Will gave a half salute and left the barn with clear relief in his step.
Rufus turned back to Portia, who was still regarding him with an air of fierce challenge. “Must you glare at me like that?” he asked with a slightly quizzical smile. “I’ve had warmer welcomes from a stone.”
Portia hesitated. She saw now how tired he was. He was gray with fatigue, his eyes dark ringed, his fine mouth drawn within his beard. And she felt a surge of guilt at having launched her attack before he’d had time to recover from the journey. The issue was not so vital that it couldn’t wait until they’d greeted each other properly.
“I’m sorry,” she said with instant remorse. “You look so tired, love.”
“An understatement,” he said, passing a hand over his chin. “I’m in sore need of a bath and a change of clothes, and a cup of mead wouldn’t come amiss.”
“I can provide all of those things,” Portia said with a smile, taking his hand and leading him out into the lane. She swung on his hand as they walked to the cottage in a silence that was now both contented and anticipatory.
Rufus pushed open the cottage door. “Yes… yes, I’m delighted to see you too, Juno… I think.” He addressed the puppy, who was prancing on her hind legs and yapping in a shrill ecstasy of greeting.
Portia reached up and lightly touched Rufus’s face, running the tip of her finger‘ over his mouth. “I’ll bring you the mead.” She filled a tankard from the pantry. “Shall I get the bath for you?”
“Please.” Rufus groaned as he sat down at the table, stretching out his long legs. “God, I’m awearied. We’ve been riding for twelve hours straight.”
Portia dragged the tub before the fire and hefted the copper kettle from its hook, staggering slightly under its weight, but when Rufus moved to help her she shook her head. “I can draw a willow bow, Rufus, and massacre a bag of straw with a pike. And I can certainly carry a kettle of hot water.”
Rufus raised an eyebrow but he said nothing. However, he left her to pour the steaming water into the tub herself while he began to unbutton his buff leather jerkin. He kicked off his boots and rolled down his stockings, before standing to unbuckle his swordbelt and divest himself of his britches and drawers.
Maybe she was being selfish, but without the slightest nudge of guilt Portia threw self-restraint to the four winds. “Are you so tired because you didn’t sleep in Newcastle?” she inquired innocently, as he stepped into the tub and eased himself down, his long legs dangling over the end. “Or were you too busy with town amusements for something as dull as sleep?”
Rufus regarded her with narrowed eyes. “Are you perchance trying to pick another fight?”
“This one’s as an alternative to loving,” she said, kneeling beside the tub. “I feel the need for some excitement.” She leaned over and kissed him, running her fingers through his beard, her tongue, sinuous and importunate, demanding entrance to his mouth. Her hand moved down over the strong column of his throat, over his chest, lingering at his nipples, her fingers lifting the red pelt that sprang in energetic curls across his upper body.
Rufus rested his head on the back of the tub and closed his eyes, yielding to the wicked little caresses, the tantalizing darts of her busy fingers as her hand slid beneath the water, played a tune on the muscle-taut skin of his belly. And then lower, between his thighs, lifting his soft organ, cradling it in her palm, squeezing gently, pulling back the little hood of flesh to find the sensitive tip.
He leaped into life against her palm and she laughed softly, nibbling the corner of his mouth, dipping her tongue into the cleft of his chin.
“God’s grace, but you’d tempt a man from the grave,” Rufus murmured. “Just what have you been up to while I’ve been away?”
Portia leaned over and kissed him with her eyelashes, fluttering the golden fans across his lips. “Let me see… archery, swordsmanship, murdering sacks of straw, loading muskets… oh, and dreaming. I had plenty of time to dream alone in that great bed. And I believe I dreamed to good purpose,” she added with a triumphant little crow of laughter, sitting back on her heels. “What say you, Lord Rothbury?”
“I say that it’s time I gave you something to dream about,” he declared. “Take your clothes off.”
Excitement flared in her eyes. “Here… now?”
“Yes. Hurry.”
Portia stood up to throw off her clothes, and then, naked, she looked down at him, uncertain what happened now.
“Come here.” He reached for her hands and pulled her down. “Kneel astride me… That’s it. Now guide me within.”
Portia followed instructions, her tongue caught between her teeth, a little frown of concentration between her brows. She lifted herself slightly to take him within her body, then lowered herself gently so that she was sitting astride his hips.
“Now you play the tune,” Rufus said, his hands clasping her waist. “You move as you wish. Whatever feels right. You’re in control.”
Portia’s eyes widened, but it didn’t take her long to realize that he spoke only the truth. And not only was she in control of her own pleasure, she was also controlling her lover’s. She laughed delightedly, reading his responses in the bright gaze below her own, feeling every ripple of his body as if it were her own. She wanted to keep them both suspended in this glorious sensate realm and experienced a flash of disappointment when she realized she could do nothing in the end to hold back the tide of passion as it swept aside the dikes of control. But it was a mere flash lost forever in the glorious cascade of pleasure.
A long note of a trumpet, sustained in a thrill of sound, brought Rufus out of his postcoital trance with a jerk. “Hell and the devil! Is it an hour already?” He patted Portia’s hip. “Up, love. I have to go.”
Portia reluctantly got to her feet and Rufus stood up in a shower of drops. “Mother of God!” he exclaimed. “What the hell happened to your shoulder?” He touched the yellowing contusion spreading from her neck across her shoulder.
