Beloved Enemy by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online Page B

peace
and privacy at this moment. The peace and privacy that might restore her
accustomed sense of control over her destiny, her accustomed composure, and put
thoughts of Alex Marshall into perspective so that she could concentrate on her
plans for escape, could stop thinking wild, unbidden thoughts of passion, and
could think instead of a calm, orderly future — once this messy present was
behind her.
    She remained silent and heard the sound of booted feet
retreating along the corridor. A bugle call sounded from somewhere in the
grounds— p robably signaling the end of the
exercise. There was a strange quiet in the house now. Not the silence of
isolation to which she had become accustomed, but the brooding quiet that came
when a large group of people ceased all activity, waiting. Waiting for what?
Ginny ' s heart began to pound, and only the
thought of her locked door provided comfort as she lay, aching with the fatigue that went beyond tiredness and denied the
respite of sleep.
    Downstairs in the dining room, Alex heard his aide-decamp,
young Diccon Maulfrey, tell him that he rather thought Mistress Courtney was
abed and asleep. The fresh-faced, twenty-year-old lieutenant made his report to
a blank-eyed commander, who merely nodded and dismissed him curtly. Alex felt a
fool. Virginia's disappearance had created a panic-stricken frenzy that had
somehow blotted out all his calm reason. He had taken her prisoner on a curious
whim, nettled by her sharpness, by the cold mocking sa ti re and the fearlessness of her challenge. And by
something else, too. By his admiration for her, by the overwhelming sense that she was like no o th er
woman he had ever met, by the feeling that he could not cast upon the world,
alone and friendless, a woman who was both defenseless and courageous. So he
had assumed responsibility for Virginia Courtney and in the doing had
discovered something else again— a yearning that the soldier, intent on principle and purpose, had never before
allowed to intrude. He was as experienced in the ways of the world and the
needs of the body as any of his peers, took his release whenever and wherever
the opportunity arose, but he had always been capable of controlling his body's
urgencies, to live for as long as need be without women. Now, in a few short
hours, he had lost all caution, all sense, his careful purpose buffeted to the
breaking point by a young woman with a tongue like a bee sting. An enemy who,
even as she mocked him, even as she fought herself, yielded to the same power
that consumed him.
    He stood at the diamond-paned casement, staring out at the
lashing rain, hearing the wind's howl, feeling its breath whistling through the cracks of the window frame. His
men had searched the house and the estate, and they had not found her. She had,
therefore , broken her parole. She was a ward of
Parliament's representative. He must behave now in a manner consonant with that
position. Only then could he recover his operational error and prove, both to
himself and to the men under his command, that this night's frantic search had
had a serious wartime purpose, had had nothing to do with the need of a
tortured would-be lover to find an errant would-be mistress.
    Alex stalked to the door. “D iccon?"
    The lieutenant appeared immediately.
    " Have
sentries posted at all outside doors. In future, Mistress Courtney is not to be
permitted to leave the house from sundown to sunup. If she attempts to break
the curfew, then she is to be brought to m e."
    Diccon saluted and went to fulfill his instructions. His
colonel was not one to tolerate infraction, and if the lady of the manor had
defied an order, then she would be no more spared the consequences than any
other under his command.
    Alex eventually went upstairs. The house was now still, men
and officers dismissed to their quarters. Outside Virginia's door he paused.
How did he know with such certainty that she was not asleep? She had a right to
know of the curfew, he