“What are you going to do?” she demanded.
“Do?” Rufus raised an eyebrow. “What do you think might be appropriate action, Mistress Worth?”
Portia compressed her lips. “Just get it over with,” she muttered, wishing now that she’d chosen to remain on her feet. Sitting here with him towering above her wasn’t helping matters in the least.
“The sledge and the hides belong to Bertram.” Rufus tapped the back of one gloved hand into the palm of the other, making a rhythmic slapping sound in the quiet night. “He’ll expect to see everything back where he left it in the morning, so you’d better get moving.”
“Get moving?” Portia regarded him with dawning horror as she began to have an inkling of what he meant.
He nodded. “Take it back, Mistress Worth. We don’t tolerate theft in Decatur village.”
“But it’s upstream!”
“Yes, I believe it is.” He stepped away from the sledge. “I’ll ride along the bank beside you… just in case you get any other foolish ideas.” His teeth flashed white within the shadow of his beard, but it was still a far from friendly smile.
Portia glanced down at her hands. The leather in the palms of her gloves was splitting, and her palms stung. Grimly she stood up, took the pole to the back of the sledge, and pushed off. The craft moved barely a foot. It was as if the runners had been blunted or wrapped in rags. She bit her lip and pushed again.
From the bank, Rufus stood watching her efforts for a minute, then he swung astride Ajax and set the horse to a slow walk, keeping pace with the sledge’s laborious progress. Slowly his punitive anger died. The girl had been exhausted before she’d begun this mad enterprise, and what she was enduring now must be unadulterated torture. Once again, he was stirred to reluctant admiration by her indomitable spirit. He remembered telling her in Castle Granville that they were alike, he and she. That recognition now vanquished his anger. He would have done just what Portia Worth had done in a similar situation.
It was still damnably irritating, though, to have to spend the shank of his evening chasing after her. His irritation rang in his voice as he called out to her, “Portia, leave the sledge and come over here.”
Portia ignored him, setting her teeth, thrusting the pole against the ice. If she stopped, she would lose what little momentum she had. She could see no lights ahead of her now and guessed that the village had retired for the night. Thoughts of the little bed in the apple loft, of fire and candlelight, danced in her head. She closed her mind to everything but the need to drive the sledge across the ice.
Rufus’s irritation grew closer to anger again. “God’s grace, girl! Will you do as you’re bid?” His voice roared across the river.
This time she looked up and saw that he’d drawn rein and was standing in the stirrups, hands cupped around his mouth to amplify his words.
“Why?” she demanded, still pushing.
Of all the obstinate creatures! “Because I say so,” Rufus bellowed. “Now come over here at once!”
Portia flung aside the pole and stepped out of the sledge. She no longer cared what further torments the master of Decatur had in mind. She was half dead with cold and exhaustion and decided that the other half would be a welcome relief. She slipped and slithered to the bank and stood there, hands on her hips, glaring up at him. “Now what?”
Rufus leaned down from the saddle. “Give me your hand and put your foot on mine.”
Still Portia hesitated, warily examining his countenance. It was not particularly reassuring. Could he really have relented and be offering her a ride back to the village?
“If I have to dismount, Mistress Worth, one of us is going to regret it,” Rufus declared. He clicked his fingers impatiently.
It seemed she was damned if she went and damned if she stayed. Portia scrambled up the bank and took the large hand, her fingers curling painfully around his. With her last vestige of strength, she managed to lift her foot high enough to gain purchase on his boot in the stirrup, then she was sailing upward without much help from her own muscles to land on the saddle in front of him.
“Are you just going to leave the sledge there?” she demanded. “I thought you said Bertram, or whatever his name is, will expect to find it where he left it.”
Rufus was astounded. Did nothing squash her? Then he felt her shiver, felt the rigidity of her thin frame. She had half turned to look up at him as she threw her challenge, and the moonlight caught her white face, and he saw the strain in the slanted green eyes, and the fear beneath the defiance. Without thinking, he raised his hand and lightly cupped the curve of her cheek in his gloved palm. Her eyes widened. The fear receded and something took its place. Puzzlement that yet contained a flicker of anticipation. And he knew she was remembering as was he that teasing kiss in the court of Castle Granville. It hadn’t meant anything. Of course he hadn’t meant anything by it.
His hand dropped from her cheek, and with a brisk gesture, he wrapped his cloak around her thin, shivering frame and urged Ajax into a canter.
Portia tried to hold herself upright, to deny her fatigue. Her cheek was still warmed by that strange little caress, but every instinct told her it had been as much an aberration as the stroking paw of the tiger. He had teased her and manipulated her in the castle ward, and he was just doing the same now. It obviously pleased him to taunt her, and she couldn’t understand why she had for a minute allowed herself to believe that it was a genuine gesture. He must have seen her gullibility in her eyes.
“Sit back, for pity’s sake!” Rufus pulled her backward against him with an impatient movement. “I’m not a porcupine.” He held her so tightly she had no choice but to slump against his broad chest. She could feel his heart beating strongly against her ear and her own seemed to slip into the same rhythm, sending her into a strange daze.
In less than ten minutes they were riding into the darkened village, and Portia from within her numbed trance thought with a shudder of how long it would have taken her to propel the sledge, in the unlikely event that she’d been able to do it.
Rufus drew rein outside his cottage and lifted Portia from the saddle, lowering her to the ground. “Go inside and get ready for bed. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve taken Ajax to the stables.”
A man clearly accustomed to the habit of command, Portia thought with a twinge of derision that heartened her. It meant she hadn’t quiet lost her backbone. She let herself into the cottage. The warmth was blissful. She huddled over the banked fire, stretching her white numbed hands to the glow, wracked by convulsive shivers. A snuffling mumble came from behind the curtain. She froze, listening, but all was quiet again. One of the boys must be dreaming.
Rufus quietly let himself into the cottage five minutes later. He frowned at her. “I thought I told you to get ready for bed.”
“I was too cold to go upstairs.”
“It’s warm enough. Come.” He gestured to the stairs. “I hope you’ve learned a few things tonight about the nature of a military compound, but just in case you’re still not completely clear, we’ll take certain measures to ensure we both spend what’s left of the night in relative peace.” He put a hand in the small of her back and pushed her firmly ahead of him.
In the big bedchamber, Rufus said brusquely, “All in all, this has been a very tiresome day, and I find myself very short of patience. You, I know, are exhausted, so let’s do each other a favor and get to bed without any more tedious discussion.”
He drew off his gloves and unfastened his cloak, tossing them over the chest at the foot of the bed. His buff jerkin followed, then he sat on the chest to pull off his boots and stockings. Portia watched him with a sort of horrified fascination as he unbuckled his belt and kicked off his britches.