Graves cleared his throat. “Lady Cecilia and the general are speaking. Let them speak.”
She glared at him. Her husband. What did he know? She loved him dearly, but the man had the patience of a saint and the romantic instincts of a boot.
“Speaking? They could be on opposite sides of the room, brooding at each other like sulking crows.”
Graves, bless him, looked like he’d rather face a cannonadethan this conversation. “There’s nothing we can do but trust the general will prove victorious again.”
“Don’t you remember how sad she was after he left? The poor pigeon didn’t cry. Not once. Just sat at the window like a ghost in petticoats. I’d rather she flung a boot at his head and wailed.”
Graves blinked. “You did that for her.”
“Damn right I did.”
Although technically, Rue had aimed at the general’s training dummy and struck Graves square between the shoulder blades. He went down like a felled oak.
Graves made a dignified harrumph. “I still have the scar to prove it.”
“I healed you well enough with kisses and other…medicinal applications,” Rue said, entirely unrepentant. “But this is taking too long.”
She was rolling up her sleeve to march in and demand a surrender from both parties, when a flutter of linen darted into view.
Prue fanned herself with her apron, her breath coming fast. “I came from outside the tower’s door. I believe the general has pinned our lady to the wall and is presently chastising her with the sternness of a thousand battalion drills! I’m picturing hands. Hands everywhere. Possibly tongues.”
Rue stared. “How can you know that?”
“There was a sound. A deep, masculine groan. And then a thump. Like a body yielding, or a book falling, but very erotically.”
Rue shrugged off her coat and tossed it to Graves. “I’m going in.”
Prue blinked. “Into the tower? But Rue, what if they’re in the throes of a full tactical surrender?”
“I’ll keep my eyes shut and my voice loud. Lady Cecilia is my charge. If Hawk raised his eyebrow wrong, I’ll hoist him by his cravat and throw him out a turret window.”
Graves caught her elbow. “Rue, love, give the man a chance.”
She yanked free. “He had his chance. He left. Now she’s up there, locked in with more issues than a Prussian field manual, and he’s trying to win her back with silence and brooding? I will not have it.”
Graves clucked his tongue. “You also have a fondness for storming barricades and regretting it.”
Ignoring her husband, Rue charged the tower like it owed her money. She was halfway up the steps, ready to breach it with all the subtlety of a cannonball, when the great wooden gates creaked open behind her.
The courtyard, moments ago thick with tension and Prue’s sinful outbursts, fell utterly silent.
Then the white stallion emerged, its hooves striking stone like drums in a victory parade. And there, riding side-saddle in a flurry of silks and flushed cheeks, was Lady Cecilia Stratton. In the arms of General Alexander de Warenne, Earl of Hawkhurst, Cavalry Commander of the King’s Bloody Forces, and now, apparently, a reckless fool in love.
Hawk held her like he’d stormed hell itself to retrieve her.
Which, Rue supposed, he had.
The parapets erupted.
Flowers rained from above. Othello barked and gave chase. The cavalry whooped and hollered and whistled like stable boys on market day. Even the castle staff lined up and clapped like this was the Queen’s wedding.
Graves grunted. “You see? I knew the general would conquer her after all.”
Rue turned, eyes suspiciously shiny, and gave him a hearty shove in the chest—not gentle, but full of love. “You are wrong,my darling dullard. She is the one who brought him to his knees.”
Graves frowned. “Rue, m’dear, do you have something in your eye?”
