The Accidental Bride

Chapter 19

“I think someone’s followin‘ us, m’lord.” Giles eased his mount closer to Cato’s on the lane. Frowning, he glanced over his shoulder.

“I’ve ‘ad the feelin’ like fer the last five miles. A pricklin‘ up me back.”

“You haven’t seen anything?”

“Nah.” Giles shook his head. “It’s jest a feelin‘ like.”

Cato nodded. “Let’s get around that corner and wait for them, shall we?”

“Aye.” Giles looked happier, his frown lifting. “Mebbe nothin, but we might as well ‘ave a look-see.” He dropped back to give instructions to the six troopers accompanying them.

So, why would someone be following them? Cato wondered. If it was someone interested in his movements, they would surely be a little more secretive.

The eight men rounded the corner and Cato drew rein, turning his horse in the middle of the lane. Behind him Giles and the six troopers formed a crescent.

“Hands on your weapons, but no need to draw them,” Cato instructed quietly. “We don’t want to frighten an innocent party.”

He sat his horse, the picture of relaxation, one hand holding the reins resting lightly on the pommel, the other, his whip hand, resting on his thigh. Curiously he waited to see what would appear around the bend.

Phoebe and Sorrel trotted into view. Sorrel whickered nervously at the blockade in front of her and began to dance backwards. Phoebe clung on, pressing her knees into the saddle and praying she wouldn’t rumble ignominiously into the mud in front of this astounded audience.

Somehow she managed to bring Sorrel to a halt; either that or Sorrel of her own accord decided to stop. Phoebe was not sure which. But to her unspeakable relief, they were finally still on the lane.

“You stopped,” Phoebe said with a touch of indignation. “I didn’t expect you to stop until dinnertime.”

Cato found his tongue. “What are you doing? Or is that a stupid question?”

“There was something I had to discuss with you,” Phoebe said. “So I thought I’d ride after you. I stayed quite close, only just out of sight, in case of trouble,” she added, as if this would ease any fear he might have had for her safety.

“How reassuring,” Cato murmured. “But what were you intending to do if the mare bolted with you? As I recall, it’s a habit horses have had in the past.”

“There was no question of that,” Phoebe said righteously. “I said I would be able to ride properly in two days, my lord, and I can.”

Cato shook his head. “No,” he said consideringly. “I wouldn’t dignify your seat on the back of that mare with such a description. You look like a particularly uncomfortable sack of potatoes.”

“That’s unjust!” Phoebe fired back. “Two days ago I could never have stayed on for all these miles. And she would have run away with me. But she hasn’t shown the slightest inclination to do so.”

“She has a particularly amiable disposition,” Cato returned. “That was why I bought her.”

“Well, it must have had something to do with me,” Phoebe said, aggrieved. “I’ve been thrown off horses with backs like tables and the placidity of a half-dead cow before now.”

Giles Crampton coughed. Cato glanced over his shoulder and met the open grins of the men behind him.

“Anyway,” Phoebe continued, “since I’ve come this far, I thought perhaps I would come the rest of the way. There’s something most particular I have to discuss with you, sir.”

Cato understood that he had been finessed. He could send her back with one of his men, but he realized that he had not the slightest desire to do so. Head on one side, she was regarding him with an appealing air that he could only describe as coquettish. It was a new side of Phoebe, and it entranced him. It was impossible to believe that he’d ever considered her a dull nonentity.

“We’ve ridden ten miles this morning. I intend to reach Aylesbury by noon -that’s another thirteen miles-and ride another ten miles after dinner. We will cover the same distance tomorrow and the next day.” His voice was uncompromising, revealing none of his thoughts.

Phoebe blanched. Ten miles had already left their mark. But she had made up her mind and she would not be defeated. “Do you think I can’t keep up, sir?”

“That was rather the point of my remarks,” he agreed with a cool nod.

“Well, I can,” Phoebe declared.

