The Hostage Bride (48 page)

They took the York road. The sun came up, hot and dazzling, and the earth was hard, the grass smelling almost scorched. Penny seemed anxious to move quickly, her ears twitching with the knowledge of the army ahead of her, in whose ranks she knew she belonged. But Portia was in no hurry to catch up with the army. Their route would be easy to
follow, and she wanted to run no risks of premature discovery, so she held the mare to an easy trot.

The hillside was yellow and purple with broom and heather, and Portia’s heart was singing as jubilantly as the larks hovering over the fragrant heath.

Rufus would listen to her. He
would
.

T
he two men walked through the trees down to the river.
Behind them rose the smoke of cooking fires in the afternoon air and the sounds of a large army making camp. Portia shadowed them, flitting soundlessly from the concealment of tree and bush, keeping them in sight but never coming close enough to risk detection. In the last two days, since they’d left Decatur village, she’d followed Rufus whenever the opportunity arose. Sliding in and out of crowds, her eyes hungrily pursuing him, her ears straining for the sound of his voice. It was an agony to be so far from him, and yet the sweetest torment to observe him in this way, unobserved herself.

During the march that had brought them to this place, the mounted Decatur men had stayed in the van, Prince Rupert’s infantry marching behind, a small cavalry force bringing up the rear. They had bivouacked for the night outside the walls of York, and throughout that night they were joined by the rest of the royalist force, marching in from the countryside under their individual commanders.

Portia had mingled with the newcomers, safe from recognition. It was simple enough to escape attention—she was experienced enough now to know how to conduct herself in a company of soldiers, and no one questioned her claim to belong to some company positioned at another point along the line.

Whenever she saw Rufus, her stomach quivered, her body plunged forward under a spur of longing. She needed to run to him, to feel his arms strong around her, to smell his skin and hair, to run her fingers through the silky red-gold beard, to bask in the warm living light of his eyes. They had been so cold, so dreadfully distant, the last time they’d looked upon
her, and she could barely contain her need to banish that memory, to put in its place the loving, humorous, tender gaze that alone made her feel whole.

Each time she observed him, she was afraid that even across the distance that separated them he would feel the heat of her gaze, would sense the power of her need, which was so strong she felt it must pulse in the air around him, a current that flowed from her to him in ever stronger waves. Sometimes she thought it was impossible that he couldn’t feel her presence with every breath he took. But not once did he look in her direction, and her fear of confronting him, her terror that he would reject her again, kept her procrastinating, observing from afar, satisfying her need only with her eyes.

And even as she waited and planned and postponed in apprehension the moment when she would reveal herself to him, a different dread threaded black and cold through her every waking minute. She had to confront him before dawn, before the coming battle. Otherwise it might be too late.

As she moved through the throngs of men, always on the outskirts of any group, she heard the disaffection of soldiers who hadn’t been paid in months. Men who were beginning to see no point in sacrificing themselves for a cause that had little or no relevance to them. And her own dismay, she knew, would mirror Rufus’s. These men would not fight with a whole heart. Whenever they looked upon their beribboned, belaced commanders on their magnificent steeds, they felt no identification, no pride, no loyalty. No reason at all to give their lives so that these men could continue to live their own lives of wealth and privilege.

Now they were camped at the place that Prince Rupert and his commanders had designated as the battlefield on which the king’s decisive victory would be won. A few miles to the north of York, Marston Moor was a bleak expanse of moorland where two armies could maneuver in the rigid formations of pitched battle.

It was midafternoon when Portia followed Will and Rufus down to the river that flowed at the base of a small tree-studded knoll. They had left the Decatur company preparing their dinner in camp with the rest of the royalist army at the
end of a short day’s march. The standards of Parliament’s forces could be seen with the aid of a spyglass, fluttering among the tents at the far side of the moor. The atmosphere in the king’s camp was edgy, and Portia wondered how the enemy were feeling as they prepared to face the hideous reality of the coming dawn.

Will and Rufus didn’t seem to be speaking much, although Portia was too far away to hear even if they had been talking. They reached the bank of the river, and Portia crept close, ducking behind a holly bush. She was close enough now to hear them, but they said nothing to each other, merely threw off their clothes and together waded into the river.

Portia watched with the unabashed delight of a voyeur. It had been so long, it seemed, since she had seen Rufus naked. Now she wondered if he had grown thinner. She fancied his ribs were more pronounced, his back leaner. But his backside was as taut and smooth-muscled as ever, his waist as narrow, his hips as slim. She felt her loins quicken with desire when he bent to splash water over his face and his buttocks tensed and the muscles in his thighs rippled. Will, too, was a fine figure of a man, with the lean suppleness of youth, but no one could compare with Rufus. With his power, his strength, the contained authority of his body.

The two men swam for ten minutes, racing each other across the river, and it seemed to the watcher on the bank that there was a joylessness to the exercise. It was as if it were something they both needed to do for purely mechanical, practical reasons. When Rufus strode from the water, his body rising above the surface with each pace, the water flowing from him, Portia took inventory of his body, of everything that had given her so much pleasure, had filled her with such transcendent delight.

She loved his flat belly, the sharp bones of his hips, the soft pelt on his broad chest. And she adored his navel. Her tongue flickered as she relived the memory of sipping wine from that wonderfully deep indentation in his belly, her tongue delving, stroking, tickling. He would squirm beneath the tickling strokes of her tongue, his thighs would tense, the muscles of his stomach jump. She could taste on her tongue
even now the salty tip of his penis, could feel the muscular hardness as she drew him into her mouth, curling her tongue around him.

