Preface to the Brides Trilogy 3 страница

A group of youths was gathered at the river’s edge, their cloaks discarded beside the line of buckets that stood waiting on the bank, as they swung pickaxes at the ice to free the water hole that had frozen over in the night. They straightened as Rufus approached, and stood waiting, their cheeks pink from cold and exertion.

“Mornin‘, m’lord.”

“Morning, lads.” Rufus exchanged greetings and small talk, acknowledging each one by name. If he was aware of the naked adoration in their eyes as they gathered around him, he gave no indication.

These were his novitiates, the most recent recruits to the Decatur band. Many had followed fathers, brothers, uncles into the world beyond the law. Some were fugitives from the law themselves, some merely imbued with the spirit of adventure. They all, however, had one distinguishing feature. They were utterly and unswervingly devoted to the house of Rothbury and held no loyalty above loyalty to their cadre.

“Is it true, master, that we’re to declare for the king?” A tall young man, whose bearing made him the clear leader of the group, spoke for them all. Ten pairs of eager eyes rested on Rufus’s countenance.

“You think His Majesty will accept the aid of a band of moss-troopers, Paul?” Rufus inquired, and his bland tone deceived none of them. His eyes had a glitter that seemed to reflect the icy surface of the river under the fading stars. “The aid of a family dispossessed for treason? The hand of an outlaw, stained with years of cattle stealing, highway robbery, and God knows what other crimes against the law-abiding countryside?”

Paul met his eye. “I think His Majesty’ll accept any hand that’s offered, sir,” he declared. “With Lord Leven marching in from Scotland, seems to me the king hasn’t much choice.”

The master’s mouth quirked, but with more derision than amusement. “Aye, I believe you’re right, lad. A whole mountain of grievance will be buried under the banner of loyalty, you mark my words. And with a king’s gratitude, what could a man not achieve?” He raised a hand in farewell and strode off, his cloak swirling around his ankles with the sudden energy of his stride.

With a king’s gratitude, a man could achieve reinstatement… a full pardon… The house of Rothbury could once more take its rightful place in the world inside the law. Oh yes, there was little that a grateful king could not do for a loyal subject.

Rums laughed shortly to himself. He would play this conflict for his own ends. He had no time for the king’s cause. Charles was as much a fool as his father, James, had been. But Rufus would not make the mistake of his own father. He would support this king in his folly, and he would reap the rewards of that support. He would exact the goodly price of restitution.

He made his way up the narrow path that snaked up the hillside to the first of the watchmen’s fires. The stars had disappeared when he reached the hilltop, but the ring of fires surrounding the valley still burned brightly, as they would throughout the day, providing warmth for the watchmen who guarded the Decatur sanctuary twenty-four hours a day.

“Morning, Rufus.” A tall, lean man in his early twenties turned from the fire where he was warming his hands. “Coffee?”

“Thanks, Will.” Rufus nodded at his cousin. He was particularly fond of the younger man, whose father had guided the fatherless Rufus through all the pitfalls of youth. Will was Rufus’s uncle’s son, sired when the old man should have been sitting by the fire nodding in peaceful senility instead of rampaging through the countryside by day and lying each night with his bedmate with all the vigor and virility of a man in his prime. “Peaceful night?”

“Aye. But Connor’s men reported troop movements to the north. Leven’s men, we reckon.”

Rufus took a beaker of hot spiced mead from a man armed with pike and musket. “We’ll send out scouts later this morning. If Fairfax and Leven join up with Parliament’s forces, the king’ll be in a pretty pickle. He can wave goodbye to a superior force in the north.” He sounded as if the issue didn’t concern him unduly, but Will was not deceived by the calm, matter-of-fact tone. He knew what Rufus had invested in this choice he’d made.

“You think we might be able to delay Leven?” Will blew on the surface of his own mead to cool it. “A little judicial harassment perhaps?”

“Aye, that’s precisely what I thought.” Rufus chuckled suddenly, and his expression lightened, his eyes losing their earlier glitter. “We’ll give the king’s command a little unofficial aid. My lords Bellasis and Newcastle should prove grateful.”

Will grinned, recognizing that Rufus had lost his seriousness and was now contemplating this little jaunt in the same light as he planned their more mischievous raids.