“It’s the recoil from the musket,” Portia explained. “But now I use a pad of rolled cloth to support it, and it’s a lot less painful.”
Rufus stood frowning as if about to say something, then he shook his head in brusque dismissal of his thoughts and stepped out of the tub. The consequences of her decision were her own, and if she had to learn them the hard way, so be it. She’d made it clear she didn’t want to be babied, didn’t want any concessions.
“Get dressed,” he said, rubbing himself vigorously with a towel. “It’s a general muster and you’re not exempt.”
Portia wasn’t sure whether she understood aright. She regarded him almost warily. “Are you… am I… may I…?”
“Yes, I am… yes, you are… yes, you may join the militia,” Rufus said, in a tone that didn’t sound exactly thrilled to bits about his capitulation. “It’s against my better judgment, but don’t expect any concessions. From me or from anyone, is that clear?”
He glowered at her, but Portia only grinned in delight. She was perfectly happy in this instance to have the commander replacing the lover. “I wouldn’t wish it otherwise, my lord.” She whipped the towel from his relaxed grip and used it to dry herself before scrambling into her clothes. “How much d’you think Cato’s treasure is worth?”
Rufus buckled his belt. He had his back half turned from her and she couldn’t see his expression. “Enough,” he said.
Chapter 18
She could see the ducks’ little island in the middle of the moat. It would take her fifteen minutes to climb down, five minutes to leave her message for Olivia, and maybe twenty minutes to get back uphill. How to explain such an absence to Paul, her present partner?
She edged backward and stood up. Paul was sitting on the ground, his back to a rock, placidly eating an apple. Their two horses, tethered to a sapling, were busy with the contents of their nosebags.
“How long d’you think it’ll take the others to get here?” Portia inquired casually.
“Will said to expect ‘em afore sunset,” Paul replied. “I don’t reckon ’e thought we’d get done quite so fast.” He grinned and tossed aside his apple core. “We wouldn’t ‘ave been either if you ’adn’t picked up them tracks.”
Portia unbuckled her saddlebag and withdrew a cloth-wrapped package. “Did you eat all the chicken, Paul?”
“I thought you said you didn’t like it.”
“I never said any such thing,” she protested. “Oh well, I suppose I can make do with cheese.” She perched casually on the rock with her bread and cheese.
“Yeah, I reckon if you ‘adn’t picked up them tracks, we’d prob’ly ’ave missed ‘em altogether,” Paul said, picking his teeth with a twig.
Portia’s smile was a little smug. “They were certainly surprised when we jumped out in front of them.” She and Paul had been given the task of following two men, traveling as well-to-do farmers, who Will had heard on his spy grapevine were actually rebel couriers, carrying information from General Fairfax in Hull to Lord Leven, who was camped outside Durham.
Paul chuckled. “Aye, the master’ll be pleased wi‘ what we got out of’em.”
They’d tracked the two men to a hamlet some five miles away from their present picnic spot and had managed to spring an unpleasant surprise on them. With the result that the two couriers were now lodged, bound and gagged, in a henhouse awaiting an uncertain rescue, and the papers they’d been carrying were tucked away in an inner pocket in Portia’s saddlebag. They were interesting papers, too, revealing information about troop movements that would be of vital importance to the royalist armies.
Will had sent Portia and Paul off on this errand while he and the rest of the patrol had gone after a small troop of Granville militia, hoping to engage them in a skirmish.
It had been a desultory war in the north border lands during these winter months. One of skirmishes and spies, of sieges and needling harassment. No decisive battles had been fought since Leven had brought his Scots army across the border. The royalist forces still held the north, except for Hull, but spring was in the air, armies would soon be able to move more freely, and the royalist forces under Lord Newcastle were new outnumbered. If the two wings of the rebel armies joined forces, the king’s cause would be destroyed in the north.
Rufus would certainly be very interested in the information Portia carried in her saddlebags.
“I’m going for a little stroll, Paul.” She slid off the rock.
Paul merely grunted and closed his eyes, arms folded over his chest beneath his cloak, preparing to take a nap.
Portia knew he assumed she was merely going to answer nature’s call and left him with that assumption. With any luck, he’d sleep most of the afternoon… she might even be back before he awoke.
She moved with all the speed and cunning she had learned in the last weeks, through the small grove of trees that covered the hillside leading down to the castle, darting from trunk to trunk, using the concealment of bushes and rocks. Her britches and jerkin were dark wool, blending with the landscape, and her bright hair was concealed beneath a cap that hugged her head. She had both rapier and knife in her belt… and if she had to use them it wouldn’t be the first time. She had learned many things in the last weeks, not least that scruples about shedding blood vanished into the wind when one’s own blood was threatened.
She inched her way around the moat until she faced the little island. There was a warmth in the March sun now; the vicious bite of the winter wind softened. In a week the ice on the moat would be too thin for Olivia to venture forth on skates. This was Portia’s last chance to leave the promised missive beneath the boulder.
She had been agonizing over how to get a message to Olivia, but there had been no opportunities until today. Even if it would have been possible to leave Decatur village without detection, she’d been kept far too busy to make such an expedition.
The master of Decatur had been true to his word, and the new recruit to the ranks had been absorbed without reference to her sex or her relationship with the master. Her position was lowly,
