Jane Feather - The Hostage Bride

She plunged into the middle of the bushes and realized her mistake. Thorny branches whipped out at her, snagging her cloak, tearing at her exposed face. She covered her face with her gloved hands and fought to push her way through. But the thornbushes grew denser and with a sinking heart she realized she was going to be trapped in this vicious impenetrable thicket. Her gloves and cloak were ripped to shreds, her face was bleeding, her hair an impossible tangle where bits of lint and fluff mingled with twigs and dead leaves.

She could hear the men pounding behind her, slashing at the thorns with their swords. Her own small knife, nestled as always in her boot, was too puny to cut through the wicked thorny branches, but she had it in her hand when she was finally forced to stop and turn at bay.

The men crashed through the underbrush, cursing as they slashed at the branches. “God’s bowels!” George exclaimed. “Will ye look at that. The lassie ‘as a knife. Give it ’ere, lass.” He extended his hand. “It won’t do no good against three of us.”

Hemmed in by the thornbushes, facing three men with swords and breastplates, Portia was lost and she knew it. She bent and slipped the knife back into her boot, then shrugged, turning her palms upward in a gesture of resignation.

“Lord love us, but look what ye’ve gone an‘ done to yerself,” George said. “All bleedin’ an‘ scratched. Come on, then.” He stepped up to her, lowered his shoulder and tossed her unceremoniously over his back.

Portia let out a howl of indignation and pummeled his back with her fists but he took not a blind bit of notice, merely strode phlegmatically out of the thicket behind his two companions who cleared the way with their swords.

“That was right foolish of ye, lass,” he declared when they reached the horses, now quietly cropping the grass in the ditch. “Now y’are goin‘ to be uncomfortable, and I’m sorry fer it, but it can’t be ’elped.”

Portia thought to protest, to plead, to promise even, but pride kept her tongue still as she was swaddled securely once again in the blanket. But this time they tied strips of canvas webbing over the blanket around her ankles, her waist, and over her arms, so she was trussed like a goose for the market. They pulled up the hood of her cloak and fastened it tightly over her head, but at least her mouth and nose were left free.

The rest of the ride was interminable. Portia was sitting sideways on the saddle, held securely against the hard, burly frame of the man they called George. She was miserably uncomfortable because her wrappings made it impossible to twitch a muscle, to adjust her position, to scratch the itch that developed on her calf and rapidly spread all over her body in a maddening prickle.

The three men spoke occasionally to each other, but nothing that was said gave Portia a clue as to where they were going, let alone why she’d been kidnapped. The landscape was desolate, harsh bare heath giving way to barren hills. There were sheep and a few hardy fell ponies, but no sign of human habitation, not even a stone crofter’s cottage.

Finally her manifold discomforts gelled into one wretched fact. Her bladder was bursting and the horse’s steady canter did nothing to take her mind off the situation. “I need to stop,” she said finally. “I need to go behind a bush.”

“Bless ye, lass, we’ll be there soon enough,” George said in his infuriatingly friendly tone. “See the fires up ahead?” He gestured with his whip.

Portia swiveled her head. It was late afternoon now, and still sunny, but she could see the smoke of a fire rising in the clear air from the top of the hill they were presently climbing. “That’s where we’re going?”

“Aye.”

“I don’t think I can wait,” she said deliberately.

He glanced down at her white set face. “Yes ye can, lass.” He put spur to his horse and the animal bounded forward, tired though it was, for the last uphill effort in the direction of stable and oats.

Portia gritted her teeth and forced herself to think of anything but her need for relief. She looked around, searching for some clue as to their whereabouts. The smell of the fire grew stronger, and at last they breasted the top of the hill and she saw a small sentry post, with a lone guard, pike and musket in hand, standing at watch.

He raised a hand in cheerful greeting. “All well, George?”

“Aye, Tim.” George acknowledged the wave. If the sentry had been a less senior member of the band, or if Rufus or Will had been there, he would have insisted on giving the password, but in broad cloudless daylight, when a man could see for miles around, it seemed foolish.

“Is the master below?”

“Aye. Don’t think ‘e’s ridden out today.”

“See ye in the mess fer a jar later, shall us?”

“Aye. I’m off in ‘alf an hour.”

