Page 117 of Feathers in the Wind
Luke gave Penitence a relieved smile. “Precisely.” He addressed Deliverance. “Think of good Queen Bess...What did she say?Although I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, I have the heart and soul of a King of England. Those men at Tilbury would have died for her on the spot. I need you to be Queen Bess.”
“But this is my castle and I will defend it as I see fit.”
Penitence shook her head. “In this case, Liv, I think Captain Collyer has a point.” She looked at Luke and smiled. “Leave her to me. We will be right back.” She took her sister by the arm and propelled her back up the stairs.
It seemed to take forever before Penitence reappeared at the top of the stairs with a smile on her serene face. She looked down at the men. “Ready?”
With the full attention of all three men, Penitence pulled her sister forward out of the shadows into the light and rested one hand on the bannister, her chin raised in defiance. Luke clamped his jaw tight to stop his mouth falling open.
Her sister had clothed her in a gown of deep, rich burgundy velvet. She wore no collar, cuffs or jewellery and her hair, lightly pinned back from her face, fell in dark, glossy tresses around her shoulders. The colour of the gown accentuated the ivory of her skin and the rich brown of her hair. The simple hairstyle framed and softened her face and Luke thought she looked both beautiful and ethereal. A woman worthy of his sword and his honor.
He shook his head in admiration.
Deliverance ruined the effect by nearly tripping on the skirt as she attempted to take the stairs at her usual pace.
“I knew it. I look ridiculous,” she said.
Luke stepped forward and swept a deep, courtly bow. “Mistress Felton, the admirable Mistress Felton. You look wonderful.”
He took her hand and kissed her long, slender fingers. His own work-hardened and calloused fingers tightened on the fragile bones. Deliverance wrenched her hand free and looked defiantly from one man to the other, her gaze coming to rest on Luke.
“Now you have me looking like something out of an Arthurian legend, what do you want me to do?”
Luke smiled. “We will show Sir Richard Farrington, just what he is up against,” he said. “Would you do me the honor of taking my arm, Mistress Felton?”
* * *
It seemedas if every man in the garrison was fixed on her as she crossed the courtyard, and she began to see what Luke had meant. As she had stepped out of the door on Luke’s arm, a mighty cheer had gone up. They needed an idol, a figurehead. It may have been a tableau, a pantomime, but she could feel the responsibility of these men’s lives weighing on her shoulders. She glanced back at Luke who gave her an encouraging smile.
Beneath the heavy lacing of her bodice, Deliverance’s heart beat a rapid tattoo as Sergeant Hale held out his hand to assist her to step up on to the box he had placed for her beneath the curtain wall. A gentle breeze flapped the standard above her, lifting her hair. No one watching from below could fail to see her and it would only take a reasonable marksman to pick her off, but she had no fear. Luke Collyer had been right, she needed to make a statement to Farrington and she would not do it hiding behind the walls.
She drew herself up ramrod straight and she drew a sharp breath as she saw what lay beyond her walls. Rank upon rank of blue-coated soldiers drawn up in battle order and Sir Richard himself, immediately identifiable by his own banner and the chestnut horse he rode, formed the centre of a small circle of senior officers. The sight of him almost came as a relief. She had hoped that he would not leave such an important mission to his brute of a son.
Sir Richard Farrington would find Kinton Lacey a different foe to the one he had faced in his half-hearted siege of only a month ago. They had razed the village buildings previously crowding up to the castle walls, leaving a couple of hundred yards of bare ground, between the nearest cover and the ditch that surrounded the castle. The ditch had been excavated to a depth of ten feet and bristled with staves and the antique weaponry.
Farrington and his officers seemed to be in conversation probably debating how best to deal with this troublesome woman. As she watched, Farrington turned his dancing chestnut towards the castle, his gaze scanning the walls until it rested on her. Across the distance Deliverance stared back at him.
“Is Jack there?” Penitence, on the walkway below, tugged at her Deliverance’s red skirt.
“Of course he is,” Deliverance said with a dash of impatience. “And several of our good neighbours.”
“It must be awkward for them.” Luke had joined her on the wall with his eyeglass. “I am sure they have been guests at your father’s board in happier times.”
“These men and my father were boys together,” Deliverance said.
“That is the perverse nature of Civil War,” Luke said.
Sir Richard disengaged from the party and rode to the edge of the village within plain sight of the castle, and well within a musket’s range.
Sergeant Hale nodded to his best sharpshooter who began priming his weapon. “Smith could take him,” Hale said to Luke.
“No,” Luke said. “This is a carefully arranged dance and that would be quite the wrong move. Let him say his piece.”
“Mistress Felton,” Farrington hailed her across the distance between them. “I call on you now to lay down your arms and surrender up the castle to me. You have my word that neither you nor any of your garrison will be harmed.”
“Is that not the same promise made to the garrison at Byton?” Deliverance replied, her voice ringing out clear and strong in the silence.
“Byton made the grievous error of resisting,” Farrington replied.
