Beloved Enemy (29 page)

Alex's initial thought was for Ginny when the first shot rang
out. "Get Virginia to safety," he bellowed at Diccon, flinging
himself onto Bucephalus. After that, he forgot about her in the business of
sorting out what had happened and what was now happening. The black charger
hurtled down the field, and at the sight the men of Colonel Marshall's brigade
stopped the disorderly, confused milling about that made the snipers' job so
easy and formed tight squares, two deep, under the shouted commands of their
officers. A musket ball whined over the colonel's head, but apart from a
muttered oath, he ignored it. His men were now returning the fire, although
they could not see their attackers, who had crept up on them in the ditches
behind the hedgerows.

They were being fired on from two sides, but the squares held
steady. When the front line discharged their muskets, they changed places with
the line behind, who fired while their fellows reloaded. Then the maneuver was
repeated. It would take more than a handful of snipers to withstand this
orderly attrition and the limitless supply of ammunition.

Eventually, there were no returning shots.
"Casualties?"  Alex demanded harshly of Major Bonha
m
.

"Two dead, sir. Three injured
,
" the major said.
"
We were lucky. Do we go after them?"

Alex shook his head. "We can't take prisoners on this j
o
urney, Major." They both knew what the
alternative was if
the
y engaged with the enemy, and the
major knew that Colonel Marshall generally avoided gratuitous killing.
"
We'll carry the dead with us. Have
the wounded tended to, litters i
f
necessary; then draw the men up in formation. The sooner we get out of here,
the better."

Alex rode over to Lieutenant Maulfrey. "Where did you
put Ginny, Diccon?"

Diccon looked stricken. "I thought you had found her. .
."

"Found her?" Alex exclaimed. "What the devil
do you mean, 'found her'? I told you to get her to safety."

"But she wasn't here, sir. I couldn't see her anywhere —
I
thought ... I thought that . . ."

Alex had gone the color of chalk. "You do not think,
Lieutenant. You obey orders. I told you to ensure her safety. Are you telling
me that when you could not find her immediately, you decided to forget that
order and follow your own pursuits?" His voice was as soft and deadly as
the hiss of a cobra, and Diccon Maulfrey began to wish he had never been born.

"Beggin' yer pardon, Colonel." Jed brought
temporary salvation. "Her mare is still here, and I think as 'ow she went
into the next field before the shooting started."

"You saw her?"

Jed nodded. "I was about to go after her. Then all the
commotion started
—
"

Alex set Bucephalus at the stream and the hedge, the
magnificent black sailing effortlessly over the obstacles. There was no knowing
what trouble she was in. The fields were crawling with Royalists. Of course, it
was always possible that that fact suited her very well. And while he was out
looking for her, the brigade was losing precious minutes in idleness. Anger and
fear waged a battle for supremacy, and when he saw her, crouched over a patch
of flowers at the far end of the field, anger won without further contest. Then
he caught the flicker of movement beyond the hedge in front of her, a glimmer
of white, and his heart leaped into his throat. It might well suit Virginia
Courtney to fall into
t
he hands of the rebels, but it most
definitely did not suit him that she should.

Ginny heard the pounding of hooves behind her, turned, her
hands full of pennyroyal. The charger was bearing down upon her, those huge
hooves seeming about to run her down. She heard the unmistakable sound of a
sword being unsheathed at her back, as a figure pushed through the hedge. Then
Bucephalus was upon her. Alex let go the reins momentarily, leaned far down,
clinging with his knees as he caught Virginia under the arms and swung her up,
turning his horse with the pressure of his knees the instant the man with the
drawn sword struck. The blade whistled harmlessly an inch from the charger's
flank, and Ginny, who had no idea what had happened, felt the breath leave her
body as she landed face down across the saddle in front of Alex, and Bucephalus
galloped unchecked across the field.

"Let me up!" she gasped, outraged, still ignorant
of their narrow escape, and, unfortunately, totally unaware of the extent of
Alex's fear-induced fury. She struggled to right herself, at considerable danger
to life and limb.

"Keep still!" Alex hissed, increasing the pressure
of his hand on the small of her back as he pushed her down again with
lamentable lack of delicacy.

Ginny, unthinking in her rage at his rough treatment, sank
her teeth into his calf. Alex bellowed and brought his riding crop down on her
upturned rear in a forceful reflex. Ginny's mouth opened on a shocked yelp.
"I'll never forgive you, never!"

"When it comes to forgiveness, Virginia Courtney, you
are on very thin ice," Alex gritted. "How dare you go off like that?
Every minute my men stand in that field, they are in danger, but you did not
think of that, did you? Any more than you thought of your own."

"That is not true! What was I supposed to do when all
the shooting
—
" Ginny gave up, the jolting
hurt her ribs and her
h
ip bones, and she felt sick in her
upside-down position.
An
d none of this was as bad as the
gradually increasing fear that Alex, in his present mood, was quite capable of
riding
up
to the brigade with her slung across
his saddle like a sack of potatoes.

