Surprisingly, he’d understood her. He bared his yellowed teeth in a grin.
“We’re going to have to do something about that,” Birdie mumbled.
He shouldn’t have toldthem to hold the right flank.
It was a logical decision. A decision made from his gut. Usually, his gut led him right. It had helped him survive.
He’d thought they could take cover in the orchard trees. They were camouflaged behind the foliage and shrubbery.
It had been a disastrous choice.
He should’ve sent them to the left.
He heard the gunshots again, the battery blast above his head; flames leapt, and chunks of mud, wood, and metal catapulted through the air. The smell of smoke, blood, and scorched flesh engulfed him.
He buried his head in his hands and gagged.
Left.
It should’ve been the left.
Amidst the smoke, a voice.
“Your Grace.”
Smith, Blake, Brown, Merivale to the right.
Merivale. Merciful heavens! Merivale …
Someone shook his arm.
“Your Grace. She won’t leave.”
He lowered his hands from his wet face. Higgins was in front of him. He was in his castle, not on the battlefield. He was safe.
“What?” His voice was rough.
“The girl. She won’t leave.”
Higgins. The odd man always showed up when one least needed him.
What did he say about the girl? The girl he’d married not three hours ago.
The girl who’d screamed in terror when she’d seen his face, ran, then returned and married him, only after she loudly professed that she would declare her vows if she could include the phrase “love”, demanding in return that he “loved, obeyed and served” her as well. He’d said the vow.
A shudder ran through his body. It was as if that vow almost physically tied his fate to hers, to that girl who said he should call her Birdie, a name that oddly suited her. She tilted her head sideways when she looked at him like a bird.
He’d never met a stranger creature.
He’d carried her to the hall after she’d fainted. She hadn’t been exactly a lightweight, for she had a full, womanly figure. But he’d carried heavier, stiffer bodies in the past. As she lay there, she’d looked frail and beautiful, and he’d carefully wrapped a plaid blanket around her as if she were a precious piece of porcelain.
She could be all too easy to love.
The sooner she left, the better.
And now Higgins was saying she wouldn’t leave?
“What do you mean, she won’t leave?” Gabriel asked.
