"Good morrow, Colonel.
"
Her voice was light, the gray eyes smiled, and for an
instant he stood stunned. He had seen her beauty from the first, responded to
it from the first, had for a few short hours known it in the fullest sense. He
had seen her energy, her ability to forget herself and her appearance in the
fierce pursuit of purpose. And he had seen her exhausted, crushed, and broken.
But until this moment, he had never seen the Lady Virginia Courtney. She swept
him a curtsy, perfect in its depth, and he found himself bowing with the
meticulous formality of the court.
The dining room door closed behind Diccon, and they were
alone in a silence that coiled and wreathed around the
tu
mult of their past dealings, and prepared for the
future.
"Are you well?" Alex broke the silence at last,
taking her hands, lifting them to his lips to kiss the work-roughened fingers.
"Yes, I am well," she replied honestly. "But
devilishly hungry." The refectory table carried the remains of breakfast—a
soldier's breakfast of sirloin, fat bacon, coddled eggs, and wheaten bread. A
jug of ale stood amidst the wooden platters, knives, and pewter tankards that
bore witness to
th
e number of men who had broken their
fast.
"What may I serve you?" Alex asked courteously,
taking a knife to the sirloin, eyebrows lifted to punctuate the question.
"Everything
,
"
she replied, drawing a stool to the table, keeping her back to the window seat,
that mute reminder of yesterday's agonies.
"When you have finished," Alex said slowly,
"
I wish you to show me the priest's
hole and the secret passage."
"Why?" It wouldn't matter to show him now, since
she could no longer use it, but by the same token, it should not
m
atter to him either.
"
I
am afraid, Virginia, that I cannot allow you to have secret knowledge of a way
out of this house. I cannot take the risk that you might use that knowledge
.
"
Such a thought had not occurred to her, but she remembered
how yesterday, on the beach, she had told him she would evade his guard if she
could, to continue subversion
a
s and when the
opportunity arose. It was an understanding
i
hat lay beneath whatever turns their relationship might now take.
"And if I refuse?" She spread thick golden butter
on the rough bread, watching the sunlight dance over the smooth black wood of
the table.
"Then my men will find it.
"
Virginia looked around the room, imagining it in ruins, the
rich paneling prised from the walls by pikes, the glowing floors torn up, the
delicate moldings smashed. Only if there were still someone hidden in the
priest's hole, would she allow her father's house to be destroyed, even if that
house no longer belonged to her.
"Would you sack the house?
"
she asked quietly, knowing he would answer her truly, just
as she knew what that truth would be.
There was pain in his eyes, but he still said, "I will
do whatever is necessary to bring this war to a speedy conclusion. There has
already been too much blood to have scruples about shedding more. To run shy at
this point will make futile the sacrifices of those who have already given
their
lives."
"But you did not send me to Winchester jail."
"No." Alex swatted a fly buzzing at the bacon.
"I love you, and I will keep you from harm insofar as I am able. But
because I now know who and what you are, I will prevent you from causing harm
to mine own cause."
"That is a fearsome responsibility you undertake
,
" she said thoughtfully. "To keep safe the
lover whilst circumventing the enemy, when the two persons are contained in one
body."
"
We
shall see whether it is a task to which I am equal
,
" he replied.
"
We
understand each other, you and I?" His eyebrows lifted again.
"Yes." She looked at him fearlessly. "Lovers
and foes until . . ."
"
Until
the conflict is resolved
"
"Death resolves many conflicts."
"And it may well resolve this one, but I will pray for a
happier conclusion, Ginny
.
"
"I also." She stood up. "Come, I will show you
the priest's hole. The mechanism is most ingenious.
''
She struck a flint and lit a candle.
"
There is no light," she
explained
.,
"
and
I have always been afeard of the passage, ever since Edmund locked me in one afternoon
because he wished to hunt hare with the village boys and my presence would have
b
een an embarrassment."
Alex thought of the wounded man in the boat, the man she had
kissed, her cousin with whom she had grown to maturity, and he envied Edmund
Verney who ha
d
known her in her growing, had teased
her, and found her a
n
uisance.
"
I
hope he was well thrashed for his unkindness
,
"
Alex remarked, following her into the cold darkness.
"
No
.
" Ginny chuckled, shielding the candle that
flickered as she pressed the catch to close the panel behind them.
"
I did not betray him."
Her voice faltered, and Alex stated flatly,
"
You have never done so. If Edmund
Verney comes to harm, it will be through nothing that you have revealed."
Ginny did not respond as she reached the small chamber. She
held the candle h
i
gh, revealing the stone walls, the
blood-stained pallet, the wooden pail.
