His Wicked Seduction novel Chapter 55

An hour later, Horatia and the other ladies were assembled on the east side, admiring the fort the gentlemen had built for them. It was a waist high wall that arched around in a half circle about ten feet across, providing ample protection for the women now huddled behind it preparing their arsenals. The vast gardens behind Rochester Hall had been molded into a white battlefield ready for the coming war.

Lady Cavendish was helping Lady Rochester manufacture their ammunition. Horatia, Audrey, Lysandra and Lucinda were in a tight circle, all wearing red fur-lined cloaks with heavy hoods pulled up. Audrey had remarked that they were the most fashionable army in Europe. They discussed the various traps and places to avoid in the garden, areas where one might become cornered and savaged by the weapons of the enemy.

"Should we try to lure them out from their fort?" Lucinda asked.

Horatia glanced over her shoulder to the opposing fort fifty feet away. The men were hunkered down out of sight, save for the occasional surfacing head that glanced warily about. Her gaze met with Gregory Cavendish's as he peeked out over their fort's edge then ducked back down. They looked like a pack of squirrels, popping up and down like that. Horatia grinned at the thought of such noble gentlemen behaving so out of character.

"I think luring is not a bad idea," Audrey declared. "But we must go about it smartly. Only when one of them is decently separated should we set up a trap. Otherwise they could easily overwhelm us."

"And someone ought to be carefully guarding the fort," Lysandra reminded them. She broke from the group to show the other ladies something she'd covered in a brown cloth blanket. She pulled it back to reveal a simple yet cleverly constructed wooden trebuchet approximately four feet long that was counterweighed by a heavy pouch of stones. "This should help whoever is remaining here."

"Is that a trebuchet?" Horatia asked, both amused and appreciative of Lysandra's ingenuity.

Lysandra grinned, glancing in the directions of her brothers. "I thought we might need a bit of extra help seeing how they both outnumber us and can throw farther. I found a book in our library detailing its construction and I had a scaled down replica built last summer. I had a devil of a time keeping Linus from finding out."

She took a snowball from the ever growing pile her mother and Lady Cavendish were making and set it in the sling attached to the trebuchet's long wooden arm. Then Lysandra prepared the pouch of stones and as all of the ladies watched, she aimed towards the men's fort and then dropped the pouch. The trebuchet hurled the snowball in a beautiful arch before it crashed into a tree a few feet behind the men.

"Oi! Who threw that?" Linus's head popped up, scowling in their directions as he hollered.

Horatia bit down on her lower lip to keep from laughing.

"Sorry, Linus! We're just practicing." Lysandra waved a snowy gloved hand in his direction, then turned back to the ladies. "As you can see, we may need a larger snowball, but it's a decent way of forcing them to keep their heads down."

"Excellent thinking!" Lucinda said and the other ladies nodded.

Sir John Cavendish called out from across the garden at that moment. "I say, are you ladies ready to begin?"

"We are!" Lady Cavendish returned to her husband.

"Good, good. I've been informed that I must now state the rules," Sir John said. "Which are as follows: Whoever captures the enemy fort is declared the winner. Captives may be taken and marked with red ribbons provided by your side's leader. There is no bargaining for captives, they remain captive until the end of the battle and lastly...there are no other rules. Begin!" Sir John bellowed before ducking down below his fort.

The ladies fell behind their snow wall as a massive volley of balls came their way. Audrey shrieked as a slush of snow and ice landed on the top of her hooded head. There was a chorus of distant laughter from the other side. Audrey stood up to shout at them since the weapons were supposed to be fashioned of fluffy snow, not hard packed with slush and ice, but Horatia jerked her back down as another flurry was unleashed. The balls flew past the empty space where Audrey had been standing moments before.

"Why those wretched devils!" Audrey hissed as she crawled over to the trebuchet. "Quick, someone distract them while I add more counterweight."

"But the balls will fly too far!" said Lady Cavendish.

"Not necessarily."

Lady Rochester peeked over the edge of the fort, her face alight with a delightful smile.

"Tally-ho!" Lady Rochester whooped most inelegantly and waved her arms as she acted as a decoy so Horatia and Lysandra could return fire. Unfortunately the fifty feet of distance between the two forts seemed to ensure that their throws would fall short.

"See? We've nothing to worry about. They can't even reach us!" Linus taunted as he stood up brazenly to take his time in aiming at his mother. Audrey meanwhile adjusted the aim of the trebuchet and with a curt nod at Lady Rochester, Audrey dropped the heavier counterweight and let fly their snowy vengeance. The women watched in glee as a snowball the size of a man's head smacked Linus square in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

"What the deuce?" They heard feebly from behind the fort.

The ladies all burst out laughing.

Lucien and his fellow warriors were all gazing at Linus's prone body. At last he got up and brushed himself off.

"Didn't we pace it at fifty feet?" Lawrence asked. "I thought Avery said they wouldn't be able to throw anything that far?"

"Or that heavy," added Avery.

"Perhaps not that far," said Linus. "One of them must have snuck up closer and we didn't see them. Search the trees for scouts. Mother has a surprisingly powerful arm."

Sir John's lips twitched. "Do you mean to tell me that you lads purposely put the ladies at a disadvantage both physically and numerically?"

"Clearly you have never engaged our women in a snowball fight, Sir John," Lucien said with a low chuckle. "They cheat and therefore any measures we take are simply precautions to protect ourselves against the inevitable."