The Hostage Bride (45 page)

“Caught ’im comin’ outta the castle, sir. Outta the wall … some kind o’ concealed entrance. ’e was swimmin’ across the moat.”

“Scrawny looking lad,” the captain observed. He reached down and yanked Portia to her feet by her collar. “So, let’s hear your story, m’lad.”

Portia shook her head, then reeled as the captain’s hand slammed across her mouth, his heavy signet ring cutting her lip.

“Come, come,” he said, all persuasive malice. “You’ll be singing soon enough. Who are you?”

Portia wiped blood from her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’m with the Decatur militia.”

The captain struck her again across her cheek and she reeled and fell to her knees. “Fetch Lord Rothbury,” she gasped through the tears of pain that clogged her throat. She had never been mistreated in such a way, and with her terror came a surge of rage that anyone would dare to use her with such uncalled-for violence. “He’ll vouch for me.”

There was a moment of silence. Then the captain said, “And just what d’you know of Lord Rothbury, fellow-me-lad?”

“I told you. I’m with his militia,” Portia repeated doggedly. She staggered to her feet

The man hesitated, uncertain how to proceed in the face of the prisoner’s apparent certainty. “All right,” he said eventually. “But if this is some kind of trick, my lad, you’ll pay for it.” He turned to one of the sentries. “Go and rouse Lord Rothbury. The rest of you go back on watch.”

T
he sentry’s urgent call roused Rufus from sleep. He had
sat up and was out of his cot in one movement, reaching for his britches. “What is it?”

“Captain of the guard sent me, m’lord. We’ve caught a prisoner, sir, comin’ outta the castle, swimmin’ across the moat. Captain wants to interrogate ’im, but the prisoner says as ’ow you’ll know ’im.”

“Sounds interesting,” Rufus observed, dressing rapidly. An escapee from Castle Granville was certainly an interesting development.

He followed the sentry through the camp, ducking into the entrance of the guard tent with a cheerful, “So, what have we here, Captain?”

Portia was standing somewhat unsteadily in the center of the tent. Rufus took in her soaked clothes, her swollen and bleeding mouth, the dark swelling on her cheekbone.

“What in the name of sanity …” he began, turning angrily to the captain of the guard. “What the
hell
is this?”

The captain found himself blustering under the livid glare of the earl of Rothbury. “We caught him trying to swim the moat from the castle, m’lord. The watchmen saw him come out of the castle by a hidden door.” He saw the earls expression change and said with more assurance, “He says you know him, m’lord.”

Rufus ignored the captain. He turned to Portia, his face now carved in granite, his eyes empty. “What were you doing in the castle?”

Portia touched her lip again with a fingertip. It came away sticky with blood. “I went to see Olivia and Phoebe.” It seemed simpler to tell the plain truth without protestations and defenses at this point. But she saw with a desperate sinking of her heart that Rufus was already gone from her.

“How did you get in?” There was no expression to his voice or on his countenance. It was as if he had not the slightest interest in the person whom he was questioning, only in the information.

“There’s a concealed door,” she said miserably. “I discovered it when I was staying in the castle.”

Now that deep and apparently baseless unease was explained. Now it seemed to Rufus that everything fell into place. She had known of the door and she had said not one word. The siege could have been ended long since if the besiegers had been able to enter the castle by surprise. She had had that information and she had not divulged it. And there could be but one reason for her silence.

Now he knew that she had been deceiving him all along. She had come to him with information that would convince him of her credentials, but Granville had offered him the treasure only as a means to plant a spy in his camp. It was so simple and he’d fallen for it. He had just once dropped his guard with a Granville, and they’d made a fool of him.

The cold dispassion left him and the dreadful devils of rage
that he thought would tear him asunder pulsed in his voice. “You’ve been using it to gain entry to the castle ever since we began the siege. You’ve been visiting your family, carrying information, providing comfort. What has Cato to say about—” “No!” she cried. “No, I have not. This was the first time. I did not betray you, Rufus. I wanted to see my friends. That was all.”

“Your pardon, m’lord, but I’m confused.” The captain spoke up hesitantly. “This is one of your men, then?”