And as she crouched in the concealment of the holly bush and watched Rufus dry himself carelessly with his shirt, Portia was suddenly swept with a near ungovernable lust, so that her hands trembled, her knees were like water, and she sat down abruptly on the damp mossy undergrowth where the sun rarely reached.

Will came splashing out of the water, much more noisily than his cousin, and flung himself down on the grass. His voice carried easily to Portia.

“If you’re so pessimistic about the outcome of tomorrows battle, Rufus, why would you fight it?”

There was a moment’s silence before Rufus replied, “Two reasons. I pledged myself and Decatur men to the kings cause, and for this battle at least, I’ll stand by my pledge….” He paused, then said, “I will release any Decatur man from his loyalty to my standard if he chooses not to risk his life.”

“You know no one would do such a thing,” Will objected with some heat. “They 11 give their lives for you.”

“Yes, but why should they give their lives for a lost cause?” Rufus shrugged. “There’re men on both sides must feel that.”

“And the second reason?” Will prompted.

Rufus spoke without expression. “I intend to meet Cato Granville on the field.”

“And killing him will make you happy.” There was no question in Wills voice.

Rufus lay back on the grass, hands linked behind his head. “It will be duty done.”

“Duty done? No more than that?” Will now sounded incredulous.

Rufus turned on his side, gently encouraging an ant onto a blade of grass. “I seem to have lost my ability to care about anything, Will.”

“Because of Portia?” Will spoke hesitantly. The subject had been taboo, but he sensed something akin to an invitation now.

Again Rufus was silent. Then he sat up and reached for his
damp shirt. “I’ve come to the conclusion, Will, that a man can only give himself once to a woman … give himself heart and soul. And if that gift is spurned, it leaves him with very little interest in the future.”

He pulled on his britches. “Come, it’s time we went back to camp.” And his voice was now matter-of-fact, completely without emotion, and utterly forbidding.

Will took his cue and dressed, and the two of them walked back to the camp in much the same silence they’d held on the way to the river.

Portia stayed huddled beneath her bush for a long time before she too made her way back to the campfires.

“S
o, what d’ye think?”

Cato lowered his spyglass and turned to the man who had spoken at his elbow. Oliver Cromwell was a stocky man with shorn hair and a general air of dishevelment. His collar was stained, his jerkin spotted with grease, his hair clinging lankly to his skull.

“There’s a good four hours of daylight left,” Cato responded thoughtfully. “And judging by the cooking fires, we’ll catch ’em on the hop.”

“Precisely.” Cromwell rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. “What d’ye think, Fairfax?”

Lord Fairfax raised his well-bred nose and appeared to sniff the air. “It seems a trifle unchivalrous,” he observed. “Descending upon the enemy when they’re snug around their fires, about to sit down to dinner. But it’ll surely give us a decisive advantage.”

“Aye, and war’s hardly a chivalrous business,” Cato returned. He raised his spyglass again and looked across the expanse of moor to the enemy fires. Was Rufus Decatur among the royalist force? It was likely, and if so, if both of them survived the vagaries of battle, there was a chance they would meet on the field. A meeting that would bring an end one way or the other to the feud of their fathers. If he himself died today, either at Decatur’s hands or on the battlefield, he had no heir to perpetuate the feud. It was not a burden to be
carried by daughters. And by the same token, Rufus Decatur had no legitimate heirs to bear the burden of vengeance for the house of Rothbury.

Cato was unaware that his lips were tightly compressed as he returned his concentration to the conversation continuing around him.

“They’ll have their glasses trained on us as we have ours on them.” Lord Leven pursed his mouth in thought. “They’ll observe any overt preparations for attack.”

Cromwell’s eyes sparkled with enthusiasm, and when he spoke with conviction and authority, it was clear to his listeners that his battle plan had been made long since. “But if Fairfax brings his force to make a flanking attack to the right, their approach will be concealed by the wood … and if the Scots take the left flank, they’ll be hidden for the first hundred yards by that hill.” He gestured with his whip to the small rise in question. “The main body of the army will make a frontal attack as soon as you’ve surprised the enemy.”

“Aye, they’ll be far too occupied wi’ us to notice ye.” Lord Leven rubbed his hands and chuckled. “I reckon we’ll have won the day by sundown.”

It was unusual for the generally somber Scot to sound so optimistic, but all three men felt a surge of confidence as they envisaged the peaceful scene of an army at its evening campfires thrown into panic and disarray by an unexpected full-force attack.

“Let’s do it, then.” Cromwell spoke decisively, and with a brief handshake the four men parted to see to their dispositions.

P
ortia was squatting on her heels beside a campfire, eating
a sausage pierced on the tip of her dagger while throwing dice with two farmers’ lads from Cumbria, both of whom were terrified at the prospect of the upcoming battle, their first experience of being under fire. Portia’s idle chatter and the fact that she was steadily winning on the throw of the dice served to take their minds off their fear, and she reflected that she was performing a useful community service while lining her empty pockets.

The conversation she had overheard between Rufus and Will sent her alternately to the peaks of hope and into the pits of despair. Rufus had said he loved her. But he’d also spoken with utterly flat finality about the destruction of that love. And time was running out. Tonight she had to find him. She told herself she would finish this game, and then she would go.

The first confused sounds—shouts, the crack of musket fire, the pounding of hooves, the clash of steel—came just as she was scooping up a handful of coins amid the vigorous oaths of her fellow players. The group of men around the campfire leaped to their feet, casting aside food and ale tankards, bemusedly grabbing for their weapons lying carelessly on the grass beside them. Pandemonium ensued, men running hither and thither like headless chickens until their sergeant bellowed for order and they came to a shuffling halt while the sounds of attack continued from beyond the small copse where they had made their bivouac.