Her Rebel Heart (16 page)

If she just had a sword or a pistol...but even as those thoughts crossed her mind, she became aware that the Kinton Lacey garrison seemed to have prevailed. The men in the blue coats were going back down the ladders, their screams filling the air as the garrison pushed the ladders away from the wall.

Hardly daring to breathe, she rose slowly to her feet, her legs trembling beneath her, and peered over the wall. Below her wounded men were clambering from the ditch, helping their injured comrades. Several blue-clad bodies lay motionless, others impaled on the ancient pikes still twitched. The heavy cloying smell of blood mingled with gunpowder hung in the air. Her breakfast rose in her throat, and she crouched down against the wall fighting back the nausea.

Along the length of the wall, the defenders peered over the stonework. No one fired at the retreating soldiers and a ragged cheer went up from the wall as Farrington's men regained the shelter of their own defences. She twisted to look down at the gate. The man carrying the petard, along with his escort, lay among the fallen lacking only a few yards to the bridge.

“Are you all right?”

Deliverance turned to see Luke Collyer, leaning with his back to the wall, panting with the exertion, his sword still held in his hand. He had lost his hat and his dark hair clung damply to his forehead.

She nodded and he looked away.

“See to the casualties,” he shouted to Hale.

“Aye, sir.”

Deliverance straightened. “Take any of the injured to the Great Hall and my sister and I will see to them.”

This at least was something useful she could contribute to the day.

“Ma'am.” Hale saluted her.

Luke bent, his hands on his knees, as he regained his breath. He looked across at Deliverance.

“Well?” He arched his eyebrow at her. “Still want to be a soldier, Mistress Felton?”

“If you hadn't taken my musket...” she began and then gave him a wry smile.”The reality of war is very different from the books,” she conceded. “Now I will go and see to the wounded.”

She found the residence in uproar. The household staff were gathered at the foot of the stairs, several of the maids were crying, others white-faced with shock and fear. Penitence’s eyes were also red from crying and on seeing Deliverance, she seized her sister’s arm, pointing up the stairs.

“Liv, it came through the roof. The upper parlour is destroyed.” She began to shake and Deliverance put an arm around her sister's shoulders.

“This is just the start, Pen,” she said.

“If I'd been in the parlour...”

“Ssh,” Deliverance whispered, stroking her sister's hair. “We must be brave for everyone. Hale is bringing the wounded into the great hall. Let's go and make ready and you” she pointed at the weeping maids at the foot of the stairs, “stop that mewling and go and clean up the mess.”

“Is anyone hurt?”

The women turned to see Luke standing at the door, hatless and breathing hard. Deliverance released her sister and faced him.

“No. The upper parlour took the brunt of it, but mercifully no one was in the room.”

“There is a massive hole in the ceiling. The ball came through the attics and the room above the parlour as well,” Penitence said, her tears forgotten.

Luke nodded. “I'll go and have a look. I need to be sure that it hasn't affected the structure too badly, otherwise we will all be sleeping in the stables.”

Penitence shook her head. “It just seems to be a very large hole. My ancestors built solid stone floors.”

As he mounted the stairs, he turned. “I have four wounded men who need tending. Nothing too serious. Can I leave them in your tender care, ladies?”

“Was anyone killed?” Deliverance asked, not wanting to know the answer as she thought of the men of Kinton Lacey and Luke’s men whom she had come to know so well over the previous weeks.

He shook his head. “No, we were lucky.”

Penitence nodded. “Have them brought into the Hall. I will see that we have everything in order.”

Luke thanked her and started up the stairs. Halfway up, Deliverance caught up with him. She laid a hand on his arm to detain him.

“I owe you an apology, Captain Collyer,” she said in a low voice, her eyes darting to the hall below, fearful someone might overhear her. “You were right, it was no place for me.”

He looked down at the hand on his arm and she hastily removed it.

