raging itch returned.

At one point he jumped up from the table as if stung, and when Diana looked at him in surprise, he flushed to the roots of his prematurely thinning hair, coughed, and went to the sideboard, lifting the lids of chafing dishes as if inspecting the contents, but all the while he was rubbing his thighs together desperately, shifting from foot to foot.

Olivia glanced at Portia, her eyes glowing with laughter, then casually she leaned over Brian’s ale tankard to reach for the salt cellar. As she did so, her closed hand opened over the lip of the tankard, then she sat back in her chair once again and buttered her bread.

Oh, wicked girl, Portia thought to herself with a barely subdued chuckle. She had no idea what Olivia had put in Brian’s ale, but guessed it was a choice doctoring.

Brian returned to the table, offered a casual remark to Diana about the weather, and sat down.

“Is everything all right, Mr. Morse?” Diana was genuinely concerned.

“Yes, indeed, Lady Granville.” He laughed, but it was a hollow and unconvincing sound. “In such delightful company, a man couldn’t have a care in the world.” He took up his tankard and drained the contents in one.

Portia was aware of Olivia’s utter stillness as Brian drank. Only when he set the tankard down empty did she resume her breakfast.

Cato entered the parlor a few minutes later. He greeted his family and helped himself to veal collops from the sideboard. He’d been up for hours and brought the cold morning on his skin and the distraction of an army commander in his manner. But even he was astonished when Brian suddenly leaped to his feet and ran from the room.

“Good heavens, what ails the man?”

“I d-don’t think Mr. Morse is too well, sir,” Olivia said with apparent concern. “He seems in p-pain.”

Portia choked on a crumb.

“He was well enough yesterday,” Cato observed.

“Perhaps I should go to him.” Diana rose from the table.

“Oh, I shouldn’t do that,” Olivia muttered in a voice that only Portia heard.

“I beg your pardon, Olivia?” Cato looked inquiringly.

“N-nothing of significance, sir.”

Diana reached the door just as it opened again and a very pale Brian reappeared. “Forgive me,” he murmured, resuming his seat.

“Are you quite well, sir?” Portia asked in a voice to rival the music of the spheres.

Brian opened his mouth to reply, then he pushed back his chair with such violence that it toppled to the floor. A groan escaped him as he ran from the room.

Cato was beginning to look alarmed. “Perhaps you should send the physician to him, Diana.”

“Yes. Yes, I’ll do so right away.” Diana hurried from the parlor.

Portia said, “If you’ll excuse me, Lord Granville, I believe I’m wanted in the nursery to help Janet with the babies.”

Olivia jumped to her feet and excused herself in Portia’s wake, leaving her father alone at the breakfast table.

“What did you put in his ale?” Portia demanded in a laughing whisper, dragging Olivia into a window embrasure in the corridor.

“A mighty dose of senna,” Olivia told her with a whoop of laughter. “He’ll b-be purging on his close-stool all day.”

“Oh, clever girl,” Portia said with approval. “Brilliant.”

Olivia glowed with pleasure.

“I imagine he’ll be leaving very soon,” Portia said. “People rarely like to stay in places where they’ve made fools of themselves… or where they’ve been made fools of,” she added thoughtfully. “I’d better go and be pleasant to Janet.”

She went off with a little wave, and Olivia slipped a hand up to the locket at her neck. She opened it and took out the ring of braided tricolored hair. Friendship was a most powerful force. It could even shatter demons.

Chapter 14

What were they bringing into the castle? Portia squiggled forward to get a better view down through the privy chute to the moat beneath. She was looking at the same scene she had witnessed before-men unloading pack mules, disappearing with their burdens beneath the drawbridge and through the hidden entrance to the vaults. The operation, as before, was conducted in absolute silence and under the supervision of Giles Crampton.

Portia wriggled backward and stood up in the cramped space. She was fascinated by what she had seen. Fascinated and intrigued. It obviously had to do with the war. Cato was collecting something for the war effort. But what?

Her regular nightly spying expeditions had become all-absorbing since her return to Castle Granville and the ignominious retreat of Brian Morse. She knew that she was always looking for some sign of Rufus or his men. Some familiar figure flitting in the shadows… a familiar voice whispering in the dark. An old man with a hunched back shuffling along in a peasant’s homespun. If Rufus could spy in the very heart of Cato’s domain, it was not impossible to imagine that he or one of his men would be around, watching, in some shape or form. She had no idea what she would do if she did catch sight of one of them… or of Rufus himself. Confront them? Offer to help with the spying?

Ridiculous. She was the enemy. Rufus would not accept her help.

She told herself this bitterly, many times over, but it didn’t change her actions. Sometimes her abduction seemed like a dream, and the need to remind herself that it had really happened-that everything it had led to had really happened – was like an itch that had to be scratched.

