“You are an unmitigated son of a bitch,” Portia said softly, realizing that they had just come dangerously close to a moment of affability.
“Eh, watch yer tongue!” Josiah exclaimed, for once shocked out of his customary placidity. “You don’t use language like that to the master.”
“Ah, but Mistress Worth acknowledges no master,” Rufus said. “Isn’t that so?” He raised an interrogative eyebrow at Portia. “Isn’t it so?” he repeated when she made no answer.
“I’ve yet to meet someone worth the title,” she said frigidly. “And I don’t expect to… not in this life.” She rose to her feet, preparing to return upstairs.
Rufus moved swiftly, catching her around the waist and lifting her down into the kitchen. He held her shoulders and smiled down into her furious face. “Come, Portia, I was merely jesting. Let’s call a truce. Help Josiah with the boys, and I’ll find you a change of clothes. It’s a beautiful morning, and if you promise not to quarrel, I’ll take you out for a walk and show you around the village.”
It was such a volte-face Portia was momentarily speechless. His vivid blue gaze danced with laughter, his mouth curved in a smile of unexpected sweetness. “Truce?” He pressed the tip of her nose with a forefinger.
God, how she hated him! He was manipulating her again, teasing her with all the deceit and arrogance of men the world over. How could he know that when he touched her and looked at her in that way it made her blood sing? Her loathing of the man just seemed to slide away under a smile that seemed to imply some deep knowledge of the world, of herself, even. But he did know and he was using it for his own ends.
The sheer force of his personality, his physical presence itself, was somehow dictating how she was to respond to him, overpowering her own sense of what was rational and legitimate in the circumstances.
Rufus let his hands fall from her shoulders, and Portia stepped away from him, her hands half lifted as if to ward something off.
“Truce,” she said in a voice that didn’t sound quite like her own. Then she turned abruptly to where the boys still stood at the back of the room and lunged for Luke, catching him up in a shrieking tangle of limbs. Josiah caught Toby as he dived between the legs of the table.
Rufus stood for a minute, unaware that he was smiling as he wondered what it was about his accidental hostage that was so appealing. She was all spikes and sparks, and yet there were moments when he saw beneath the antagonism, and what he saw he found utterly delightful.
It was disturbing. He turned on his heel and left the shrieking chaos of the cottage.
When he returned half an hour later, it was to find his sons in clean clothes, astonishingly subdued, damp curls clinging to their scalps, cheeks scrubbed shiny. They were sitting by the fire, shivering intermittently like newly bathed puppies, and regarded their father with large eyes filled with recrimination.
“I’m cold,” Toby said reproachfully.
“We’re both cold,” his brother chimed in.
“They’re only cold because their skin isn’t used to fresh air and water,” Portia said. “We almost had to scrape the grime off them.”
“Well, I’ve fulfilled my side of the bargain. See what you think of these.” Rufus handed her a bundle, with a strange gleam in his eye that put Portia immediately on her guard.
“I’ll be off, then, master.” Josiah headed for the door, Luke and Toby on his heels, as Portia took the bundle gingerly, almost as if she were expecting it to conceal a sharp-toothed ferret.
“What are these?” Portia gestured to the parcel.
Rufus grinned. “Take them upstairs and find out. I think you’ll be surprised.”
“Good surprised or bad surprised?”
“I don’t know. But they were all I could find. We have a rather limited supply of spare garments in the compound.”
Portia, now convinced that it was going to be an unpleasant surprise, carried the bundle upstairs. Presumably he’d found her some peasant woman’s rough homespun gown and holland petticoat. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and if they were clean she’d not complain.
She laid the bundle on the bed and untied it. She stared in astonishment and then lifted up the garments one by one, shaking them out. A pair of doeskin britches, woolen stockings and garters, a shirt of unbleached linen, woolen under-drawers, a sleeveless jerkin of dark worsted, and a frieze wool cloak. There was even a belt, and a new pair of gloves to replace the split ones. Rufus had thought of everything.
Astonishment gave way to delight. She’d always wanted to shed the irksome trappings of femalehood. Here was her chance.
The water Josiah had brought her earlier was tepid now, but she washed herself thoroughly, shivering but resolute. Then, with almost languid pleasure, she dressed, relishing the strange feel of the garments. She sat on the bed to pull on her own boots, then slowly stood up, running her hands down the unfamiliarly delineated length of her body. There was a wonderful sense of freedom in these garments, and they seemed warmer than gowns and petticoats. The woolen underdrawers helped, of course, and the leather britches seemed to resist the cold better. It was, Portia decided, a vast improvement on her previous incarnation, but there was no mirror in Rufus’s bedchamber, so she had no way of telling what she looked like.
Rufus had his back to the stairs as she came down, but he turned at the sound of her step. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of her. “How do you like them?” He regarded her over the rim of his tankard as he took a sip of ale.
“I’ve always believed I was supposed to have been born a boy,” Portia said. “I’m not formed like a woman. I don’t have any curves or anything.”
“I wouldn’t say no curves,” Rufus murmured consideringly. “Turn around.”
Portia obeyed.
Rufus’s gaze ran slowly down the slender frame. Her legs in the britches seemed even longer than usual. The jerkin sat on her hips and was buttoned tight into the indentation of her waist cinched by the belt.
“It suits you,” he pronounced finally, his eyes alight with appreciation.
Portia’s smile was involuntary and so full of delight that Rufus was strangely moved. He had the feeling she hadn’t received too many compliments in her life. Unless, of course, other hands had come into contact with that exquisitely fine skin, or some other man could appreciate a spirit so unyielding, reflected in a pair of widely spaced, slanted, pure green cat’s eyes.
“Now you’re dressed, we’re going to take a tour of the compound,” he said, his tone crisp as he returned to business. He handed her the frieze cloak. “Put this on.”
“I can’t think why I would wish to tour a thieves’ den,” Portia retorted, automatically taking the cloak. “You may well think it’s the duty of a courteous host, but I do assure you it’s a courtesy I can forgo.”
The moment of truce was clearly over.
Rufus regarded her steadily, his eyes hard as diamonds.
“Make no mistake, Mistress Worth. This tour has a very straightforward purpose. It’s by way of saving myself further trouble. I wish you to understand that any other attempt to leave this compound will be utterly futile. You cannot escape from here undetected.”
“And how long do you intend to keep me here?”
“I haven’t as yet decided,” he said shortly.
“But Lord Granville isn’t going to pay any ransom for me. You already know that.”
“My decision will not necessarily be based on Cato’s actions.”
Portia’s mouth was a little dry. “Are you going to kill me?”
“What on earth would give you that idea?” Rufus frowned at her.
“You’re a thief and a kidnapper. You hate Granvilles, and I’m a Granville,” she stated, trying to ignore the blue fire now enlivening his gaze, the little pulse beating rapidly in his temple.