The Hostage Bride (14 page)

Portia was reading Phoebe’s letter, considerably amused by the helter-skelter rambling as the lines were crossed and recrossed. The haphazard, enthusiastic style of the letter perfectly matched her memory of the writer. She became suddenly aware that Olivia was sitting bolt upright across the table, her great black eyes fixed on her father.

“You remember Brian, of course, Olivia,” Cato was saying. “It seems he’s coming to visit us again … at least that
was
his intention. He may change his mind when he discovers Castle Granville is held for Parliament. I don’t know …” He broke off, looking startled at his daughter. “Is something the matter, Olivia?”

“No, sir,” Olivia said, but her eyes were curiously blank. She pushed back her chair. “P-please would you excuse me, sir.”

Cato looked disapproving, but he gave permission with a small nod and returned to his letter from Brian.

Olivia cast Portia a look of entreaty and then hurried from the parlor, leaving the door slightly ajar in her haste.

Portia half rose, with a questioning look at Cato, who after a second said with clear displeasure, “You had better go to
her. I assume she’s unwell. I can’t imagine what else could cause her to behave so oddly.”

Portia whisked herself from the parlor, and Cato regarded the deserted breakfast table with annoyance, wondering just why he found himself alone with the bread crumbs.

O
livia’s bedchamber was empty. Portia stood in the doorway
, tapping her teeth with a fingernail while she tried to think where Olivia could have gone. Her cloak was still hanging on its hook behind the door, her gloves lying carelessly on a low armless chair beside the window, so she didn’t seem to have gone out. As Portia turned to leave, she heard a faint sound coming from the deep fireplace, almost like the scuffling of a mouse.

“Olivia?” She stepped up to the fireplace. The fire was contained in a basket in the middle of the stone hearth, and on either side stone benches were set into the recessed walls.

Olivia was curled up in the farthest corner of one of these recesses, her whole body scrunched into a tight ball, her head turned away, buried in her hands against the wall.

Portia slipped onto the bench beside her. It was very hot, the stonework holding the fire’s warmth, and she had a fleeting moment of envy. If her own hearth had been so constructed, she’d have slept right inside it and maybe been really warm for once.

“So, what is it about this Brian fellow that’s upsetting you, duckie?” Portia asked cheerfully, laying a hand on Olivia’s averted shoulder.

“How d’you know?” Olivia raised her head and half turned toward Portia, although she remained hunched into the corner.

“Shrewd deduction,” Portia said. “One minute you’re eating your breakfast, merry as a grig, and the next, at the mere mention of this Mr. Morse, you’re beating a retreat as if all the devils in hell were on your heels.”

“He is the d-devil,” Olivia stated with clear, unadulterated loathing. A shiver went through her and she leaned forward to the fire.

“What did he do?”

There was a moment’s silence, then Olivia said, “I c-can’t tell you. I c-can’t find it.”

Portia pursed her lips, trying to make sense of this. “You mean you can’t remember?”

Olivia nodded. “I just have this t-terrible
dread
when I think of him.”

“Nasty,” Portia muttered with feeling. “I’ve met a few men who’ve made me feel like that. Nasty, slimy creatures.”

“Yes!”
Olivia sat up straight, bringing her body forward again. “Exactly. He’s a nasty, slimy
snake.”
Then she hunched over again and said in a near whisper, “I won’t b-be able to bear it if he c-comes.”

“But I’ll be here,” Portia said bracingly. “I’ve learned a trick or two when it comes to dealing with the snakes of this world.”

Olivia managed a watery smile. “I c-can’t imagine how I ever lived before you came, Portia. I’ve never had a friend b-before.”

“Well, you have one now,” Portia said with a grin. She slipped off the seat and stepped back into the chamber, which seemed like an ice box after the heat of the inglenook. “Come on,” she suggested impulsively, “Let’s go skating. The sun’s shining. The ducks’ll be hungry and it’s far too beautiful to be cooped up inside.”

Olivia’s throat felt hoarse and scratchy as if she’d been screaming at the top of her lungs for the last half hour, but the nameless dread was receding.
Maybe Brian wouldn’t come after all.
Her father had thought it a possibility.
Maybe he wouldn’t come. Wouldn’t come, wouldn’t come, wouldn’t come.
She repeated it to herself like a mantra until the words filled her head and banished the last tendrils of fear.