Cato examined her for an unnerving few minutes. She met his scrutiny steadily, and finally with a slight twitch of his lips he said, “Your friend described you as an avalanche. A remarkably accurate description.

“Gentlemen, let us continue.” Cato leaned back, took Sorrel’s bit at the bridle and drew her up beside his mount, observing almost casually, “It’s astonishing to me that in all your nineteen years, you’ve never learned to take no for an answer.”

“I really do have something very important to tell you,” Phoebe said.

“Well, it can wait until this evening.” He trotted his horse to the front of the troop, bringing Sorrel with him. “There’s no time for idle chatter now.”

Phoebe bit back a retort. He still thought he was humoring her by allowing her to come with him. It didn’t occur to him that she might have something really important and interesting to disclose. He was being an indulgent husband who, judging by the speculative gleam in his eye of a minute before, expected his indulgence to afford him some pleasure in return.

The day’s ride was a nightmare. For someone who’d never spent more than an hour on horseback, the next six hours were unrelenting torture. But Phoebe said not a word, clinging numbly to Sorrel’s reins, jouncing in the saddle when they broke out of a walk, closing her mind to the bruising soreness of her thighs and backside, and the dreadful deep ache in the small of her back.

Cato offered her neither sympathy nor an I-told-you-so exasperation. He helped her back into the saddle after the dinner break without comment, even though she was hard pressed to keep from crying out as her abused muscles were forced once again into screamingly unnatural positions.

But Cato knew exactly what she was going through. However, it was for Phoebe to say when she’d had enough; when she did, he’d arrange for her to return home with two of the troopers as escort. The journey took them through many small towns where it would be possible to acquire a gig or trap, and she could go back to Woodstock in easy stages.

He waited all afternoon for her to throw in the sponge, but she never did, merely sat in white-faced, tight-lipped endurance. He couldn’t help admiring her stubborn fortitude even though he deplored it. It was ridiculous for her to suffer like this. But when they stopped for the night, she would see reason, he was certain of it.

Phoebe fell into his arms when, just before dusk, he helped her to dismount in the stable yard of a small inn in the village of Aston Clinton. But she refused his arm and walked stiffly into the inn although every muscle shrieked in rebellion.

“I’ve a private chamber over the washroom, m’lord, if that’ll do ye,” the landlord offered. “Otherwise, it’s jest the loft above the stables. We don’t get much call for gentryfolk wantin‘ beds fer the night.”

In any other circumstances the loft would have suited Cato as well as it suited his men, but Phoebe’s presence altered matters.

“I don’t mind where it is!” Phoebe declared, speaking for the first time in hours, in a tone ringing with desperate frustration. “Just show me to it.”

The landlord bowed and hastened down the passage, through the kitchen, and up a narrow wooden staircase at the rear. The small chamber was thick with the smell of lye soap from the great cauldrons boiling below, but it had a good-sized bed with a mattress stuffed with horsehair. Phoebe dismissed her escort with an inarticulate wave before falling facedown on the bed, smothering her groans in the patchwork quilt.

She had no idea how much time had passed before she heard the door open and Cato’s unmistakable steady tread on the creaking floorboards.

“I’m not asleep,” she mumbled. “I’m ready to come down for supper.”

“We’ll see about that in a minute,” he said easily. Something clinked as he set it on the floor.

Phoebe turned her head, forcing herself to open leaden eyes as she attempted to struggle upright. A hand between her shoulder blades pushed her down again.

“Lie still, Phoebe. I’m no leech and can’t emulate your friend’s physician skills, but I’ve a trick or two for easing certain ills.” His voice was light, a little amused, perhaps, but Phoebe found it as soothing as a dock leaf on a nettle sting.

He pulled off her boots as she lay across the bed, then tossed up the skirts of her riding dress and expertly reached beneath her for the buttons of her britches at her waist. He peeled them down and tossed them to the floor.

Phoebe gave a soft sigh of relief as the cool air laved her sore and burning flesh.

