The Accidental Bride b-2

by Jane Feather

  Olivia was not completely convinced, but she wanted to be, so she sat down on the end of the bed and began to regale Phoebe with a piece of kitchen gossip as the hot drink did its relaxing work, easing the cramped muscles.

  The sound of horses and the insistent barking of a dog from the gravel sweep below the window brought Olivia to her feet. “I wonder who that could be.”

  She went to the window then gave a cry of pleasure. “It’s Portia!”

  “Truly?” Phoebe flung aside the bedcovers and scrambled to her feet, her pain miraculously easing.

  “Well, that’s Juno down there,” Olivia said excitedly. She grabbed Phoebe’s cloak from the hook on the wall and thrust it towards her. “Just put this on; you can dress later.”

  Phoebe needed no urging. She pulled the cloak over her shoulders as she thrust her feet into a pair of slippers, hopping her way to the door as she did so.

  Chapter 5

  A week later Cato walked into the great hall in the middle of a rainy morning and for a bemused moment thought he’d come to the wrong house. Whosever it was, it resembled a madhouse.

  Explanation appeared in the shape of a large mustard-colored dog. Once encountered, Juno was not easily forgotten. And Cato had encountered her on several memorable occasions. She flung herself upon the master of the house with an excited bark, utterly confident of her welcome.

  “Down!” Cato commanded in a voice that was as soft as it was meant to be obeyed.

  Juno sat at his feet with a breathy sigh and gazed up at him, tongue lolling.

  Having handled that situation, Cato turned his attention to the remaining causes of this bedlam. Two smallish boys were sliding down his banisters with an excess of exuberance, tumbling to the floor at the bottom and instantly scrambling up again and racing back to the top of the stairs. A very tiny little girl was stolidly clambering up the stairs in their wake, with a single-minded purpose that Cato could only admire. The boys ignored her until she reached the top step, at which point one of them heaved her up and tried to lift her onto the banister.

  It seemed a suitable moment for intervention. Cato reached the head of the stairs in the nick of time and swept the little girl off the banisters the instant before she was about to be set in motion with a helpful brotherly hand on her back.

  Cato surveyed Rufus Decatur’s natural sons with a raised eyebrow. They stared back at him with their father’s bright blue eyes under tangled thatches of strawberry curls.

  “That was not a good idea,” Cato declared.

  “But Evie likes it,” one of the pair informed him solemnly. “She cries if we won’t let her do what we do.”

  “Clearly her mother’s daughter,” Cato muttered. Still carrying the child, who seemed perfectly content to be sitting in a stranger’s arms, he turned back down the stairs. At the bottom he became aware of his own two small daughters standing to one side of the hall, eyes as round as saucers. They were clearly too timid to participate in the circus-Diana’s daughters, although a year or two older, lacked the intrepid nature of Portia’s-but there was no mistaking their fascinated envy.

  They came forward when Cato beckoned them, offered him shy little curtsies, and then scampered back up the stairs to their own domain. Eve wriggled to be set down, obviously intending to follow them.

  Cato hung on to her. “Portia!” he called in ringing accents.

  A door burst open to the right of the hall and a thin young woman with a shock of orange hair, a mass of freckles, and bright green eyes seemed to leap into the hall. She was wearing leather riding britches, boots, a white linen shirt, and doublet. Cato found nothing surprising in this attire. Portia Worth had been married in britches on a battlefield with a sword at her hip.

  “Oh, Lord Granville, I do beg your pardon. If I’d known you were coming, I wouldn’t have let them loose like this. You must have wondered if you’d come to the right house.” She came towards him, holding out her hand.

  Cato took it and leaned over to kiss his niece. “It had crossed my mind.”

  “It’s been raining, you see, and they haven’t been able to go out.” Portia offered the explanation with a cheerful smile.

  “They were about to launch this little one hurtling to perdition down the banisters.” He regarded her quizzically, reflecting that marriage to the earl of Rothbury had wrought no obvious changes in his half brother’s illegitimate daughter. She looked no different now from the scrawny, undernourished creature who’d turned his house upside down that memorable first winter of the war.

