The Hostage Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

have a task for you, Giles. I don’t know anyone else I can send.”
    “I’m your man, m’lord. You know that.”
    “Aye, but this is a task you may not take to.” Cato frowned. “A nursemaid’s task, you might call it. And it comes at the devil’s own time. I can’t easily spare you.”
    Giles’s firm stride didn’t falter. “Go on, sir.”
    “I need you to go to Edinburgh and bring back my niece.” Cato explained the situation, and Giles said nothing until the explanation was finished.
    “You want me to go today?”
    “The sooner the better. There’s no fighting close to the border yet. Leven is still bringing his troops down.”
    “And we’ll be joinin’ him, will we, m’lord?”
    “Aye. When you get back from Scotland with the girl, we’ll raise the standard for Parliament.”
    A beam spread slowly over Giles’s rough-hewn countenance. “Now, that’ll be a rare sight, m’lord.”
    “Will the men take up the standard?”
    “Aye. They’ll follow orders. Those who think at all already have leanings toward Parliament.”
    “Good.” Cato drew out a heavy leather purse from his pocket. “This should see you through.”
    “And if the girl is unwilling …?”
    “Then don’t force her. If she has plans of her own, so much the better.” His brother couldn’t expect him to do more than offer the girl a home.
    Giles nodded again. “’Appen I’ll go over the moors. Less chance of meetin’ an army.” He grinned slyly.
    “More chance of meeting moss-troopers,” Cato said with a grim smile. “Rufus Decatur will have his spies out, and there’s nothing he’d like better than to ambush a party of Granville men.”
    “I’ve heard tell he’s raisin’ his own militia for the king,” Giles said.
    “I suppose it was only to be expected that he’d become embroiled in the war,” Cato said dourly. “He’s bound to see fat pickings somewhere in the chaos of conflict. Just the kind of anarchy Decatur thrives upon.”
    He returned to the castle, his brow knotted as always by a train of thought that brought only frustration and anger. For twenty-six years the outlawed Decatur clan had lived in the wild, barren lands of the Cheviot Hills, from where they carried on a war of nerves and depredation against the lands, properties, and livelihoods of all bearing allegiance to the Granville standard.
    The bands of moss-troopers who throughout the reigns of Elizabeth and James had turned the northern border into their own lawless territory had finally been subdued, but the Decaturs remained, protected in their isolated stronghold,moving easily back and forth across the Scottish border, raiding Granville property, remaining always outside the law, and always evading pursuit and capture.
    Rufus Decatur led this band of outlaws. He was a man of huge reputation in the countryside, and the legends accompanying his name were larger than life. It didn’t matter that he was master of a band of brigands and thieves, the people loved him for it, and he repaid their affection in kind. From them, he took nothing that was not freely given, and gave generously where help was needed. Even from his own jaundiced viewpoint, Cato was forced to acknowledge that the outcast house of Rothbury was as much a force for good throughout the countryside as it had been when the family had been in possession of their estates and fortune.
    Except when it came to Granville matters. There Decatur’s loathing and malice were unbounded. He hounded and persecuted, raided, destroyed, never missing an opportunity for mischief wherever it would hurt the marquis of Granville the most.
    Every day of his adult life, Cato had felt himself pitted against Rufus Decatur. They were of an age. And each had succeeded to his father’s title. But whereas Cato on the death of his father had assumed the mantle and trappings of a powerful noble of the borderlands, Rufus had only an empty title and forfeit estates, and the memory of a father who had