HER CAPTIVE CAVALIER
BY
MARINA OLIVER
Determined not to allow a band of roaming Cavaliers to enter her home, Caro threatens their leader with a pistol. When he ignores her challenge she shuts her eyes and fires.
Compelled to nurse him when her shot grazes his head, she gradually realises she must protect him from his enemies.
But that is not enough. His enemies become hers, and to escape them she has to trust herself to his protection.
Her Captive Cavalier
By Marina Oliver
Copyright © 2016 Marina Oliver
Smashwords Edition
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover Design by Debbie Oliver
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Print editions published under the pseudonym Livvy West by My Weekly Story Collection and 2001 by Linford large print.
See details of other books by Marina Oliver at
www.marina-oliver.net
Author note
My favourite historical period has always been the middle of the seventeenth century, the civil war and restoration of Charles II. I was commissioned to write a very short novella for an American publisher, but unfortunately his business collapsed before he could sell any books, so I took the story and adapted it for a British publisher.
HER CAPTIVE CAVALIER
BY MARINA OLIVER
Chapter 1
Caro took a deep breath, leant against the door jamb in an effort to support her trembling legs, and steadied her arm with her left hand. She pointed the wheel-lock pistol they always kept prepared, and prayed her voice would not betray her.
'If you venture nearer, I will shoot!'
To her relief her voice was firm. There were no tell-tale quavers to be mistaken for fear. If she was breathless it was the result of her minutes of frenzied activity. She had raced from the kitchen to get the pair of pistols immediately Joan brought the news. She was taut with effort, but also with fury that their peace should be disturbed. It was not, she reassured herself firmly, with apprehension.
The tall dark man, his hand on the gate which gave entry to the privy garden in front of the long low house, looked up in astonishment. His eyes crinkled in delighted amusement.
'I come on a peaceful errand, Mistress,' he replied mildly. 'I do not make war on children.'
She bristled with renewed fury. She was no child, and he should be made to learn that.
'Which is no doubt why your men rode through the village with no care for people they might run down!' Caro retorted angrily. 'They are armed ruffians! You're no more than a troop of thieving vagabonds! We don't want you and your like in Winchworth. Be pleased to take them away.'
By now she felt able to move without support. She could even hold the pistol one-handed. She held it more firmly and took a step towards him, down onto the path outside the door. Jacob, with a muttered curse on all plundering soldiers, slipped out of the house to stand beside her, waving the other pistol which seemed, Caro thought fleetingly, to threaten them more than the stranger.
'Will you not listen to me first?' the visitor said calmly. 'You too might look a trifle bedraggled had you ridden through the night, with little time to rest or eat, and no shelter against the storm,' he added gently.
To her fury Caro found herself wavering. He sounded so reasonable. And it had been a fierce storm the previous night. They must be soaked. Then she thought of Peter and hardened her heart. They could let the sun, which was now high in the sky, dry out their miserable rags.
She forced herself to recall what they were, and why they had to move in secret. 'I would have no cause to ride in such a clandestine manner!' she snapped.
'Clandestine? You have just accused us of lack of care,' he said, amused.
His smile was undeniably attractive, slightly lopsided and revealing perfect white teeth. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen. It merely aggravated Caro's fury. She reminded herself that she had seen very few men with which to compare him. They bred real men here in the west country, men who worked hard for a living, not smooth boys playing at soldiers.
'Now you mock me for an ill-chosen word! Soldiers, however they arrive, will find neither succour nor lodging here. We don't want you in Winchworth. Leave us in peace.'
Suddenly his amused tolerance faded. She was a beauty, with her big blue eyes, shapely form, and dark auburn hair that reminded him of beech leaves in winter. She was fiery and young, brave yet foolhardy, and in other circumstances he would have been tempted to dally, to try and turn that cool disdain into the fiery ardour her colouring promised. But his business would not wait. Much as he might have relished a few hours of dalliance, he had no time. He stepped forward.
'Stay there. Not a step closer or I shoot!' Caro said swiftly, and trusted that the slight tremor in her voice would be put down to anger rather than fear.
She was angry, it was fury which made her tremble slightly, not fear that he would call her bluff and force her to carry out her threat. Nor was it fear of the consequences if she did not succeed in preventing this invasion. She was only too painfully aware that two ancient pistols were a pitiful defence against a party of soldiers. Her only hope was that they would take her gesture seriously and look for a friendlier welcome elsewhere.
But he ignored her and strode deliberately up the long brick-paved path which bisected the garden. He seemed oblivious of the threatening pistols aimed at him by the girl and a bent old man who hovered behind her.
'Enough!' His voice was one used to command, and for a fleeting second Caro almost gave way. Then she thought of all they stood to lose, and gripped the pistol more tightly.
'Go away!' she repeated.
'I came peaceably to request aid for the King's men. And we pay for what we take, you have no fear of being cheated. I do not need your permission to quarter them in your barn for a few hours. It was but civility to ask. I expect to be treated with equal courtesy, not threatened as a miscreant!'
'They'm in the stable yard now, Mistress Caro, dozens on 'em! Horses all lathered an' eyes rollin'. Right fearsome lookin' brutes they do be!'
