“No,” he said frankly. “I’ll never discover all I need to know about Cato Granville’s affairs. However, I want you to come inside and finish your dinner.”

“I’ll not come in while my uncle’s men are being used as sport.”

Rufus abruptly lost patience. He’d done what he could, coaxed and cajoled enough to save a damned Granville from an empty belly and an ague.

“Please yourself then.” He turned and went back inside. He took her cloak from beside the door and tossed it along the path toward her. Then he stepped back into the warmth and closed the door.

Portia ran to pick up her cloak before it became soaked on the snow-covered ground. The flakes were now thick and growing heavier. She wrapped herself in the garment and walked purposefully around the side of the cottage, following the horses’ hoofprints. There would be a stable, and stables were a damn sight warmer than the open air.

She found a substantial wooden structure at the rear of the cottage. Four horses, two of them shires, filled the small space with steaming breath and the rich smell of horseflesh. Tack hung on the wall, and she found her own saddle slung over a crossbeam.

There was no sign of the boy. Nothing to stop her saddling up and riding out. She stood frowning. Would escape be this easy? She had nothing to lose by finding out.

“Come on then, Patches.” She backed the originally named piebald out of the stall. He turned his head and whickered at the smell of snow from the open door behind her. “Yes, I’m sorry, but we have to go out there.” She hoisted the saddle off the beam and flung it over his back. “Even if we can’t find the sergeant and his men, there’s got to be a town or hamlet friendly to the Granvilles somewhere close by in this godforsaken land.”

Her fingers were numb even within her gloves, and buckling bridle and girth took longer than it should have done. However, finally she was ready. She vaulted onto the piebald’s back and rode him out of the stable.

The small backyard was fenced and contained a well, a henhouse, and a group of rabbit hutches. She rode toward a gate opening onto a field, reasoning that she could then ride parallel to the lane. Her heart was hammering. It all seemed too easy. Why would Rufus Decatur go to all that trouble to abduct her and then stand aside as she escaped?

It was too easy. As she leaned down to open the gate, the back door of the cottage opened. The earl of Rothbury stood in the doorway, his tankard in one hand, a hunk of bread and cheese in the other. He had an air of careless relaxation, his gaze disconcertingly mild as if he had no particular interest in her present movements.

“Leaving so soon?” He raised the tankard to his lips.

Portia’s numb fingers slipped on the latch of the gate and she swore.

“My apologies if the hospitality was not up to Granville standards,” he said. “A lack for which your father’s brother must bear responsibility.”

He hadn’t taken a step toward her. Perhaps he wasn’t going to stop her. Portia didn’t say anything. She finally had a grip on the latch and nudged open the gate with one knee.

“When you reach Castle Granville, inform Cato that Rufus Decatur sends his regards,” the earl of Rothbury said pleasantly. “And you may tell him too that I’ll see him in hell.” The door closed behind him, and Portia was left alone in the yard.

She urged Patches through the narrow gate and closed it behind her, too well trained in country law to leave it open even in emergency.

She reached the road but it was hard to see the lane in front of her in the now driving snowstorm. Patches was not happy as he picked his way through the thick white stuff and was very reluctant to increase his speed. With a tremor of fear, Portia realized that she’d made a mistake leaving the sanctuary of the cottage. She should have swallowed her damned pride and ignored Decatur’s prating. It would have done her less harm than finding herself lost in a blizzard.

There was no sign of life around her, and she seemed enclosed in a white swirling cloud. And then she heard the hooves behind her and the great chestnut stallion loomed up, a grayish shadow amid the white, his rider cloaked in snow. Only the vivid blue eyes pierced the uniform dullness with life and color.

“God’s grace! You don’t have the sense to know when you’re well off!” Rufus declared, leaning forward to grab her bridle. “And neither, it seems, do I.” He swore vigorously, as much at his own misguided urge to rescue her from her obstinacy as at Portia herself. He hauled her mount up alongside the chestnut. “I’ll lead your horse; he’ll follow Ajax more easily than make tracks on his own.”

“But what of Sergeant Crampton?” Portia demanded, her fear forgotten, her original grievance taking its place. She swallowed snow as it drove into her momentarily opened mouth. “You can’t leave them – ”

“They’re not out in this,” he said curtly. “Don’t talk, and keep your head down.”

