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  SWEET CONQUEST

  “We are enemies, Colonel,” she said curtly. “You the conqueror, and I the prisoner. It is not a position that allows for truce.”

  “We are also people.” He took a step toward her. “Cannot two people develop a liking for each other despite politics, Virginia?”

  “If you consider you have the right to use my given name, Colonel Marshall, then I must consider that the privilege is mutual.”

  She had hoped to goad him again, but the colonel was a stubborn man, and there was something about her slight, determined figure, the proud set of her head, that stirred him as no woman had ever done. “My name is at your disposal. My friends call me Alex.”

  “And what do your prisoners call you?” Her hand was on the wooden latch of the dairy door, the knuckles white under the unnaturally fierce grip.

  To her horror, a lean, strong hand closed over hers. “I do not wish to fight with you, Virginia. There are other things I would much prefer to do.”

  It was quite true, he realized, keeping his hand on hers, lifting her face with the other. The gray eyes widened in startled protest as his words sank in, and a tremor shook the slim frame as he placed his mouth firmly and deliberately over the full, generous one below . . .

  Don’t miss any of Jane Feather’s

  exciting historical romances

  BELOVED ENEMY

  LOVE’S CHARADE

  RECKLESS SEDUCTION

  SMUGGLER’S LADY

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  BELOVED ENEMY

  JANE FEATHER

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

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  Copyright © 1987 by Jane Feather

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

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  ISBN: 978-1-4201-3144-4

  Table of Contents

  SWEET CONQUEST

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Part One - When the blast of war blows

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part Two - That love would prove so hard a master

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Epilogue

  Love's Charade Teaser

  Part One

  When the blast of war blows

  Chapter One

  They came at sunset. There were perhaps two hundred of them, the evening sun setting alight the round helmets and breastplates, turning the tips of steel pikes and halberds into glowing candles. Perhaps a third were on horseback, the remainder on foot—a silent, orderly brigade tramping across the overgrown lawns, neglected driveway, and paths that led to the house.

  She stood waiting in the open front door on this warm summer evening of 1648. The house at her back was a Jacobean mansion of soft, sea-weathered stone, the classical cornices and pilasters bespeaking an age before civil war, when an English gentleman could afford to indulge his taste for the gentle arts of architecture and landscaping, and build for posterity the manor house that declared his wealth and endeavor.

  The brigade drew closer, and it became clear that one man rode slightly ahead of the front ranks. Her practiced eye approved both his horse—a magnificent black charger standing maybe twenty hands—and the easy seat of the rider. The latter carried neither pike nor musket, but one gloved hand rested on the hilt of the sword at his hip, the other held the reins as loosely as if he were astride a placid mare.

  The cavalcade came to a halt at the base of the shallow flight of steps leading to the front door. She remained at her post, waiting in silence. For a long moment the quiet was broken only by the whinny of a horse, the clink of a bridle as its wearer tossed a head and pawed the gravel. The ranks of men in their leathern britches, helmets, and breastplates stood at attention as the sun dipped behind the headland and vanished into Alum Bay.

  As if the loss of the sun were a signal of some kind, the leading horseman declaimed: “I am come by the authority of Parliament to sequester all lands and property pertaining to one John Redfern of this Isle of Wight, whose Malignancy to the rule of Parliament has been proven.”

  The figure on the steps merely inclined her head. What else was she to do? It was not as if she had an army at her back, muskets trained on the silent ranks come to wrest from her her birthright. She had a ready sense of the absurd that in happier days had landed her hip deep in childhood trouble, and now it again came most inconveniently to the fore—two-hundred armed men facing one unarmed, unprotected woman! Her lips twitched.

  The man had witnessed many emotions during these years of civil war. He had seen bravado, resignation, true courage, abject terror, but never could he remember seeing laughter on the face of a Royalist when the New Model Army enforced the decrees of Parliament.

  He swung from his horse and mounted the steps, drawing off his gauntlets. “Your name, mistress?”

  “Is this an introduction, sir? Or simply an inquisition?”

  Her eyes were gray—as cold as the Atlantic Ocean crashing against the Needle Rocks that stood guard over this stretch of water between the Isle of Wight and the English mainland. She was young—barely twenty, he decided. Tall for a woman, but her frame slender and pliant as a willow in the deep-blue kirtle of homespun linen, a white apron tied in a businesslike fashion that merely served to accentuate a waist that he could span with both hands. Her skin carried the golden bloom of summer days spent in the open air. He glanced down at her quiet hands. A slim gold band encircled her ring finger, and the hands were as brown as the small face, but there was a work-roughened quality to their skin that indicated hardship.

  Alex Marshall, the youngest son of the earl of Grantham, suddenly remembered his upbringing. “I am Colonel Alexander Marshall, mistress.”

  “That is an uncomfortably royal name for a Roundhead to carry, Colonel,” she said, without immediately responding to the introduction.

