“So, you’ve a mind to look upon Granville work,” Rufus said. “Well, look, then!” He pointed with his whip.

Portia looked down into the valley and saw a blackened ruin. What had once been soft red brick was charred; tumbled walls, their edges jagged, still showed the form of the mansion that had once stood there. Toppled chimney pots lay in the weed-covered grassy courtyards. Between scattered blue-gray slates of roof tiles, shards of window glass still glimmered in the grass. Parkland, once fenced and planted, was now an overgrown wilderness of ragged bushes, and the once neat gravel sweep that had led to the great Elizabethan front door was choked with weeds.

Portia gazed at this stark destruction in stunned silence.

“I was born in that house.” Rufus began to speak, his voice savage, his eyes pitiless as they rested on her white face. “I was eight years old when the Granvilles murdered my father as he stood in his own front door. Eight years old when they put a torch to a house whose foundations had been laid on that land before the Conquest. I was eight when the Granvilles drove the Decaturs into the hills like wild beasts.”

“Jack told me your father killed himself,” Portia said, her voice so parched she could barely form the words. “George Granville didn’t kill your father, he killed himself.”

“Yes, he killed himself to avoid the dishonor of a traitor’s death,” Rufus stated. “He killed himself so his son wouldn’t see his father beheaded on Tower Hill for a crime he did not commit. And the man whose hand he had shaken in friendship over twenty years as surely killed him as if he’d fired the pistol himself.”

Portia glanced once at his face and then looked away, staring down at the ruined house. It was impossible to look upon his countenance and not be terrified by its expression. He didn’t seem to know she was there anymore.

“George Granville, as reward for his betrayal, received the stewardship of all the revenues of the Rothbury estates.” He continued to speak into the air around her. “I had thought to force Granville to return those revenues in exchange for his daughter. Instead of which…”

He stopped and glanced over at Portia, his eyes unreadable, before continuing with a softness that belied the savagery of his words, “I swore to take my father’s vengeance, and so help me God I will do it. I will see that sewer rat crawl for his father’s treachery.”

In horror, Portia knew that he meant every word. But with aching empathy she understood what he had lost. From the age of eight, fatherless, thrust out from his birthright to grow in the harsh world beyond the law, beyond society. A young boy who had seen his father die a dreadful death.

“Your mother?” she said tentatively.

“Died giving birth to my sister, five months after we were driven out.” His tone was bleak, distant. “She died because no one would come to the aid of a hunted outcast, the widow of a condemned traitor. The child died within hours.”

“Oh God.” Portia tried to push away the images of the boy watching his mother, listening to her screams in the agonies of childbirth, helplessly watching her suffering and the death that left him a homeless orphan.

But it was wrong. There would never be an end to it while Rufus remained enslaved to vengeance. It diminished them all.

“Cato did not kill your father,” she said. “He was a boy like you. You cannot hold him responsible for his father’s actions.”

“So speaks a Granville,” Rufus said softly. “How curious that once or twice I’ve managed to forget what you are.”

“I cannot help it,” she said. “I cannot help my blood, Rufus.”

He made no response, just continued to sit Ajax, staring down again now at the ruins of his home. Portia gathered Penny’s reins and spoke the only truth there was. “I cannot help it and you cannot forget it, Rufus. There’s no place for me in Decatur village. I’m no good to you as a hostage, and I cannot be anything else to you. I will always be the enemy.”

He looked across at her, his eyes now bleak. “You’re an hour’s ride due south to Castle Granville. Go back home, back to the Granville hearth where you belong.”

Portia set Penny down the hill, back to the lane, then turned due south. She didn’t look back, but she could still see in her mind’s eye the man sitting his horse at the top of the rise, alone with his vengeance.

While she was simply alone. Returning to an uncertain welcome, to be tormented always by the memory of those moments when she had, however briefly, belonged.

The journey from Decatur village passed in a daze. Portia had to ask the way several times, but found herself very quickly on Granville land. It was not much more than a hour after leaving Rufus that she saw the great gray bulk of Castle Granville on the hill across the valley. She didn’t know how to describe to herself how she felt. Her wretchedness had increased with each mile she put between herself and Rufus Decatur. It was as if she’d been thrust out into the cold, like a baby bird thrown from its nest. It didn’t matter that she told herself she had forced the issue herself… that she had left of her own accord. It didn’t help at all. None of the many and varied miseries of her girlhood had prepared her for this sense of desolation.

She rode up to the wicket gate and the sentry peered at her suspiciously. She identified herself and it had a galvanizing effect. The gate swung open and the sentry grabbed Penny’s reins, yelling over his shoulder, “Fetch Sergeant Crampton. The girl’s back.”

Portia wearily dismounted and stood in the gatehouse, waiting for Giles. It seemed a less than ceremonious welcome for a miraculously returned hostage.

Giles bustled in. He’d been in the middle of his dinner and still carried a checkered napkin. He stared at her, his jaw dropping, and it was a minute before he demanded, “Where’d you spring from?”

“I escaped,” she said. “Why am I being kept here, Sergeant?” It was an attempt at hauteur and it had some effect on the sergeant.

“Lord Granville’s at dinner,” he said huffily. “But we’d best get along. Come wi‘ me.”

Portia refrained from telling him that she knew her way to the dining parlor perfectly well, and submitted to being escorted like an escaped prisoner.

Within the dining parlor, Cato was wearily trying to entertain Brian Morse. Diana had been transformed from the first moment of their visitor’s arrival. Brian had brought with him the sanctified odor of the court. His dress was fashionable, his manner elaborately courteous, with more than a hint of flirtation to lend it spice. Diana was in her element, radiant and glowing. Cato was not.

“If you care to go hawking, Brian, I could – ” Cato broke off at the sound of voices outside the oak door. He recognized Giles Crampton’s vigorous tones and was on his feet with an unabashed eagerness as the door opened.

The sergeant filled the doorway. “Beggin‘ yer pardon for disturbin’ yer dinner, m’lord, but-”

“No matter, Giles.” Cato cast down his napkin. He couldn’t see Portia’s cloaked figure behind the sergeant’s bulk. “Come, let’s go to my chamber. If you’ll excuse me, my dear.” He offered his wife a hasty bow and strode to the door. Then he stopped in astonishment.

“Portia! Good God, girl! How did you get here?”

“She just turned up, m’lord,” Giles said, before Portia could speak. “Just turned up at the wicket gate wi’out a word of warnin‘.”

“I would imagine a warning might have been difficult,” Cato said slowly, trying to take in this extraordinary reappearance, and what it could possibly mean. “Are you well, child? Not hurt?”

Portia shook her head but said in perfect truth, “No, but I own I’m weary, sir. It’s a long story.”

“Yes, of course. Come, we’ll discuss it in private.”

“What is it, my lord?” Diana’s curious tones came from the table behind him.