Portia did as she was told, since it was the only thing that made any sense. She’d expected him to turn their horses back to the cottage, but instead they kept going toward the place where the ambush had occurred. In the featureless gray-whiteness, she could recognize nothing, and the blanketing silence was eerie, even their own hoofprints muffled.

The stand of bare trees rose up suddenly, taking her by surprise. Rufus swung his horse off the track, and Patches followed perforce. They rode into the trees, and after a few yards, Rufus drew rein.

He pointed with his whip. “Go straight ahead until you reach a rock face. There’s a cave inside. You’ll find the Granville men in there.” Before Portia could speak, he brought his whip down on the flanks of her horse and the animal started forward.

“Don’t forget my message to Cato!” The words came clearly for an instant and then were lost. Portia wrenched her head around against the wind. For a second she could make out a gray shape in the trees, and then it was gone too, and she was alone, and now very frightened.

Her horse plunged through the trees and she gave him his head. There was a chance he knew where he was going. Portia certainly didn’t. The rock face sprang up out of the white-shaded gloom, but she couldn’t discern an opening. “Whoa!” She pulled back on the reins, forcing the trembling horse to a standstill as she stared fixedly at the blank wall in front of her. Then she heard it. The faint whicker of a horse. It was coming from inside the rock.

She urged Patches forward and gradually through the blinding snow a dark shadow in the rock face appeared. She rode straight for it, kicking Patches urgently when he shied. It was like riding through porridge, but the shadow gave way before them and they found themselves out of the snow, in a small, dark space.

Portia wiped snow from her eyes and face. Her eyes took a minute to accustom themselves to the change in light. But while she was still blinking, a voice she recognized declared from the gloom, “Why, it’s the maid.”

“Aye, so ‘tis.” Giles Crampton appeared out of the dimness. “Lord be thanked! The filthy bastard let you go.” He reached up to help her from her horse. “Are ye all right, lass? Did he ’urt ye?” The anxiety rasped in his voice. “If he put his filthy ‘ands-”

“No, no, nothing happened!” Portia interrupted. “And he brought me back to you. But what happened?” She could make out all five men now and wondered stupidly what it was that was so different about them. Their coats were undone… had no buttons, she saw. It looked as if the buttons had been sliced off. And then she realized what was different. They had all sported some form of facial hair-beards, sideburns, mustaches. But they were now all clean shaven, faces shining pink and bare as a baby’s bottom.

She was about to exclaim and then some deep female instinct kept her silent. Such humiliation left them naked, exposed, a prey to their own self-disgust.

“I suppose the Decatur men robbed you?” she asked, clapping her hands together, shivering in the icy cave.

“Aye, thieving, murderin‘ swine! Took every last coin we had. Everything worth more than a groat… includin’ our weapons.” Giles turned away from her, unable to hide his mortification. “We’re lucky they left us the horses.”

“Aye, they left ‘em, but wi’out saddles or bridles,” one of the others said bitterly. “Come into the back, mistress. We’ve lit a bit o’ fire. Not much like, but better’n nothing.”

Portia went eagerly toward the small red glow at the far back of the cave. They’d found a few sticks of kindling, and the fire, though small, was as welcome as a yule log in a Christmas inglenook.

“How long will the storm last, do you think?” She bent to warm her frozen hands.

Giles came back from the cave entrance. “ ‘Tis a nor’easter. They usually blow ’emselves out in a couple of hours.”

“And it’s four hours’ ride to Granville Castle?”

“Four hours fast riding. But we’ll be lucky to do more ‘an two miles an hour through the drifts.”

It was a bleak prospect. Portia shivered, hugging herself convulsively.

“What did the bastard Decatur want wi‘ you, mistress?”

“He wanted to know who I was,” she replied to Giles’s question.

Giles frowned. “And ye told ‘im and ’e brought ye back ere?”

“Basically,” she said, realizing that she didn’t wish to talk of Annie’s cottage and soup and pig’s cheek and fire in front of these men, who, on Rufus Decatur’s orders, had been tormented and humiliated and robbed.

Giles grunted, but he seemed to know she’d left much unsaid. He left her and returned to the mouth of the cave.

Portia felt the eyes of the men on her. They were clearly speculating, and they were now rather less friendly than before. Obviously, to receive anything other than ill treatment from a Decatur gave rise to suspicion, although she couldn’t imagine what they were suspecting. Consorting with the enemy… fraternizing with an outlaw brigand?