Page 27 of The General's Gift
One by one, she scribbled their names in defiance, each heroine a dagger in Hawk’s regimented worldview. Love was not assigned. It was earned. It was fought for. And she would prove it—on parchment, on stage, or on the battlefield of his blasted drawing room.
“What was the punishment?” Rue asked. “Did he make you run drills barefoot?”
“He didn’t punish me,” Celeste said quickly. Too quickly. “He only threatened to… tan my hide.”
“Oh, Lady Cecilia!” Prue wailed. “How shall you endure it? Taken to the study, the heavy oak door shutting behind you… Your back stripped to his hungry eyes.”
Celeste blinked rapidly, her cheeks flushing.
Prue moaned. “Will it be the whip? Or will it be his own large hand pressing against your heated skin—”
Celeste’s stomach clenched, heat unfurling in flickering waves, and she covered her ears.
Rue groaned, rubbing her temples. “For the love of all things holy, woman. He just scolded her. Not tied her to the mast and flogged her into submission.”
Celeste forced her chin up. What she was feeling was plain anger… Still, the strange flutter in her stomach refused to fade.
Rue exhaled and gripped Celeste’s hand. “Don’t worry if you shook in your slippers, love. The general is formidable. Grown men have cried for less.”
Celeste stilled. Her mind flashed backward—to the war room. Papillon should have struggled and fled. But… not once had she trembled. Not when he had stared her down, his dark eyes a storm she should have drowned in. Not when he had closed the space between them. Not when his breath had fanned over her cheek, when his sheer force had wrapped around her.
She was furious.
She was—alive. But she was not afraid. A slow, strange warmth bloomed in her chest, curling there like a secret, powerful thing. She had faced the most fearsome man in Britain, and she had not trembled.
Hawk glared at the lark perched on the armory’s window. The bird kept twitching his head, unperturbed and unafraid of him. Hawk could not blame the creature, could he? He was, after all, a bloody fairy godfather. He pushed away the ridiculous list she had made for him in her flourishing handwriting. From now on, he would forbid Shakespeare in the house.
Captain Graves stood at attention in the doorway, face carved from granite.
“Lady Cecilia missed reveille, sir.”
Hawk stopped.
“And her history lesson. Mr. Croft waited an hour, sir. He returned to the vicarage looking like he’d been outmaneuvered by Napoleon himself.”
Hawk exhaled through his nose. So much for structure. He rose and buttoned his coat. “I’ll deal with it.”
Graves offered a salute. “Godspeed.”
The hallway stretched before him like a parade ground before the charge. His boots thudded on the polished floorboards.When he arrived at her door, he lifted his hand to knock, but a burst of laughter made him halt. There it was again. Female voices. He hadn’t heard such noises since… God, since before the Peninsula.
Another peal, silvery and crystal. And unmistakable. Celeste. His pulse sped, and he told himself it was a guardian’s rightful displeasure. So she had evaded orders to make merry. Breaches of discipline were like wound poisoning. If they were not treated at once, they could contaminate the whole regiment.
Before he could formulate a complete strategy, his hand reached for the knob and opened the door.
Sometimes, in the heat of a battle, a soldier spotted a single foe among lines upon lines of cavalry. All the rest blurred. That happened now. The room was a disorder of ribbons, cloths, and strange women, but he only saw her, perched atop the tea table, a queen preparing to be painted.
The curtains behind her were gray. The furniture, a blur. The world—monochrome.
But she was radiant. Hair like flame-spun gold. Skin like champagne silk. Even the flush blooming in her cheeks seemed vivid enough to stain the air. His ward was in dishabille, bare arms and half-laced corset, the soft linen of her chemise clinging to curves a blasted fairy godfather had no business noticing.
And yet he noticed everything.
The arch of her neck. The shadowed dip of her collarbone. The absurd little bow tied beneath her breasts.
His mouth went dry. His hands, clenched at his sides, suddenly felt like they belonged to someone else—someone dangerously close to reaching.
She was still laughing. The sound reached his ears as if in a dream. Then she saw him. Her chin tipped a fraction, eyes finding his with a steadiness that should have read bold. But the way her shoulders tucked told him it was not boldness at all.He’d seen that kind of stillness before—raw recruits freezing in the face of a battery, muscles locked, hoping to be overlooked. A surrender turned into a skill.
