Her Rebel Heart by Alison Stuart

tore the sleeve to the shoulder, revealing the wound left by Charles Farrington's pistol ball.
    Mercifully, on close inspection, it appeared to have only grazed her arm and the bleeding had all but stopped. He set about manufacturing a bandage torn from the hem of her petticoat.
    A stream flowed through the clearing and he tore some more cloth, wet it, and bathed her face, silently exhorting her to wake up. It seemed like an age before he was rewarded by the fluttering of her eyelids and a little colour flowed back into her ashen cheeks.
    “Welcome back,” he said gruffly.
    “Ow!” Her brow puckered when she tried to move her arm. “What have you done to me?”
    “A pistol ball nicked it. You'll live,” he said.
    She frowned. “A pistol ball?” She struggled to sit up and looked around her. “Oh, I remember. The Farringtons…have they followed us? Are we safe? Where are we?”
    “To answer your first question, we got away, although undoubtedly they will be searching for us and will have the road to Kinton Lacey well patrolled. As to the second, I don't know where we are. I just put heels to the horse and fled. You'll have to show me another way to get back to the castle without running into the Farringtons.”
    She squinted at the horse. “That's not our cob!”
    “No, I borrowed a better looking horse that just happened to present itself at an opportune moment.”
    Deliverance ran a shaking hand through her tangled hair. Her shoulders heaved, and she let her hand fall before turning to look at him. Her mouth drooped at the corners and tears filled her eyes, clouding the sky blue to a dreary grey.
    “There’s something I should have told you.” Tears glinted on her eyelashes. “Jack and Penitence were betrothed before the war.”
    Luke rose to his feet. With his hands on his hips he glared down at her. “Why didn’t you tell me this from the first? It changes everything.”
    Her mouth trembled. “How? I just saw it as unfair that two people who loved each other had to be torn apart by this cursed war.”
    He shook his head. “It betrays a weak link, Deliverance.”
    “But Pen is utterly loyal, Luke. She would never betray us.” She looked up at him, the tears rolling down her cheeks and regret for his harsh tone plucked at his conscience. “Will it be all right, Luke?”
    He knew what she meant. She had remembered the terrible gun and the ruthless efficiency of Farrington’s well-trained troops. Luke resisted a sudden, inexplicable urge to draw her in his arms, kiss away the tears and tell her, yes of course it would all be all right.
    He would be lying.
    When he didn’t respond, she lowered her head, tears dropping on to her skirts. She wiped her face with her left arm. “Poor Kinton Lacey,” she said in a voice muffled by her sleeve. “It was never built to withstand a weapon like that.”
    Luke had no comfort to give her. Kinton Lacey had been built to withstand bows and arrows or at the worse, slingshots, not a siege gun the size of the Thunderer.
    He knelt down beside her. “Deliverance,” he said, using her given name for the first time. “Deliverance,” he repeated softly and laid a hand on her dark head. “What do you want to do?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just can't give it up, Luke.”
    He raised his right hand, and touched her hair. She made no protest, leaning her head against his chest. He stroked the dark, tangled locks and she sighed, closing her eyes. This time he surrendered to his impulse and folded her in his arms. She had shown incredible bravery and kneeling on the ground with this strange, defiant little woman in his arms, he made a silent vow to do whatever it took to protect her, save her castle, and make it right for her.
    Sir John Felton’s daughter . What was he doing?
    He disengaged her and rose to his feet.
    “We have to keep moving, Mistress Felton,” he said. “Farrington’s men will be looking for us. On your feet.”
    He took her by her