“Granville’s for the king, too,” he observed after a minute.

Rufus did not immediately respond, but stared out over the hills as the night clouds rolled away from the eastern hills. “We’ll see. I’ve a feeling that he’s not committed as yet. If he goes for Parliament, all the better. We’ll really tweak his tail then.”

“But it’s said he’s raising a militia for the king.” Will couldn’t hide his puzzlement.

“We’ll see,” Rufus repeated. He didn’t know why he was so sure of Cato Granville’s ambivalence, but he felt it as if it were his own. He’d spent all his life ranged against this man, watching his movements, trying to second-guess him, until sometimes he felt he lived inside the man’s head.

He handed his beaker back to the pikeman. “I’ll take a few men and ride out toward Selkirk. See what tidbits we can pick up on the Edinburgh road.”

“Have a care.”

“Aye.” Rufus strode away down the narrow track to the village below.

The sounds of shrill altercation coming from a garden at the edge of the village gave him pause. His expression lost its air of somber distraction. He turned aside through a wooden gate into a small kitchen garden. The ground was iron hard and barren of produce, but a clutch of hens was squabbling over grain scattered before the kitchen door. Two very small bundled figures rolling in the snow were the source of the altercation.

Two strides took him beside them. Fortunately they’d gone to bed in their clothes the previous night. In the absence of supervision they would probably have rolled out of bed and into the snow in their nightshirts. As it was, little Luke seemed to have his boots on the wrong feet and his fingers were all tangled in his gloves.

Rufus seized a collar in each hand and hauled the pair apart. Towheaded, blue eyed, they faced each other, glaring, red faced, furious.

“It’s my turn to collect the eggs!”

“No it’s not, it’s mine!”

Rufus surveyed the two boys with a degree of indulgent amusement. They were such a tempestuous pair, born a year apart, and they both had inherited the Rothbury temper. It made for an unquiet life, but he recognized so much of himself in his sons that he rarely took forceful objection to their whirlwind passions. “What a pair of scrappy brats you are. It’s too cold to be rolling in the snow.”

“It’s my turn for the eggs because I’m older,” young Tobias declared, lunging against the hand that merely tightened on his collar.

“You did it yesterday. You always say you’re older.” Tears clogged his little brother’s voice as he stated this unassailable truth.

“Because I am,” Toby said smugly.

“It’s not fair!” Luke wailed. “ ‘Tisn’t!”

“No, such things rarely are,” Rufus agreed. “But sadly, they can’t be changed. Who collected the eggs yesterday?”

“Toby did!” Luke swiped his forearm across his button nose. “He always does it ‘cause he’s older.”

“I’m better at it than you, ‘cause I’m older.” Toby sounded very sure of his ground.

“But how’s Luke to get better at it if he never gets any practice?” Rufus pointed out, aware of the sudden frigid gust of wind whistling around the corner of the house from the hilltop. “The eggs will have to wait now. It’s breakfast time.”

Ignoring the barrage of protests, he tightened his hold on their collars and propelled them ahead of him toward the low stone building that contained the mess.

The children’s mother had died soon after Luke’s birth. Elinor had been Rufus’s regular bedmate for five years. She hadn’t lived in the village, but their relationship had transcended the simple financial exchange that characterized his dealings with Maggie and the other women of Mistress Beldam’s establishment. Her death had affected him deeply, and in the face of all practicality, once Luke was out of swaddling clothes, Rufus had taken the boys himself. A martial encampment was hardly the perfect place to bring up two small children, but he had sworn to their mother that they would bear his name and he would take care of them himself.

Mind you, their futures would be a lot rosier if their father’s gamble paid off and his lands were restored to him by a grateful monarch, Rufus reflected with cold cynicism, ushering the children into the crowded aromatic warmth of the mess.

Portia pulled the hood of her cloak tighter around her face, against the sleet-laden wind whipping down through the Lammermuir Hills. Her horse blew through his nostrils in disgust and dropped his head against the freezing blasts. It was late morning and she hoped they would stop for dinner soon, but there were no signs of comforting habitation on this stretch of the Edinburgh road, and Portia’s companions, the dour but not ill-disposed Giles Crampton and his four men, continued to ride into the teeth of the wind with the steadfast endurance she’d come to expect of these Yorkshiremen.