  “Oh, they’re very careful of her,” she said blithely, taking Eve from him. “But she really doesn’t like to be left out.”

  “Mmm. Her mother’s daughter,” Cato repeated, half to himself.

  Portia’s responding grin was complacent. “She’s Rufus Decatur’s daughter too, sir.”

  “Is your husband here with you?” A note of gravity entered his quiet voice.

  “No,” Portia answered in much the same tone. “He left us at the gates. He had business in London. A meeting with Lord Manchester about pressing men for the army. Rufus is not in favor,” she added.

  “Neither am I, but I see little choice,” Cato responded. War talk with Portia was so natural he didn’t even realize how unusual it was for him to share such thoughts with a woman.

  “He said he’ll come back for us at the end of the week.”

  Cato nodded. He and Rufus Decatur had buried the blood feud that had torn their lives and their families asunder for two generations. They had buried it on the battlefield when Portia Worth, Cato’s brother’s child, had married Rufus Decatur at a drumhead wedding. Now they would be courteous to each other in company, had worked together in amity in the interests of negotiating a peace between the king and his parliament and would do so again, but they would not seek each other out in private, and Rufus would no more accept Granville hospitality than Cato would accept his. But Rufus did not prevent his wife and his children from accepting that hospitality, and that was enough. The old vendetta would not touch the new generation.

  “My lord, you’re back. I wasn’t expecting you.” It had taken Phoebe a minute to compose herself at the unexpected sound of Cato’s rich, tawny voice. Now she hurried into the hall aware that her cheeks were warm and that the pulse in the base of her belly was beating a drumbeat of anticipation and delight.

  “I didn’t expect to be… careful!” Cato saw the danger in the nick of time and stepped forward just as Phoebe’s foot caught in the fringe of a tapestry rug. She tripped, arms flailing, and he grabbed for her before she tumbled in an ignominious heap.

  Instinctively Phoebe hung on to him, her arms tightly encircling his waist, and for a minute neither of them moved. She inhaled his scent, heard the beat of his heart beneath his jerkin, reveled in the firm hands planted squarely at her back. He had never held her before. Maybe clumsiness had its advantages, she thought wryly. At present it seemed the only way to achieve her heart’s desire.

  Then Cato righted her, his hands fell from her, and she was obliged to step back on her own two feet.

  “Your pardon, sir,” Phoebe said breathlessly. She managed a curtsy and tried to think of some appropriate greeting for a returning husband. “Did your business fare well, my lord?”

  Cato did not immediately answer. He surveyed her with a little frown. Something was wrong with her face. He peered at her a little more closely. Her mouth was blue with ink.

  “Is something wrong?” Phoebe asked a mite anxiously.

  “Have you been drinking ink?”

  “Oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “I was writing my pageant.” She scrubbed at the stain, succeeding only in spreading blue across her chin. “I must have been sucking the wrong end of my quill.” She gave a little shrug as she examined her now blue palm. “It often happens when I’m concentrating.”

  Cato supposed it sufficient explanation. Phoebe certainly seemed to think so. He noticed absently how his wife was dwarfed by Portia’s heigh
t and, he thought, overshadowed by her vibrancy. Phoebe’s pale coloring and light hair were lost against Portia’s orange halo and bright green eyes. Not that one would ever consider Portia to be beautiful, and she certainly wasn’t pretty. But there was something striking about her.

  However, it occurred to Cato, rather to his surprise, that Phoebe didn’t lose on the comparison. Her style was altogether gentler, but it had its own appeal. Odd that he should have noticed it now for the first time despite the ink and her unprepossessing stuff gown that looked, like so many of her clothes, as if it had been made for her when she was an altogether different shape. Another example of Lord Carlton’s economy presumably.

