Beloved Enemy (3 page)

What an extraordinary woman she was! "You are most
resourceful, Virginia. But I will have one of my men undertake those tasks for
you. In exchange, you might perhaps prepare a meal for myself and my officers.
We are heartily sick of campfire cooking and have plentiful supplies." He
found himself offering her a smile, inviting her sympathy, then realized that
it was hardly appropriate in the circumstances.

His plan did not suit Virginia at all. She needed the freedom
of the garden and the stableyard, the cover of the routine business that would
take her there. In her turn, she gave him a hopefully winning smile. "I
will be happy to cook for you, Colonel, since I consider you to be my guests.
But I would prefer to perform my own tasks in mine own fashion. I do not see
what reasonable objection you might make to that."

Alex could think of none, either
—e
xcept that it was not the work of a lady. But Virginia
Courtney was no ordinary member of that breed, and he had, perhaps, achieved
sufficient victory for this day. Anyway, that smile was quite irresistible. It
started in her eyes, which crinkled at the corners in the most appealing
fashion, before the full lips curved to reveal unusually fine white teeth. Her
face lost all its cold-eyed irony and became that of a vibrant young woman well
aware of her charms and possessed of a delicious sense of humor. Alex Marshall
suddenly wished he had met her at some other time and place.

"As you wish." His voice was brusque, hiding these
uncomfortable reflections.
"
You will
be pleased to remember, however, that you now fall under my command, and as you
will learn from my soldiers, I do not tolerate disobedience." Swinging on
his heel, he left her bedchamber.

Ginny nodded to herself. There was
little
reason to doubt his statement. Her
only course lay in placation and the appearance of total obedience. For as long
as she was allowed to move freely around the estate, accustoming the men to her
presence and the routine nature of her movements, she could continue to provide
for Edmund and Peter, keeping the secret on which hung all their lives.

With swift decision, she strode from the room, along the
gallery
that
ran three sides of the second floor
overlooking the entrance hall below. She paused for a moment, hiding behind a
carved pillar to look down on a lively scene. The men marching through her
house for all the world as if it were their own were clearly officers, to judge
by their
in
signia and the spurs on their booted
feet that rang out on the stone-flagged floor. They appeared to be taking
inventory and were doing so in a seemingly orderly fashion, their voices as
educated and well modulated as their colonel's.

Of course,
this
civil war
was not a war between classes, Ginny reflected. It was a war of political and
religious convictions, and
there
were as
many of the well-born fighting for Parliament as there were fighting for King
Charles. Many of the noblest houses had been split asunder, brother against
brother, father against son. Was Alex Marshall a case in point?     

Ginny slipped down the backstairs that gave direct access to
the kitchens. There were men here, too, but common soldiers carting supplies —
sides of beef and pork that they hung in the cold, flagged pantries, sacks of
flour and meal, leathern flagons of wine. Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army
clearly looked after itself. Outside, the stableyard w
a
s a hive of activity as the cavalry saw to the needs
of their mounts.  The Redfern estate was typical of its kind and geared to the
breeding and purchasing of horses. They were the only form of transport and
were now beginning to replace oxen for the heavy farm work. No self-sufficient
estate could afford to ignore their needs. As a result, there was ample
accommodation in the now-empty barns and stables for the twenty horses of the
elite cavalry.

Virginia
had kept two horses: her own mare that had been her father's wedding
gift, and a cart horse to pull the dray when she went to collect her payment of
grain and hay. They both appeared restless at this abrupt intrusion into the
quiet lives they had led for the last six months. No move, however, had been
made to dispossess them of their stalls, and she fed, watered, and soothed
them.

The horses were considerably more amenable than Betsy. Ginny
disliked the cow intensely. She was an obstinate creature, that would kick over
the pail any chance she had. But Ginny had chosen to keep her over her more
docile sisters because she gave the richest milk with a heavy golden crown of
cream that made excellent butter and cheese.

The cow left her pasture willingly enough and moved docilely
to the barn. She needed relief, after all, and was prepared to be good until it
was afforded her. Only when her swollen udders were empty did she decide to
kick up her heels. Ginny sat on the three-legged stool, resting her head
against the warm, heaving flank as her fingers, skillful now after months of
practice, kneaded and pulled. It was hard work, but her hands had grown strong,
and the milk gushed forth to fill the pail. Afterward, she would skim the cream
and mix it with raw eggs —
a
powerful concoction for the wounded
man, one that would bring the strength back to Edmund's thin body and do much
to repair the loss of blood. Make him again as strong and hardy as his foes—
a
worthy opponent for men like Alex Marshall.

The thought rose as unbidden as the image of the broad
soldier
'
s body
that
had stood so close to her own. Those greeny-brown eyes hovered in her
internal vision. There had been one most disconcerting moment when those eyes
had softened and glowed, freed of the angry flash of his response to her
deliberate sparring. Supposing she had met him five years ago, before Giles
Courtney had been a suitor for her hand . . . before there had been any need
for sparring? But five years ago, Alex Marshall would already have declared
himself for Parliament, and no Royalist maid would have captured his eye, any
more than she could do so now.

"
Careful
now! She
'
ll have that over." It was as if
her errant thoughts had worked a magic to conjure up the reality of the image.
It was the colonel's voice, the colonel's arm pushing past her to whisk away
the wooden pail from beneath the cow
'
s
belly. Ginny, deep in her reverie, had missed the warning shuffle of Betsy's
feet.

