Jane Feather - The Accidental Bride

“You wished to see me, Lord Granville?”

“Yes, come in, Brian.” Cato laid down both quill and knife. Brian looked rather pale, he thought.

“There’ve been some new developments and I’m going away for several months.”

“So I heard, my lord. May I ask where you’re going?” Brian gave a slightly self-deprecating smile. “Or is it a state secret?”

“No. I’m going to Italy.”

“On a mission for Parliament, I presume.”

“You presume correctly.” Cato gave him an agreeable nod. There was no reason for Brian to disbelieve this destination. Parliament’s agents were spread all over the continent.

“If you’ve a mind to,” Cato continued gravely, “I have a mission for you too.”

“Anything I can do to prove myself,” Brian said with eager boyish enthusiasm.

“We need someone to go to London, to spend time in the taverns and clubs. We need to gather the temper of the people. With the king on his way to Scotland, it’s imperative that we discover what attitude London will take towards a Presbyterian covenant. We need someone who can assess and judge what he hears. I believe you could do that better than anyone.”

Brian bowed low. “I’m honored by your trust, sir. I’ll go and pack up my traps. I’ll be on my way within the hour.”

He hastened from the room, his expression now hard, his eyes calculating. He was not going to London. Wherever Cato was going, Brian was going too. One plan was in ruins, but he was adaptable. Another opportunity would turn up if he was ready for it.

“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.”