  “As I was saying, I didn’t expect to be back so soon. But we stormed Basing House three days ago.” A shadow crossed Cato’s countenance. It had been a grim business. The house had held out and Cromwell had showed them no mercy once he’d forced their surrender. They’d put most of the garrison to the sword, taken the household prisoner, marching them away in chains. It would set an example for the other royalist houses holding out against their besiegers throughout the country. The war was now mostly one of sieges-a tiresome and long, drawn-out business that wasted manpower and resources. Cato understood the strategic importance of the lesson of Basing House, but he deplored it nevertheless.

  There was a thud behind him. The two boys had tired of adult conversation and had resumed their banister sliding. A gleeful shriek from the head of the stairs was joined suddenly by the insistent wail of a baby from somewhere above.

  “Oh, it’s Alex. He’s woken up.” Portia set Eve on the floor and hurried to the bottom of the stairs. “Luke, Toby, that’s enough now,” she instructed, to Cato’s relief. “You can go outside. It’s almost stopped raining.”

  With whoops of joy the boys raced for the front door, Juno plunging ahead of them. A manservant moved with alacrity to let them out.

  A nursemaid was coming down the stairs, a baby in her arms. Portia took the infant, who had stopped wailing and was regarding the occupants of the hall with grave blue eyes. His hair was as red as his father’s.

  “This is Viscount Decatur, sir.” Portia introduced her infant with maternal pride.

  So Rufus Decatur had a legitimate heir. Cato felt the sharp stab of envy. He glanced at Phoebe, whose speedwell blue eyes returned his look without so much as a flash of self-consciousness.

  “A handsome child,” he said with as much warmth as he could muster. “I’m glad you’ve had company in my absence, Phoebe. Is there anything else I should know about?”

  “Ah, well, yes…” Phoebe began with enthusiasm. “Gypsies. You should know about the gypsies, sir.”

  “And what should I know about them?”

  “I found two of their orphaned children in a ditch.”

  “A ditch?”

  “Yes, it’s a little complicated.” Phoebe pushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “But I know you’ll agree that I did the only thing I could do.”

  Cato remembered the cabbages. “Were you perhaps digging in this ditch when you found these orphans?”

  “No, of course not,” Phoebe said with some heat. “It was a ditch on the home farm and it was full of mud and water.”

  “Ditches do tend to be,” Cato murmured.

  “You are not being serious, sir,” Phoebe accused with that militant gleam in her eye again. “It’s a very serious matter.”

  Cato ran his hand through his hair, ruffling the crisp dark thatch from the widow’s peak to his nape with the familiar gesture that as always made Phoebe’s belly lurch with desire.

  “I stand corrected,” he said dryly. “Perhaps we should continue this in my study.”

  He moved away from her across the hall to the door to his sanctum. Phoebe followed with impetuous step, her words preceding her.

  “You see, as I understand it, there had been a fight for leadership in the tribe, and the children’s father, who had been the chief, was overthrown in a knife battle and he died of his wounds. So his children were left in the ditch, because the new chief took his enemy’s wife for his own and he didn’t want the other children to be a threat… in case one of the other families in the tribe decided to challenge his leadership. Like Romulus and Remus exposed outside Rome.”

  Cato closed the door. “Why is my wife concerning herself with internecine strife among the Romanies?”

  “I could hardly leave the poor little things to die in the ditch,” Phoebe pointed out. “They were on your land, my lord, apart from any humanitarian considerations. You wouldn’t wish it said that-”

  “Now, just a minute, Phoebe. These are gypsies. They are not my tenants and they have no claims on my charity.”

  “Well, what’s that got to do with it?” Phoebe demanded. “They’re little children. Of course I had to help them.”

  “And just how did you help them?” Cato went to the sideboard to pour himself wine.

  “I fostered them in the village, but I had to promise that we would pay for their keep. No one has enough to spare for two more mouths. But you do.” She regarded him with the air of one who has delivered the coup de grace.

  “I don’t care for your tone, Phoebe, I’ve told you that before,” Cato said coldly.

  “Then I ask pardon, my lord. But when you seem not to understand the importance, how else can I make you see what has to be done?” Phoebe met his frigid gaze steadily.

  “And you are to be a judge of my actions, of course,” Cato said. “I think you have said all you can possibly have to say.” He bestowed a curt nod upon her and very deliberately picked up some papers on his desk.

