Page 131 of Feathers in the Wind
Deliverance came out from behind the table and walked over to him. She laid her hand on his chest and leaned forward, intending to kiss him but he took a step back gently disengaging her hand.
“Deliverance,” he said, “we can’t go on like this. I am here to do a job, not dally with Sir John’s daughter.”
She blinked in disbelief. “What do you mean?”
“There will be no more dalliance.”
Deliverance stared at him as she tried to understand what he had just said. “Is it something I did… or said?” she said, mortified by the crack in her voice.
He didn’t answer for a long moment and his gaze drifted to the table behind her. He shook his head. “It’s nothing that you have done, Deliverance. You are an extraordinary woman. But you must know I have an unsavoury reputation—”
“For trysts with buxom girls from the dairy?” Anger flared in Deliverance’s chest.
A look of surprise crossed his face. “No… yes… but that’s not it. It’s you I am concerned for. Deliverance, I am a soldier. I could be dead tomorrow. I don’t want to leave anyone grieving for me, so whatever feelings we may have begun to entertain for each other, we must put to one side and work together for the common cause in which we are both engaged. Now, I have matters to attend to.” He bowed stiffly. “Good day, Mistress Felton.”
Deliverance stood in the middle of the floor, staring at the door as it shut behind him. Her heart broke into a thousand razor-sharp shards and she sank on to her father’s chair, buried her head on the table and wept with the pain of rejection.
“Liv, what’s happened? Are you all right?”
Deliverance raised her head. Penitence stood in the doorway, one hand on the latch, staring at her with a look of horror on her beautiful face.
Deliverance shot to her feet and walked to the window, keeping her back to her sister. She took deep steadying breaths and managed to say, “It’s nothing. Just very tired.” She cleared her throat, hastily wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I need a little time alone today.”
But her voice sounded thick from weeping and Penitence was no fool. She crossed to her sister, putting her arms around her shoulders. “You're doing a wonderful job, Liv, but no one will blame you if you sometimes have to seek some solitude.”
“That’s it exactly, Pen.” She leaned her head against her sisters. “Just leave me here for a little while.”
“Are you sure?”
Deliverance nodded.
She waited until her sister had left the room, closing the door behind her. From the window she could see Luke deep in conversation with Ned and Melchior over the latest damage to the west wall. At the sight of the familiar silhouette, her heart turned a somersault. She closed her eyes and allowed herself the shameful indulgence of remembering how he had held her, how he had kissed her, the thrill of his touch…
She shook her head as if by doing so she could dispel the memories. She had behaved like a hoyden, and he had repaid her by pushing her away.
She had cried her tears over Luke Collyer like a foolish lovelorn maiden. That would never happen again.
Below her the castle bustled with soldiers and the household staff, all going about their business as if everything was normal. Their world had not been turned on its head. Hers was the only broken heart within these walls. She sniffed back the threatening tears. Broken hearts mended.
A cannonball slammed into the Hawk Tower and the castle shuddered and groaned as if it were a living being. She wondered how much longer the walls could withstand the battering. Should she surrender now, before Farrington’s guns completely destroyed her home?
Surrender now and Luke Collyer would be gone from her life. She and Penitence could go to their aunt in London. She turned, glancing up at the portrait of her father above the fireplace. No, she couldn't surrender Kinton Lacey, not for such a pathetic reason.
Next time she saw Luke Collyer she would be cool and polite. Their relationship would revert to one of pure professionalism, just as he wanted. She would not give him the satisfaction of letting him see how he had hurt her.
She searched her pile of books and sank down on to the chair opening her copy ofThe Exercise of Armesat the marked page. But the words blurred and she sighed. She couldn’t blame Luke. He had been right. To indulge in a romantic liaison had been a foolish thing to do in the middle of their current predicament. They both needed clear heads, untrammelled by attachments that could never be sustained once the siege was over.
Chapter 15
As if God sensed the heaviness in Deliverance's heart, the weather turned foul. All that day and through the night driving rain poured relentlessly through the holes in the walls and roofs of the castle buildings and the courtyard turned to a quagmire.
After a sleepless night, during which, despite her best intentions, she smothered hot, shameful tears in her bolster, Deliverance leaned on the castle wall in the grey, dreary light of another dawn looking out over the enemy encampment. She took some consolation in the equal misery the weather imposed on the besieging force. Rain had dampened their powder and the cannons had fallen silent.
“Mistress Felton,” She turned at the sound of Melchior Blakelocke's voice, hearing a note of urgency in it she had never heard in the usual phlegmatic steward.
“Melchior?”
He stood behind her, his chest rising and falling as if he had just run to find her. Sudden fear gripped her. Melchior Blakelocke never ran.
