“Aye, so ‘tis.” Giles Crampton appeared out of the dimness. “Lord be thanked! The filthy bastard let you go.” He reached up to help her from her horse. “Are ye all right, lass? Did he ’urt ye?” The anxiety rasped in his voice. “If he put his filthy ‘ands-”
“No, no, nothing happened!” Portia interrupted. “And he brought me back to you. But what happened?” She could make out all five men now and wondered stupidly what it was that was so different about them. Their coats were undone… had no buttons, she saw. It looked as if the buttons had been sliced off. And then she realized what was different. They had all sported some form of facial hair-beards, sideburns, mustaches. But they were now all clean shaven, faces shining pink and bare as a baby’s bottom.
She was about to exclaim and then some deep female instinct kept her silent. Such humiliation left them naked, exposed, a prey to their own self-disgust.
“I suppose the Decatur men robbed you?” she asked, clapping her hands together, shivering in the icy cave.
“Aye, thieving, murderin‘ swine! Took every last coin we had. Everything worth more than a groat… includin’ our weapons.” Giles turned away from her, unable to hide his mortification. “We’re lucky they left us the horses.”
“Aye, they left ‘em, but wi’out saddles or bridles,” one of the others said bitterly. “Come into the back, mistress. We’ve lit a bit o’ fire. Not much like, but better’n nothing.”
Portia went eagerly toward the small red glow at the far back of the cave. They’d found a few sticks of kindling, and the fire, though small, was as welcome as a yule log in a Christmas inglenook.
“How long will the storm last, do you think?” She bent to warm her frozen hands.
Giles came back from the cave entrance. “ ‘Tis a nor’easter. They usually blow ’emselves out in a couple of hours.”
“And it’s four hours’ ride to Granville Castle?”
“Four hours fast riding. But we’ll be lucky to do more ‘an two miles an hour through the drifts.”
It was a bleak prospect. Portia shivered, hugging herself convulsively.
“What did the bastard Decatur want wi‘ you, mistress?”
“He wanted to know who I was,” she replied to Giles’s question.
Giles frowned. “And ye told ‘im and ’e brought ye back ere?”
“Basically,” she said, realizing that she didn’t wish to talk of Annie’s cottage and soup and pig’s cheek and fire in front of these men, who, on Rufus Decatur’s orders, had been tormented and humiliated and robbed.
Giles grunted, but he seemed to know she’d left much unsaid. He left her and returned to the mouth of the cave.
Portia felt the eyes of the men on her. They were clearly speculating, and they were now rather less friendly than before. Obviously, to receive anything other than ill treatment from a Decatur gave rise to suspicion, although she couldn’t imagine what they were suspecting. Consorting with the enemy… fraternizing with an outlaw brigand?
It was all very uncomfortable and she was overwhelmingly glad when Giles announced that the blizzard had let up enough to enable them to leave. The men rode their horses bareback, drawing their cloaks tightly across their opened jackets in a vain effort to keep out the piercing stabs of cold.
They rode in the same formation as before, Portia with Giles sandwiched between the other four. It provided Portia with a windbreak, but the morose silence of her companions was little comfort. They rode through silent shuttered hamlets like ghosts in the night. Not even the taverns showed a welcoming light.
“Is this still Decatur land?” Portia ventured after they’d been riding for an hour.
“Half an‘ ’alf,” Giles replied. “But we’ll not risk askin‘ fer succor until we’re well into Granville territory.”
“It’s wretched weather for armies on the move,” she said, trying to make conversation, to turn their minds to broader issues.
“Like as not, they’ll be ‘oled up someplace.”
“I hope so for their sakes. King or Parliament, you wouldn’t want to be fighting more than the weather,” Portia observed, steadying Patches as he stumbled into a drift up to his hocks. Giles merely grunted in response, reaching over to grab her bit to haul her horse forward through the snowbank.
Portia abandoned conversation and let her mind wander into a world where fires burned bright and hot, tables groaned under laden platters of meat and pitchers of wine and ale, beds were deeply feathered with thick quilted comforters atop. It was a fantasy she’d often employed in the past to deal with the grimmer reality and was so adept at it she could actually taste the food on her tongue and feel the warmth licking her limbs.
The snow had stopped, bright starlight now filling an achingly clear sky when they reached Castle Granville. Portia stared upward at the forbidding gray structure, with its donjon and keeps, its parapets and battlements. It bore no relation to a family home, and she remembered the gracious half-timbered manor house on the banks of the Thames where Cato had married his second wife, the impossibly beautiful and elegant Lady Diana Carlton.
It was hard to imagine that lady making a home for herself here.
As they clattered over the drawbridge that lay across a wide frozen moat, the iron portcullis was raised to admit them into the outer bailey. The opposing armies might be holed up by the warmth of their separate fires, but the country was still at war and Lord Granville’s castle was closed to the outside world.
Men ran forward to take their horses, shouting questions, exclaiming at the lateness of the hour. The snow had been swept from the cobbles and lay in huge piles against the walls, rosy and glittering in the light of the pitch torches flaring from poles. Patches shuffled in the straw scattered over the cobbles to prevent slipping on the ice-slick surface. Portia wondered what to do.
Her escorts had all dismounted and were surrounded by their own comrades. Giles was striding toward the archway leading to the inner bailey. Before he reached it, a slender cloaked figure emerged into the bailey. The girl began to run toward Portia and Patches.
“P-Portia… I am so glad you’re here!” Olivia exclaimed as she took hold of Patches’ bridle, her black eyes shining in the torchlight. “I c-can’t tell you how glad I am.”
“I’m rather glad to be here myself,” Portia said a little awkwardly. She remembered that Olivia had seemed tall for her age when they’d met at the wedding, and that had not changed. Indeed, she was now almost as tall as Portia, her small head crowned with dark braids, and despite the glow of pleasure in her eyes, there was still an underlying somberness to her expression.
Portia swung down to the cobbles. She didn’t know what to do next, but something seemed required. She stuck out her hand. “How are you? Three years is a long time.”
Olivia took the proffered hand and shook it, smiling shyly. “I’m quite well, thank you.”
“Welcome to Castle Granville, Portia.”
Portia turned at the quiet voice. Her father’s half brother was a tall, lean man with brown eyes, an aquiline nose, and a well-sculptured mouth. His brown hair receded from his forehead in a pronounced widow’s peak. He drew off his glove and extended his hand.
Hastily Portia followed suit.
“You’re cold,” he said, chafing her fingers. “You’ve had a dreadful journey in that blizzard.” He nodded toward Giles, who had retraced his steps to come up beside his lord.
“We ran into an ambush, sir.”
Cato’s expression lost its benevolence. “Decatur?”
“Aye, sir.” Giles nodded.
Cato released Portia’s hands. “Take your cousin into the warmth, Olivia, and see to her needs. She’s half frozen.” He turned to Giles. “Come, man, let’s hear it.”
They walked off toward the keep, where the men were housed. Portia pulled on her glove again.
“This way.” Olivia led the way to the arch leading to the inner bailey and the donjon.