It had been a week since Sergeant Crampton, as he called himself, had come to the Rising Sun. She’d been drawing ale and dodging the wandering hands of the taproom’s patrons when this burly Yorkshireman had pushed open the door, letting in a flurry of snow and earning the grumbling curses of those huddled around the sullen smolder of the peat fire…

“Mistress Worth?”

“Who wants her?” Portia pushed the filled tankard across to the waiting customer and leaned her elbows on the bar counter. Her green eyes assessed the newcomer, taking in his thick, comfortable garments, his heavy boots, the rugged countenance of a man accustomed to the outdoors. A well-to-do farmer or craftsman, she guessed. But not a man to tangle with, judging by the large, square hands with their corded veins, the massive shoulders, thick-muscled thighs, and the uncompromising stare of his sharp brown eyes.

“Crampton, Sergeant Crampton.” Giles thrust his hands into his britches’ pockets, pushing aside his cloak to reveal the bone-handled pistols at his belt, the plain sheathed sword.

Of course, Portia thought. A soldier. Talk of England’s civil war was on every Scot’s tongue, but the fighting was across the border.

“What d’ye want with me, Sergeant?” She rested her chin in her elbow-propped hand and regarded him curiously. “Ale, perhaps?”

“Drawing ale is no work for Lord Granville’s niece,” Giles stated gruffly. “I’d count it a favor if ye’d leave this place and accompany me, Mistress Worth. I’ve a letter from your uncle.” He drew a rolled parchment from his breast and laid it on the counter.

Portia was conscious of a quickening of her blood, a lifting of her skin. She had had no idea what Jack had written to his half brother, but it had clearly concerned her. She unrolled the parchment and scanned the bold black script.

Giles watched her. A lettered tavern wench was unusual indeed, but this one, for all that she looked the part to perfection with her chapped hands, ragged and none too clean shift beneath her holland gown, and untidy crop of orange curls springing around a thin pale face liberally sprinkled with freckles, seemed to have no trouble ciphering.

Portia remembered Cato Granville from that hot afternoon in London when they’d beheaded the earl of Strafford. She remembered the boathouse, the two girls: Phoebe, the bride’s sister; and Portia’s own half cousin, Olivia. The pale, solemn child with the pronounced stammer. They’d played some silly game of mixing blood and promising eternal friendship. She’d even made braided rings of their hair. She seemed to remember how they’d all had the most absurd ambitions, ways by which they’d ensure their freedom from men and marriage. She herself was going to go for a soldier and maintain her independence by following the drum.

Portia almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of that childish game. She’d still had the ability to play the child three years ago. But no longer.

Her uncle was offering her a home. There didn’t seem to be any conditions attached to the offer, but Portia knew kindness never came without strings. But what could the illegitimate daughter of the marquis’s wastrel half brother do for Lord Granville? She couldn’t marry for him, bringing the family powerful alliances and grand estates in her marriage contracts. No one would wed a penniless bastard. He couldn’t need another servant, he must have plenty.

So why?

“Lady Olivia asked me to give you this.” Sergeant Crampton interrupted her puzzled thoughts. He laid a wafer-sealed paper on the counter.

Portia opened it. A tricolored ring of braided hair fell out. A black lock entwined with a fair and a red.

Please come. They were the only two words on the paper that had contained the ring.

This time Portia did laugh aloud at the childish whimsy of it all. What did games in a boathouse have to do with her own grim struggle for survival?

“If I thank Lord Granville for his offer but would prefer to remain as I am …?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Then, ‘tis your choice, mistress.” He glanced pointedly around the taproom. “But seems to me there’s no choice for a body with half a wit.”

Portia scooped the ring back into the paper and screwed it tight, dropping it into her bosom. “No, you’re right, Sergeant. Better the devil I don’t know to the one I do…”

So here she was three days’ ride out of Edinburgh, serviceably if not elegantly clad in good boots and a thick riding cloak over a gown of dark wool and several very clean woolen petticoats discreetly covering a pair of soft leather britches so she could ride comfortably astride. Midwinter journeys on the rough tracks of the Scottish border were not for sidesaddle riders.