  Alex Marshall had few scruples when it came to pitched battle, little compunction when he fulfilled Parliament’s orders and arrested the king’s adherents, sequestered their estates, and disinherited their occupants. Until this moment, however, he had never felt the slightest inclination to vent frustration on a woman.

  Those gray eyes mocked him as she curtsied and said, “Virginia Cou
rtney, Colonel. I have little hospitality to offer you and . . .” She gestured at the throng. “. . . your cohorts. But what I have, I gladly extend.”

  Alex was conscious of two-hundred pairs of eyes at his back as he stood alone facing this extraordinary woman who made fun of him with every supple movement and every glint in her eyes. A woman who offered him hospitality as a gracious hostess extending succor to the wanderer.

  “Who is here with you?” It was a harsh demand, an attempt to establish a supremacy that was usually unquestioned.

  “Why, no one, Colonel. I am quite alone,” she responded. “You need have no fear for your men’s safety. They are not about to be attacked.” The voice was dulcet, sweet in its insolent challenge.

  Ginny watched him covertly. She must take care not to antagonize the conqueror too much lest she endanger others than herself. It was a fine line she must tread if she were to achieve her object. He was in his late twenties, she decided, and as personable as it was possible for anyone to be in that detestable uniform. His eyes were a mélange of greeny-brown—not true hazel, but moving in that direction; his eyebrows dark brown and most definitive. An aquiline nose stood above full lips that at this moment were set in a thin line. There was an uncompromising set to the jaw, Ginny reflected, as she wondered what color his hair would be if he ever took off that helmet. One thing she knew, it would be cropped short in the manner of all Roundheads.

  “What relationship do you hold to John Redfern?”

  “His daughter, sir.”

  “And where is your mother?”

  “Dead, these six months.” It was a flat statement. “My father, as I am sure you are aware, died three years ago at the Battle of Naseby.”

  “And your husband?” His eyes fixed on the wedding ring.

  “Killed during the surrender of Oxford.” It was another simple, expressionless statement.

  “And where is your household, Mistress Courtney?” She was forcing this catechism from him, putting him in the position of a boorish brute dragging the catalogue of war deaths from a lone widow. The thin line of his lips tightened.

  “Gone.” She shrugged with an assumption of ease. “There is little purpose, Colonel, in maintaining an estate destined for the block. I have lived alone these past six months. If you doubt my word, you have only to look around.” Ginny gestured to the overgrown lawns, the box hedges around the flower garden springing out of their former ornamental shapes to throw unruly sprigs into the weed-infested broad walks, destroying the neatness of the rectangles and squares that had marked her mother’s beloved garden.

  “There is absolutely no one living with you?” He stared, incredulous.

  “Have I not just said so, Colonel?” A martial light appeared in the previously cold gray depths of her eyes. She was enjoying herself, Alex Marshall realized, as she stood challenging him in the face of an armed brigade.

  The colonel, however, was most definitely not enjoying himself. It had been ten years since anyone had questioned his authority, either implicitly or explicitly, and it was not an experience he wished to continue—particularly when the questioner was a mere slip of a girl.

  “How old are you?” he snapped.

  “I do not consider that to be your affair, Colonel.” Had she overplayed her hand? It was a lamentable tendency she had when her blood rose in anger or when the game took precedence over the goal. Tread softly now!

  She had little chance, however, to follow her own advice. The colonel spun her around and propelled her into the house away from watching eyes. The hall was large and cool, the walls elaborately paneled, the plasterwork of the ceiling ornate. A broad staircase with an intricately carved baluster led to the upper floors. But the colonel, at this point, was not interested in admiring his surroundings. “I asked you a question, Mistress Courtney, and I will have my answer.”

  “And if I choose not to give it to you?”

  “Then you will discover, girl, that I am an uncomfortable man to challenge.” He spoke very softly.

  It was that soft voice that convinced Ginny, more than the hand still gripping her elbow and the exasperation in the greeny-brown eyes. Deciding that she had played with fire for as long as it was safe to do so, Ginny shrugged nonchalantly and said, “nineteen, Colonel.”

  “And why have you been permitted to remain here unattended?”

  “In the absence of my parents and my husband, sir, there is no authority that I am prepared to acknowledge,” Ginny replied coolly.

  “And what of your husband’s family? There must be someone who stands guardian to you. You are not yet of age.”

  “I did not say I had no guardian.” She spoke slowly as if to a half-witted child. “I said only that there is no authority I am prepared to accept.”

  Taking her chin between long fingers, he tilted her face and examined it thoughtfully. It was an arresting countenance, dominated by those fine eyes, but much more youthful than he had originally perceived. “My child, I am afraid that your parents and your husband must have sadly neglected their duties. You appear remarkably undisciplined.”