“Dear God!” Cato exclaimed softly as he surveyed the damage. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“There wasn’t any need to say anything,” Phoebe insisted. “I was perfectly all right.”

He shook his head in disbelief as he dipped a towel in the steaming water in the pail he’d brought up with him. He wrung it out and laid it across the small of her back.

“Oh,” Phoebe mumbled in almost disbelieving relief as the heat from the towel began to unlock the tight ache.

Cato uncorked a small leather vial of witch hazel and gently smoothed it across her buttocks and down her thighs, before applying more hot towels.

“Oh, that feels wonderful.” Phoebe stretched her arms over her head, relaxing as the heat seeped into the soreness.

“Tomorrow you can rest here and then the next day Adam and Garth will escort you home. I’ll purchase a gig so-”

“No!” Phoebe turned over, scattering hot towels as she sat up. “No, I will not go home, Cato. You said I could accompany you to Harwich and I will. I’m just a little sore. It’ll go away when my muscles become accustomed. And I’m perfectly capable of keeping up tomorrow.”

Cato wrung out another hot towel. “Don’t be ridiculous, Phoebe. Lie down again. You’re one big bruise from the small of your back to your knees. You can’t possibly ride another yard.”

“I can and I will,” she stated flatly. “It’s not for you to say what I can manage and what I can’t.”

“Oh, isn’t it?” Cato raised an eyebrow. “Since this is a military mission, it most certainly is for me to say. Let’s have no more foolishness, Phoebe. You had your way for a day, but that’s enough now.”

Phoebe climbed gingerly off the bed, shaking down her skirts. “Brian Morse says he has a document from the king that gives conclusive evidence that the king has no intention of agreeing to the Scots’ demands,” she stated. “That’s what I came to tell you.”

Cato stood with the towel still in his hands. “You’ve talked with Brian about this?”

“Yes. And also about why Cromwell and some others doubt your commitment… and…” she went on in a rush, seeing him about to interrupt. “And why you won’t defend yourself against those charges. Perhaps they’re sending you on this mission to get rid of you. Perhaps they don’t want you ever to come back.”

“How dare you discuss me and my concerns with Brian… or indeed with anyone!”

“I didn’t discuss them with Brian, he discussed them with me.” Phoebe met his gaze steadily.

Cato regarded her in frowning silence, then the anger in his eyes faded, to be replaced by something hard and bright that Phoebe thought was even more menacing than anger. He dropped the towel into the bucket and went to the door. He bellowed down the stairs, “Landlord, bring me up a pint of canary sack and two cups.”

He turned back to Phoebe. “All right. Now you may tell me exactly what went on between you and Brian. Every word, every gesture. You will leave nothing out.”

His voice and that stony light in his eyes chilled her. Carefully Phoebe sat down on the bed. “Where shall I begin?”

“At the beginning.”

Phoebe was searching for the right point when the landlord labored up the stairs with a jug of sack and two pewter cups.

“Ye’ll be wantin‘ supper, sir?” Puffing, he set the jug and cups down on a rickety stool in the corner of the chamber. “The wife’s done a nice jugged hare, an’ there’s a good morsel o‘ tripe.”

He wiped his brow with a soiled neckerchief. “Quite warm ‘tis fer April.”

“Aye,” Cato agreed shortly. “We’ll sup anon.”

“Right y’are, sir.” The man bent his corpulent frame in the semblance of a bow and backed out.

Cato went to latch the door, then he poured sack into two cups, handed one to Phoebe, and ordered curtly, “Begin.”

Phoebe left nothing out, except for how close she had nearly come to agreeing to help with Brian’s plan. Just thinking about it brought a cold sweat to her brow. She certainly didn’t want Cato to know of it.

Cato listened for the most part in silence, occasionally interjecting a question. But Phoebe was relieved to see his demeanor change, and she sensed he was no longer angry with her.

