Beloved Enemy (61 page)

"Whose
whore have you been?" he spat. "Or are you available to all comers—so
long, of course, that they fight for the traitors' cause?" He raised his
hand threateningly.

Ginny
looked him in the eye, fearless because she felt only distaste and contempt.
"No one's whore," she replied. "But if you're determined to
believe it, then do so." She shrugged, twitching out of his hold.
"You should be strong enough to leave here in a day or so. There is no one
who will prevent you."

Giles
felt the slow, corrosive burn of the cuckold simmer in his soul, and with it
the overpowering need for vengeance on the woman who had betrayed him. He found
that he did not care with whom she had betrayed him, or how many there had
been. It was enough that she had been unfaithful to him, who rightfully owned
her, and a traitor to the Royalist cause. He would not release her but would
reclaim her for his own, reassert the husband's rights, and hold her for the
rest of her life in the prison of a vengeful marriage.

"I
will not leave here without my wife," he declared as she reached the door.
"Whatever you have done, you are still my wife, madam, and we have a
lifetime in which you will learn the true meaning of that position. There is
not a court in the land that would deny my right to take you back to your
home."

Ginny
shuddered as the words fell with a soft hiss on her ears. Giles was right; she
was his chattel, and he had the legal right to force her acquiescence. He could
take her back in shackles as a runaway wife, and people would wonder only at his
forbearance, the depths of his forgiveness in taking her back under his roof,
in not casting her from his door, penniless and unprotected. But he would not
do that because she had let him know that that was what she wished for. The
vindictive side of her husband was one she had always known, although
previously it had not often been directed at her but at her servants, a horse
that had fallen at a jump, a dog who failed to retrieve the bird —anyone or
anything that failed to accord Giles Courtney the respect due to his
consequence, or to augment that consequence created and bolstered by his doting
mother and sisters. What greater blow to his self-esteem than the knowledge
that his wife had been unfaithful? He would not tolerate that blow, and his
pride would not tolerate the thought that she had left him. So, he would take
her back and hold her fast in Dorset, and whatever unkindness he showed her
would be repeated in full measure by his womenfolk.

without
a word, she left the room, turning the key again before going downstairs and
out into the street. She had always known that if Giles insisted, she would
have to go back with him. Her only hope had lain in the thought that,
suspecting the truth, he would have cast her off, no longer worthy to be called
his wife. She could have remained then with Alex for as long as it was
possible, as his mistress only, since she had a husband already, and, besides,
Alex must find a wife who could breed him sons. She had accepted that fact long
since and would have been content with whatever arrangements they could make.
Now, she did not know whether she wanted to scream or cry with her anger and
her grief at this evil twist of fate. Supposing she left Giles, ran away from
Preston? But she could not implicate Alex in such a crime by continuing to keep
company with him. Stealing away another man's wife was a crime against the
moral fabric of society that would bar him from holding any prominent position
in the land, would ruin the career on which his heart was set. And if she ran
from Giles but not to Alex, what future was there for her? Penniless, an
outcast, with no kin, no home. She had no choice but to accept imprisonment.

The
following dawn, she stood by Alex's bed, looking at that beloved face for the
last time. "Jed, if you will continue with the snail water and the
poultice, I believe he will make a good recovery. The fever is down some this
morning, and I do not think there is danger of gangrene now."

"And
what do I tell him when he asks for you?" Jed demanded. "When he
knows ye're gone, it will set him back by weeks."

"Do
not be angry with me, Jed." Ginny blinked back the tears. "You know I
have no choice. If I stay here in defiance of my husband, he will discover the
general's identity easily enough, and nothing will save Alex's career once the
truth is shouted abroad."

"Per'aps
the general’ll call him out and kill 'im for you," Jed suggested
pragmatically.

"That
is foolish, Jed. I do not hold with killing, as well you know," she said
sharply. "Had that ever been a solution, I would have left my husband to
bleed to death on the battlefield."

"Can't
think why ye didn't," the soldier muttered. "Easier all round, seems
to me." Then, seeing her face, he relented. "You got to do what seems
right to you, mistress, even if it makes no sense to me, and it won't to the
general."

"It
will, if you explain the whole to him," she whispered. "I would stay
until I could explain it to him myself, but I dare not." She did not say
whether it was her husband she was afraid of, or herself, but Jed guessed
shrewdly that it was the latter. Once Alex was well enough to talk, he would
not allow her to leave him, whatever reasons she might produce for doing so,
and she would be unable to withstand him.

The
door suddenly burst open, and Giles Courtney, dressed for travel, stood there.
"Who is he?" he demanded, making to cross the room. Jed moved fast,
and Giles found himself outside in the passage borne backward by the force of
that stocky soldier's body.