“We’d best creep out in c-case we meet Diana,” she said. “She’s in such a foul mood, she’s b-bound to think up something horrible for me to do this morning if she catches me.”

“And if you lend me a cloak, then I won’t have to go and fetch my own and risk bumping into Janet.” Portia went to the door and opened it a crack, peering out with an exaggerated conspiratorial air that made Olivia chuckle despite herself.

“Have this one.” Olivia unhooked her cloak from the back of the door. “I’ll wear my b-best one.” She fetched it from the armoire and clasped it at her neck; her hands were now perfectly steady when she drew on her gloves.

“Ready?” Portia drew up the hood of her cloak.

Olivia nodded.

They hurried along the passage, took the bridge to the battlements, and climbed down a night of stone stairs that took them safely into the outer ward, where neither Diana nor Janet Beckton would be likely to venture.

The outer ward was busy, troops hurrying between the stables, the armorer, the blacksmith, the farrier. A wagon full of supplies was being unloaded outside the granary, another with kegs of ale and barrels of wine stood before the ramp leading down to the cellars.

“Why is my father b-bringing in so many supplies?” Olivia asked.

“Probably preparing for a siege,” Portia replied as they entered the stables to pick up their skates and stuff their pockets with grain for the ice-bound ducks on the moat. “There’s not much fighting in dead of winter, but once spring comes, the fun really will begin. And Castle Granville is such a powerful fortress, and your father has raised such a large militia, it might well suit the king’s men to besiege it … keep your father and his army out of the fighting.”

“Oh.” Olivia absorbed this. She hadn’t really come to terms with the idea of the war, let alone its reality. It didn’t really touch her in the family security of the donjon, except that she was forbidden to leave the castle to ride or go hawking, or even visit the village of Granville that nestled at the base of the hill. But the weather had been so foul, she hadn’t really noticed the restrictions too much. Come spring, she would.

She hurried after Portia onto the drawbridge, her bone skates clutched beneath her arm. Skating on the moat had become perforce their favorite outdoor activity, since anything else outside the battlements was forbidden.

Portia was already halfway down to the moat, climbing down the iron ladder from the drawbridge. She sat on the ice
to strap on her skates, then rose easily, much more surefooted now than she had been a short while ago.

She skated into the middle of the moat while Olivia fastened her own blades, and tried an experimental twirl, her eyes seeking and finding the darker line in the stone beneath the drawbridge that indicated the secret door. Maybe tonight, if there was no delivery, she would see if she could open it from the outside. It must connect with some passage within the walls, but her chances of finding that from within the warren of the battlements were not good. There must be a catch or lever in the stone … unless, of course, it couldn’t be opened from the moat….

“T
here they are. Just the same as yesterday.” George
pointed down to the moat. The eyes of his two dark-cloaked companions followed his finger. They were concealed in a thicket of bushes on a small knoll across from the drawbridge, and they were all aware of how dangerous was their position, a few hundred yards from Castle Granville, on a bright sunny morning.

“But just ’ow are we to pluck the lassie off the ice under the eyes of them there watchtowers?” mused a short, thickset man with a grizzled beard.

“Watch and see, Titus,” George instructed with something approaching a grin. “If they do like yesterday, they’ll be skatin’ aroun’ t’ moat to feed the ducks on the island. An’ on t’other side of the little island they’ll be out of sight of the towers fer a few minutes. We can lift ’er off the ice there easy as pie.”

“Which one’s ours?”

“Lassie in t’ blue cloak. Master watched ’em on the moat when ’e went in to the feast…. Ah, there they go! Let’s get on wi’ it now.” George was impatient. Every minute they hung around put them in danger of a noose on the battlements of Castle Granville.

The three Decatur men moved stealthily forward, keeping within the concealment of the bushes, following the skaters as they circled the moat.

The island on the far side of the castle was a small, tree-strewn
rock sticking up out of the ice. Ducks gathered on the edge, looking mournfully at the frozen surface of the water. When the skaters came into view, they launched themselves skittering onto the ice, their raucous squawking filling the air.