Rufus leaned forward and plucked the cap from Portia’s head. “No,” he said distantly. “She’s not one of my men, but she travels with us.”

“Oh, aye.” The captain nodded his understanding. Camp followers were common enough, although it was unusual to see them dressed as this one was. But then, this one had been up to something more sinister than merely following the drum. “But she’s been spying, you say?”

“So it would seem,” he said as distantly as before. “And not for the first time.”

“No, I haven’t!” Portia heard the desperation in her voice. She couldn’t believe that Rufus had denied her to the captain … had relegated her to the status of a whore. “You
know
I haven’t, Rufus.”

He ignored the appeal. “You do not deny that you entered the castle by a secret entrance?”

“No.”

“You do not deny that you knew that by so doing you were consorting with the enemy?”

“Olivia and Phoebe aren’t the enemy,” she said, her voice dull as she understood that she was not going to convince him of the innocence of her errand … not this time.

“You were in that castle. You were among the enemy.” He waved a dismissive hand. “You swore allegiance to the Decatur standard and you betrayed that allegiance.”

Portia shook her head, her cheek and lip throbbing. “Please, Rufus—”

“Did you take anything into the castle?” The interruption was as hard and rasping as a file against iron.

She looked at him, bewildered. “lust fruit,” she said. “I
thought they might be thirsty.” And then she heard how she had finally condemned herself.

The captain said swiftly, “That’s offering comfort and succor to the rebels, the king’s enemies. It’s treason and a matter for headquarters.”

Rufus looked steadily at Portia. “How could I have been so deceived?” he said. “You are a Granville. You carry the germ of deceit and betrayal in your blood.” He turned away with a gesture of disgust.

“It’s a matter for headquarters, m’lord,” the captain repeated. “She’ll be sent there for questioning as soon as it’s light.”

“Rufus …” Portia held out her hand in appeal. He couldn’t walk away from her. Surely he couldn’t.

He glanced over his shoulder and said with the same cold distance. “I can do nothing for you. You condemned yourself.” He pushed through the tent door and was gone.

Portia stared at the tent flap still stirring where he’d roughly thrust it aside. She couldn’t believe that her whole world had collapsed, so suddenly, so completely, and so without just cause. But they were binding her hands with thick, rough rope and prodding her forward, out into the night, and the reality of imprisonment, of the horrors of interrogation that awaited her in York, of the spy’s noose at the end of the agony, filled her mind. She wanted to scream at the injustice, but her tongue was locked.

They forced her to sit at the base of a tree a few hundred yards from the guard tent, and they tied her securely to the trunk with rope beneath her arms. They used the loose end of the rope that held her wrists to bind her ankles as well, and then they left her trussed, wet and shivering, to await the dawn.

R
ufus walked through the camp. He was blind and deaf
locked into his own world where the rage burned bright as a volcano, and the hurt was a black pit as cold as the rage was hot. But at last something broke through the trance, and he heard his own voice over and over in his head, “There is
nothing I can do for you.” It became a chant, blocking out all else, and finally he stopped walking and turned back to find Will.

Whatever she’d done, he could not condemn her to what awaited her in York. The madness of obsession had driven him to speak as he had done, but he was in control now. Oh, the rage still burned, and the hurt still froze some central core of his being, but he was rational again and he could not forget what she had been to him, what she had meant to him. He could not stand aside while they hurt her, and he could not watch her death. She was false, she deserved what they would do to her, but he could not let it happen.

Will listened in disbelief to what had occurred, but he offered no comment, recognizing that the master of Decatur was but newly in control of his devils. He heard his orders and slipped away through the camp.

P
ortia leaned her head against the trunk of the tree. Her
face burned and throbbed, and she had lost feeling in her hands. When Will appeared out of the trees behind her, she merely looked at him, her mouth too swollen to move even had she thought of anything to say.

He knelt and swiftly cut her bonds. “Come. You must be away from here before they come to take you.”

She managed to speak. “I don’t know whether I can walk.” She didn’t even know whether she could stand. Her mind could no longer keep track of what was happening, and her body seemed simply to have given up.

