Page 120 of Feathers in the Wind
She closed her eyes and prayed…Oh, dear lord, make these feelings go away. I want to go back to how I felt before. I don’t need this distraction. Her eyes, brimming with unshed tears, opened.But don’t let him be killed, I would die...
She laid her head on the table. Love...lust...whatever it was she suffered from, it afflicted her badly and now she had to endure possibly weeks of incarceration with a man who clearly saw her as nothing more than a nuisance.
* * *
The clockin the great hall had struck twelve midnight, but Luke still prowled the castle, checking and double checking that everything was in order, making certain the sentries were awake and that no chink existed in the castle’s defences.
Since Deliverance had sent her message to Farrington, the besiegers had redoubled their preparations. Those within the castle could do nothing except watch as they threw earth bastions up, erected wicker and manoeuvred the Thunderer into position beyond the reach of the small cannon mounted in the castle’s towers.
Luke glanced up at the Hawk Tower and caught a fleeting movement as the cloud parted from the moon. He frowned. He had not set a sentry on that tower. Drawing his sword, he took the stairs lightly, emerging on to the platform of the tower undetected by its sole occupant. Deliverance, dressed again in her usual drab gown, leaned against the wall looking out at the flickering campfires below her.
He sheathed his sword and stepped out on to the platform. Deliverance started, looking around as he joined her at the ramparts.
“Luke! You gave me a fright. I thought you abed.”
“I could say the same of you, lady.”
An icy wind rose from the river, lifting Deliverance’s hair and whipping it against her face. She pushed the strands back, trying unsuccessfully to tuck them behind her ear, while not shifting her gaze from the enemy encampment.
“How many men do they have out there?”
“Ned and I estimate that they have about four hundred foot and at least fifty horses.”
“And that awful gun!” Her fingers twisted the chain of a gold locket she wore around her neck. She looked up at him, her brow furrowed in anguish. “Luke, have I done the right thing? I have prayed and hoped that God would give me some sign that I have chosen the right course.”
“If,” Luke spoke slowly, thinking through every word, “it had been me, I would have made exactly the same decision.”
“But there are innocent souls within this castle. What if the same fate befalls them as did the defenders at Byton?”
“Sir Richard Farrington has more sense than to allow that to happen again. Or at least I hope he does. What his son did runs contrary to every rule of war. Your father is not like that fool at Byton and the repercussions should any harm befall either you or your sister would not be worth the effort. Byton was meant merely as a warning, to scare us into early submission.”
Even as he spoke, he hoped he was telling the truth. This was war and there could be no certainty.
“I never thought it could be this hard,” Deliverance’s voice shook as if she struggled to control her emotions. “When Farrington came the first time, it seemed easy. I’d read the books, I knew what to do but Byton changed it all. Now I don’t feel so brave.”
Without conscious thought, he reached out and pushed one of the dark, wayward strands back behind her ear, allowing his hand to fall to her shoulder. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and dark in her shadowed face.
“You are the bravest woman I have ever met,” he said. “I am afraid you will need every ounce of that courage in the next few weeks.”
“Weeks?” Her voice shook.
He shrugged. “Maybe months. If relief can’t reach us from Gloucester.”
She turned her face away, the shoulder beneath his hand tensing with emotion. She had accused him of mistaking lust for love, but she had been wrong. He knew the difference.
Lust was Betty Jones in the dairy, an object of physical desire he had steadfastly resisted since his arrival. Love was reserved for someone deserving and there had been other girls with whom he had known love, but the spark that had lit when he met Deliverance Felton went beyond all previous experience. The unknown emotions terrified him far more than Farrington.
He gently squeezed the slender bone beneath his hand, resisting the urge to run his hand around the back of her neck and pull her against him.
She turned beneath his hand to look up at him and her lips parted and her eyes glittered in the pale light of the waxing moon. Desire stirred his blood, quickening his breath. It would be so easy to hold her tight, kiss the dark hair and tell her it would be all right.
“Luke,” she whispered. “Hold me.”
The breath caught in his throat and he dropped his hand, taking a step back.
Dear God, she felt the same way!
A vision of impending disaster flashed into his mind. Within the close confines of the castle with over a hundred people watching their every move, they needed to maintain the distance. Whatever might be developing between them, they could not afford to step over that invisible line that separated Sir John Felton’s daughter from her captain of the guard.