"None
of yer business, sir," Jed said, closing the door behind him. "You
leave the mistress to make 'er farewells in peace."

"You
insolent blackguard!" Giles raised his fist, but Jed was quicker and
stronger, seizing his wrist and twisting it as he side-stepped expertly.
Giles's face went gray with the pain as the twist tightened, and he finally
bent double in submission. "You'll pay for that!" he gritted through
clenched teeth, rubbing his wrist when Jed released him.

Jed's
lips twisted in a sardonic grimace of disbelief. Ginny came out, her eyes
sheened with tears, biting her trembling lip. She walked past them both as if
she did not see them and went outside where an ill-sprung coach awaited them.
It would be a wretched, jolting journey that lay ahead of them, but Giles was
not strong enough to ride, and his hip was paining him more since the fever.
They faced perhaps two weeks shut up in bitter enmity and discomfort, until
they reached whatever awaited them in Dorset.

"Jed,
damn your eyes, man! Where the devil've you got to?"

The
irritable bellow reached the old soldier as he ascended the farmhouse stairs, a
steaming jug of water in hand. "I'm comin'," he grumbled. "Only
got one pair o' legs, General." He entered the chamber and sighed at the
sight of the general sitting on the edge of the bed, struggling with his
stockings. "Let me do that," he said, setting down the jug.
"Though what you think ye're about, goin' out with the fever only gone two
days, I dunno, to be sure."

"I
cannot abide one more minute shut up in this damn prison!" Alex exclaimed,
trying to hide his relief as he fell back against the bolster and allowed Jed
to draw on his stockings. He was so damnably weak, no more strength than a
kitten, but if he lay on that bed for one more minute, just thinking—well, he'd
be inclined to cut his throat!

Leaning
heavily on Jed, he went downstairs and out into the street. The village bore
all the signs of its recent occupation by armed forces, and the battlefield
below was a grassless, mud-churned mess for as far as the eye could see. There
were few people around, the villagers occupied with trying to resume their old
lives, the few members of the army left nursing their strength and wounds as
Alex was doing. But there was no nursing for the deepest wound, he thought
wretchedly, pacing slowly beside Jed. Why had she not stayed, not trusted him
sufficiently to find some way out of what he had to admit was the most damnably
tortuous dilemma? She had said little enough about her husband, sensing that he
did not wish to hear of the man who had first known her. But Alex had heard in
her silences that Giles Courtney had been no friend to his wife. What would
such a man do with a faithless wife, one who, in the name of passion and love,
had thrown in her lot with the enemy? Would he accept the excuse that she had
thought him dead? Forgive and forget? From the brief description Jed had given
him of Giles Courtney, Alex doubted it.

His
sleeping and waking hours were tormented with worry for her, as much as he ached
with loneliness. From time to time, he would feel a spurt of fury that she had
again
walked away from him, breaking the bargain made at Grantly Manor, and he
would fantasize about laying hands on her—and then the anger would become
muddled with the feel of her softness, the sound of her voice, her laughter,
and he would want to weep with the desolation of loss.

He
knew that practically she had done the only thing possible. If her husband
asserted his legal right, the lover had no claim, and the woman no choice in
the matter at all. But she had not even given him a chance to find a way around
it, had not waited long enough for him to recover consciousness so that they
could at least have discussed it, have made some plans for the future. Even if
she had had to go with Courtney, they could still have planned something . . .
but she had walked out of his life without a word, leaving him too feeble to do
anything about it, too weak even to sit a horse!

Jed,
feeling the general's weight grow heavier on his shoulder, glanced up anxiously
at the tall figure beside him. The general seemed shrunken somehow, thin as a
rail and stooped, his face haggard, his eyes sunken. It was not surprising
after such a long illness following a near-mortal wound, but it was the blow to
his spirit that would keep him enfeebled unless Jed could come up with
something.

"Reckon
you'll be needed in London, soon as ye're fit to travel, General," he
said. "Plenty of work to be done there. There's talk of bringin' the king
to trial."

"Aye,"
Alex agreed dully. " 'Tis not an action I'll support. There's no call for
regicide."

"Sooner
ye get there and make your views known, sir, the better," Jed said with a
cheery note of enthusiasm. "Can't hang about up north forever, now."

"Hanging
about up north was never my intention," Alex stated acidly. "But
perhaps you'll tell me how I'm to leave, when I can't walk ten paces down the
street without your support!"

Jed
refrained from comment since there would be little point in it, but he
determined to prod the general frequently about his views on the possible
execution of the king. If he could be encouraged to take up a definite stance
on the matter, nothing would stop him from hurrying back to London to put his
principles into effect, and in all the ensuing bustle, maybe he could be
induced to put thoughts of Mistress Courtney behind him.