Joan's rich country burr, shrill with unaccustomed excitement, erupted suddenly from the dark hall behind her, and Caro gritted her teeth.
She didn't believe they paid for what they took. They had heard, even here in Winchworth, many miles from the battles which had raged over the rest of England, of the heedless depredations of both sides in this tragic conflict. She would never permit them to steal horses and fodder and take the grain stored from the recent harvest. She and the other villagers had worked hard enough for what they had. Even if these men paid, and she had no real belief that they would, the farm and village could not afford the loss of horses and food. How would they survive the winter then?
She had no doubt they wanted the horses, whatever this fine stranger said. Horses had become more valuable than ever. There were too many stories of soldiers wandering the countryside, taking whatever they wished. All too often they paid nothing, or gave empty promises of futur
e recompense.
'Shall I guard the kitchen door?' Jacob asked eagerly. His cracked old voice wavered uncertainly, though to Caro's ear he sounded admirably determined and warlike. After all, he had been a seaman forty years before. He'd seen battles and killed men, if his tales were true.
'Stay here. We'll deal with this one first!' Caro hissed at him. She wasn't at all certain she could maintain her defiance without some support, weak though Jacob's was. Aloud, she spoke to the steadily advancing man.
'I give you no further warning! Come just one step nearer and I shoot!'
There was a sudden guffah from beyond the gate, and Caro glanced towards it. She bit her lip. There were more of them than she had expected, four more here and heaven only knew how many at the back.
'No slip of a gal can shoot straight!' one of the men crowding round the gateway jeered.
'She'd miss the barn at that distance,' another agreed.
'She's a bonny enough piece. I'd give a week's pay to take her into a barn for an hour or so!' a third said, sniggering.
The man walking so steadily and relentlessly towards her, so tall and commanding, laughed.
'Enough, Saunders. You know full well such tasty wenches are mine first,' he tossed back over his shoulder.
Caro's finger tightened on the trigger. How dared they! She had to confess inwardly to a moment of fear. He wouldn't dare! Yet they'd heard such tales. Perhaps he would. Her heart began a sudden uncontrollable thudding in her breast.
Then she shook her head to clear it of stupid and fruitless speculations. He couldn't possibly know she had never held the pistol before. Many women in these dangerous times had learned to shoot. He couldn't know it was Jacob who kept them primed and loaded, or that they were the only weapons in the house apart from an ancient rusted sword belonging to Peter's grandfather. There were also, she recalled, a couple of muskets Peter had used for sport, but they needed skill and time to load, skill and time they did not possess.
At that moment Joan screamed and Jacob's wife Bessy, cowering in the hall, began to whimper and gabble frantic prayers.
'Mistress Caro, they'm in the kitchen!' Joan cried, and screamed again.
Caro heard the noise of heavy boots and the clink of metal on the stone-slabbed floor behind her. In desperation she pointed the pistol, shut her eyes, and pulled the trigger.
The explosion made her jump, and she almost dropped the pistol. An angry yell from the men at the gate made her open her eyes again. She was just in time to see the man on the path crumple slowly to the ground.
Pandemonium broke out. Joan and Bessy screamed in unison. Jacob, dancing about beside Caro in a fever of indecision, loosed off his own pistol and the ball whistled past her ear to smack harmlessly into the stone wall surrounding the garden.
'She hit him!'
Sheer astonishment filled the man's voice, and for a few moments everyone stood still. Afterwards Caro dreamed of that scene, every small detail imprinted on her memory.
In the sudden silence she heard a bee in the roses which scrambled over the door. A bird trilled once, and in the far distance, somewhere in the village, a dog barked. In front of her, in her beloved garden which she tended so lovingly, her enemy lay alone and frighteningly still. He sprawled across the red brick path, his head cushioned on a bed of marjoram, one arm outflung to embrace a sturdy stem of angelica. Behind him, framed in the archway of the gate, his henchmen stared, mouths agape.
A bright, red-skinned apple, the sweet, crisp ones she loved to eat, chose that moment to leave the parent tree. It plopped with a small dull thud onto the path between his feet. Caro realised with a shudder of dismay that the same colour was seeping onto the dark green marjoram, a stain of new-made raspberry jam from the jars lining the still room shelves -
The picture shattered and at the same moment everyone moved. Joan began screaming hysterically, while Bessy berated her and Jacob stammered petrified excuses and apologies.
The men at the gate, overcoming their surprise, started forward but Caro was nearer and faster. Long before they reached him she was kneeling beside the man she'd shot, feeling with anxious, trembling hands for the wound.
Her arms were seized unceremoniously and she was thrown aside. As she fell into the fragrant bed of mint, the men bent to examine their leader.
'You'll swing if you've killed his lordship, you hussy!' one of them spat viciously at Caro, but she ignored his tone.
'Is he dead? Where did the bullet hit him? Where is he hurt?' she demanded urgently, struggling to her feet.
'Keep away, you little devil! You've done harm enough!' one snarled at her, as he bent over the fallen man.