Will didn’t reply. He lifted her easily and at a half run carried her back to Rufus’s tent. Rufus was waiting for her, but his eyes were cold and distant as Will set her down on her cot and then hurried out.

“Get out of those wet clothes, quickly,” Rufus instructed, indicating the pile of dry clothes he’d set out. “If you’re still here at dawn, I won’t be able to save you.
Be quick.”

In a daze, Portia stripped and dragged on the clean garments and her spare pair of boots. The silence that bound them was hideous. She couldn’t bear to look at his face and
see there the dreadful contempt and the betrayal in his eyes. She sensed that the terrifying rage was gone, but this cold and scornful disdain was almost worse. But she did not venture a word more in her defense.

George entered just as she’d pulled on her boots. “Horses’re ready,” he said, and seemed deliberately to avert his eyes from Portia.

“You’ll need to help her to mount. She’s exhausted.” It was the first time he had acknowledged her condition, and Portia felt an instant’s hope. But when she looked toward him, he merely looked through her as if she were made of air.

George simply lifted her as Will had done, carried her out, and hoisted her up onto Penny. “I’ll lead her. Just hold on to the pommel,” he instructed.

Portia obeyed. Rufus had not followed them out of the tent, and she couldn’t even summon up the energy to ask where George was taking her. As he clicked his tongue and set their horses in motion, Juno barreled out of the undergrowth, yapping excitedly, prancing on her hind legs demanding to be lifted up to the saddle. George ignored the puppy and urged the horses to a trot.

“George, please.” Portia could hear the tears in her voice. “Juno …”

George swore. “My orders said nothin’ about that damn puppy.”

“Please.”

He looked at her properly for the first time, it seemed, and there was a softening to his mouth. Then he drew rein and when Juno bounded up, he leaned down, caught her by the scruff of the neck, and yanked her upward. “’Ere.” He handed the puppy across to Portia, who managed a painful smile of thanks. She didn’t know where she was going, but having Juno was an immediate comfort.

The next hours passed in a daze. She didn’t know whether she slept or was just unconscious some of the time. All her being was centered on her hands clinging to the pommel. If she didn’t let go, it didn’t matter that her eyes were closed, her head drooping, her body swaying. Her mind had ceased to work. She couldn’t think of what had happened, or what
might happen. She existed only in this moment, this little space in time that contained her body.

She was barely aware when they passed through the sentry posts into Decatur village. The posts were unmanned, the fires unlit. The village was no longer a martial establishment, and its few occupants were content with the small rituals of daily living that provided a threat to no one.

George led Penny to a stone building on the outskirts of the village. It was small and square, its windows barred, its single door of massive oak kept closed with a heavy bar across it on the outside. It was the Decatur prison.

Portia half fell into George’s arms as he reached up to help her dismount. She was clutching Juno as if the puppy were her only connection with life. She didn’t take in her surroundings, merely stood swaying as George raised the iron-bound bar across the door and opened it. He urged her inside into the dark and musty interior. There were two cells. Small, stone-floored, barred spaces, each containing a narrow cot and a bucket. It was a prison, not designed for comfort.

“In ’ere, lass.” George swung open one of the barred doors and gave her a little push into the cell. “I’ll fetch ye some water an’ some bread. The master says y’are to stay ’ere until ’e’s decided what to do wi’ ye.”

Portia dropped onto the cot. There were two thin blankets and it seemed like heaven. She rolled herself into the blankets and was instantly unconscious, Juno curled tightly against her breast. She didn’t hear George return with a pitcher of water and a loaf of bread, which he set down on the floor of her cell, didn’t hear the key grate in the lock or the heavy bar fall in place on the outside door.

Juno awoke her hours later. It was dark and Portia for a moment had no idea where she was, or even, for a terrifying instant,
who
she was. The puppy was scratching and whining at the barred door, clearly desperate to go outside.

“Oh God!” Portia sat up, memory flooding back and with it the now familiar misery of waking nausea. Her face felt stiff and sore, her mouth twice its normal size. She stumbled to the bucket and retched, but it was so long since she’d eaten, she brought up nothing. Juno continued to whine.