“I have no doubt, Deliverance, that had you been armed, you would have held your own, but it is in my own interest that you are not hurt.” He ran a hand through his hair. “God knows I've already got you shot once, your father would have me hanged from the nearest tree if anything worse happened to you. Let me be quite clear about this because I will brook no more opposition from you. I am in command of this garrison and while I hold that position my word is law.” She opened her mouth but before she could protest, he held up a warning finger. “You have your role in this matter and I have mine. As long as we are fed and our hurts tended then that is one thing I do not have to concern myself with. Do we understand each other?”

Deliverance nodded.

His stance relaxed. “There I have said my piece. Now the fighting is done, my men...and yours...would be greatly cheered by a few words from you.”

“Would they?”

“They are waiting outside.”

Deliverance nodded and leaving him standing on the stairs walked outside. Below her in the castle courtyard those men not keeping watch on the wall, had gathered to clean their weapons and count the cost of the attack.

Sergeant Hale saw her and straightened. “Silence for the mistress,” he bellowed.

As one they turned grimy, strained faces towards her.

She cleared her throat.

“Thank you,” she said in a clear, strong voice. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the work you have done this morning.” She looked back at the house. “This is just the start but if we hold true to the belief in the rightness of our cause, we will prevail. Sergeant Hale, I think we should give thanks—”

“Aye, for our Deliverance” A voice called from the ranks, provoking general laughter.

“To our Deliverance!” Another voice called and the men cheered.

“Our Deliverance,” echoed a low voice behind her.

Deliverance turned and smiled at Luke Collyer.

Chapter 11

A
fter the first abortive attack, Farrington retired his troops to a safe distance and resumed digging in. Like giant moles, great mounds of earth began to appear just out of musket range. Luke fired a few cannonade shots at the new trenches which provoked some return of fire from Farrington's smaller guns. The Thunderer brooded in her own trench behind a sturdy wicket palisade.

The fourth day of the siege dawned as a glorious late summer day, where the world beyond the affairs of Kinton Lacey Castle, glowed with sunshine. When Luke did not appear for the midday meal, Deliverance wrapped bread and cheese in a cloth. She packed the meal together with a small flask of wine, a beaker and a couple of apples, into a basket, and went in search of him.

The soldiers pointed to the Hawk Tower where Luke had placed one of his small cannons. She sighed. He would choose the tallest tower with the steepest and narrowest stairs. Gathering her skirts in one hand, and balancing the awkward basket in the other, she made the arduous climb, emerging into bright sunshine on the rooftop.

She blinked for a moment, not so much at the sudden glare of sunshine but at the sight of Luke, stripped to the waist, his body glistening with perspiration from the exertion of cleaning the gun.

He hadn't heard her approach and it allowed her a moment to stop and admire the hard, muscled planes of his chest, peppered with dark hair. Her heart beat a little faster and her breath came in shallow gasps. She tightened her fingers on the basket as she wondered what it would be like to touch him, slide her hands across the taut, golden skin...

She swallowed and stepped back into the doorway, where she stopped to catch her breath and wonder at these wayward thoughts. He had made their relative positions perfectly clear the last time… that night when she had almost kissed him. Dear Lord, she was turning into some sort of hoyden. This would never do.

I am Deliverance Felton. He is a common soldier. We have four hundred angry men sitting outside our door. This is not the time or the place.

Repeating this to herself, she retraced her steps part of the way down the stairs. She took a deep breath and humming a familiar soldier's song, she re-emerged. This time he had heard her and was engaged in the act of hurriedly resuming his shirt as she stepped through the doorway. He didn't bother tying the neck or wrist laces, or tucking it in.

“Deliverance. What brings you up here?”

“I've brought some food. You didn't come down for dinner.” She set down the basket on the firing step beside the rampart and sat down. “Isn't that a task for your gunners?”

He looked at the gun. “I like to do it myself occasionally. Guns are sensitive beasts and liable to misfire or worse. I don't need to injure my own men.”

He plunged his hands into a bucket of water and wiped them on a cloth. Deliverance spread the cloth and laid out the simple repast.

“You're not eating?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I ate with the others.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners as he took a bite of the slab of bread. “Sorry, I forgot the time. Thank you for thinking of me,” he mumbled with his mouth full of bread.