When she’d fallen silent, he nodded thoughtfully. “So, it’s as I suspected all along.”

“What is?”

Instead of answering, Cato asked with a slightly quizzical smile, “Why did you wait until now to tell me this? You could have told me anytime in the last two days, before I left, could you not?”

“It didn’t suit me to do so,” Phoebe said frankly.

Cato shook his head but there was a laugh in his voice. “What a devious ragged robin I’ve taken to wife.”

“Well, when you won’t include me or confide in me, then I have to take matters into my own hands,” Phoebe responded, and now there was a distinctly martial light in her eye.

Cato frowned at this. “I give you much more rein than most wives have, Phoebe. You must know that.”

“I don’t want rein,” Phoebe flashed. “I’m not a horse. I want to be a wife in every respect. Not just in bed, or arranging your household, or-”

“I hadn’t noticed you did too much of that,” Cato interrupted dryly.

He had her there. Phoebe conceded ruefully, “Mistress Bisset is better at it than I am. And besides, I have other important things to do.”

“Yes, like being taken up for a witch and meddling in my affairs with my snake of a stepson!”

“Oh, that’s so unjust!” she fired.

He caught her chin on his palm, lifting her face so she had to meet his eye. “I do my best to accommodate your eccentricities, Phoebe. But there are areas of my life that I have no wish to share… with you or with anyone. You have to understand that.”

“I don’t wish to intrude,” Phoebe said in a low voice. “But I love you.” She hadn’t meant to say it but it was done now.

Cato regarded her, an arrested look in his eye. A woman bound in love… Love. Such a wild, unruly passion.

Something hovered on the periphery of his mind. Something amorphous and warm and unnameable. “You’re very precious to me, my sweet,” he said, and kissed her. “Now, why don’t I have them heat the water in the washhouse and you can have a long soak in a tub. Then you get into bed and I’ll have a maid bring up your supper.”

Phoebe moved away from him, averting her eyes so he wouldn’t see the sheen of tears. Of course Cato wouldn’t pretend to something he didn’t feel. “A bath would help,” she said. “Then I’ll be ready for tomorrow.”

“Phoebe, you can’t seriously intend-”

“I am coming,” she stated. “Could you please ask someone to bring up the valise I had strapped to Sorrel’s saddle? It has a few necessities.”

Cato shrugged. Her obstinacy carried its own penalty. “Very well. But don’t expect any concessions.”

“I don’t!” she said with such ferocity he was taken aback. “I thought I’d made that clear, my lord.”

She was exhausted, Cato reminded himself. He turned to the door, saying over his shoulder, “You were right. I needed to know about Brian. But you have no need to worry. I have matters well in hand.”

Phoebe made no response to this confidence, and after a second, Cato left her.

When Cato came to bed some considerable time later, Phoebe seemed to be sleeping soundly. He undressed, snuffed the candle, and climbed in beside her.

With a sleepy little murmur she rolled over and reached for him as she always did when he joined her in bed.

“I see you’ve been raiding my kit,” Cato observed with some amusement. Phoebe was enfolded in one of his own crisp cambric shirts.

“My shift was sweaty and I wanted to stay fresh after my bath,” she murmured, pressing her lips to the hollow of his throat. “I wished to be fresh for you.”

“You always are,” he said with perfect truth. Fresh, surprising, beautiful. Infuriating, eccentric, stubborn… delightful.

He drew her beneath him.

The next morning Phoebe emerged from the inn just after daybreak, her expression that of one about to face the torture chamber.

Cato was already mounted and talking with Giles Cramp-ton and one of the troopers. Sorrel was standing at a mounting block, her rein held by one of the inn’s grooms.

Phoebe set her teeth and climbed into the saddle. It wasn’t at first too bad. Witch hazel, the hot bath, and a good night’s rest had had some benefit. She nudged the mare into a walk and came up with Cato.