  Virginia, her composure shattered as he paid her back in her own coin, attempted to pull herself free from his hold, but the fingers tightened on her chin. He held her thus for a minute longer and then, with a satisfied chuckle, released her. “It is not pleasant, is it, Mistress Courtney, to be goaded? Come, I wish to inspect the house.”

  “You wish to see it first, before giving your men the freedom to pillage?” Venom coated every word as she took her revenge. The gasp of outrage this time came from the colonel. He took a step toward her, but she stood her ground, for he was not to know that her knees shook beneath her skirt.

  “My men do not pillage,” he hissed.

  “Then they are the exceptions to the rule,” bravely she said. “Vandal and Roundhead are held to be synonymous these days.”

  It was, of course, true and a fact that Colonel Marshall deeply regretted. Many beautiful houses and priceless paintings had, in the last year, fallen victim to the besieging cannon, the soldier’s pike, and the burning torch. But his own men were too well disciplined, too much in awe of their colonel, who punished the slightest excess with a fearful consistency.

  “You may rest assured, Mistress Courtney, that the house and its contents will suffer as little harm as is consonant with occupation,” he said stiffly. “I intend to make this place my headquarters during my sojourn on the island and would be glad if you would show me what accommodations the house has to offer.”

  Virginia curtsied and inclined her head. “I am at your service, Colonel. There are but twelve bedrooms, counting mine own. Of course, there are the servants’ quarters, but I hardly think you may house all your men there.”

  Alex heard the note of mockery again and fought to keep a tight rein on his temper. His moment of supremacy had not lasted long. “My men will bivouac in the gardens and the orchard.”

  “I do hope that they will show respect for the shrubs and the fruit trees,” she murmured sweetly, turning toward the drawing room.

  Alex Marshall regarded the slender straight back, the firm set of her shoulders, the arrogant tilt of her head where glossy chestnut braids formed a neat crown. Mingling with his infuriation came reluctant admiration and the most intense curiosity. What kind of woman was this, who faced adversity with a grim humor and a conquering army with a defiance laced with irony? He had the liveliest desire to find out.

  Blissfully unaware that such a desire played perfectly into the hands of Virginia Courtney, he strode to the open front door and in ringing accents gave orders for the dispersal of the troops before he accompanied her on the tour of this gracious house.

  Leather carpets covered the floors of the dining and drawing rooms; the stools held gold nails, and green velvet covered the few chairs reserved for the elderly and honored guests. It was a house that bespoke both the wealth and taste of a seventeenth-century English gentleman. The usual trestle table had given place to solid blac
k oak with ornamental legs; beds and cupboards were of the same magnificently carved wood. Framed pictures hung on the oak-paneled walls, and the colonel recognized several Rubens and Van Dycks. In the deep embrasures of the windows, marble sculptures stood carefully placed to catch the eye. But the miasma of neglect hung in the still evening air, exemplified in the tarnished bronze and gold furnishings, the dust nestling in the knots of the intricate carvings, running in white lines down the folds of the velvet draperies.

  “It is a little difficult for one person to maintain such a house in true order,” Ginny said in inadvertent defense, dusting a small table with her apron.

  “Quite so, mistress,” he concurred, averting his gaze from the slight flush of discomfiture mantling the sun-browned cheeks and the sheen that obscured the clarity of her gaze.

  Alex had hidden the tragedy and pathos of this war behind his vision of a land no longer ruled by the despotism of the Stuart monarchy—a land where Parliament, elected by the people, held the only definitive voice of the lawmaker. But on this summer afternoon, on this small island outpost of the greater island that was England, in the dust of a neglected manor house and the militant sparkle of a pair of gray eyes, the greater purpose became diminished, split into the atoms of its suffering human parts. This girl had lost her father in the great Battle of Naseby, three years ago, when Cromwell’s New Model Army had won a decisive victory against Charles I and the royal army under the command of his nephew, Prince Rupert. The following year, she had lost her husband when the king’s headquarters at Oxford had surrendered and King Charles had given himself into the hands of the Scots, no more friends of Parliament than he was. In the wake of their victory, the parliamentary armies had besieged the estates of the Cavaliers who still held out for the king; Parliament had imposed crippling fines on the Malignants—fines that had forced them to sell off vast acres of field and woodland. In extreme cases, the lands had been sequestered and the owners disinherited. This island backwater, however, had escaped for two years until the king had chosen to illuminate it with his presence. Having been handed over to Parliament by the Scots, who hoped thus to make peace, he had been seized by the army and imprisoned in Hampton Court. Charles I had listened to explosive rumblings within the army as the Radicals overcame the Moderates, and his very life had become threatened as talk of bringing him to summary justice grew stronger. In November 1647, he had escaped Hampton Court and taken sanctuary in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, ostensibly the guest of the governor, Colonel Hammond, who found his Royalist sympathies clashing mercilessly with an office he held by the authority of Parliament.