George and his men were close to the edge of the moat now, in the lee of the island. The noise of the ducks would drown any sound of their approach, and, as George had noted, at this point they were shielded by the island from the castle sentries.

The two girls were surrounded by ducks as they scattered grain on the ice. They had their backs to the shore, and when the three men darted, crouched low and utterly silent, across the moat, Portia and Olivia were aware of nothing but the excited waterfowl.

Until something alerted Portia, some atavistic warning of danger. She whirled around just as the thick blanket fell over her head, plunging her into a suffocating darkness, tangling her limbs, throwing her off balance, so she would have fallen had she not been grabbed up off the ice, the blanket wrapped securely around her, trapping her in a tight cocoon. She heard Olivia’s scream somewhere outside the stifling blackness, and then she was aware only of being carried at a loping run.

She fought but it was impossible to break free of her swaddling bands. She tried to shout but her mouth became full of lint and hair from the blanket. A hand grasped her head and forced her face into the chest of her abductor. Her nose and mouth were instantly pressed against something hard and unyielding, and she could barely breathe.

She could hear branches cracking, undergrowth crashing beneath booted feet, then someone else took her as if she were a well-wrapped parcel. The skates were unstrapped from her boots as she was held aloft, then she was lifted high in the air and passed over yet again, cradled tightly, turned once more against the iron-hard chest. The horse beneath her leaped forward and the arms holding her tightened, cushioning her against the violent pace of the galloping steed.

Her head was pounding as she tried to grab for air, tried with her tongue to get rid of the sticky fibers filling her mouth, tried to fight down the panic of complete incomprehension.
What was happening was unbelievable. There was no rhyme or reason for such an abduction. No one bore her any ill will. She had neither friends nor enemies in this part of the world outside the walls of Castle Granville.

And she was going to faint
Her head swam, her heart raced, cold sweat pricked her skin. And then, mercifully, her head was turned away from the chest, the stifling blanket was loosened and a cold gush of air fanned her face.

She gasped eagerly, turning her face up to the sky that raced by as the horse galloped flat out across the hillside. She could hear other hoofbeats, but she was held in such a way that she could only look upward at the sky.

“Take it easy, lassie,” a gruff voice said from above her. “We’ve a long ride ahead an’ if ye’ll promise to sit still an’ keep quiet, I’ll let ye sit up a bit.”

Portia was not at all sure she was prepared to keep any promises she made in this situation, but she made a gesture with her captured head that could have been interpreted as agreement. The half nod was instantly rewarded by a merciful change in position. She was hitched up until she was half sitting on the saddle in front of her captor. Her arms and legs were still trapped in the blanket and she had to rely on the man to hold her securely on the horse, but at least her head was free and she could see.

Her abductor was a burly man with a red face and a cheerful eye that struck Portia as insultingly incongruous in the circumstances. His cloak blew back in the breeze and she saw what had been so hard against her face. He wore a steel breastplate—serious armor for an abduction.

Two men rode alongside them, their horses matching the breakneck speed of her captor’s. They too wore breastplates beneath their dark cloaks, and they kept their eyes on the path ahead, not once glancing with even mild curiosity in her direction.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Never ye mind, lass,” her captor said comfortably.

“But I
do
mind! Of course I mind!” she protested, more astonished than indignant at such a ridiculous instruction. “How could I not mind being abducted like this?”

“Settle down,” he advised in the same friendly tone. “Its not my place to say anythin’, so if ye want to ride comfortably, ye’d do best to keep a still tongue in yer ’ead an’ enjoy the scenery.”

Portia’s jaw dropped and she was momentarily silenced. Then recovering herself again, she demanded, “You could at least free my hands so that I can get this mucky stuff out of my mouth.”

“And what stuff would that be?” he inquired curiously.

“From that filthy blanket,” Portia almost spat.

“’Old on.” He rummaged in his pocket and produced a large kerchief. “’Ere, stick out yer tongue, lass.”

“Let me do it myself!”

He shrugged and made to replace the kerchief, and Portia thought better of her refusal, sticking out her tongue with bad grace. But it was a relief to have the bits of fiber and lint removed and even more so when he held a water bottle to her lips.