Another, looking round helplessly, called angrily towards Bessy, wailing in the doorway.
'Cease your noise, woman! Prepare a bed for his lordship. Then rags and a bowl of hot water, and salves.'
Bessy responded at once to his note of command. She gulped back her tears and scurried away, shepherding Joan in front of her. Jacob hovered obsequiously beside them as two of the soldiers lifted the wounded man.
'Show us a bed,' one ordered Jacob, and the old man, gabbling apologies and excuses, made haste to lead them inside.
Ignoring Caro they carried him carefully towards the house, and up the wide wooden stairs to the main bedchamber, unused since Sir Peter left to go to the wars.
Caro followed the grisly procession. Had she killed him? She hadn't meant to, just to frighten them away. She was vaguely aware of other men crowding into the hall from the kitchen, a dozen or more of them, staring and muttering, an ominous rumble. One of then took the pistol from Jacob's unresisting hand, and Caro realised she had dropped the other somewhere.
Bessy had already spread a good linen sheet on the bed. The men laid their leader gently down, turning his head so that Caro, pressing close behind them, could see the long wound which grazed his scalp. It was oozing wet, sticky, bright red blood, his long dark hair already wet and slimy and tangled with it. Dimly she realised that he was still alive, and breathed a prayer of thankfulness that she hadn't killed him.
The men and Bessy, forgetting enmity, worked briskly to staunch the blood and cleanse the wound. Bessy gave orders, her earlier panic forgotten in the need for action. One of the men tore up an old sheet he was handed, passing the strips to Bessy as she dabbed at the wound. Joan held the bowl of water, while Jacob busied himself fetching wood to build a fire in the grate, left cold and empty for so long, like Caro's heart since Peter died.
Only Caro had no task, and she sank down onto the wide windowseat, trembling as she watched. He wasn't dead. She couldn't have killed him. But that didn't mean that he would recover. She might still find herself guilty of murder.
She started nervously when he moved, pushing Bessy's hand away from his head and struggling to raise himself.
'Confound you, Tyler!' His voice was faint, but unwavering. 'Stop fussing over me like a mother hen!'
'Lie still, sir, do!' Bessy begged. 'That be a real nasty wound, and ye've been out of your senses too.'
'A mere scratch,' he said, putting up a hand to feel the wound, and grimacing as he touched it. 'It will mend soon enough. Some pillows behind me, Tyler. I'll be damned if I lie here helpless. So, my pretty mistress,' he went on, turning to look at Caro, 'you can shoot a pistol after all. It's fortunate you didn't aim for my heart, but were content with my head!'
Caro stood up abruptly. Her fears for him changed at lightning speed into bitter anger.
'You don't think I meant to hit you, do you?' she demanded vehemently. 'I just wanted to frighten you! I wanted you to go away! I wasn't aiming at you, truly I wasn't!'
'Never trust a woman,' Tyler said with a grin. 'Especially with a gun!'
His master laughed.
'Not very flattering, to be told we're not wanted in so decided a fashion. But, Mistress, if this is the effect of your aiming elsewhere, methinks I'll take you back to the King's army. We could do with soldiers of your skill!'
&n
bsp; ***
Chapter 2
Caro's mood swung impetuously at his indulgent tone. Now it seemed she hadn't killed him, and from his remarks it looked as though there was no danger of his succumbing, her anger erupted. He was treating her as a child, not a woman of eighteen who had managed the house and farm for two years and more.
'You mock, sir!' She glared at him as he lay propped against the pillows, his head bandaged, but his eyes, unusual eyes, she noticed, brown with flecks of gold, were gleaming with amusement at her discomfiture. Before she could continue he waved Bessy and his men away.
'Go, please. Leave me alone, all of you. The noise you make disturbs me. The lady shall remain and entertain me awhile.' He turned to smile at Bessy. 'Thank you for your care, Mistress. I wonder if you could do me yet more honour? My stomach tells me it is long past time for breakfast.'
'Dearie me, have ye not eaten this morning?' Bessy demanded, her housewifely instincts roused.
'We were about to eat when we'd found somewhere to sleep for an hour or two,' one of his men replied. 'We have bread and meat, we won't be thieving from your larder,' he added, glancing at Caro. 'We have sufficient for our needs. But his lordship might appreciate something - '
'Of course he would, the poor man! He needs broth and a few morsels of chicken. I'll see to it at once, while Jacob shows you the barn and where to water your horses.'
'My thanks,' the leader intervened. 'Go with him, Tyler, and the others. We can only afford a couple of hours. Don't forget to set a guard.'
Tyler hesitated, gesturing doubtfully at Caro. The man in the bed laughed.
'I don't think you need worry any more about my safety. She's no more weapons with which to slay me, unless she chooses to use her lovely eyes! Our gallant former adversary shall keep me company to ensure no further harm comes to me. Go and see that the men are all settled.'
Caro watched, bemused, as Bessy and Jacob bustled out of the room, eager to give this audacious man their best attention. And their best food, no doubt, as he'd been given the best bed in the house, that no one else used. Their enemy! One who would still no doubt rob them of whatever he chose.
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