Sergeant Crampton had given her money without explanation or instruction, for which Portia had been grateful. She didn’t like taking charity, but the sergeant’s matter-of-fact attitude had saved her embarrassment. And common sense had dictated that she accept the offering. She certainly couldn’t have journeyed any distance in the clothes she had on her back.

Despite the bitter cold and the constant freezing damp that trickled down her neck whenever she shook off her hood, Portia was pleasantly exhilarated. It had been several years since she’d had a decent horse to ride. Jack had been very particular about horseflesh, refusing to provide either himself or his daughter with anything but prime cattle, until the drink had ended both his physical ability to ride and his ability to keep them from total penury with his skill at the gaming tables.

“Y’are doin‘ all right, mistress?” The sergeant brought his mount alongside Portia’s. His eyes roamed the bleak landscape even as he spoke to her, and she sensed an unusual tension in the man, who was generally phlegmatic to the point of apparent sleepiness.

“I’m fine, Sergeant,” Portia replied. “This is a miserable part of the world, though.”

“Aye,” he agreed. “But another four hours should see us home. I’d not wish to stop before, if ye can manage it.”

“Without difficulty,” Portia said easily. She was accustomed to hunger. “Is there danger here?”

“It’s Decatur land. Goddamned moss-troopers.” Giles spat in disgust.

“Moss-troopers! But I thought they’d been run out of the hills years ago.”

“Aye, all but the Decaturs. They’re holed up in the Cheviots, where they prey on Granville land and cattle. Murdering, thieving bastards!”

Portia remembered what Jack had told her of the feud between the house of Rothbury and the house of Granville. Jack had had grim memories of the father he and Cato had shared. A man of unbending temperament, a harsh disciplinarian, a father who had no interest in gaining the affection of his sons. But Jack had had even less regard for Rufus Decatur, Earl of Rothbury, and his outlaw band. It was one area of agreement between Jack and his half brother. Nothing that had happened in the past justified the lawless actions and private malice of Decatur and his men. They were a scourge on the face of the borderlands, no better than the criminal bands of moss-troopers who had been hunted down and exterminated like so many rats in a stubble field.

“They’re still as active, then?”

“Aye, and worse than usual these last months.” Giles spat again. “Cattle-thieving murderers. Decatur, that devil’s spawn, will be usin‘ the war for ’is own ends, you mark my words.”

Portia shivered. She could see how a world at war could lend itself to the pursuit of a powerful personal vendetta. “Is Lord Granville for the king?”

Giles cast her a sharp look. “What’s it to you?”

“A matter of interest.” She looked sideways at him. “Is he?”

“Happen so,” was the short response, and the sergeant urged his mount forward to join the two men who rode a little ahead of Portia. The other two brought up the rear, giving her the feeling of being hemmed in. It seemed her father’s half brother wanted her protected-a novel thought.

She slipped her gloved hand into the pocket of her jacket beneath her cloak. Olivia’s braided ring was still wrapped in the screw of paper, and Portia had found her own in the small box where she kept the very few personal possessions that had some sentimental value-her father’s signet ring; a silver coin with a hole in it that had been given her as a child and that she believed had magic powers; a pressed violet that she vaguely thought her mother had given to her, except that she had no image of the woman who had died before Portia’s second birthday; an ivory comb with several teeth missing; and a small porcelain brooch in the shape of a daisy that Jack had told her had belonged to her mother. The box and its contents were all she had brought with her from Edinburgh.

What was Olivia like now? She had been such a serious creature… unhappy, Portia had thought at the time, although it was hard to understand how someone who had never known want could be unhappy. Olivia had been worried about her new stepmother, of course. Phoebe, the bride’s sister, had certainly had a very poor opinion of her elder sister. Portia wondered if Olivia was in some sort of trouble. And if so, did she really think Portia could be of any help? Portia, who had enough trouble keeping her own body and soul together and her spirits relatively buoyant.

Portia’s stomach rumbled loudly and she huddled closer into her cloak. A week of regular and substantial meals had lessened her tolerance for an empty belly, she reflected.

A shout, the thudding of hooves, the crack of a musket, drove all thoughts of hunger from her mind. Her horse reared in panic and she fought to keep him from bolting, while around her men seemed to swarm, horses whinnying, muskets cracking. She heard Sergeant Crampton yelling at his men to close up, but there were only four of them against eight armed riders, who quickly surrounded the party, separating the Granville men from each other, crowding them toward a stand of bare trees.

