But she could not tell him, could not betray Edmund and all
those others on the island who had assisted fugitives in the past. Alex had let
Edmund and Peter go because of her, but Edmund Verney was a wanted man, and
there would be nothing to prevent Alex sending a messenger to alert the
mainland forces. Wounded, her cousin would not be able to make much speed, and
if they knew where to begi
n
their search . . . And what havoc
would Parliament's force
s
wreak amongst the peaceful
inhabitants of Buckler's Hard? The fisherfolk and farmers who had offered
succor to those she had delivered.
The long morning wore on. Alex talked with the
me
ssenger from Governor Hammond, he conferred with h
i
s officers, wrote reports, the quill pen scratching on
the parchment; all the while he ignored the figure on the window seat. Once he
left the room, and a soldier came in, wooden-faced, to stand before the closed
door.
O
n the colonel's return, the soldier
departed. When she co
ul
d hold out no longer, Ginny asked, in
a low, hesitant voice, to visit the privy. Alex merely nodded and summoned the
same soldier to accompany her. The eyes of both officers and men slid past her
as she made the return journey with her stolid, silent guard, studiously
ignored her presence when they came into the dining room to do business with
the colonel. At noon, Alex was brought a bowl of soup, a trencher of bread with
a slab of cheese and a mug of ale.
Ginny had not broken her fast this day, and then, as she
watched him eat, tears pricking behind her eyes, she realized that she had
taken no food since noon yesterday. Last night's supper presumably still lay
neglected in her c
ha
mber, because last night something
had happened that made thought of food an irrelevancy. And sleep, also. Now she
was tired to the point ofdeath. She shifted on the hard, ungiving oak of the
narrow window seat as her thigh
m
uscles
cramped. She needed to lie down. There was only the floor, but it would do.
Sliding down, Ginny curled her body tightly, pillowing her head on her hands.
"Nooo, Ginny. You may not sleep unless you do so on the
window seat.
"
Alex bent over her, lifting her to
her feet. His voice seemed incongruously gentle to her bewildered, desperate
senses, but
there
was no mistaking the implacable
note. "I wish this to be over soon," he said quietly, holding her as
she sagged against him.
"
When you have told me, you shall
bathe, sleep, and eat, and you and I will begin anew, knowing who and what we
are.
"
The thought was seductive, almost irresistible. Edmund's name
rose to her lips, and then the image of Winchester jail dried her mouth. She
sat again upon the window seat, her head drooping on her chest as she dozed
fitfully throughout an interminable afternoon when the nausea of hunger churned
in her belly and she hardly knew whether she was awake or asleep. The single
note of a bugle hammering insistently, repetitively, created images of
battlefields strewn with the broken bodies of the dead and wounded, and she
walked amongst them, looking . . . always looking for someone. Her father? . . .
Edmund? But she was not searching among the flotsam of the king
'
s dead, but through that o
f
Parliament, Oliver Cromwell's men . . .
She awok
e
from her trance with a cry of terror
as a hand touch
e
d her shoulder, and she found herself
looking into the eyes of the man she had been seeking. It was full night
outside, she saw through the window at her back.
"Sweet Ginny, you must tell
m
e." He spoke sof
t
ly, urgently. "I cannot bear to see you thus, but I must know. I
will promise to keep his identity a secret, will keep the knowledge of their
escape to myself, but this is war, my love. I have to know how you have done
this
thing
, and how often, and I have to block
further escapes. You have no
t
hing to lose
by telling me, since you are no longer in a position to continue this work. But
others may try, and all unknowing, they will run their heads into a noose if it
is not made clear from the outset that escape from the island is now
impossible. If I know the details, I will make the warning manifest. No one
will suffer from what you tell me, unless they choose to ignore the
warning."
"You would make a traitor of me?" The tears flowed
now, hot and fast, and he held and soothed her.
"No traitor, Ginny, but a pragmatist, one who recognizes
the appropriate moment to yield. You will cause no deaths or hardship by
telling me, I give you my word. I will s
:
simply place guards obtrusively at all points on the island where a boat might
slip away, and alert the mainland forces to do the same. You know the places,
do you not?"
She nodded through her tears, grateful for the kerchief that
wiped her eyes, the strong arm around her sho
u
lders, the broad chest that received her head. Pathetically grateful for
the comfort that followed acute discomfort, for the attention that followed
blind, cruel indifference. She had heard tell of skillful interrogators, those
who waited for the breaking point and then offered succor, support, and
understanding. Alex had used those techniques, playing
on
the weakness of her nerve-strung, sleep-deprived
body, her exhausted emotions, her hunger, and her fear, before offering her
both excuse and rationale to give him
what
he wanted.
Even as she despised herself and hated him, Ginny heard her
voice stumbling over the answers to his questions. Then he left her for a
moment, to give a series of crisp or orders, before coming back to hold her
again, as she wept in ss shame at her weakness
.
Later he carried her upstairs toher chamber, where a steaming tub,
floating with fragrant herbs, stood before a fire, newly kindled in the grate.
There was food and wine on the corner table.
"
I
would stay with you, if it were possible," he said, setting her on her
feet, steadying her with one hand. "But
you
must see to your own comfort tonight, and tomorrow, when you are
rested, we will talk again
.
"
"
You
promise that no harm will come to Edmund?" Ginny moved away from the
steadying hand to find her own grounding on her own still-bare feet.