So she crept around the castle, imagining she was gathering information for Rufus Decatur-information that she would never be able to pass on. But it gave her a purpose, made some kind of warped sense in the midst of her confusion and hurt.

Drawing her cloak about her, she flitted out of the cubbyhole and along the battlements. She flew down a narrow flight of stone stairs cut into the curtain wall, emerging into the outer bailey. Pitch torches in sconces along the walls flared in the night wind, throwing eerie shadows across the cobbles.

Portia crept around the walls, hugging the dark pools of shadow, until she reached the wicket gate. It was open and she could hear the sounds from the moat below. The sentry was working with Giles’s men unloading the mules.

She slipped through the gate. The bank between the walls and the moat was a mere grassy ledge, a bare six inches wide. Portia flattened herself against the wall and tiptoed sideways until she was safely away from the torchlight illuminating the drawbridge. Then she stood immobile, flat against the wall, and listened. Voices rose soft but distinct from the working party below.

“That’s the last mule, Sergeant.”

“Right. Close up the vault behind you.”

“Aye, sir.”

There was a creak as of hinges in need of oil, then a soft thud, and the torchlight vanished. A jingle of harness came out of the darkness, and Portia guessed that the unloaded mules were being led away. She heard steps on the drawbridge, then the wicket gate closed and she was standing alone outside the castle.

Now what?

She sat down and slithered on her bottom down the bank to the ice-covered moat. It was pitch black, the great bulk of the drawbridge looming above her. She felt her way along the wall, the thick stone damp and icy cold, until she was standing directly beneath the drawbridge. Somewhere in the wall here was the hidden door. Without light, the faint outline was not visible, but she’d seen it before and knew that it was no more than three feet up from the surface of the moat. She took off her gloves, her fingers immediately freezing, and felt along the wall.

Ah, there it was. An infinitesimal line in the stones. It was too straight to be a random crack. She traced it along its horizontal top and then down the vertical sides, feeling for a knob, a lever, something that would open it from the outside.

Nothing. The stones were hard, unyielding blocks of ice. And she was stranded outside the castle at two in the morning!

Biting her lower lip, Portia expanded her search, running her flat palms over the stones alongside the line. Still nothing. Her hands were so cold now she couldn’t feel anything. She pulled on her gloves again, shivering violently, and leaned back against the wall, wondering what to do next.

The wall opened behind her. It was so sudden she fell backward. There was no lintel and she stumbled into a black void, her hands flailing for purchase. She just managed to keep her feet by grabbing hold of the slab of stone as it swung heavily inward.

She was inside the castle, looking out onto the moat. Behind her it was pitch black, ahead the grayish dark of the night. Once she closed the door, she would be utterly blind.

She stood still, her ears straining into the darkness behind her. She could hear her blood roaring in her ears, her heart hammering against her ribs. Were the men long gone? Was there any danger she might run into them? She looked behind her and could see only a low narrow tunnel disappearing into darkness.

There was silence. A silence so complete it was terrifying. Pulling the door closed took more courage than Portia thought she possessed, but she managed it. The same creak, the same dull thud, and then she was standing in utter darkness and silence. She turned, placed her hands on the walls on either side, and began to walk, her head and shoulders bent low. But gradually the ceiling lifted and she could soon stand upright. The darkness grew less absolute as her eyes accustomed themselves, and as she peered ahead she thought she detected a grayness in the black.

And then she saw a flicker of light. Torchlight. She froze, pressing herself against the wall even as her heart lifted at this sign of approaching habitation. There was no sound and the light remained in one place, flickering as if in a breeze. She slid forward again, keeping to the wall. The tunnel began to open out and she saw the mouth just ahead. And then she heard the voices. Cato’s voice. And Giles Crampton’s.

“I think we’re done now, Giles.” Cato’s voice rang with satisfaction.

“Aye, m’lord. It’s quite a haul.” Giles chuckled. “I doubt there’s a silver chalice left between ‘ere an’ York. When do we send it on?”

“Next Friday by the Durham road… now that my stepson’s safely out of the way…”

“Left in summat of a ‘urry, I thought,” Giles observed. “Looked right peaky, ’ardly able to sit ‘is ’orse.”

“Mmm,” Cato agreed dryly. Brian’s abrupt departure had not been very amicable. In fact Cato had the uncomfortable feeling that his stepson harbored a distinct grudge against Castle Granville. There had been something most unpleasant in his sallow brown eyes… something almost menacing if one were given to fancies. Which Cato was not. He had much more interesting matters on his mind than Brian’s petty malice.

“When the treasure leaves on Friday, we shall make sure Rufus Decatur knows exactly when it leaves and by what road.” Cato’s voice was now cold but the earlier satisfaction was still