“Ah, there you are.” Cato gave her a slightly distracted smile. “I thought to let you have your sleep out, so didn’t wake you when I rose myself. Did you break your fast?”

“The goodwife made me some porridge,” Phoebe answered. “How far will we ride today?”

“As far as Bishop’s Stortford.” He regarded her closely.

“The landlord here has a gig that he’s prepared to sell me. Tom has to return to headquarters, and he and Adam will escort you back to Woodstock.”

Phoebe shook her head. “I’m all right, my lord.”

Cato contented himself with a raised eyebrow, before he turned back to Tom. “Very well, Tom, then you may make all speed. Make sure the dispatch goes directly to either Cromwell or Lord Fairfax.”

“Aye, sir.” The trooper patted the breast of his jerkin, where he held the document for Parliament’s headquarters detailing Brian Morse’s latest conduct. Cato had recommended that Brian should be traced and held until Cato returned from his mission and could interrogate him himself.

Cato gave the troop the signal to move out, and Phoebe, her lips set, encouraged Sorrel into a trot to keep up.

At the end of an hour Phoebe had drifted into a trance where her physical miseries seemed inseparable from herself and from each other. She could no longer distinguish between the deep muscle aches and the raw soreness of her flesh. If she allowed herself to think of the hours stretching ahead, she knew she would weep, so she let her mind drift into a realm of soft green valleys and heather-strewn hillsides, dappled streams, and the sweet scent of new-mown hay.

When Cato drew rein, she didn’t notice. Sorrel would have trotted on without signal from her rider if Cato hadn’t reached over and taken the mare’s bridle, bringing her to a halt.

The cessation of motion shocked Phoebe out of her trance. She came back to the real world and the reality of pain with a moan.

“Come, I can’t bear to see you like this,” Cato said brusquely. “I’m going to lift you up. Help me by putting your arms around my neck.”

For a moment Phoebe looked up at him in a bewilderment that was not eased by his contradictory expression. His mouth was impatient, and yet his dark eyes were filled with concern.

“Phoebe, did you hear me?” He leaned down from his saddle. “Take your feet out of the stirrups and put your arms around my neck.”

Obediently she did so, raising her arms to clasp his neck. He lifted her bodily from the saddle and onto his own in front of him. “Sit back now and take the weight off your backside. Giles, lead the mare.”

Giles had already taken Sorrel’s bridle, and the cavalcade moved forward again.

Phoebe leaned back against Cato’s broad chest. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really didn’t want to give up.”

He looked down at her and a slight smile touched his mouth. “You did better than I expected.”

“I’ll ride tomorrow.”

He nodded. “For an hour or so. It takes time to build up endurance, particularly,” he added with pointed emphasis, “when you have such an appalling seat.”

Phoebe didn’t protest this truth. She sat sideways on the saddle, taking the weight off her bruised flesh, and began to enjoy the scenery from a perch that was as comfortable as it was secure.

“It seems to me I have the best of both worlds this way, anyway,” she observed after a while.

“How so?” He brushed away a lock of her hair that was tickling his chin.

“I can enjoy the ride from the best possible place-as close to you as it’s possible to be. I can even hear your heart beat,” she returned with a serene smile. “Oh… and I won’t be tired when we stop for the night, so we’ll be able to play much more than we could last night.”

“You are incorrigible,” Cato said, but he was grinning. His encircling arm tightened for a minute. His hand brushed the swell of her breast beneath her cloak and he could feel her heart beat against his palm.

Giles, riding in silence a little to one side of them, didn’t hear the exchange, but he saw the grin and marveled at it. In all the years he’d served him, the marquis of Granville had never grinned. He smiled, he laughed even, but grinned? Unheard of. And to include the woman in his expedition! That was astounding. Lord Granville never allowed anything or anyone to interfere with his military concerns… or never had done before, Giles amended dourly. There was just no accounting for it.