"Have I not said so?" He smiled sadly.
"
You hate me, now, Ginny, as you hate
yourself. But I will keep my word; and tomorrow, when we talk, you will
understand why
this
was necessary, and why you took the
only option you had
.
"
The door closed behind him, and the iron key t
ur
ned in the lock. She was a prisoner in her own room,
and the man who held the key to the door also held the key to her soul.
She bathed and washed her hair, ate a little of the food, but
found, strangely, that she was no longer hungry. The bread and meat stuck in
her throat, and the wine sickened her stomach. She crawled into bed and lay
shivering, although the room was warmed and comforted by the soft glow of the
fire
that
had always been an incredible luxury
even in the depths of winter. Only when she was sick had her
m
other had the fire kindled, and as a result, Ginny
always associated the cheerful crackle with the gently soothing care of her
m
other and her nurse, with feeling pleasurably helpless
and weak. She felt both those things now, but the sensation was not
pleasurable.
Sleep rescued her from the lash of her self-disgust, and for
twelve hours she was drea
m
lessly unconscious, waking yet again
to th
e
note of the bugle, to a bright,
clear rain-washed morning, to the sound of male voices and the tramp of feet.
Ed
m
und and Peter would be safe now, if
Alex had kept his word. With luck and good friends, they would be on their way
to join the main Royalist force in Surrey. Activity and a sense of purpose
would do more for Edmund's health and well-being than any sickroom care she
could provide. He was young and strong, and the wound healing well. So long as
it did not reopen, he should be able to use the arm again in a week or so.
Would he blame her for her betrayal? Would others see her confession as
treachery? Could she have held out longer? Would a few more hours have made any
difference? She knew
th
at eventually Alex would have wrested
the answers from her. She had not the physical strength to resist such
deprivation indefinitely. And, while Alex's feelings for her would not allow
him to sentence her to the torturers in Winchester jail, his ruthless
single-minded devotion to duty and principle would have allowed him to offer
her no quarter, either.
There was a rap at the door, and the voice that she now
recognized as belonging to the young man Diccon called.
"
Mistress Courtney?"
"Yes," she answered, unafraid that he would open
the door, Only Alex would assume the right to enter her chamber, and he would
not accord that right to anyone else.
"I am to escort you to the colonel," Diccon said.
"
When you are ready."
"Then you must wait a few minutes." Ginny slipped
to the floor, drawing her nightgown over her head. Her eye fell on the tray of
barely touched food, and she realized that she was ravenously, healthily
hungry, that she was clean and well rested, that the sun was shining, that
Edmund and Pe
t
er had escaped, and that Alex
Marshall awaited her belo
w
stairs.
She was nineteen years old, an insignificant cog in the
machinery of this war-
t
orn world
.
What had happened between herself and Alex yesterday
was an incident o of war, simply that. In all such incidents, there had to be
both loser and victor. She had lost on that occasion, but becaus
e
of the strange magic that existed between them, the
victor had promised not to take full advantage of his victory. There would be
no repercussions, and the only name she had given him had been Edmund's. All
the others, if they now
w
acted with circumspection, would be
safe. Ginny, herself, now knew the enemy in the person of her lover, as did
he
know the both in her. It would be a curious,
dangerous ga
m
e that they played from now on, but
it carried the inevitability of destiny.
Ginny dressed herself with care, determined tha
t
there would be no further observations of the
"gypsy" kind. She put on her best gown—
a
soft apple green with lace edging to the shoulders and low-cut bosom,
where the creamy swe
ll
of her breasts rose delicately
amidst the lace. The color brought out the rich chestnut highlights in the hair
that hung, long and shining with cleanliness, to the small of her back. This
morning she did not braid it, but sec
u
red
it behind her ears with the tortoise-shell combs that had been her mother's.
She slipped into the soft kid slippers that, like the gown, were worn only for
special occasions. .. Such occasions had been few and far between in the last
five years, but if ever there were a moment for finery, it was now, when she
stood on the brink of an exciting, uncertain fate.
"I am ready, Diccon." She used his name
unconsciously; it was one she had heard so many times during the lonely hours
on the window seat that it came naturally to her lips. The key turned, and the
door swung open. The lieutenant's eyes widened as he took in her appearance, so
vastly different from the working attire she had worn when first they had come
to the house, and even more so from her bedraggled state of yesterday.
She smiled at him and dropped a small, polite curtsy. Diccon
blushed and stood aside as she went past him with a satisfying rustle of her
skirts. She smiled a greeting to those she met along the gallery and on the
stairs, and it was returned instantly. Suddenly these men seemed no longer the
faceless captors of her house, members of a brutal invading army. There were
people with their own joys and sorrows, their anxieties about loved ones left
behind while they went to war, their terrors at the prospect of violent death
or wounding, of the surgeon's knife in the field hospital, of gangrene and
typhus.
Alex paced the dining room, waiting for her. How would she
be? Mutely hostile i
n
closed-face defiance? Wretched with
shame and despair at her breaking? Sharp-tongued and cold-eyed with that bitter
irony he had first seen? Any or all of them? Damn this war that had made beasts
of them all, that had turned the peaceful peasantry into savages who raped and
pillaged, tortured and killed indiscriminately and in vengeance. Civilization
had regressed two hundred years in the last five, and no one regretted that
fact more than Alex Marshall. And no one felt more passionately that the end
must justify the means.