  Phoebe hesitated, then she accepted her dismissal and left the study, closing the door with exaggerated care behind her.

  Cato let the papers fall to the desk. He felt as if he’d been run over by a juggernaut. Pathetic, starving, homeless orphans in a ditch! For God’s sake!

  He reached for the bellpull and paced the study until the summons was answered.

  “Send for the bailiff at once,” he ordered curtly. Presumably Phoebe would have informed the bailiff of her actions. The man would know where the children were housed and what outlay was necessary to keep them clothed and fed.

  Phoebe stood in the hall for a minute, wondering if she’d made any impact on Cato. But he’d dismissed her so firmly there wasn’t much else she could do at present. Where were Olivia and Portia?

  Portia was probably feeding the hungry Alex in the parlor. She ran up the stairs to the bedchamber, where she scrubbed the ink from her mouth with ferocious vigor. Then she made her way to the square parlor at the back of the house.

  Portia was ensconced on the deep window seat, Alex contentedly nuzzling her breast. Eve was sucking her thumb dreamily, leaning against her mother’s drawn-up knees.

  “This would be the very picture of a maternal idyll if you didn’t look so unlikely,” Phoebe observed. “Do you never wear dresses anymore?”

  “Only if Rufus expresses a preference,” Portia said with a wicked little grin. She moved Alex to her other breast.

  “Where’s Olivia?”

  “In her chamber reading Pliny, I believe.” Portia cast Phoebe a shrewd look as the other woman paced restlessly from the fireplace to the door and back again.

  “So, what do you think of the state of matrimony, then, duckie?” Portia inquired. “As I recall, you were as much against it as I was.”

  “I still am,” Phoebe stated. “It’s damnable not to be your own person anymore, Portia. To belong to a husband.”

  Portia nodded her understanding. “Laws made by men are going to favor men,” she observed with a cynical smile. “But we aren’t helpless, you know. Even husbands can be cut to fit.”

  “Maybe… if they notice you exist,” Phoebe said tightly, coming to a halt by a worktable. She flipped open the lacquered lid of the workbox and began to trawl through embroidery silks with her fingers, not looking at Portia.

  “What do you mean?” Portia l
ifted the satiated baby and held him against her shoulder, patting his back.

  Phoebe’s color was high, but there was no one but Portia in whom she could confide.

  “Do people always make love in the dark, with the curtains closed, and they don’t say anything, and it’s all over so quickly, you barely realize it’s happened, and…?”

  “Wait! Wait a minute!” Portia interrupted the flow. “Is that what happens?”

  “Every night,” Phoebe said dismally. “And it’ll happen every night just like that until I conceive. He doesn’t find me appealing, don’t you see. How could he after Diana?”

  “Diana was a bitch… hard as nails,” Portia stated. “I expect she preferred the dark. She probably would have preferred it if it could have happened in her sleep when she didn’t know anything about it.” Her lip curled with scorn.

  This struck Phoebe as remarkably shrewd. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. “Maybe Cato thinks I’m the same.”

  “But you’re not?” It was clearly a question.

  “No!” Phoebe cried. “No, I’m not. I ache, Portia. I’m so hungry for him to touch me. I want to see him naked, I want to touch him, every inch of him. I could eat him,” she added with another wail. “It’s such torment.”

  Portia’s jaw dropped slightly. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the need, it just surprised her coming from Phoebe. “Are you saying you love Cato?”

  “Love, lust, I don’t know!” Phoebe dropped the lid of the workbox with a clatter. “All I know is that when I hear his footstep, my stomach drops. When he pushes his hair back with his hand in the way he does, my thighs go all quivery, and when he touches me, even accidentally, I start to thrum like a plucked lute. I turn into a jelly. I want him… all of him.”

  “Lord, that’s a powerful lust.” Portia cradled the now sleeping baby to her bosom, and reached with her free hand to stroke Evie’s pink curls. She was frowning, thinking of what torment it must be to feel what Phoebe had so graphically described and be unable to satisfy the hunger.