The air was dank and fetid
,
and Alex could not help his recoil. Better to the in battle, surely, than to
cower Hike rats in this wretched hole? But then he had never been faced with
such a dilemma. He had never been hunted, and the battles he had fought he had
won.
"
We
should remove this. It makes the air foul." He picked up the pail, his
voice brisk and matter-of-fact.
Ginny nodded and led the way down the cold steps to the
outside door.
They stood in the cool, clear morning, where the sea air was
sharply fresh. Ginny breathed deeply of
ozone,
lifted her face to the breeze.
Alex emptied the pail around the elder bush.
"
Do you care to ride?"
"Of all things
.
"
She smiled. "But I am not dressed for it."
"Anymore
than
you are dressed for scrambling through secret passages," he teased,
removing a cobweb from her hair.
"
You
did not think to change your dress, and your slippers are soiled
.
"
"
We
were talking of serious matters, and I forgot such mundane considerations
,
" Ginny offered.
"And how often do you remember them?" His eyes
danced.
"Rarely
,
" Ginny
admitted ruefully. "I was always the despair of my mother."
"I can imagine
."
Alex gave a shout of laughter. "A disobedient, stubborn, little
gypsy,
I'll
lay odds." Then his laughter
died, and he cupped her face. "You are not so very different now, and, for
my sins, I would not have you otherwise."
"I am neither disobedient nor stubborn," she said
softly, "since there is no one who has the right to command my obedience.
"
His eyes darkened. "It is not necessary to repeat
th
at we are in opposition. I understand that fact, but I
was talking of the lover, not of the enemy."
"It will not always be easy to separate the two."
Even as she said this, her arms went around his neck, her body reaching against
his leng
th
, feeling the warmth of the skin
beneath his shirt. It was she who kissed him, this time, her hand palming his
scalp as she pulled his head down, standing on tiptoe to assert the equality of
love.
When they drew apart, Alex touched her swollen lips.
"For this day, we are simply lovers. There will be no words of enmity
between us. We will talk and exchange histories, and you will show me this
island that you love so dearly
"
"
Very
well
,
" Ginny agreed, turning back to
the secret door that still stood open behind
them
. "Do we return as we came to the further detriment of my gown? Or
shall we surprise your men by reappearing like ghosts in the yard?"
"
We
will return the way we came,
"
Alex
replied smartly. "A few more cobwebs will make
little
difference, and I have no desire to
traipse around the house."
Once again in the dining room, the panel shut tight behind
them, Alex blew out the candle. "Put on your riding habit, Mistress
Courtney. We shall go exploring.
''
The promise contained in the statement made her toes c
u
r
l
in the kid slippers. There would be
time and opportunity enough for enmity in the days ahead, when the Roundhead
colonel and his Royalist prisoner clashed as they surely would. But today was
for loving. "I will meet you at the stables," she murmured.
"In ten minutes, then. There is much that we must learn
about each other, Ginny
."
He touched her lips wi
th
a
long forefinger, and she ran from the room, hugging the promise, remembering
belated
l
y to slow her pace and compose her
features in an expression more befitting the captive lady of the manor.
Chapter 4
Hair braided and in riding habit, Ginny was in the stableyard
ten minutes later, a cloak thrown over her arm because the wind came briskly
from the sea. A soldier, iron-gray hair cropped close to a round, bullet-shaped
head, was saddling the magnificent black charger on which Alex Marshall had
ridden to take possession of so much more than the Redfern lands and property.
"
This
is a fine animal," she said, running her hand down the velvety nose. The
charger whickered wi
th
pleasure and nuzzled her palm with
rubbery lips.
"Aye, mistress," the soldier agreed,
"
pure Arabian and steady as a rock on
a battlefield
.
"
"What name does he carry?"
"Bucephalus,
"
he answered.
"Bucephalus!" Ginny swallowed her disbelief. So had
Alexander the Great named his horse. Surely Alex didn't see himself as the
warrior emperor? Choking back the bubble of mirth, she went into the stable to
bring out her own high-stepping, neat-boned mare. Jen sniffed the wind eagerly,
and the sinews of her neck rippled at the prospect of exercise.
"Ah, you are before me, Mistress Courtney." Alex's
voice came from behind, and to hide her pleasure in the sound, Ginny buried her
face in the mare's warm neck, inhaling the rich scent of horseflesh.
"
Saddle
Mistress Courtney
'
s horse, Jed,
"
Alex i
n
structed briskly, taking Bucephalus' reins. Jed grinned cheerfully.