She shrugged and leaned back on her elbows looking up at the sky. “On a day like today, it's almost possible to believe this is all a dream.”

“Except that four hundred men on the other side of the wall are hardly quiet,” Luke observed.

“True.” Deliverance listened to the sound of men shouting, spades in dirt and the general hum of humanity both within and beyond the castle walls. Someone in the royalist camp was singing. He had a fine baritone and the words carried up to the top of the tower.

‘
When cannons are roaring,

And bullets are flying,

He that would honour win,

Must not fear dying
…’

Deliverance shivered.

“That’s an old song,” Luke said. “I heard it sung in Germany.”

He started to sing, in a good tenor.

‘
Sentinels on the walls,

Arm, arm a-crying.

Petards against the ports,

Wild fire a-flying…
’

He trailed off and took a bite from one of the apples.

“You have a good voice,” Deliverance said. She cocked her head and looked at him. “Luke, if your family supports the King, what is your reason for fighting for Parliament’s cause?”

“I probably did it just to annoy my father,” he said.

Deliverance studied him, seeing the fleeting expression of regret that flashed into his eyes.

“No,” she said. “You did it because you believed in a cause.”

He didn't answer for a moment, munching thoughtfully on the apple. “Not much escapes your eagle eye does it, Mistress Felton? I returned to England in early ’42 to a country ruled over by a King who would not listen to the voice of the people. A silly, stubborn little man. I could not in all conscience give him my sword.”

“Why did you leave England in the first place?”

He leaned over and tapped her on the nose. “Too many questions, Deliverance. My personal business is none of yours.” When she continued to fix him with her gaze, he sighed. “If you must know, my father banished me.”

“Why?”

His mouth twitched. “It began as a stupid argument with my brother over a woman, nothing more.”

Deliverance’s stomach lurched.
A woman, of course
. It had to be a woman. She looked up at him and her heart started to race again.

“Is there still…a woman?” she asked in a small tight voice.

He shook his head and smiled. “No.”

Her heart beat a little faster.
Please kiss me
.

As if he had heard her silent plea, he set his apple down and reaching up, he stroked her cheek, his touch searing her skin like a brand.

“I don’t think any woman I have ever met is your equal,” he said, his tone soft and uncertain and quite unlike the Luke Collyer she thought she knew.

With shaking fingers she responded, brushing his face, feeling the rough stubble of his cheek, his skin warm to her touch. Her fingers moved to his lips and in a swift movement he caught her wrist. For a moment she thought he would cast it down but he held her fingers against his mouth, gently kissing the tip of each in turn.

He released her hand and Deliverance slid her hand behind his neck, meshing his thick, dark hair as she drew his face down towards hers. Their lips met with a sudden bruising intensity, caused by her eagerness and inexperience. He pulled back a little, his eyes widening before he took her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers, gentle but firm, and infinitely more experienced.

Deliverance went limp, her lips parting beneath his. A burning longing ignited deep in her being for this man to hold her like this forever. Her breasts began to tingle as if they strained against her bodice, willing him to touch them.

His long, hard, body pressed against her and the realisation that he desired to possess her both terrified and exhilarated her. Despite her genteel upbringing, she was not entirely ignorant of what could follow. There had been a particularly embarrassing incident when she had walked in to the stable and tripped over one of the stable boys and a girl from the dairy. She had thought it quite amusing--her father had other ideas.

Was this what that girl had felt for the stable boy? Was this what it felt like to want a man so badly that all caution and sense blew to the wind?

Here they were on the top of a tall tower with hundreds of people within yards of them and yet it was as if they were the only two people in the whole world. They could be discovered any minute and that heady thought made this unplanned tryst even more exciting.

“Captain Collyer? Are you there?” A voice came from deep within the stairwell.

Luke jumped to his feet, with the speed and grace of a cat, hastily tucking his shirt into his breeches. Deliverance sat up, readjusted her clothing and began making a show of packing away the remnants of Luke's lunch, as she fought to return her breathing to normal.