The Hostage Bride Read Free

entered was neither quiet nor hesitant. “They are coming?” Her eyes fixed upon the earl with painful intensity. “They are coming to put us out of our house. Is it so, my lord?”
    “Aye, Clarissa, it is so.” Her husband’s blue gaze was unreadable as it rested on the brown-haired woman and the young boy standing wide-eyed beside her. The child that Clarissa carried beneath her belt, with its great ring of household keys,was visible only in the slight thickening of her waist, but one hand rested on her belly, the other on her son’s already sturdy shoulder, in unconscious protection of the life both born and unborn.
    “They will take you away,” she said, and the struggle to control the tremor in her voice was harsh on her countenance. “And what will become of us, my lord?”
    William flinched from the hard bitterness of her resentment, of her refusal to understand the driving power of conscience that forced him to make this sacrifice, to drive his family into penniless exile, to besmirch a proud family name with the vile tag of traitor.
    Before he could answer, however, the thundering roll of hooves surged through the open window. Clarissa gasped and the boy, Rufus, Viscount Rothbury, son and heir to the now disgraced earl of Rothbury, stepped away from his mother, moving closer to his father as if to separate himself from a woman’s weakness.
    The earl glanced down at the red-haired boy and met the child’s clear blue gaze, as vivid and as steadfast as his father’s. William smiled, a half smile that yet carried deep sorrow for this child whose birthright was to be snatched from him, who was to be condemned to an outlaw’s life. Then he placed his hand on his son’s shoulder and drew him beside him as he faced the open window.
    In the gathering dusk, the invading force swept inexorably, rank after rank, onto the gravel sweep before the soft weathered facade of the Elizabethan manor house. They carried pikes and muskets, infantry filing behind the three ranks of cavalry. The royal standard of James Stuart, King of England, snapped in the evening breeze.
    But it was not his king’s standard that set the lightning forks blazing in the earls eyes. It was the banner that flew beside it. The banner of the house of Granville. And beneath it, George, Marquis of Granville, sat on his great black steed, his head bare, his gloved hands resting lightly on his saddle.
    A herald’s trumpet blew a long note, and a voice bellowed from below, “William Decatur, Earl of Rothbury, you are hereby commanded in the king’s name to surrender yourself to His Majesty’s justice.”
    It was as if a spell had been broken in the room. The earl swung from the window. He strode to the fireplace. His fingers moved across the stones and slowly, silently, the great fieldstone swung back, revealing the black cavernous space of a priest’s hole. “You know what to do, Clarissa. Take Rufus and go. My brothers are waiting for you beyond the coppice. I’ll hold this scum here until you’re safe away.”
    “But, William …” Clarissa’s voice died, and the hand she extended toward her husband hung as if forgotten in midair.
    “I will follow you,” he said shortly. “Now do as I bid, and
go
.”
    A wife did not disobey her husband, not even in this extremity. Clarissa reached for her son’s hand, but he snatched it away.
    “I will stay with Father.” He didn’t look at his mother; his gaze was fixed intently upon his father. And William understood that his son knew the truth. The earl of Rothbury would not be following his wife and son into exile. He would not run from the king’s justice and earn the name of coward as well as traitor.
    He took the boy by the shoulders and said softly, “You are your mother’s keeper, Rufus. You are her shield and buckler now. And it is for you now to avenge our honor.”
    He turned aside to the table and took up the parchment, rolling it carefully. He held it out to the boy. “Rufus, my