Page 51 of The Society Catch
‘Well, I am going anyway,’ she retorted defiantly, turning on her heel.
‘Stop!’ It was the voice he used in the heat of battle to reach troops around him and it halted her in her tracks. ‘Iorderyou to come back here.’
Their eyes met and Giles put every ounce of authority he possessed into that look, knowing that he had no hold over her whatsoever beyond that which she chose to let him have. Their eyes clung for a long minute, then,
‘Yes, Giles,’ Joanna said, and came back to sit beside him.
Joanna sank down beside Giles feeling as though she had fought a battle, and in some obscure way had managed to both win and lose it. Her every instinct screamed at her to go for help but the part of her she had try to train to be the perfect wife for a soldier told her that this was a dangerous situation and that Giles knew what to do far better than she.
The struggle of wills seemed to have exhausted him and he layback awkwardly, his eyes closed. Joanna wriggled round until she could take his head and shoulders into her lap and cradle them in the deep folds of her habit.
Giles’s eyes opened with a hint of his wicked twinkle in their depths. ‘Now that is nice,’ he remarked.
‘Giles, is there anything I can do?’ she asked, trying to sound practical and down to earth. The last thing he needed to be coping with was a watering pot of a female.
‘No. Hickling saw us leave and he will be on the watch for us returning. If Moonstone gets back to the stables he will be alerted at once, if not, I am sure he will go to Alex by midday.’
‘How will they find us?’
‘The ground is soft – I was able to track you easily. Given the size of Cat’s feet they will have no trouble following us.’ He was speaking calmly to her and she recognised that he was deliberately pitching his tone to reassure her. How many frightened young subalterns had he spoken to in just such a way on some battlefield?
He moved slightly and Joanna felt the shock of pain that went through his body. Her hands tightened on his shoulders and she bent over him, desperate to do something, anything to stop this torture. Watching his pain, his efforts not to show it, was an agony in itself and one she suddenly felt she could not bear. Then the vein of reality and self-knowledge which ran deep through her came to her aid.If he can bear it, and he has no choice, then I can certainly stand it,she told herself grimly.
‘Talk to me,’ he said, eyes closed.
‘Of course. What about?’
‘Tell me about this man you love so much that losing him has left you with nowhere to go, no direction to take.’
Joanna hesitated, her heart thudding. The need to talk, to confide, was an almost physical thing. Yet how could she, to the very man concerned? ‘I will not tell you his name,’ she said atlast.
‘Very well.’ Giles’s eyes were shut. She could sense through every quivering nerve in her body responding to his that he was husbanding his energy to withstand what was happening.
‘I met him when I was …before I came out. I fell in love with him almost at once.’
‘Why?’
The stark question took her aback. Why did she love Giles? Had she ever thought about it, analysed it?
‘Because he has the power to inspire devotion,’ she managed at last.
‘Hmm.’ Giles murmured. ‘I distrust that.’
‘What? An officer distrust leadership?’
‘Ah, now that is different. You do not have to inspire devotion in order to lead. Sometimes you have to be hated, but they must still follow you.’
Joanna pondered this. Was what she felt for Giles devotion, or a response to a natural power to lead? Just now she had subdued every instinct in order to obey him. No, she had done as he had asked – as he had commanded – because deep down she trusted him.
‘Trust then,’ she amended. ‘He inspires trust.’
‘Very well, I will accept trustworthiness. But was that all?’
‘He is very good looking, very…male,’ she confessed, blushing.
‘So, what then?’
‘I knew he would not think twice about me,’ she said ruefully. ‘I was a harum-scarum schoolroom miss. But I knew what I had to do if I was to be the perfect wife for him. I applied myself to every lesson in manners and deportment, I practiced my languages, I studied to please anyone of any rank and influence. I read everything I could about…about his profession.’ She paused to pull a handkerchief from her pocket and gently wiped the sweat from his forehead so it would not run into his eyes.
