The Accidental Bride

Phoebe moved away from him, averting her eyes so he wouldn’t see the sheen of tears. Of course Cato wouldn’t pretend to something he didn’t feel. “A bath would help,” she said. “Then I’ll be ready for tomorrow.”

“Phoebe, you can’t seriously intend-”

“I am coming,” she stated. “Could you please ask someone to bring up the valise I had strapped to Sorrel’s saddle? It has a few necessities.”

Cato shrugged. Her obstinacy carried its own penalty. “Very well. But don’t expect any concessions.”

“I don’t!” she said with such ferocity he was taken aback. “I thought I’d made that clear, my lord.”

She was exhausted, Cato reminded himself. He turned to the door, saying over his shoulder, “You were right. I needed to know about Brian. But you have no need to worry. I have matters well in hand.”

Phoebe made no response to this confidence, and after a second, Cato left her.

When Cato came to bed some considerable time later, Phoebe seemed to be sleeping soundly. He undressed, snuffed the candle, and climbed in beside her.

With a sleepy little murmur she rolled over and reached for him as she always did when he joined her in bed.

“I see you’ve been raiding my kit,” Cato observed with some amusement. Phoebe was enfolded in one of his own crisp cambric shirts.

“My shift was sweaty and I wanted to stay fresh after my bath,” she murmured, pressing her lips to the hollow of his throat. “I wished to be fresh for you.”

“You always are,” he said with perfect truth. Fresh, surprising, beautiful. Infuriating, eccentric, stubborn… delightful.

He drew her beneath him.

The next morning Phoebe emerged from the inn just after daybreak, her expression that of one about to face the torture chamber.

Cato was already mounted and talking with Giles Cramp-ton and one of the troopers. Sorrel was standing at a mounting block, her rein held by one of the inn’s grooms.

Phoebe set her teeth and climbed into the saddle. It wasn’t at first too bad. Witch hazel, the hot bath, and a good night’s rest had had some benefit. She nudged the mare into a walk and came up with Cato.

“Ah, there you are.” Cato gave her a slightly distracted smile. “I thought to let you have your sleep out, so didn’t wake you when I rose myself. Did you break your fast?”

“The goodwife made me some porridge,” Phoebe answered. “How far will we ride today?”

“As far as Bishop’s Stortford.” He regarded her closely.

“The landlord here has a gig that he’s prepared to sell me. Tom has to return to headquarters, and he and Adam will escort you back to Woodstock.”

Phoebe shook her head. “I’m all right, my lord.”

Cato contented himself with a raised eyebrow, before he turned back to Tom. “Very well, Tom, then you may make all speed. Make sure the dispatch goes directly to either Cromwell or Lord Fairfax.”

“Aye, sir.” The trooper patted the breast of his jerkin, where he held the document for Parliament’s headquarters detailing Brian Morse’s latest conduct. Cato had recommended that Brian should be traced and held until Cato returned from his mission and could interrogate him himself.

Cato gave the troop the signal to move out, and Phoebe, her lips set, encouraged Sorrel into a trot to keep up.

At the end of an hour Phoebe had drifted into a trance where her physical miseries seemed inseparable from herself and from each other. She could no longer distinguish between the deep muscle aches and the raw soreness of her flesh. If she allowed herself to think of the hours stretching ahead, she knew she would weep, so she let her mind drift into a realm of soft green valleys and heather-strewn hillsides, dappled streams, and the sweet scent of new-mown hay.

When Cato drew rein, she didn’t notice. Sorrel would have trotted on without signal from her rider if Cato hadn’t reached over and taken the mare’s bridle, bringing her to a halt.

The cessation of motion shocked Phoebe out of her trance. She came back to the real world and the reality of pain with a moan.

“Come, I can’t bear to see you like this,” Cato said brusquely. “I’m going to lift you up. Help me by putting your arms around my neck.”

For a moment Phoebe looked up at him in a bewilderment that was not eased by his contradictory expression. His mouth was impatient, and yet his dark eyes were filled with concern.

“Phoebe, did you hear me?” He leaned down from his saddle. “Take your feet out of the stirrups and put your arms around my neck.”

Obediently she did so, raising her arms to clasp his neck. He lifted her bodily from the saddle and onto his own in front of him. “Sit back now and take the weight off your backside. Giles, lead the mare.”

Giles had already taken Sorrel’s bridle, and the cavalcade moved forward again.

Phoebe leaned back against Cato’s broad chest. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really didn’t want to give up.”

He looked down at her and a slight smile touched his mouth. “You did better than I expected.”

“I’ll ride tomorrow.”

He nodded. “For an hour or so. It takes time to build up endurance, particularly,” he added with pointed emphasis, “when you have such an appalling seat.”

Phoebe didn’t protest this truth. She sat sideways on the saddle, taking the weight off her bruised flesh, and began to enjoy the scenery from a perch that was as comfortable as it was secure.

“It seems to me I have the best of both worlds this way, anyway,” she observed after a while.

“How so?” He brushed away a lock of her hair that was tickling his chin.

