Nothing. The stones were hard, unyielding blocks of ice. And she was stranded outside the castle at two in the morning!

Biting her lower lip, Portia expanded her search, running her flat palms over the stones alongside the line. Still nothing. Her hands were so cold now she couldn’t feel anything. She pulled on her gloves again, shivering violently, and leaned back against the wall, wondering what to do next.

The wall opened behind her. It was so sudden she fell backward. There was no lintel and she stumbled into a black void, her hands flailing for purchase. She just managed to keep her feet by grabbing hold of the slab of stone as it swung heavily inward.

She was inside the castle, looking out onto the moat. Behind her it was pitch black, ahead the grayish dark of the night. Once she closed the door, she would be utterly blind.

She stood still, her ears straining into the darkness behind her. She could hear her blood roaring in her ears, her heart hammering against her ribs. Were the men long gone? Was there any danger she might run into them? She looked behind her and could see only a low narrow tunnel disappearing into darkness.

There was silence. A silence so complete it was terrifying. Pulling the door closed took more courage than Portia thought she possessed, but she managed it. The same creak, the same dull thud, and then she was standing in utter darkness and silence. She turned, placed her hands on the walls on either side, and began to walk, her head and shoulders bent low. But gradually the ceiling lifted and she could soon stand upright. The darkness grew less absolute as her eyes accustomed themselves, and as she peered ahead she thought she detected a grayness in the black.

And then she saw a flicker of light. Torchlight. She froze, pressing herself against the wall even as her heart lifted at this sign of approaching habitation. There was no sound and the light remained in one place, flickering as if in a breeze. She slid forward again, keeping to the wall. The tunnel began to open out and she saw the mouth just ahead. And then she heard the voices. Cato’s voice. And Giles Crampton’s.

“I think we’re done now, Giles.” Cato’s voice rang with satisfaction.

“Aye, m’lord. It’s quite a haul.” Giles chuckled. “I doubt there’s a silver chalice left between ‘ere an’ York. When do we send it on?”

“Next Friday by the Durham road… now that my stepson’s safely out of the way…”

“Left in summat of a ‘urry, I thought,” Giles observed. “Looked right peaky, ’ardly able to sit ‘is ’orse.”

“Mmm,” Cato agreed dryly. Brian’s abrupt departure had not been very amicable. In fact Cato had the uncomfortable feeling that his stepson harbored a distinct grudge against Castle Granville. There had been something most unpleasant in his sallow brown eyes… something almost menacing if one were given to fancies. Which Cato was not. He had much more interesting matters on his mind than Brian’s petty malice.

“When the treasure leaves on Friday, we shall make sure Rufus Decatur knows exactly when it leaves and by what road.” Cato’s voice was now cold but the earlier satisfaction was still there.

“Don’t quite follow you, sir?” Giles sounded tentative. “Stands to reason ‘e’d snatch it fer the king soon as look at it.”

“Precisely. But he’ll walk into a trap when he does so,” Cato declared with the same chill certainty. “He’ll attack the shipment and we’ll be waiting for him. I shall see Rufus Decatur hang from my battlements before the month is out, you may depend upon it, Giles.”

“Eh, ‘tis a good plan, sir, but ’ow d’we draw ‘im in?” Giles was a man of limited imagination, and his puzzlement was obvious to the listener in the tunnel.

“We spread the word about the shipment,” Cato said patiently. “The countryside is crawling with Decatur spies. The information will get to him… and…” He paused.

Portia crept closer, forgetting the danger in her anxiety not to miss a word.

“And I believe we have a spy right here. If I’m right, Mistress Worth will pass on the information through whatever channels she’s been instructed to use.”

Giles whistled. “Ye do reckon she’s gone bad, then?”

“I don’t know whether she’s bad so much as gullible,” Cato said. “If I’m right, then she’ll pass on this information as soon as she hears it, and if I’m wrong, then we’ll make sure he hears it anyway.”

Portia felt sick. Her hair seemed to lift as her scalp contracted.

She became aware that the voices were fading, then the light was extinguished, but she remained pressed to the tunnel wall until complete silence fell again. When she was certain she was once more alone, she stepped forward out of the runnel and found herself in a large vault. She could smell the oil of the extinguished lamp. It was very dark, but she could make out the shapes of coffers stacked against the walls. She opened one and stared at the bright glitter of silver, the duller glow of gold, the sparkle of gems, that seemed to throw light into the darkness.

She touched the objects. Candlesticks, chalices, silver plates. There was jewelry too. Rings and broaches. A treasure-house of altarpieces, domestic chattels, personal jewelry. All of precious metals and gems. And all intended to enrich Parliament’s coffers. Maintaining an army in wartime was a hugely expensive business. The king was as strapped financially as the rebels. This hoard would give either side a huge advantage once the spring fighting began.

Rufus Decatur would give anything to get his hands on this. And Cato knew it.

Portia let the lid of the coffer fall. The thud in the vast chamber sounded like a drumbeat, and her heart speeded. But silence fell again. She could make out the shadow of an opening in the far wall and went toward it. Another tunnel stretched ahead, but it was wider and higher than the one from the moat. She followed it, thinking furiously.

She had to warn Rufus of the trap. Cato was right. His enemy would have eyes and ears on the alert across the countryside. Nothing that Cato Granville intended escaped the notice of Rufus Decatur. He’d attempt to capture Cato’s treasure, and he’d be captured himself.

The tunnel ended at the bottom of a flight of steep stone stairs. At the head was an oak door. Portia felt a chill of anxiety as she laid her hand on the latch. What if it was locked from the other side? But the hasp lifted smoothly and she slipped through, finding herself in one of the sculleries leading off the kitchen.

There was no sound but the loud ticking of the tall case clock in the kitchen and the hiss of a flaming log in the great hearth. Portia made her way via the back stairs to her own chilly chamber, where she sat on the bed behind the closed door, hands knotted in her lap, her mind racing.

So Cato believed she was a spy. A gullible naif who didn’t know what she was doing. A wave of indignation washed through her at the thought of how Cato intended to use her. She was to bait his trap! Well, blood ties or no, she was going to do the opposite.

But how? Unfortunately she didn’t have the channels of communication with Decatur village that Lord Granville assumed she had. And it wasn’t as if there were friendly postmen willing to take such a charged message across the wintry landscape of the Cheviot Hills in the middle of a war. She had no way of discovering one of Rufus’s spies, and she couldn’t wander the countryside dropping hints in the hopes that they’d fall on fertile ears.

The answer, of course, was simple. She would have to go herself.

The cold thought rose in her brain that once she’d left Cato’s roof on such an errand, she’d never be able to return to it. She would be utterly adrift.

But she knew she had no choice. She couldn’t stand aside and watch Rufus go to his death.

She crawled under the covers and shivered through a fitful doze. In the harsh gray light of dawn, she rose and began to move about the chamber, packing up her few belongings. She would have to go on foot. A daunting prospect, but she couldn’t take one of Cato’s horses, and Penny had been sent back to her owner as soon as she’d been bated and rested. Cato had not imparted to Portia the content of the message he’d sent back with her, and Portia had preferred not to know.