“Well, bloody hell,” she said aloud. It marked perhaps the second time in her life she’d used those words.
She froze at the sound of a footfall crunching.
Colonel Brightwall was standing at the edge of the ivy. Hands clasped behind his back. Hatless, the wind whipping his hair about.
“Colonel Brightwall,” she managed faintly. “Good morning.”
He bowed. “Good morning, Miss Bellamy. I was just enjoying a stroll about your grounds. My apologies if I’m intruding upon your morning ritual of cursing in the shrubbery.”
Judging by the temperature in her cheeks, she was as scarlet as the crayon she’d lost.
“Oh my goodness... Ideeplyregret—I am so terribly sorry you were compelled to hear me...”
“As well you should be. I’d so hoped to never again hear that kind of language outside of a battlefield.”
His expression was pure, grave disapproval.
His eyes were positively brilliant with wicked, wicked amusement.
How peculiar to be trapped in a bush, equal parts mortified and pleased beyond all proportion to be teased by a famous colonel.
She smiled at him.
He craned his head. “It appears as though... are you... tethered to the bushes?”
He said this as if perhaps loath to insult her if this had been her goal all along.
“I’m...” She sighed heavily. “Well, yes. I suppose I am, after a fashion.”
He took this in. “Do you... want to be?”
Whata thoroughgoing rogue. She was hideously embarrassed and absolutely delighted.
She regarded him sternly and levelly for a silent beat or two.
“Do you think perhaps you’re having a littletoomuch fun with this, Colonel Brightwall?”
His shout of laughter was so warmly, unapologetically impudent she burst into laughter, too.
Then she sighed. “It’s simple, really. I dropped my crayon and holder as I was sketching a pretty bird. It rolled into the shrubbery, so I went in to fetch it. I didn’t realize that my bonnet ribbons had come loose until I stood up again anddiscovered they were snagged in the twigs, and when I pulled away, I realized they had tightened into knots, and...” She made a sweeping gesture at the result.
He’d nodded along with all of this. “Of course. A similar sequence of catastrophes led to our defeat at the Battle of Dos Montanas.”
They smiled at each other again.
“Shall I have a look?”
“I should be obliged, sir.”
And so into the shrubbery he waded.
“Good God. I knew trees could on occasion be traitorous fiends,” he murmured, his big hands sliding over the ribbon as gently as though inspecting a bone for a break. “But I’ve never known them to take a hostage.”
She laughed. “But they have us surrounded, Colonel,” she breathed with great melodrama. “There’s a whole battalion.”
“Oh, they wouldn’t dare try anything dastardly,” he said distractedly. “My reputation for mercilessness precedes me.”
She fell abruptly quiet, as this was true.I heardBrightwallordered deserters shot immediately, her brother, Theo, had mentioned on a hush over dinner a few weeks ago. It was his misguided attempt to deflect a little of the well-deserved censure aimed his way. He’d been expelled from university.