She looked up at him with a laughing apology, hoping
that
her scarlet cheeks would be explained by
embarrassment at her carelessness. He had shed the breastplate, helmet, and
sword, wore the simple garb of the off-duty soldier, and his eyes were alight
with laughter.

"
Daydreaming,
Mistress Courtney?"

"I fear so, Colonel. It is not wise with one of Betsy's
ilk."

"No," he agreed, considering the baleful cow.
"
There's a slyness in her eyes."

"
Yes
... I must thank you, sir, for your timely intervention."

"I find
th
at I prefer
your gratitude to your challenges," said the colonel, lifting the pail.
"
It is not that I object to the
militant sparkle in your eyes, you understand. Simply that I think you look
rather truer to yourself when you smile." So saying, he flicked the end of
her nose with a free forefinger. Ginny
'
s
jaw dropped at this casual, almost proprietorial gesture. Out of uniform, he
seemed, if it were possible, even surer of himself and his commanding control
over the circumstances. She was still searching for an appropriately dignified
snub when he moved to the door, sa
y
ing
with a laugh in his voice, "You'll be wanting this in the dairy."

Ginny found herself skipping to keep pace with him as he
strode across the stableyard and into the dairy.
"
It is surely beneath your dignity, Colonel, to carry pails of
milk?" It was a fairly lame taunt, she recognized, but the best she could
do in the circumstances.

Alex, to her irritation, chose to treat it as a
straightforward observation.
"
A good
commander, Virginia, does not stand on his dignity. I cannot ask my men to do
what I am not prepared to undertake myself."

"
Indeed
not," she muttered as he placed the pail on a slate shelf beneath a high
window.

"We are in agreement, then, on something." Still
smiling, he turned back to her.
"
Let
us cry peace, Virginia." Alex, since their last encounter, had decided on
a change of tactic with his new responsibility. Continual head-on skirmishes
would be as exhausting as they would be counterproductive, and he had decided
to try disarming the opposition.

Why not, she thought for one wild moment as the temptation to
yield sang its siren song. But then she remembered the fugitives hidden in the
priest's hole. How could she ever have forgotten them? Virginia Courtney was a
Royalist, the orphaned daughter of a Cavalier Malignant, the widow of a man who
had died, albeit reluctantly, in the king's cause. And Virginia Courtney had
hidden in her occupied house two fugitive Cavaliers, and not for the first time
in the last six
m
onths, either.

"
We
are enemies, Colonel," she said curtly.
"
You the
C
onqueror, and I the prisoner. It is
not a position
that
allows for truce."

"We are also people." Unwilling to give up too
quickly, he took a step toward her. "Cannot two people develop a liking
for each other despite politics?"

"
I
think you are being naive, Colonel." She turned away to hide the flicker
of uncertainty she knew would be revealed on her face.

"
Virginia
. . . ?" His voice arrested her
at the door, and with great reluctance she paused, keeping her back to him.

"
If
you consider you have the right to use
my
given name, Colonel Marshall,
then I must consider that the privilege is mutual."

She had hoped to goad him again, to return the relationship
to the simple black and white of opponents, but the colonel was a stubborn man,
and there was something about the slight, determined figure, the proud set of
her head, that stirred him as no woman had ever done. "My name is at your
disposal, mistress. My friends call
m
e
Alex.
"

"
And
what do your prisoners call you?
"
Her hand was on the wooden latch of the dairy door, the knuckles white under
the unnaturally fierce grip.

"
This
is something of a unique situation for me." She heard the measured reply
and, to her mesmerized horror, saw a lean brown hand close over hers, felt the
warmth and the strength.
"
I understand your difficulty,"
the voice resumed in the same even tone.
"
But
if I do not fight with you, then you will find it difficult to engage in battle
yourself. I do not wish to fight with you, Virginia. As it happens, I find that
there are other things I would much prefer to do."

It was quite true, he realized, keeping his hand on hers,
lifting her face with his other. The gray eyes widened in startled protest as
his words sank in, and a tremor shook the slim frame as he placed his
mouth
firmly and deliberately over the full, generous one
below. For an instant, her eyes closed, her lips parted; then she broke free
with a violence unwarranted by the gentle hold and banged the door shut behind
her. Alex was left staring into the middle distance, his lips warm with the
memory of hers, as he wondered what sorcery had entered his orderly,
self-determined existence that hitherto had allowed no room for impulse.

Ginny fled to the henhouse, where she herded the chickens
inside and collected the eggs, the routine activity of scolding and chasing
inane birds somewhat soo
th
ing. What had just happened? An
almost complete stranger had kissed her. She knew about the scandalously loose
morality that had been the norm at court before the war. Edmund had told her
when he had returned home after his first visit. He had reveled in every one of
her shocked gasps, had answered every eager question with his newly acquired
sophistication and the knowledge of his two years' seniority over his erstwhile
playmate. Alex Marshall had presumably been an habitué of the court in the old
days. While she did not know his lineage, he bore himself with the breeding of
the courtier, and young men of his kind were presented, as Edmund had been, by
the age of sixteen. Had he assumed, because she was a widow and a noblewoman,
that she would understand the game? Would share his sophistication? And she
could hardly believe she had responded. For one breathless, terrifying moment
her body had fired in a manner she had never before experienced; her lips had
softened and parted; she had leaned against him, her eyes closing ....