“Most don’t,” Josiah replied. “But some lassies do.”
“I’ll probably be one of those who do,” Portia said glumly. She stretched in the cramped space, envying Juno, who was running free outside. Josiah made sure the puppy had three good runs a day. But then, Juno couldn’t use a bucket, Portia reflected wryly.
“Does t’master know?” Josiah asked, unlocking Portia’s cell.
“By the time I was sure, the right moment never arose to tell him.” Portia came out of the cell with a little sigh of relief. Five days of this confinement was becoming tedious. Her legs jumped with the need to walk; her body, filled with suppressed energy, refused to settle into sleep; her mind seethed with “if onlys.”
“Josiah, could I just walk a little along the riverbank? I give you my word -my parole -that I’ll come back.”
Josiah looked uncomfortable. “I knows ye won’t be goin‘ anywhere, but I ’aven’t ‘ad orders.”
Portia was stumped. The Rufus she thought she knew would not have condemned her to this kind of confinement. It made sense to think that in the intensity of those last moments in the camp, he’d given his orders and simply missed specifying the details of her imprisonment. But perhaps not. Perhaps this was what he’d intended. He’d saved her from a spy’s punishment, but his own was another matter. Ultimately more merciful, but still dreadful.
“Mebbe I could send-” Josiah’s musing was cut off by the shrilling of pipes. The cottage was set away from the village, but they could hear the commotion -racing footsteps, shouts.
“What is it?” Portia moved swiftly to the barred window, her blood racing. She knew the answer in every bone and sinew. Rufus was back.
“I’ll go an‘ see. Eat yer porridge an’ I’ll be back.” Josiah’s shuffle was faster than usual as he went to the door, releasing a breath of early-morning-fresh summer air that filled Portia with an aching need to leave her prison.
The door banged shut behind him, and Portia heard the heavy bar drop into place.
She ate her porridge, without enthusiasm or appetite. Inaction dulled appetite anyway, and the diet lacked the kind of variety that might stimulate it. But she was conscious of the life growing within her. A life that had somehow become intrinsic to her own. She lived for this child. Her blood flowed for the child. Her mind thought for it. Her lungs breathed for it. It was as if her body was devoting itself without conscious instruction to the nurturing of a life that had not yet discovered its own importance, or its own needs. She was the child within her womb as that child was her own self.
The simple task of eating also calmed her. The sounds beyond her prison had now changed. Now she could hear the pipes and drums of an army, the marching feet, all the concomitants of a conventional military discipline that subsumed the martial encampment of an erstwhile outlaw.
Rufus Decatur was no longer a moss-trooper, an outlaw.
He was the rightful earl of Rothbury, fighting for his king, and Portia Worth was a traitor whom he was harboring. Whatever business had brought him here, he would have to ignore her presence officially. But surely he would come to her… say something… send a message through Josiah or George or Will.
Juno’s short barks at the door to the jail heralded Josiah’s entrance, with the puppy bounding ahead of him. Juno leaped at Portia as if she hadn’t seen her for a week.
“Yes… yes… I love you too.” Portia bent to stroke her. Two months ago she could have lifted her easily into her arms. But at six months the puppy was bidding fair to become a large dog, although Juno hadn’t seemed to realize that herself and looked disappointed when she was left at ground level.
“Is it Rufus?” Portia tried to keep both anxiety and hope from her voice as she looked up at Josiah while keeping a calming hand on Juno’s neck.
“Aye.” Josiah’s customary tranquility was disturbed. “They’re all back, wi‘ the prince’s men, too. They’re sayin’ there’s goin‘ to be a big battle. T’army’s ’eadin‘ out t’morrow mornin’.”
Portia’s heart plunged. “Did you see Rufus?”
“Not to speak to… You finished ‘ere?” Josiah gestured to the bowl on the table. His old eyes were troubled. “Seems very busy, ’e does… what wi‘ the prince’s officers an’ all.”
“If he wants to talk to me, I suppose he will.” Portia sounded as dispirited as she felt. She went back into her cell, Juno at her heels. “He knows I’m here, after all.”
“Aye, but ‘e doesn’t know yer carryin’,” Josiah said, locking the barred door before picking up the empty porridge bowl. “‘I’ll be back wi’ dinner at noon.”
Portia lay back on her cot and listened to the familiar sounds of the door and the bar locking her in. How long was Rufus intending to keep her here? Until the war was over? Until she no longer faced charges of treason? Would he ever talk to her again? Or would Josiah open the door one day and tell her she was free? Free to go wherever fancy and fate took her, so long as she never crossed Rufus Decatur’s path again?
Free to give birth to a Decatur bastard who would never know its father?
Rufus entered his cottage and the emptiness assailed him. It had been many months since he’d lived here without Portia, and something essential seemed to have gone from the place. Her heavy winter cloak still hung from the hook by the door, and he knew that if he went upstairs he would see her nightrobe over the bedrail, and he could even fancy that the mattress was still imprinted with the slight indentation of her body. His own body was so much bigger and heavier than Portia’s deceptively frail form that she always rolled down into the valley he made to come to rest against his back, curled around him like a limpet on a rock.
He had never in his life been as wretched as he was now. Not even as an orphaned lad, cast adrift with the memories of his father’s last words and the sound of the shot that had killed him and the reek of the smoke that had burned to ashes the only home Rufus had ever known. Not even when he’d stood over the dead bodies of his mother and infant sister and worried about how he was to bury them.
There had still been a future then, a terrifying, unknown future, but the knowledge of a future was essentially hopeful. Now he felt as if something vital to his continued existence had been cut out of him. There was nothing to look forward to, nothing to plan for. For the one and only time in his adult life, he had given himself-his trust, his loyalty, and his love-to another person. He had loved… no, still loved her… with such an overwhelming power that that emotion contained all others. And she had deceived him, used his love to betray him. And the knowledge of that was unendurable.
“Is she here? Is Portia here?” Luke and Toby pushed against his legs in their hurry to get inside. They tumbled headlong into the kitchen and righted themselves, looking around the barren room.
“She’s not here?” Luke said, his voice forlorn.
“She’s not anywhere,” Toby stated flatly. He looked up at his father. “Where is she?”
Rufus had thought they’d accepted Portia’s disappearance as easily as they usually adapted to their lives’ constantly changing circumstances. Now he realized it had been wishful thinking. The fact that they hadn’t questioned her absence meant only that they had put their own construction on it, and had simply assumed she would reappear in familiar surroundings. Now they were both looking up at him with a mixture of accusation and trepidation, and he cursed himself for being such a blind fool. Portia had become as indispensable a part of their lives as she had of his. He’d been too absorbed in his own wretchedness to look at his sons and see how they were dealing with her sudden and unexplained absence.
And now in order to answer his children, he had to face the question he’d pushed aside in the last week. He couldn’t keep Portia imprisoned forever. So what was he to do?