Page 142 of Feathers in the Wind
“Oh, Pen,” Deliverance said in a shaky voice and for a horrible moment, Luke thought she would burst into tears too.
“Deliverance, are you going to do what I asked, or shall I wait for Sergeant Hale?” He kept his voice hard and unforgiving. This was not the moment for sentiment.
Deliverance straightened and put her hand under her sister's arm. “Come, Pen. I don't see we have any choice.”
Luke watched the two women leave the room and sank on to the chair at the end of the table. He would have given anything to turn back the clock and wish that he had not stumbled across the lovers’ tryst. He ran a hand over his eyes and cursed himself for his diligence. If he had turned for bed instead of stopping to whistle to the moon, Penitence and Jack Farrington would have made their assignation and he would be none the wiser.
In his heart he didn't think Penitence or Jack intended nothing more than some time together. Penitence unlikely to be the traitor in their midst, but that was not the point. Now a man would die on the morrow for no other reason except he loved his mistress too well. On the other hand, he now had Jack Farrington as his prisoner and that gave him a very valuable card to play in the game.
* * *
Deliverance saton the edge of the narrow bed with her arm around her sobbing sister.
“I'm not a traitor, Liv. I'm not.” Penitence protested her innocence through the veil of tears.
“I know. But you have to understand how this looks, Pen. What were you thinking?”
“I love him,” Penitence howled. “I had to see him. You would have done the same thing, Liv.”
I'm not sure that I would have, Deliverance thought,no matter how much I loved him. My first duty is to this castle and its inhabitants.
Penitence looked up, her face stricken. “Will he really hang Truscott?”
“Yes.” Deliverance thought of Luke's eyes, seeing the soft, smoky grey she loved replaced with the glint of bright steel.
Yes, he would hang Truscott.
“He doesn't deserve to die,” Penitence wailed. “He did nothing wrong.”
Deliverance stared at her sister. Did Penitence really have no grasp on the seriousness of her crime?
“I will plead his case with Captain Collyer,” she said. “And yours, but I am afraid Jack is now our prisoner. There is nothing I can say in his defence.”
Penitence nodded and managed a watery smile. “At least I know where he is, and that he is safe.”
“The way the Thunderer is hammering at our walls, Pen, I'm not sure he is all that safe.” Deliverance rose to her feet. “Now try to get some sleep and I am sure things will not seem so grim in the morning.”
She returned downstairs with a heavy heart. At the entrance to the hall, she hesitated. Luke sat at the end of the table with his back to her. All she could see of him was his right hand, curled around the stem of a pewter wine goblet.
She thought of those long, hard fingers and the gentle touch of a would-be lover, and for a moment her knees went weak. Luke, her wooer, was not this man. Luke Collyer, the soldier, sat at the table and that was how she had to deal with him.
She dropped the key on the table in front of him. He looked at it without moving.
“Keep it,” he said. “I don't have time to be your sister's jailer. It would be better for you to take care of her.”
“How long to do you intend to keep her locked up?” Deliverance enquired.
Luke looked up. The steel had gone from his eyes and in that brief unguarded moment she saw the difficult position Penitence’s selfish actions had put him in. Condemning a man to death had to be the hardest decision he would ever have to make, particularly a man whose only real crime was loyalty to his mistress.
“For as long as is necessary.”
“You don't really think she was passing intelligence to Jack, do you?”
“I don't know what to think, Deliverance. She may not have been aware she was doing it. A wrong word, a whispered confidence could have been all it took.”
“What about Truscott?”
His face instantly hardened. “There is no excusing Truscott. This is war, Deliverance. They gave no quarter to the garrison at Byton remember. Is that what you want for Kinton Lacey?”
