"I see."
They turned into a tiny parlor where a pink-cheeked s
e
rving girl was setting platters and cutlery on a round
table b
e
neath the window. Alex stood beside
the empty grate, a c
u
p in hand. "Ah, there you are.
You will take a cup of wine, and then Sally here will show you to your chamber
where you may remove your dirt before supper. Diccon, you are dismissed until
then.
"
Ginny accepted the wine and took a long gulp,
f
inding it instantly restorative. She waited until
Sally had followed Diccon out of the room before saying, "I do not care to
share beds with strangers. I would prefer to share yours."
"
Do
not be foolish, chicken. You know that is impossible. I am sorry the
accommodations are so cramped here; we will hope to do better in our future
resting places."
"It is not impossible. I have already told you I do not care
what people may say; and who would censure you? Envy you, maybe, but neither
your officers nor your men would question your actions. Do not tell me they do
not find women as and when they may."
"That, Virginia, is very different," Alex stated.
"Of course they do. But I will not flaunt you as my mistress."
"Then I shall flaunt myself," Ginny declared,
"until you realize how ridiculously prudish you are being."
Alex
'
s eyes narrowed, and he put his cup
on the table wi
th
a snap. "Are you threatening me,
Virginia?"
"
Well,
I fail to see why you should have the monopoly on threats," she countered,
although she felt just a
little
uneasy.
Alex sucked in his lower lip while regarding her
th
oughtfu
ll
y.
She had issued a most definite challenge, and she was so damnably desirable
with
that
tip-tilted chin jutting its
defiance, the fearless gray eyes where passion lurked, the rise and fall under
her swift breath of that magnificent bosom.
"Let us not quarrel about this," he said
eventually, his tone conciliatory. "It is a ridiculous bone of contention.
We will compromise. You will not live openly as my mistress, but we will not
concern ourselves if the truth is suspected. Discretion can do neither of us
any harm."
Ginny had to acknowledge he was right, in fact had regretted
her challenge the minute the words were out of her mourn. She didn't
particularly want to exhibit herself as a whore, indeed was not entirely sure
how one would go about it. "Well, what is to be done about sharing with
the landlady's niece?
"
She reverted to the original
complaint.
"I am certain she is a sound sleeper." His eyes
twinkled mischievously. "She will not know whether you are there or not.
Are we agreed, my raggle-taggle gypsy?"
Ginny nodded, lips pursed in satisfaction.
"
Agreed, sir
.
"
Chapter 7
Half an hour before dawn, Alex woke as he had told himself he
would the instant before falling asleep. Ginny, warm and naked, was somehow
tangled up with him. He smiled to himself in the darkness as he gently lifted
one soft round arm from its resting place across his throat. His hand brushed
against her breast as he returned the arm to its own body, and she moaned in
sleep, pressing herself against him, as wonderfully lascivious in her dreams as
she was in her waking state. A wisp of chestnut hair tickle
d
his nose, and softly he propped himself on one elbow,
drawing the sheet away from her, unable to resist the temptation to look at her
for a moment when her body, uninhabited by that swift, challenging personality,
lay vulnerable and open to his gaze.
Her skin glimmered whitely in the gloom before dawn,
stretched smoothly over the clean, graceful lines of her limbs, the generous
curves of breast and hip. Those curves had surprised him at first; when she was
dressed they were masked by her height. Naked, that deep firm bosom was
magnificent, those sweet pink nipples so wonderfully responsible to the merest
whisper of a touch. It was impossible to look at her without touching, and with
a small sigh of resignation he bent his head, flicking her breast with his
tongue. She stirred, whimpered, but kept her eyes tight shut even as her
nipples peaked, small and hard, beneath the moist caress.
His hand stroked languidly down the long length from waist to
ankle, tracing the indentations, cupping the curves, and he felt her body come
vibrantly aware against him, her skin dancing beneath his fingers. His loins
throbbed with
pleasurable urgency, and he drew her
leg over his hip, slipping his hand between her opened thighs to touch her i
n
the ways he knew would bring her to his own point of
readiness.
Ginny gave herself up to the almost hypnotic sensation
,
her body still deeply relaxed in the afterma
th
of a sleep not yet dissipated. Her head was buried in
the crook of his shoulder as Alex held her sideways against his body, his other
hand now grasping her behind the bent knee flung across his hip, drawing her
even closer as he entered her wi
th
one smoo
th
movement. Ginny sighed in soft
satisfaction at the wonderful sense of completion she felt with hi
s
presence, moving in gentle rhy
th
m wi
th
in. She felt
the final
e
creeping up on her like a thief in
the night, tried to resist i
t
to prolong
the ecstacy of the orchestration, but it happened anyway, without cymbals and
drums
th
is time, rather a soft, lyrical coda
of flute and violin.
"Good morning, my
little
gypsy," Alex whispered, kissing the corner of her
m
ou
th
as he left
her body.
"
You must return to your own bed,
sweeting." Even as he said
this
,
the
piercing, insistent alarm of the cock
sounded, followed on the instant by others as barnyards and chicken coops
acknowledged the new day.
