The Hostage Bride by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online Page B

and maintain her independence by following the drum.
    Portia almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of that childish game. She’d still had the ability to play the child three years ago. But no longer.
    Her uncle was offering her a home. There didn’t seem to be any conditions attached to the offer, but Portia knew kindness never came without strings. But what could the illegitimate daughter of the marquis’s wastrel half brother do for Lord Granville? She couldn’t marry for him, bringing the family powerful alliances and grand estates in her marriage contracts. No one would wed a penniless bastard. He couldn’t need another servant, he must have plenty.
    So why?
    “Lady Olivia asked me to give
you
this.” Sergeant Crampton interrupted her puzzled thoughts. He laid a wafer-sealed paper on the counter.
    Portia opened it. A tricolored ring of braided hair fell out. A black lock entwined with a fair and a red.
    Please come.
They were the only two words on the paper that had contained the ring.
    This time Portia did laugh aloud at the childish whimsy of it all. What did games in a boathouse have to do with her own grim struggle for survival?
    “If I thank Lord Granville for his offer but would prefer to remain as I am …?” She raised an eyebrow.
    “Then, ’tis your choice, mistress.” He glanced pointedly around the taproom. “But seems
to me
there’s
no
choice for a body with half a wit.”
    Portia scooped the ring back into the paper and screwed it tight, dropping it into her bosom. “No, you’re right, Sergeant. Better the devil I don’t know to the one I do….”
    So here she was three days’ ride out of Edinburgh, service-ably if not elegantly clad in good boots and a thick riding cloak over a gown of dark wool and several very clean woolen petticoats discreetly covering a pair of soft leather britches so she could ride comfortably astride. Midwinter journeys on the rough tracks of the Scottish border were not for sidesaddle riders.
    Sergeant Crampton had given her money without explanation or instruction, for which Portia had been grateful. She didn’t like taking charity, but the sergeant’s matter-of-fact attitude had saved her embarrassment. And common sense had dictated that she accept the offering. She certainly couldn’t have journeyed any distance in the clothes she had on her back.
    Despite the bitter cold and the constant freezing damp that trickled down her neck whenever she shook off her hood, Portia was pleasantly exhilarated. It had been several years since she’d had a decent horse to ride. Jack had been very particular about horseflesh, refusing to provide either himself or his daughter with anything but prime cattle, until the drink had ended both his physical ability to ride and his ability to keep them from total penury with his skill at the gaming tables.
    “Y’are doin’ all right, mistress?” The sergeant brought his mount alongside Portia’s. His eyes roamed the bleak landscape even as he spoke to her, and she sensed an unusual tension in the man, who was generally phlegmatic to the point of apparent sleepiness.
    “I’m fine, Sergeant,” Portia replied. “This is a miserable part of the world, though.”
    “Aye,” he agreed. “But another four hours should see us home. I’d not wish to stop before, if ye can manage it.”
    “Without difficulty,” Portia said easily. She was accustomed to hunger. “Is there danger here?”
    “It’s Decatur land. Goddamned moss-troopers.” Giles spat in disgust.
    “Moss-troopers! But I thought they’d been run out of the hills years ago.”
    “Aye, all but the Decaturs. They’re holed up in the Cheviots, where they prey on Granville land and cattle. Murdering, thieving bastards!”
    Portia remembered what Jack had told her of the feud between the house of Rothbury and the house of Granville. Jack had had grim memories of the father he and Cato had shared. A man of unbending temperament, a harsh disciplinarian, a father who