Page 30 of The General's Gift
Celeste didn’t laugh. She limped to the settee. Her cheeks burned, and her lungs seized with some strange new current that had nothing to do with panic. Papillon should have been beating itself to tatters. Instead… it was still. Waiting. Listening.
“I’ve seen generals aplenty, but none as handsome as the Hawk. He’s the fiercest man in the service—and aye, I’m including Bonaparte’s lot,” Rue said.
Handsome? Certainly. But he was a cry away from being charming. “Brute force is not to be so… so glorified,” Celeste stammered, closing her eyes.
Rue gave a bark of laughter. “Tell that to the ladies of London. They all but fall flat on their faces to throw themselves in his path. You’d think he was the Crown Jewels marching down Bond Street.”
Something hot and irrational spiked in Celeste’s chest. The image—women tripping over themselves, pressing too close, daring to touch him—snapped like a whip inside her.
“Crown jewels. Ha! He would scream at them and tell them to wear sackcloth!” Celeste blurted and immediately regretted her outburst.
The general was to blame, souring her sweet nature. A man with the brooding silence of Hamlet, the wounded pride of Berowne, and the maddening control of Measure for Measure’s Duke. If Shakespeare had written him, he’d be the character no one could love until the final act—when it was nearly too late. Allsharp angles and unsaid things. A man sculpted not from flesh, but from restraint.
The deepest of sighs escaped her chest. She terribly hated how compelling that was. Even Macbeth had the decency to unravel publicly.
The seamstress wobbled up from the pile of cloth she had fallen into. “Oh, dear heavens. I can’t sew with sackcloth. I’ll be ruined!”
Celeste groaned. And now that! He had won their dispute despite her flawless performance. She had given it every flicker of wit, every gleam of eye, every artful tilt of her head. Her timing had been impeccable. Her lines, inspired.
And yet he hadn’t applauded. He had growled in her face. That sound. It hummed through her bones like the last note of a cello. And worse, he demanded her tulle as hostage. He might as well strip her of her skin.
The room’s energy had faded—Rue muttering curses under her breath, Prue gently weeping into a lace cuff, the seamstress whispering prayers to the patron saint of unpaid invoices.
“Well, my lady,” the seamstress said, “what will you do now?”
All eyes turned to Celeste.
The tulle lay soft and crumpled in her arms. So delicate it ought to have been singed by the general’s grim words.
“We will proceed,” Celeste said, her voice carrying the calm of martyrdom. “Fit me for the sackcloth gown.”
The wool itched before it even touched her skin, and she glared at her reflection. Let the general bark his orders—let him banish ribbons, outlaw lace, command her into sackcloth. Unless he came himself, unless those iron hands stripped the tulle from her body and forced the coarse cloth over her skin, she would not yield. No, she would show that overly handsome Fairy Godfather that the figurine was the heroine’s choice. Or dietrying. Preferably in Act Five, with a suitably tragic curtain call, “Here lies Lady Cecilia—slain by sackcloth.”
Hawk halted outside Celeste’s chamber. The grandfather clock struck the eleventh hour. Candlelight glowed through the crack beneath the door. She was still awake then. He had not seen her all day. Not at luncheon. Not at dinner. The table had been… too peaceful. No laughter bubbling over the soup, no nonsense about fairies or verses to rattle the silver.
What in God’s name was he doing here? A general did not pace the hallways on account of a sleepless ward. He yearned—no, that was the wrong word. He intended to see her settled, nothing more.
Had she taken ill? He could save men from a six-pounder, but not from diseases. But she had been fine after the fitting debacle. Perhaps that’s why she denied him her presence. She was sulking. Well, let her.
But light flickered under her door. And sulking or not, she was under his rule. And in his house, everyone obeyed the curfew. He would remind her of it, enforce it if necessary, and be done. A glass of port awaited him in his bedroom. Order restored. Distance regained.
He rapped once. “Go to sleep.”
A pause. Then her voice, soft but unrepentant: “In a moment.”
His shoulders drew taut. “Now.”
“It’s too early.” A yawn followed, careless and feline, mocking him with its ease. “I’m not sleepy.”
He ground his teeth. “Lady Cecilia, everyone in the house obeys curfew.”
“I thought you agreed to call me Celeste.”
The sound of that name slid under his guard. He felt it in the hollow of his chest, unwelcome and too familiar. Of course, she would use it against him. “Celeste, snuff the candles.”
“I thought English ladies danced all night and slept until noon in London.”
He almost saw her smile in the dark. His mouth flattened. “This is not London.”