Ginny groaned but did not argue. Struggling into a sitting
position, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed
,
feeling for her discarded nightgown.
"
If anyone sees me in the passage,
they
will think I have been to the house of easement,
"
she said practically, dropping the
garment over her head.
"Hurry then. Jed will be here in a minute with my
shaving water." He gave the long burnished tresses a quic
k
tug as she stood up, then sprang energetically out of
be
d
hi
m
self, striding to the door
.
He
lifted the latch carefully, th
e
n peered out
into the corridor, beckoning to her over his
s
h
o
ulder. Ginny slipped past him, but
not before she had run a distinctly familiar hand between his thighs.
"
Shamel
e
ss hussy!" Alex accused her on a soft choke of laughter
, "G
et along with you, before I throw
caution to the winds and have you again.
"
"Promises, promises,
"
Ginny murmured, then leaped away from him as his palm swung.
She regained her own chamber just as her bedfellow awoke. The
girl seemed too befuddled, however, to register
m
ore than that Ginny had apparently risen before her. She offered to
fetch water for Ginny, an offer that Ginny gratefully accepted, and, having
dressed, left Ginny in a dreamy contemplation of the past night.
The bugle sounded reveille, and Ginny went to the casement
looking out over the village green. The encampment seemed to come instantly
alert with voices calling cheerfully and men scurrying arou
n
d fastening on armor, eating and drinking on the move.
The inn was now fully awake also, and Ginny heard Alex's voice crisply engaged
in conversation with Major
Bonha
m
. There came a loud knock at her door.
"
Mistress Courtney? Are you
awake?"
Ginny grinned, calling back,
"
I am, Colonel. It would be hard to continue sleeping in such
a hub of activity."
"We
leave within the hour, so make haste and break your fast." The
sound of retreating footsteps reached her, and braiding her hair swiftly, she
grabbed her hat, crop, an
d
gloves as she left
the room and made her way dow
n
stairs to the
parlor where she had dined last night in the company of the colonel, the major,
and the lieutenant.
This morning, however, it was empty, although the table
showed evidence of having been raided fairly thoroughly. She made an adequate
meal of bread and a boiled egg washed down with buttermilk, then, realizing
that there was neither sight nor sound of Alex, his officers, or Jed, who
appeared to be her unofficial guard, she made her way down the passage into the
kitchen.
"Good morrow, goodwife," she greeted the plump
figure of the landlady politely.
The woman straightened from the fire where she was setting a
cauldron of water to boil and turned to Ginny, her heat-flushed face startled.
"
What can I do for you,
mistress?"
G
i
nny looked around cautiously. Still
no sign of anyone-who should not hear what she had to say. She came further
into the room. "We are come from the Isle of
Wight," she
said casually. The landlady's
expression did not change, although she stood still, wiping her hands on her
apron. "The king is held there," Ginny said, watching closely.
"God rest his soul," the goodwife said stolidly.
"I was taken prisoner on the island," Ginny went
on. "My father's estate sequestered."
Still there was no response. The landlady, of course, would be
afraid of treachery, afraid that the woman who rode with Parliament's army was
out to trap her into some form of rebellion, unless she happened to be a
staunch supporter of Parliament, in which case Ginny was taking the risk of
betrayal. But somehow she didn't think so. Time was too short for pussyfooting.
She must take the risk.
"I met with the king, and I bear his message for those
fighting for him." Thank God she had been right. The woman's face broke
into a beam.
"There's plenty in these parts who'd be glad to receive
it
"
she said in a low voice.
"
Will
you tell me where I may find them?"
The goodwife hesitated. "How can I know you are to be
trusted?"
Ginny looked around her again. She could hear voices in the
stableyard beyond the kitchen door, but none in the inn behind her. Her tongue
ran over suddenly dry lips as she stepped close to the landlady, drawing the
king's document out of her pocket.
The woman stared in awed reverence at the king's seal.
"Mistress Courtney . . . Ginny?" Diccon's voice
sounded
from
the passage, and Ginny thrust the
parchment back in her pocket, turning toward the door with a bright smile.
"In the kitchen, Diccon."
"I was afraid I had lost you," Diccon said naively,
appear
ing
in the doorway. "Jed is ready
to take your baggage back
with
the supplies. May he fetch it from
your chamber?"
"Yes, indeed," Ginny said, amazingly without a
tremor in
her
voice. Jed appeared behind Diccon.
Would either of th
em
think anything of her being alone in
the kitchen with the landlady? Think enough of it to mention it to the
colonel?
"
The goodwife and I have been
discussing the best
way
of preserving mushrooms," she
said cheerfully. "Whether they are best dried or pickled. It is a
question, I
thi
nk, of what one wishes to use them
for. I favor them p
ic
kled in pies, but dried if they are
to be made into a
co
mpote. Do you not agree?"
Diccon and Jed looked somewhat nonplussed, not having
e
ver before been asked for an opinion on such a
matter. G
in
ny laughed easily. "I daresay
you
w
ould not be able to tell the
difference, would you?"