Page 123 of Feathers in the Wind
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 pulled it back.
“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. “I have said my piece. Now the fighting is done, a few words from you would greatly cheer my men... and yours.”
“Would they?”
He glanced at the door. “They are waiting outside.”
Deliverance nodded and walked past him. She hesitated at the door. 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, and 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
After the first abortive attack, Farrington retired his troops to a safe distance and resumed digging in. Like giant moles, great mounds of earth appeared, 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, muscles sliding beneath the planes of his back. 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?”
She set down the basket on the firing step beside the rampart and sat down. “I've brought some food. You didn't come down for dinner.” She gestured at the cleaning equipment. “Isn't that a task for your gunners?”
He patted the gun like a favourite dog. “I like to do it myself occasionally. Guns are sensitive beasts and liable to misfire or worse. I would not wish my own men to be injured.”
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. He sat down beside her and reached for a hunk of bread and cheese, munching with the enthusiasm of a young man who has been working hard
“You're not eating?” he asked, wiping the crumbs from his mouth
She shook her head. “I ate with the others.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners as he took another 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.
