Free The Hostage Bride by Jane Feather

There would be a stable, and stables were a damn sight warmer than the open air.
    She found a substantial wooden structure at the rear of the cottage. Four horses, two of them shires, filled the small space with steaming breath and the rich smell of horseflesh. Tack hung on the wall, and she found her own saddle slung over a crossbeam.
    There was no sign of the boy. Nothing to stop her saddling up and riding out. She stood frowning. Would escape be this easy? She had nothing to lose by finding out.
    “Come on then, Patches.” She backed the originally named piebald out of the stall. He turned his head and whickered at the smell of snow from the open door behind her. “Yes, I’m sorry, but we have to go out there.” She hoisted the saddle off the beam and flung it over his back. “Even if we can’t find the sergeant and his men, there’s got to be a town or hamlet friendly to the Granvilles somewhere close by in this godforsaken land.”
    Her fingers were numb even within her gloves, and buckling bridle and girth took longer than it should have done. However, finally she was ready. She vaulted onto the piebald’s back and rode him out of the stable.
    The small backyard was fenced and contained a well, a henhouse, and a group of rabbit hutches. She rode toward a gate opening onto a field, reasoning that she could then ride parallel to the lane. Her heart was hammering. It all seemed too easy. Why would Rufus Decatur go to all that trouble to abduct her and then stand aside as she escaped?
    It
was
too easy. As she leaned down to open the gate, theback door of the cottage opened. The earl of Rothbury stood in the doorway, his tankard in one hand, a hunk of bread and cheese in the other. He had an air of careless relaxation, his gaze disconcertingly mild as if he had no particular interest in her present movements.
    “Leaving so soon?” He raised the tankard to his lips.
    Portia’s numb fingers slipped on the latch of the gate and she swore.
    “My apologies if the hospitality was not up to Granville standards,” he said. “A lack for which your father’s brother must bear responsibility.”
    He hadn’t taken a step toward her. Perhaps he wasn’t going to stop her. Portia didn’t say anything. She finally had a grip on the latch and nudged open the gate with one knee.
    “When you reach Castle Granville, inform Cato that Rufus Decatur sends his regards,” the earl of Rothbury said pleasantly. “And you may tell him too that I’ll see him in hell.” The door closed behind him, and Portia was left alone in the yard.
    She urged Patches through the narrow gate and closed it behind her, too well trained in country law to leave it open even in emergency.
    She reached the road but it was hard to see the lane in front of her in the now driving snowstorm. Patches was not happy as he picked his way through the thick white stuff and was very reluctant to increase his speed. With a tremor of fear, Portia realized that she’d made a mistake leaving the sanctuary of the cottage. She should have swallowed her damned pride and ignored Decatur’s prating. It would have done her less harm than finding herself lost in a blizzard.
    There was no sign of life around her, and she seemed enclosed in a white swirling cloud. And then she heard the hooves behind her and the great chestnut stallion loomed up, a grayish shadow amid the white, his rider cloaked in snow. Only the vivid blue eyes pierced the uniform dullness with life and color.
    “God’s grace! You don’t have the sense to know when you’re well off!” Rufus declared, leaning forward to grab her bridle. “And neither, it seems, do I.” He swore vigorously, as much at his own misguided urge to rescue her from her obstinacy as atPortia herself. He hauled her mount up alongside the chestnut. “I’ll lead your horse; he’ll follow Ajax more easily than make tracks on his own.”
    “But what of Sergeant Crampton?” Portia demanded, her fear forgotten, her original