“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.