“Now, just who do we have here?”

Portia drew the reins tight. The quivering horse raised its head and neighed in protest, pawing the ground. Portia looked up and into a pair of vivid blue eyes glinting with an amusement to match the voice.

“And who are you?” she demanded. “And why have you taken those men prisoner?”

Her hood had fallen back in her struggles with the horse, and Rufus found himself the object of a fierce green-eyed scrutiny from beneath an unruly tangle of hair as orange-red as a burning brazier. Her complexion was white as milt, but not from fear, he decided; she looked far too annoyed for alarm.

“Rufus Decatur, Lord Rothbury, at your service,” he said solemnly, removing his plumed hat with a flourish as he offered a mock bow from atop his great chestnut stallion. “And who is it who travels under the Granville standard? If you please…” He raised a red eyebrow.

Portia didn’t answer the question. “Are you abducting us? Or is it murder you have in mind?”

“Tell you what,” Rufus said amiably, catching her mount’s bridle just below the bit. “We’ll trade questions. But let’s continue this fascinating but so far uninformative exchange somewhere a little less exposed to this ball-breaking cold.”

Chapter 3

Portia reacted without thought. Her whip hand rose and she slashed at Decatur’s wrist, using all her force so that the blow cut through the leather gauntlet. He gave a shout of surprise, his hand falling from the bridle, and Portia had gathered the reins, kicked at the animal’s flanks, and was racing down the track, neither knowing nor caring in which direction, before Rufus fully realized what had happened.

Portia heard him behind her, the chestnut’s pounding hooves cracking the thin ice that had formed over the wet mud between the ridges on the track. She urged her horse to greater speed, and the animal, still panicked from the earlier melee, threw up his head and plunged forward. If she had given him his head, he would have bolted, but she hung on, maintaining some semblance of control, crouched low over his neck, half expecting a musket shot from behind.

But she knew this was a race she wasn’t going to win. Her horse was a neat, sprightly young gelding, but he hadn’t the stride or the deep chest of the pursuing animal. Unless Rufus Decatur decided for some reason to give up the chase, she was going to be overtaken within minutes. And then she realized that her pursuer was not overtaking her, he was keeping an even distance between them, and for some reason this infuriated Portia. It was as if he were playing with her, cat with mouse, allowing her to think she was escaping even as he waited to pounce in his own good time.

She slipped her hand into her boot, her fingers closing over the hilt of the wickedly sharp dagger Jack had insisted she carry from the moment he had judged her mature enough to attract unwelcome attention. Maturity rather than physical appeal had clearly been the issue. She’d learned rapidly that men didn’t seem to care if their female prey was ragged, poxed, and looked like the back end of a beer keg when they had sex on their minds.

By degrees, Portia drew back on the reins, slowing the horse’s mad progress even as she straightened in the saddle. The hooves behind her were closer now. She waited, wanting him to be too close to stop easily. Her mind was cold and clear, her heart steady, her breathing easy. But she was ready to do murder.

With a swift jerk, she pulled up her horse, swinging round in the saddle in the same moment, the dagger in her hand, the weight of the hilt balanced between her index and forefingers, steadied by her thumb.

Rufus Decatur was good and close, and as she’d hoped his horse was going fast enough to carry him right past her before he could pull it up. She saw his startled expression as for a minute he was facing her head-on. She threw the dagger, straight for his heart.

It lodged in his chest, piercing his thick cloak. The hilt quivered. Portia, mesmerized, stared at it, for the moment unable to kick her horse into motion again. She had never killed a man before.

“Jesus, Mary, and sainted Joseph!” Rufus Decatur exclaimed in a voice far too vigorous for that of a dead man. He pulled the dagger free and looked down at it in astonishment. “Mother of God!” He regarded the girl on her horse in astonishment. “You were trying to stab me!”

Portia was as astonished as he was, but for different reasons. She could see no blood on the blade. And then the mystery was explained. Her intended victim moved aside his cloak to reveal a thickly padded buff coat of the kind soldiers wore. It was fair protection against knives and arrows, if not musket balls.