They rode down the other side of the hill, but Portia was now so desperate for the privy that she had only a vague impression of a cluster of buildings along a riverbank. She noticed that the men they passed wore soldiers’ buff leather jerkins, and their stride was closer to a march than a walk. The buildings looked more like military structures than the cozy cottages of a hamlet, but she identified a blacksmith’s, a granary, and a fairly substantial building with an ale bench outside. The mess presumably. Beyond that, she registered very little except an atmosphere of brisk purpose.

George drew rein outside a house at the far end of the village, set a little apart from the rest. He swung down. Reaching up to the saddle, he neatly tipped Portia’s wrapped body forward over his shoulder. She bit her lip hard as her bladder was pressed against his shoulder.

The front door opened as he reached it, and he stepped over the lintel with his burden and carefully placed her full length on the floor inside.

“God’s bones, George, was it necessary to bundle her up like Cleopatra in the carpet?”

Portia knew the voice. She had heard it in her mind so many times in the last weeks.

“Beggin‘ yer pardon, m’lord, but the lassie’s a mite tricky,” George said in his affable tones, bending to untie the canvas webbing.

“You do surprise me,” Rufus Decatur said with amusement. “I’d have thought such a milk-fed, silken-clothed maid would have caused no more difficulty than a mouse.”

The ties were undone and Portia, forgetting her urgent need for a minute, wriggled free of the blanket with an almighty heave. She jumped to her feet, fingers fighting to unloosen the strings of her hood that was still tied so securely under her chin. “Why have you done this again?” she cried, shaking her head so that the hood fell back.

“Good Christ, George!” Rufus exclaimed. “What the hell have you brought me?” He stared at the white-faced, green-eyed, carrot-topped scruff in complete disbelief.

George said uncertainly, “Why, ‘tis the Granville lass, sir.”

“Oh, Blessed Mother,” Portia muttered. “You were after Olivia.” She crossed her legs with sudden urgency. “I have to use the privy.”

Rufus gestured wordlessly to the door behind him, his expression that of a man who has found something nasty in his birthday cake.

Portia raced for the outhouse.

“Is it the wrong one, then?” George asked hesitantly.

“Yes, it’s the wrong one!” Rufus tried to contain his incredulous anger. “How could you get the wrong one, man?”

“You said the lassie we wanted was wearin‘ a blue cloak, sir. T’other one ’ad on a brown one.” George looked stricken.

“Oh, God in heaven!” Rufus stared at George, the whole ridiculous situation slowly beginning to make sense.

Hearing a step behind him, he whirled to face the unwanted hostage on her return from the privy. “The blue cloak?”

Portia frowned, wondering what he meant. Then her face cleared. “It’s Olivia’s,” she responded matter-of-factly. “She lent it to me.”

“I see,” Rufus said flatly. “All right, George, you may go.”

“I’m right sorry, m’lord.”

Rufus waved him away with a gesture of resignation. “How were you supposed to know?”

George hesitated. Decatur men didn’t make mistakes. And if they did, they paid for them themselves in guilt and self-reproach.

“Go,” Rufus said a little more gently. “You are not to blame, George.”

“It’s a right nuisance though, innit, m’lord?”

“You have a talent for understatement, my friend,” Rufus declared with a short and utterly mirthless crack of laughter. He turned his searching gaze upon Portia, and demanded suddenly into the moment of awkward silence that followed his acid laugh, “Just how did she get so scratched?”

“Lassie took off when me ‘orse stumbled,” George offered, still standing uncertainly by the door. “Straight into a thorn thicket.”

“Running away seems to be a habit of yours,” Rufus observed tartly.

“Yes, I developed it when people developed the habit of abducting me,” Portia snapped. She felt horribly like weeping and it took all her determination to keep the threatening weakness at bay.

“It would have been better for all of us if you were rather better at it,” Rufus declared without a vestige of humor. He turned back to the disconsolate man by the door. “That’s all for now, George. Go and get some food and ale inside you. If you see Will, send him to me.”

George bobbed his head and slid out of the door. Rufus turned back to Portia, who was standing grimly by the table, clutching its edge with a white-knuckled hand.

“Now what the hell am I going to do with you?” he demanded of the air in general and in a tone of stinging exasperation. “I can’t imagine his brother’s by-blow is worth much to Cato Granville.”