"No, there is no need. I am quite able to saddle my own
horse," Ginny said automatically.
"That is not in question. See to it, Jed.
"
"
Yes,
Colonel." Jed saluted and went to the stable for tack.
Alex turned to Ginny, his voice low and c
l
ipped. "You may offer your challenges and
contradictions as often as you please when we are in private, but you will not
do so in front of my men."
Ginny opened her mouth to protest that she had no such
intention and then, as Jed appeared, closed her lips tightly, turning to take
the bridle from the soldier, as Ale
x
swung himself onto his horse.
Jed gave her a leg up, adjusting the stirrup leath
e
rs, and tightened the girth. Horses and riders clopped
across th
e
yard.
Ginny was angry at a rebuke that had had no
j
ustification. Alex, judging by his continued silence,
was also clearly annoyed.
"
I had not the intention of offending
the e
m
peror
'
s self-consequence
,
" she declared.
"
What
the devil is that supposed to mean?" He frowned at her.
"
Why,
simply that a Bucephalus can only be ridden by the warrior emperor
,
" she returned sweetly, pressing her heels
in
to Jen's flanks, encouraging the mare from trot to
canter, and then to full gallop.
Alex, after an instant of stunned incredulity, put Bucephalus
to the gallop and thundered after her. The mare's stride could not outpace the
charger, and once alongsi
d
e, Alex leaned over and seized the
reins at the bit, pulling
Jen
to a halt.
"For your information
,
"
he stated, "the horse was a present from my father when I attained my
majority. He was named when I received him, and I could not, without wounding
my father, change it."
"Oh." Ginny looked fixedly at the sea. "In
that case I will apologize for drawing the conclusions that I did, but you gave
me good reason to do so. I was not deliberately countermanding your orders,
and were you a little less sensitive to supposed challenges, you would have
realized that."
There was a long silence as Alex continued to maintain his
hold on Jen's bridle. Then he said, "It is a little difficult to explain,
Ginny, since you have not until now experienced military life, but there is a
rigidity that you must learn to live with. My orders and my statements may not
be questioned in public. If I allow anyone to do so, then I am diminished in
the eyes of my men, who rely absolutely on my command for their safety. The
brigade has to operate as one man in obedience to one mind—
m
ine. Only thus can they be efficient, and only in
efficiency can they be as safe as it is possible to be in wartime.
"
"But I am not a member of your brigade."
Alex sighed. "This was supposed to be a day without
enmity, but perhaps this should be said at the outset. You are, in the eyes of
my men, as much subject to their commander as they are. Do not question my
authority in public, Ginny. We shall neither of us enjoy the
consequences."
"And if I accept that you have authority over the
prisoner-enemy, do you accept that you have none over the lover?"
There was a long silence, while gray eyes remained locked
with the green-brown ones. "That is another issue for another day,"
Alex said at last. "But you must remember
that
I have assumed responsibility for your safety and will take what
measures are necessary to ensure that safety." He released Jen's bridle.
"Did you not promise to show me this island?"
He was right, that was a battle to be fought another day.
Again Ginny took him by surprise. She was off across the springy turf, calling
over her shoulder, "Let the emperor's steed match the lady's mare,
Colonel." A fieldstone wall marked the boundary of Squire Elmhurst's
estate, and Ginny set her horse to the jump, sailing over with Alex, on his
magnificent beast, a hair’s-bread
th
behind.
Bucephalus overtook Jen within seconds of touching ground and
thundered ahead, eating up the coarse ground of the field beneath four pounding
hooves. Eventually, Alex
ch
ecked his mount and waited for Ginny,
who came up beside him, laughing exultantly with the spirit of the chase, her
cheeks glowing and eyes sparkling.
Alex wondered how this woman in a few short hours had destroyed
his calm purpose, was now exposing him to the danger of taking risks with a
career and a duty that had always been all and sufficient. She was not
beautiful—
t
oo tall, brown-
s
kinned, and bold-eyed—
b
ut there was something about that erect carriage, the heavy coils of
chestnut hair that required no sun to bring out the luster, the direct c
l
ar
it
y of the gray
eyes that transcended conventional beauty.
"I appear to have lost that race." She laughed,
throwing back her head in pure enjoyment.
"
Let
us see if you will win the next, emperor on an emperor's steed." She
turned her horse down a steep but broad path to a wide sandy beach. "Have
you ever galloped through the waves, Alex? It is one o
f
the great pleasures in life for both man and beast
.
"
She rode Jen into the waves, automatically hitching her skirt
to her knees as she had been used to do in the old days with Edmund.
Alex watched and smiled. "We will try to match you, my
raggle-taggle gypsy
.