When Brian Morse discovered after a little rooting around and the disbursement of a few coins that Cato was heading for Harwich, he was immediately intrigued. Why would one journey to Italy from Harwich? It would make much better sense to take ship from one of the southern ports, Portsmouth or Southampton.

Obviously Cato had been less than frank with him. Not that that surprised Brian in the least. It was a fair guess that Lord Granville was heading for Holland from Harwich. Most of the shipping from that port went to the Low Countries. And that raised a great many interesting possibilities. If he was intending to make contact with Walter Strickland, then it was Brian’s bounden duty to prevent it.

The king’s own agents in Rotterdam had managed to do away with two of Parliament’s envoys before they’d met up with Strickland. But they had been men of no real importance. The marquis of Granville, on the other hand, was one of the most influential members of Parliament’s high command. To get rid of him while he was on this mission would be a coup indeed.

It was a coup Brian was going to engineer. It was a gift from the devil and Brian was not about to turn it down. And to make matters even simpler, Cato was apparently not intending to take any of his own men to Holland with him, not even Giles Crampton. It was almost too good to be true.

There was something deeply pleasing about the prospect of killing two birds with one stone. By assassinating Cato, Brian would achieve kudos among his own leaders. And he himself would then inherit the Granville title and estates. He would then bring the wealth and influence of the Granville name to the king’s side, a loss that Parliament could ill afford.

If he played his cards right, there would be a dukedom in it for Brian, once the king was restored to his throne.

And Brian would play his cards right. The only possible flaw was Phoebe. If she was breeding, he would have to get rid of her. And that, he thought, would be rather a shame. True, she’d made him lose his temper with her prissy refusal to cooperate, but he’d recovered from that now. Now he could see the possibilities. The new marquis of Granville would need a wife. Why not the present marchioness? He could knock her into shape, he was sure. And there were distinct possibilities in that voluptuous form.

Brian set off for Harwich a couple of hours after Cato. He took a different route, however, having no desire to run into his quarry. He reached Harwich on the afternoon of the third day, put up at the Pelican on the harbor, and set out on foot to discover whether Cato and his cavalcade had arrived at another of the town’s numerous inns.

A man traveling with eight troopers couldn’t arrive inconspicuously in this small port, and Brian was confident he’d run them to ground quickly.

He was in the taproom of the Ship, drinking ale and casually making inquiries, when he heard Giles Crampton’s rough Yorkshire burr in the hallway.

“Eh, goodwife, we’ve need of a decent privy chamber fer Lord Granville. The rest of us’ll settle neat enou‘ in the loft, or above the stables.”

“I don’t know as ‘ow I’ve got a privy chamber,” the good-wife was saying as Brian slipped unobtrusively into the vast inglenook. “If’n ’is lordship wouldn’t mind sharin‘ though, there’s a nice big chamber at the front. I let it out to three gentlemen at a time. Most don’t mind bundlin’.”

“Well, my wife and I do mind.” Cato’s authoritative tones chimed into the goodwife’s speech. “I’ll take that chamber and pay you well for it, mistress.”

There was a chink of coin and the goodwife said with some satisfaction, “Well, I daresay I’ll be able to move the other gentlemen, then, sir. Will ‘er ladyship be wantin’ a maid to ‘elp ’er?”

“No, I don’t believe so,” Cato said. “But we’re sharp set and looking forward to our supper.”

“Oh, I’ll be puttin‘ a goodly supper on the table fer ye, m’lord. Tripe an’ onions, an‘ a nice piece of brawn.”

“I don’t suppose you have a roast chicken? We had tripe yesterday.”

Brian listened to Phoebe’s wistful tones in astonishment. What on earth was she doing here? Cato couldn’t be intending to take her to Holland with him.

He moved further back into the inglenook. Phoebe’s presence would make no difference. Once he discovered where Cato was going, he intended to take passage on the next ship going to the same port.

When he returned from Holland, it would be with Cato’s blood on his knife.

A smile flickered over Brian’s thin mouth.