“I can enjoy the ride from the best possible place-as close to you as it’s possible to be. I can even hear your heart beat,” she returned with a serene smile. “Oh… and I won’t be tired when we stop for the night, so we’ll be able to play much more than we could last night.”

“You are incorrigible,” Cato said, but he was grinning. His encircling arm tightened for a minute. His hand brushed the swell of her breast beneath her cloak and he could feel her heart beat against his palm.

Giles, riding in silence a little to one side of them, didn’t hear the exchange, but he saw the grin and marveled at it. In all the years he’d served him, the marquis of Granville had never grinned. He smiled, he laughed even, but grinned? Unheard of. And to include the woman in his expedition! That was astounding. Lord Granville never allowed anything or anyone to interfere with his military concerns… or never had done before, Giles amended dourly. There was just no accounting for it.

When Brian Morse discovered after a little rooting around and the disbursement of a few coins that Cato was heading for Harwich, he was immediately intrigued. Why would one journey to Italy from Harwich? It would make much better sense to take ship from one of the southern ports, Portsmouth or Southampton.

Obviously Cato had been less than frank with him. Not that that surprised Brian in the least. It was a fair guess that Lord Granville was heading for Holland from Harwich. Most of the shipping from that port went to the Low Countries. And that raised a great many interesting possibilities. If he was intending to make contact with Walter Strickland, then it was Brian’s bounden duty to prevent it.

The king’s own agents in Rotterdam had managed to do away with two of Parliament’s envoys before they’d met up with Strickland. But they had been men of no real importance. The marquis of Granville, on the other hand, was one of the most influential members of Parliament’s high command. To get rid of him while he was on this mission would be a coup indeed.

It was a coup Brian was going to engineer. It was a gift from the devil and Brian was not about to turn it down. And to make matters even simpler, Cato was apparently not intending to take any of his own men to Holland with him, not even Giles Crampton. It was almost too good to be true.

There was something deeply pleasing about the prospect of killing two birds with one stone. By assassinating Cato, Brian would achieve kudos among his own leaders. And he himself would then inherit the Granville title and estates. He would then bring the wealth and influence of the Granville name to the king’s side, a loss that Parliament could ill afford.

If he played his cards right, there would be a dukedom in it for Brian, once the king was restored to his throne.

And Brian would play his cards right. The only possible flaw was Phoebe. If she was breeding, he would have to get rid of her. And that, he thought, would be rather a shame. True, she’d made him lose his temper with her prissy refusal to cooperate, but he’d recovered from that now. Now he could see the possibilities. The new marquis of Granville would need a wife. Why not the present marchioness? He could knock her into shape, he was sure. And there were distinct possibilities in that voluptuous form.

Brian set off for Harwich a couple of hours after Cato. He took a different route, however, having no desire to run into his quarry. He reached Harwich on the afternoon of the third day, put up at the Pelican on the harbor, and set out on foot to discover whether Cato and his cavalcade had arrived at another of the town’s numerous inns.

A man traveling with eight troopers couldn’t arrive inconspicuously in this small port, and Brian was confident he’d run them to ground quickly.

He was in the taproom of the Ship, drinking ale and casually making inquiries, when he heard Giles Crampton’s rough Yorkshire burr in the hallway.

“Eh, goodwife, we’ve need of a decent privy chamber fer Lord Granville. The rest of us’ll settle neat enou‘ in the loft, or above the stables.”

“I don’t know as ‘ow I’ve got a privy chamber,” the good-wife was saying as Brian slipped unobtrusively into the vast inglenook. “If’n ’is lordship wouldn’t mind sharin‘ though, there’s a nice big chamber at the front. I let it out to three gentlemen at a time. Most don’t mind bundlin’.”

“Well, my wife and I do mind.” Cato’s authoritative tones chimed into the goodwife’s speech. “I’ll take that chamber and pay you well for it, mistress.”

There was a chink of coin and the goodwife said with some satisfaction, “Well, I daresay I’ll be able to move the other gentlemen, then, sir. Will ‘er ladyship be wantin’ a maid to ‘elp ’er?”

“No, I don’t believe so,” Cato said. “But we’re sharp set and looking forward to our supper.”

“Oh, I’ll be puttin‘ a goodly supper on the table fer ye, m’lord. Tripe an’ onions, an‘ a nice piece of brawn.”

“I don’t suppose you have a roast chicken? We had tripe yesterday.”

Brian listened to Phoebe’s wistful tones in astonishment. What on earth was she doing here? Cato couldn’t be intending to take her to Holland with him.

He moved further back into the inglenook. Phoebe’s presence would make no difference. Once he discovered where Cato was going, he intended to take passage on the next ship going to the same port.

When he returned from Holland, it would be with Cato’s blood on his knife.

A smile flickered over Brian’s thin mouth.

Chapter 20

Phoebe stood on the harbor at Harwich, drawing the hood of her cloak closer around her face against the freshening evening breeze. It was close to seven o’clock and the sky was already darkening.

The scene on the quay was hectic as ships prepared to leave on the evening tide and light spilled from the open doors and unshuttered windows of the taverns opening onto the cobbled, fishy- smelling landing stage.