The dog scratched again at his boot. He looked down at her, seeing how pitifully small and young she was.
He began to laugh. Portia regarded him for a minute as if he’d taken leave of his senses; it was such a volte-face. But then she remembered that Rufus was given to such rapid changes in mood. Warmth and strength began to stir once more. She smiled tentatively and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Are you pleased to see me?”
“Yes, dammit!” he said with some exasperation. “Don’t ask me why. You turn up in a blizzard, half dead with exposure, scaring the wits out of me…” He looked down at the puppy again and his laugh rippled anew.
“What a pair you are! The pathetic creature could be your daemon.” He picked up Juno and held her in the air to examine her more closely. “I doubt she’s even weaned. Where did she come from?”
Portia told him how she’d found the puppy, and Rufus lost all desire to laugh. “Bastards,” he said. “There’ve been reports of such barbarisms flying around for weeks, but it’s the first time I’ve had an eyewitness account.”
“Is it just the rebels who are being so savage?”
“No,” Rufus said shortly. “I wish I could say it was, but both sides are as bad as each other and the reprisals grow ever more barbarous.” He talked as he poured milk into a saucer that he set on the floor for Juno, who fell on it with an excited yap.
He poured whisky into two cups and gave one to Portia with the injunction that she drink it slowly, then he perched on the corner of the table and considered her closely. “So, what’s all this about hanging from Granville’s battlements?”
“I came to warn you that Cato’s setting a trap for you. I couldn’t send a message since I didn’t know how to find your spies. Since you consider me to be the enemy, I suppose it’s not surprising you wouldn’t take me into your confidence.” Portia was surprised that she had the energy for challenge.
“You didn’t stay around long enough to warrant my confidence,” he said quietly.
“I didn’t see how I could have stayed after what you said. I still think you’re wrong to be ruled by this vendetta. But I’m not part of it, Rufus.” She half rose from the stool and then remembered her ankle. Her eyes raked his face.
Rufus stroked his chin, his eyes narrowed as he stared into the fire. Then he looked up, his bright gaze resting on Portia’s pale countenance. “So, if you think I’m so wrong, tell me now why you risked your life, abandoned the only home you have, to help me. I should think you'd be delighted to see me swinging from Granville’s battlements.”
“One would think so,” she returned smartly. “Believe me, I fought the impulse. But for some unfathomable reason, I lost.”
Rufus grinned. Pure delight fizzed in his veins. Delight and immeasurable relief that she was truly unscathed. “Oh, gosling! Nothing blunts that hornet’s tongue! So, tell me about this trap.”
“I overheard Cato and his second in command, Giles Crampton. I used to wander around the castle at night.” Portia offered the partial explanation with a little shrug. He didn’t need to know about ancient privy chutes. She told him what she’d overheard and he heard her out in silence, drinking his whisky, his expression now impassive.
“I had gathered that Cato and his peers were collecting around the countryside,” he observed when she had finished. “There should be quite a treasure trove by now.” Rufus’s smile was grim. “It’ll fatten the king’s treasury nicely.”
Then his expression changed. He stood up and came over to her. He lifted her chin on his palm. His eyes were now grave as they looked down into her own. “I am very glad you came back. I don’t know what I can offer you, but since you’ve been reckless enough to abandon Cato’s hearth, then I fear you must accept mine.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her mouth.
“I don’t need your charity,” Portia said, turning her head slightly away from him. She wasn’t certain quite what he was saying. The invitation, if it was one, lacked something. If he was offering her a home just because she had nowhere else to go, just as payment for her information, she knew she wouldn’t accept it. “I didn’t come here expecting it.”
Rufus’s hand dropped from her face. He stared down at her. “Charity!” he exclaimed.
“I can manage alone,” Portia persisted. “I’ve always managed alone.”
“Dear God! If you weren’t in such a pathetic condition…!” He spun away from her and took one quick turn around the room. Then he came back and stood foursquare in front of her. “Do you wish to stay here?”
“Not if you’re always going to think of me as a Granville,” Portia said. Suddenly there was so much at stake. More than she could yet fully grasp.
“You are,” he said flatly. “I don’t see how I can forget it.”
“But how important is it?”
Rufus sighed. “I have missed you, Portia. Not a Granville. But you.”
Portia smiled slowly, feeling the warmth seeping through her veins. “That’s all right, then,” she said.
Rufus had the strangest feeling that he’d just been routed in a battle he didn’t know he’d been fighting.
Then Portia said softly, “I missed you too. I kept looking around for an old man with a humpback, lurking in some corner of one of the courts.”
Rufus stroked her face lightly with his palm, feeling his unease fade. He was aware once more of her pallor, of her weakness, of his need to look after her. “I’m going to fetch you some food from the mess. I won’t be long.”
“Bring something for Juno too.”
Alone, Portia sat drowsily in front of the fire, the ache in her ankle dulled by the whisky. She felt for the first time in her life as if she had come home.
Rufus returned within ten minutes, shaking snow off his cloak, stamping his boots in the doorway. A lad carrying a laden tray came in after Rufus. He glanced curiously at Portia as he set the tray on the table and seemed inclined to linger.
“Thank you, Adam,” Rufus said pointedly, putting a lidded jug down on the hearth.
“Right, sir.” The boy cast one more glance at the figure by the fire and with obvious reluctance went back into the snow.
Portia sniffed hungrily. “What is it?”
“Soup, braised ox tongue, and sack posset.” Rufus filled a bowl with vegetable soup, his movements swift and efficient. He gave it to her and stood watching as she ate, like a mother hen with a wounded chick, Portia thought, stifling a smile. There was something wonderfully comforting about that close, concerned regard. It told her that in some way she belonged again. She belonged enough that the most trivial aspects of her well-being mattered to Rufus.
She drank the soup greedily. It tasted like manna from heaven. Rufus replaced the soup with the ox tongue and set a saucer of chicken giblets on the floor for Juno, who attacked it with something remarkably like a growl. Rufus poured himself more whisky and stood before the fireplace in his habitual pose, one arm resting along the mantelpiece, one foot on the fender. He watched, amused by his own possessive satisfaction, as his patients ate with steady concentration. Color was returning to Portia’s cheeks and a little bounce to her hair, he noticed.
At last Juno abandoned her dish and came to the fire. She lay at Portia’s feet, rolling blissfully onto her back, exposing her distended belly to the warmth, her legs flopping in the air.
Rufus took away Portia’s empty platter and took up the covered jug from the hearth. “Drink this and then I’ll put you to bed.” He filled a tankard with the hot spiced milk curdled with wine and Portia curled her hands around it, burying her nose in the fragrant steam.
“Where’re the boys?” His choice of words had reminded her of his unruly and ramshackle pair. She glanced toward the curtained corner with a little start. “They aren’t out in the snow, are they?”