"
She was off in the instant, Jen skipping through the waves
with all the delicacy of a dancer as Bucephalus, heavier and unaccustomed to
such terrain, floundered as he struggled to keep his footing. both horses and
riders were soaked when
the
mad water gallop ended and Ginny
turned her mount onto the beach.
"
You
forfeit the race, I think," she called over her shoulder, slowing her
horse as excitement danced in her veins. Bucephalus, now freed from the
constraints of
un
familiar water, thundered across the
firm sand, and Jen skittered in surprise, catching Ginny unawares so that she
tu
mbled from Jen's back in a whirl of sea-
w
et skirts to la
n
d
with an undignified thump on the sand.
Alex was off his horse in the instant. "Are you
hurt?" Anxiety rang in his voice, showed dark in his eyes.
"Only my dignity." Ginny laughed and gave him her
hands to haul her upright. "Pride comes before a fall, as I recall."
"I think that tumble lost you the race," he said
softly, his hands cupping her face, turning it this way and that as if he were
examining a rare piece of china. Ginn
y
seemed to lose herself in his eyes, huge and glowing with that warm light as he
smiled down at her. She began to tremble like an aspen leaf in the wind.
"
What
forfeit must I pay?" she heard herself whisper, although she knew the
answer well enough.
"No forfeit," he replied. "I will take only
what I know you give willingly. You are made for loving, Ginny." The kiss
was gentle at first as he ran the tip of his tongue over her lips, darted
between them to withdraw instantly at the moment her mouth opened in hunger to
receive him. Still holding her face, he tantalized her
th
us for an aching eternity as her body quivered with
that now-familiar yearning. But at last he yielded to her soft moaning pleas
and plundered her mouth with a rapacious tongue, and she met thrust for thrust,
reaching against his body, heedless of pride or of modesty as she pressed
herself to the hard warm throbbing against her thighs.
"I want you," Alex said, drawing back to look into
her eyes. "And I would have you, Ginny, here on the beach where the gulls
call and the waves fall.
Here,
my sea sprite."
"And I would have you," she replied. "Here on
the sand."
His fingers worked in the heavy coils of her hair, releasing
it from constraint to fall in a shining cascade down her back. "I will do
all I may to please you." Holding her with one hand, he twitched the cloak
from the mare's saddle while Jen stood patiently beside Bucephalus on the sand.
Ginny found herself swung upwar
d
as one arm caught her behind the knees, the other grasped her strongly
across her back. She reached her own arms to encircle his neck, drawing his
head down to renew the interrupted kiss, as cold and clear as before in the
certainty that
this
was as right as it was inevitable —
r
eckless
th
ough
it was.
Alex strode with her across the beach to the shelter of the
cliff. He set her gently on her feet before tossing her cloak onto the sand.
Controlling his impatience, he unlaced the strings of her
bodice, and Ginny stood still, trembling like a small wild animal facing the
fox.
"Do not be afraid,
"
he whispered, sliding the neck of her habit off her shoulders.
"
You know I will not hurt you."
"I am not afraid," she replied simply, "unless
it be of the power of my wanting."
A wash of tenderness flooded him, controlled him as he cupped
her breasts. "I also am afraid of
that
power, my love,
"
h
e
whispered. "Let me love you, sweet, and allow your body
to
feel and do what it must."
His words again caressed, gentled as his touch aroused. the
habit slipped to her ankles leaving her clad only in her cotton drawers and a
thin chemise, the low scalloped neck
li
ne
doing little to cover her breasts that he now drew from their hiding place,
bending his head to take the upstanding
ni
pples
in his mourn. Ginny arched backward, thrusting her breasts against his warm
hands and the flicking tongue that li
l
ted
the aching engorged nipples, teasing as it stroked.
"Let us rid you of these last obstructions
"
Alex said, his
lip
s moving upward to kiss the point where her neck met
her shoulders. The simple tie of the chemise parted at her back, and then she
stood, naked under the bright sky on the deserted beach.
Alex touched her as she stood before him, touched her in
wonder, turned her and ran his hands down her back, over h
e
r bottom, down her thighs. And when he had finished
this
e
xploration, he drew her down to the
velvet bed of her cloak. When she reached for him, he whispered to her to lie
still and accept the pleasuring;
there
was time enough later for reciprocation, and she lay back, glorying in a
passivity that by its giving was not truly passive. She had lain as immobile
and without feeling as a tree beneath Giles, but he had needed only to take,
and it had mattered not to him that what he took was not freely given, was
simply an obedience to a loathsome conjugal duty.