Jane Feather: The Accidental Bride

Brian repeated, “Lay down your arms, my lord.”

Cato regarded Phoebe with a blank stare. It seemed he was looking right through her.

“You’re more of a fool than I thought you, Brian,” Cato said harshly. “I’ve no time for sentiment. I hadn’t with your mother. Why should I have with this meddlesome chit?” He spun around, his sword catching the light as it cut, breaking the momentary spell of inaction.

The movement was so sudden, the sentiment so harshly surprising that Brian’s attention wavered for an instant. Phoebe kicked up and back at the same moment she drove her free elbow into the pit of Brian’s belly. As he bent forward, gasping with the nauseating pain wrenching his groin and stomach, she sank her teeth into the hand that now wavered at her throat.

His hold slackened and she spun away from him, delivering an almighty kick to his thigh as she went.

Cato caught her, threw her sideways out of the fray, and went for Brian. He was filled with a cold fury that had only one target. There was no room in Cato’s soul now for compassion, for remorse, for family ties. He would kill the man who had come within a breath of killing Phoebe.

Phoebe had been thrown to her knees by the side of the lane. She dragged herself to her feet, her eyes taking in the scene. Cato was fighting Brian. Cato’s friend was hard pressed by the others. A knife lay in the gutter. Phoebe picked it up, closed her eyes, and plunged it downward in the general direction of one of Walter Strickland’s assailants. It met the resistance of clothing and the flesh beneath, before penetrating the man’s shoulder.

He dropped his sword to the cobbles with a vile curse and Phoebe jumped back, leaving the knife sticking up from his back. She bent and picked up the dropped sword, holding the heavy blade effortfully with two hands clasped around the hilt. She had no idea whether she could wield it to any purpose, but she felt more useful holding it. Behind her she could hear the clash of swords as Cato’s advance inexorably forced Brian back towards the wall of the house.

Cato was a better swordsman than Brian, and on an even field the younger man had not a chance. Brian knew it. His eyes grew wild as he searched for an advantage that would overcome his stepfather’s greater skill. Only his accomplices could give it to him, but his bellows for assistance fell on deaf ears. He saw Cato’s eyes. Black as agate. Pitiless as they’d never been before. And Brian knew he was lost.

When Cato’s sword slid beneath his arm as easily as a knife through butter, Brian sighed almost with relief that it was over. He fell to one knee and then slowly dropped in a fetal curl to the ground.

The two men left standing took one glance and then with an almost comical gesture of resignation backed off and melted into the passage alongside the house, leaving their wounded comrades to fend for themselves. Unseen eyes from every window along the street watched the battleground.

Cato, his gaze unreadable, stood looking down at Brian Morse.

“Is he dead?” Phoebe asked, breathless, still hefting the great sword between both hands.

“Not quite.” Cato sheathed his bloody sword. He looked her over, a swift appraising glance. He tilted her chin and examined the skin where Brian’s knife had pressed, then he nodded as if satisfied.

“Give me that.” He took the weapon from her and walked over to the other wounded men. He regarded them unspeaking for a moment, then turned to Strickland, who was sheathing his own sword. “All well?”

“Aye,” Strickland said. “But I didn’t fancy the odds, I have to say.” He looked curiously at Phoebe, who still stood beside Brian, unsure what to say or do next. A faint grin quirked Strickland’s firm mouth. “Although they seemed to even up a little,” he added.

Cato offered no comment. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We’ll have the entire town around our ears soon.” He crooked a commanding finger in Phoebe’s direction. “Come.”

Phoebe came slowly. “Will you leave Brian?”

“I’ll not kill him if I haven’t already done so,” Cato replied. “Now come.”

The curt tone was not reassuring but Phoebe could not imagine ever being reassured by Cato again. She glanced once more at the wounded men. The street was still deserted. She could see no one but she could sense many eyes upon them.

Cato put a hand in the small of her back, urging her forward, and Phoebe, bewildered and unhappy, obeyed the pressure because she could see no alternative.

“So, who’s this?” Walter Strickland inquired, wiping his dagger on the side of his thigh. He regarded Phoebe with a degree of fascination.

“Would you believe-my wife?” Cato inquired, removing a thorn sticking out from the back of Phoebe’s jerkin.

“No,” Strickland said frankly. He examined her closely and Phoebe felt her color mount.

“Then believe it, my friend.” Cato took a fold of the jerkin between finger and thumb. “This is the most disgusting article. Where did you get it?”

“I have to give it back,” Phoebe said dully. “I only gave him a sovereign for it. And I seem to have lost the cap.”

“That wasn’t an answer to my question,” Cato commented aridly, “but I suppose I’ll make sense of it all at some point.” He shook his head with an air of mock dismay. “Is that one of my shirts you’re wearing under that revolting jerkin?”

Phoebe was too confused by this sudden change of tone to reply. He sounded amused, the curtness of a moment ago vanished. She could detect no anger in his expression, but no gratitude for her intervention either. She could make no sense of anything except the simple fact of Cato’s safety; it was all that mattered.

And yet in the aftermath of that burst of intense physical and emotional activity came a deep trough of depression. She couldn’t lose the memory of his eyes: cold, bleak, utterly rejecting. He had turned from her. He’d told Brian only his duty mattered. She had saved herself. Cato had done nothing to save her. He’d turned from her .

“Your wife , Granville?” Walter Strickland was finally shaken out of his customary composure.

“Lady Granville… Walter Strickland,” Cato said with a ceremonious gesture.

“I’m very pleased to meet you, sir,” Phoebe responded numbly. Then a flicker of spirit came to her aid. She added with a lift of her chin, “But you shouldn’t judge by appearances.”

“Oh, believe me, Strickland, in this case you should,” Cato declared.

“I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, Lady Granville.” Walter Strickland offered a bow, an amused gleam in his eye as he responded to the odd formality of the introduction. “You’ve done us good service this morning.”

Phoebe waited for some acknowledgment from Cato, but all he said, in a voice as dry as sere leaves, was “My wife is a woman of many parts. All of them as eccentric as her present disreputable costume.”

They had reached the quay where the decks of the White Lady were now quiet, the unloading over, the crew taking liberty in the town under the warm rays of the noon sun. Phoebe felt tears pricking behind her eyes. Cato was making fun of her. First he abandoned her, then he made mock of her. Maybe he was punishing her; maybe he thought she deserved it; it was unjust and unkind.

She took a step away from him, towards the gangway to the ship, longing for the privacy of the little cabin.

“You’ll want to negotiate your passage with Captain Allan, Strickland,” Cato said putting a firm hand on Phoebe’s shoulder, wordlessly bringing her back beside him. “I imagine you’ll find him in the Seagull. He told me this morning he’d be spending most of the day there.”