Mercifully, the charger's headlong gallop slowed to a
c
anter, then a walk as Alex drew back on the reins.
"You can walk from here," he said, pulling Bucephalus to a halt. With
his hands under her arms, he steadied her as she slid down, holding her for the
moment before her feet touched ground. Then he let her go and nudged his mount
forward. After a few paces, he looked over his shoulder to where she still
stood, unmoving. "In the name of the good God, what does it take to get
through to you? Will you come along!"

Shaken and jolted as she was, as if every bone in her body
had been dislodged, Gi
n
ny did not know how she had the
strength or the courage to resist him. But it came from somewhere, from the
deep-seated conviction that no one had the right to treat her as Alex had j
u
st done. "I’
l
l
not walk at your stirrup, Colonel." Her voice was quiet and steady.

The gray eyes were huge, smoky in their intensity, her face
very pale, but she held herself as proudly as ever as she stared him down. Alex
exhaled slowly, rubbing his eyes with finger and thumb of his right hand.
"Very well. Put your foot on mine." He stretched a hand down to her.

Ginny took the hand, placed her bare foot on the booted one
in the stirrup and sprang upward, turning with an agile twist to land on the
saddle in front of him.

"Where are your shoes?" Alex said, noticing for the
first time that she was without them.

"
I
had to wade through the stream to get through the hedge. I left them by
Jen."

"I suppose it's too much to ask what you were
doing?"

"I was going to pick pennyroyal; then I heard the
shooting. I hid in the ditch until it stopped;
th
en—then, I thought it would be silly not to collect what I had gone for
in the first place. You made me drop them," she added.

"One of us was about to be run through by a gentleman
with a sword, in case you hadn't noticed," Alex pointed out with more than
a hint of sarcasm. "The entire area is infested with rebels."

"Not to
my
way of thinking," Ginny retorte
d
imprudently. "It is rebels I am riding
with."

"Do you want me to turn you over again?" Alex
demanded, quite at the end of his patience.

"
You
do, and so help me I will kill you
,
"
Ginny declared fiercely.

Fortunately for them both, at this point they brok
e
through the hedge into the field where the brigade was
drawn up in marching formation, and the pointless exchange of threats could be
dropped without further loss of face on either side.

Alex rode over to the line of officers, all of whom were
looking anxious, but none more so than Diccon, who was standing at the heads of
his own mount and Ginny's mare.
with
out
dismounting, Alex lifted Ginny to the ground, saying curtly, "You had
better find your shoes." In the same tone, he said to Diccon, "Report
to me after tattoo, Lieutenant Maulfrey."

Ginny found her shoes where she had left them and allowed the
crestfallen Diccon to assist her to mount. The brigade moved out in somber
silence, pikes and halberds catching the rays of the mid-afternoon sun. Ginny
edged closer to the aide-de-camp. "What has happened, Diccon?" she
asked in a discreet undertone. "Why is the colonel vexed with you?"

"I could not find you," Diccon muttered
disconsolately. "And now, I expect, I shall lose rank at the very
least."

"But that is absurd," Ginny maintained. "It
was not your fault I was in the other field. I will talk to him."

"No —
n
o, please, you
must not, Ginny. I beg you will do no such thing." Diccon stammered in his
urgency, his face scarlet with embarrassment at the thought of her
intercession. "I did not look for you because I assumed, when I could not
find you immediately, that someone else had charge of you. Or at least,"
he added miserably, "that is what I wanted to think, because I wanted to
join the battle."

"Yes, I can quite see that having charge of some
troublesome female prisoner cannot hold a candle to the prospect of being shot
at," Ginny said sardonically. Diccon reminded her vividly at this point of
Edmund trying to give her the slip so he could go and hunt hare without a mere
girl tagging along. However, it did not seem entirely just that Diccon should
be penalized because she had been more than capable of looking after herself.
Mind you, as an advocate, Ginny reflected wryly, she might do his cause with
the colonel more harm than good in the present frigid climate.

They reached Guildford without further engagement, and as
they neared the town, the atmosphere lightened. They would be housed tonight in
the barracks, Diccon told Ginny, and everyone looked forward to the prospect of
being with
their own kind for a few hours. They
would be able to bury the dead with appropriate ceremony, and there would be
field surgeons to tend to the wounded. The officers would dine in headquarters,
and there would be the opportunity to gather news and information, which was in
short supply on the road.

And there would be precious little opportunity for
Parliament's ward to go in search of the red fox, not from the confines of a
Roundhead barracks. Ginny kept her own counsel as they rode through the narrow
streets, past the sentries at the gates to the barracks and into the square.

"Alex! Good God, man, but you're a sight for sore
eyes." This hearty greeting came from a rotund but very smart colonel,
much more elaborately dressed than Alex, who hurried across the yard toward
them.
"
Ye're on
the
way to London,
I'll
be bound."

"Aye, Jack. Cromwell's orders," Alex said, swinging
down and clapping the other on the shoulder affectionately. "I'm hoping
we're to join the march to Scotland. And you?"

The other shook his head with a grimace. "We're to stay
put and mop up this damn Surrey uprising. Rebel
s
are all over the countryside. Did you have any trouble?"

Alex told him in a few words. "We've need of a surgeon
and a burial parade, Jack."