“You were chasing me,” she said, feeling no need to apologize for her murderous intent. Indeed, she sounded as cross as she felt. “You abducted my escort and you were chasing me. Of course I wanted to stop you.”

Rufus thought that most young women finding themselves in such a situation, if they hadn’t swooned away in fright or thrown a fit of strong hysterics first, would have chosen a less violent course of action. But this tousled and indignant member of the female sex obviously had a more down-to-earth attitude, one with which he couldn’t help but find himself in sympathy.

“Well, I suppose you have a point,” he agreed, turning the knife over in his hand. His eyes were speculative as he examined the weapon. It was no toy. He looked up, subjecting her to a sharp scrutiny. “I should have guessed that a lass with that hair would have a temper to match.”

“As it happens, I don’t,” Portia said, returning his scrutiny with her own, every bit as sharp and a lot less benign. “I’m a very calm and easygoing person in general. Except when someone’s chasing me with obviously malicious intent.”

“Well, I have to confess I do have the temper to match,” Rufus declared with a sudden laugh as he swept off his hat to reveal his own brightly burnished locks. “But it’s utterly dormant at present. All I need from you are the answers to a couple of questions, and then you may be on your way again. I simply want to know who you are and why you’re riding under Granville protection.”

“And what business is it of yours?” Portia demanded.

“Well… you see, anything to do with the Granvilles is my business,” Rufus explained almost apologetically. “So, I really do need to have the answer to my questions.”

“What are you doing with Sergeant Crampton and his men?”

“Oh, just a little sport,” he said with a careless flourish of his hat. “They’ll come to no real harm, although they might get a little chilly.”

Portia looked over her shoulder down the narrow lane. She could see no sign of either the sergeant and his men or Rufus Decatur’s men. “Why didn’t you overtake me?” She turned back to him, her eyes narrowed. “You could have done so any time you chose.”

“You were going in the right direction, so I saw no need,” he explained reasonably. “Shall we continue on our way?”

The right direction for what? Portia was beginning to feel very confused. “You’re abducting me?”

“No, I’m offering you shelter from the cold,” he corrected in the same reasonable tone. “Since you can’t continue on your way for a while longer… until my men have finished their business… it seems only chivalrous to offer you shelter.”

“Chivalrous?” Portia stared at him and quite unconsciously her voice mimicked the mockery she had so often heard from her father on the subject of Decatur honor. “A Decatur, chivalrous! Don’t make me laugh!”

“Oh, believe me, nothing is further from my intention,” Rufus said softly, and Portia’s confusion gave way to downright fear. Some demon had sprung into the bright blue gaze, and Decatur’s dormant temper was clearly wide-awake now. She could almost feel as a palpable force the power he was using to control it.

She realized with a sick feeling that he was waiting for an apology, but Jack would turn in his grave if his daughter apologized to a Decatur. And then, embarrassingly, her stomach growled loudly in the tense silence.

Quite suddenly, the demon vanished from Decatur’s eyes, and when he spoke his voice was once more coolly reasonable. “We both seem to be in need of our dinner,” he observed. “Let’s put that unfortunate exchange down to an empty belly and the fact that you don’t know me very well as yet… When you do,” he added almost reflectively, “you’ll know to be a little more careful where you tread.” He turned his horse on the narrow path. “Come, let us go in search of dinner.”

Portia wanted to respond that she had neither the interest in nor intention of furthering their acquaintance, but she opted for an indifferent shrug instead. “At least let me have my dagger back.”

“Oh, certainly.” He presented it to her politely, hilt first, watching with interest as she tucked it back into her boot. “You threw it like an expert assassin.”

“As it happens, I’ve never tried to kill anyone before, but I know how to, should the need arise.” She turned her horse beside his. “Where are you taking me?”

“A farmhouse up the road.”

“And you’ll force them to give succor to an outlaw,” she said acidly, and then immediately cursed her unruly tongue.

However, to her relief, Rufus merely chuckled. “No, no, on the contrary. The Boltons will be delighted to see me. I hope you have a good appetite, because Annie’s likely to get offended if her plates aren’t cleaned.”

Portia glanced back again over her shoulder. She couldn’t see what she could do to aid the sergeant and his men, even if she knew where they were.

Дата добавления: 2015-09-30