Free Beloved Enemy by Jane Feather Page B

noose around her
neck.
    But she could not tell him, could not betray Edmund and all
those others on the island who had assisted fugitives in the past. Alex had let
Edmund and Peter go because of her, but Edmund Verney was a wanted man, and
there would be nothing to prevent Alex sending a messenger to alert the
mainland forces. Wounded, her cousin would not be able to make much speed, and
if they knew where to begi n their search . . . And what havoc
would Parliament's force s wreak amongst the peaceful
inhabitants of Buckler's Hard? The fisherfolk and farmers who had offered
succor to those she had delivered.
    The long morning wore on. Alex talked with the me ssenger from Governor Hammond, he conferred with h i s officers, wrote reports, the quill pen scratching on
the parchment; all the while he ignored the figure on the window seat. Once he
left the room, and a soldier came in, wooden-faced, to stand before the closed
door. O n the colonel's return, the soldier
departed. When she co ul d hold out no longer, Ginny asked, in
a low, hesitant voice, to visit the privy. Alex merely nodded and summoned the
same soldier to accompany her. The eyes of both officers and men slid past her
as she made the return journey with her stolid, silent guard, studiously
ignored her presence when they came into the dining room to do business with
the colonel. At noon, Alex was brought a bowl of soup, a trencher of bread with
a slab of cheese and a mug of ale.
    Ginny had not broken her fast this day, and then, as she
watched him eat, tears pricking behind her eyes, she realized that she had
taken no food since noon yesterday. Last night's supper presumably still lay
neglected in her c ha mber, because last night something
had happened that made thought of food an irrelevancy. And sleep, also. Now she
was tired to the point ofdeath. She shifted on the hard, ungiving oak of the
narrow window seat as her thigh m uscles
cramped. She needed to lie down. There was only the floor, but it would do.
Sliding down, Ginny curled her body tightly, pillowing her head on her hands.
    "Nooo, Ginny. You may not sleep unless you do so on the
window seat. " Alex bent over her, lifting her to
her feet. His voice seemed incongruously gentle to her bewildered, desperate
senses, but there was no mistaking the implacable
note. "I wish this to be over soon," he said quietly, holding her as
she sagged against him. " When you have told me, you shall
bathe, sleep, and eat, and you and I will begin anew, knowing who and what we
are. "
    The thought was seductive, almost irresistible. Edmund's name
rose to her lips, and then the image of Winchester jail dried her mouth. She
sat again upon the window seat, her head drooping on her chest as she dozed
fitfully throughout an interminable afternoon when the nausea of hunger churned
in her belly and she hardly knew whether she was awake or asleep. The single
note of a bugle hammering insistently, repetitively, created images of
battlefields strewn with the broken bodies of the dead and wounded, and she
walked amongst them, looking . . . always looking for someone. Her father? . . .
Edmund? But she was not searching among the flotsam of the king ' s dead, but through that o f Parliament, Oliver Cromwell's men . . .
    She awok e from her trance with a cry of terror
as a hand touch e d her shoulder, and she found herself
looking into the eyes of the man she had been seeking. It was full night
outside, she saw through the window at her back.
    "Sweet Ginny, you must tell m e." He spoke sof t ly, urgently. "I cannot bear to see you thus, but I must know. I
will promise to keep his identity a secret, will keep the knowledge of their
escape to myself, but this is war, my love. I have to know how you have done
this thing , and how often, and I have to block
further escapes. You have no t hing to lose
by telling me, since you are no longer in a position to continue this work. But
others may try, and all unknowing, they will run their heads into