The Captive (7 page)

He liked that she’d walk arm in arm with him, liked that she’d lecture him about how to endure…
torture
. “You do this when the morning calls become too boring?”

She looked down, as if puzzling something out.

“When I am vexed beyond all tolerance, but can do nothing to aid myself, when I want to descend to the primitive level of those who lash out in violence at blameless victims, then I do this in my mind. I think of Lucille, or my mother’s flower gardens, or a nice rich, hot cup of chocolate on a cold and blustery morning when we might see the first snowflakes of the season.”

St. Just had told him to endure by concentrating on his hatreds, but such guidance hadn’t been particularly useful when the length of the list alone left a man helpless and overwhelmed.

Lady Greendale told him to endure by focusing on something he looked forward to.

Whatever that might be.

She walked him right out through the back gardens, to the mews, to the very mounting block where Chessie stood, one hip cocked, swishing a luxurious russet tail at nothing in particular.

“Safe journey, Mercia, and of course, my regards to dear George.” Lady Greendale went all the way up on her toes and kissed not his cheek—his cheeks being covered with neatly trimmed beard—but his unsuspecting mouth. Perhaps because he’d had no warning, he felt that kiss. Felt the soft brush of her mouth against lips no longer chapped, the weight of her balancing against his chest, the momentary press of her breast against his arm.

She lingered near for a moment, long enough to whisper, “Courage, Your Grace.”

Then she stepped back so he could mount his steed and tilt at the day’s windmill.

He rode the distance to Carlton House by sticking mainly to the quiet paths through the parks, and when he arrived, he’d found one thing, and one thing only, to look forward to—another kiss from the countess, soft, sweet, freely given, and wholly unexpected.

***

Mercia’s eyes had been a trifle wild as the groom had tightened Chessie’s girth, and Gilly had wanted to tell His Grace to stay home. This call on the Regent was a courtesy extended by the Crown toward a loyal—also wealthy and impressively titled—soldier. The soldier should have been free to decline the honor.

But men did not operate according to the principles of any logic Gilly could fathom, and so she did as women had long done—she waited. She finished the last of the polite replies to invitations, she consulted with Mrs. Magnus on which staff to send down to Severn and which to leave in Town, she embroidered the hem of one of her black handkerchiefs, using a pearly gray thread she liked for the way it caught more light than any true gray ought.

She started embroidering a cream silk handkerchief with the Severn crest done in royal blue, and still the duke didn’t come home.

When it came time for late tea, and the afternoon had passed into early evening, Gilly rounded up the two largest footmen the household boasted and prepared to make a charge on Carlton House.

She conjured up any number of explanations. Mercia had run into old chums from the army; he’d been invited to join the Regent for tea; his horse had turned up lame… But what if he’d taken a misstep, perhaps pulled a knife on a footman, lost his patience with the Regent himself, or lost his way? What if he’d flown into a rage because he couldn’t manage his gloves or a cat had nipped at his finger?

Losing one’s way was easy enough to do.

***

When Christian had gone for a soldier, the cavalry had been the natural choice because he’d long had an appreciation for the horse. He’d been riding since before he could walk, if being taken up before his papa counted, and so he’d hidden in the Carlton House mews after enduring a half hour of George’s good wishes and shrewd regard.

Prinny had prosed on about his uniform from the 10th Hussars, an outfit he’d designed himself, and Christian hadn’t known whether to laugh or weep at the notion of military dress reduced to a flight of fashion.

When that interminable half hour had passed, the grooms had let Christian sit on a tack trunk and pass an hour in idleness, watching the comings and goings common to a busy stable. One hour became two, then afternoon became evening, and one old groom remarked to another that a man shouldn’t be made to wait so long for his ladybird, no matter how pretty her ankles.

Time to leave then.

Christian signaled he was ready for his horse, and walked out into the soft light of a summer evening.

Without warning, his heart pounded, his ears roared, and the periphery of his vision dimmed. A sense of dread congealed in his chest, making him want to both collapse and run.

“You a’right, guv?”

“He’s a bloody dook, that one. The missin’ dook. Yer Grace?”

“He ain’t missin’ if he’s standin’ right cheer. Maybe missin’ his buttons.”

This exchange, quintessentially British in its accents and intonation, and in its cheek, helped Christian push the darkness back.

“Gentlemen, I can hear your every word.”

“You looked a mite queerish, Yer Grace. Your ’orse is ready.”

The groom held up Chessie’s reins, as if the
queerish
dook
might have forgotten he even had a horse. Christian reached up with his left hand out of habit, then had to switch hands to take his horse.

This enraged him, that a particular angle of sunlight should plummet him back to the day he was captured, that he was not able to use the hand God Himself had intended him to use, that his heart was ready to fight to the death when no enemy was about.

The elderly stable lad stood there, looking concerned but also uneasy, and Christian wanted to wallop the little fellow into next week.

With his left fucking hand.

“My thanks.”

The groom sidled away, sending one last leery look over his shoulder as Christian led the horse to the mounting block. He tarried, checking the girth, the length of the stirrups, each buckle and fitting on the bridle, because the sense of dread had not receded.

London was prone to riots, and Christian was out of uniform. This summer, everybody was in love with the soldiers in uniform. Hungry men or widows unable to feed their children might bear ill will toward a duke, but not toward a decorated cavalry veteran.

He should have worn a uniform. Again, he should have…

Some part of him watched as his mind prepared to launch into a flight borne of irrational fear and rootless anxiety, even as his horse stood patiently at the mounting block. Christian inhabited two simultaneous realities: the pleasant early evening in the stables, and the inchoate, amorphous disasters gathering in his mind.

Put
in
your
mind
a
picture
of
what
you
can
look
forward
to, and…add details to it, one by one, until the picture is very accurate and the urge to do something untoward has passed.

A snippet of the countess’s chatter, and yet it had lodged in his mind like a burr. The western facade of Severn popped into his head, with its long, curving drive that ran past the smaller lake. This time of year, the rose gardens around the central fountain would be in bloom, and the groundsmen would scythe the park lawns twice weekly. The air would be fragrant with the ripening hay fields and the cropped grass, while the fountain made a soft, splashing undercurrent, different from rain but equally clear and soothing.

An occasional lamb would bleat for its mama…

His heart slowed. Chessie stomped a back hoof, and Christian swung up as he let his mind add detail after detail.

The sound of carriage wheels tooling over the crushed white shells of the driveway.

Light bouncing off the windows on the third floor at the end of the day.

The scent of the lake when the breeze shifted, how the surface rippled with the wind. The ducks rioting and taking wing en masse for no apparent reason.

By the time he found his own mews, Christian was breathing normally and looking forward to seeing the ducal seat.

And to his next sighting of the small, fierce countess who gave surprisingly good advice.

***

“His Grace is riding up the alley, milady.”

“Well, thank God for that.” Gilly lifted her bonnet off and passed it to the footman, whose relief had been evident in his tone. The duke was a grown man, a peer of the realm, a decorated officer, and still, she’d fretted over him as if he were a child gone missing at the market.

“If you would tell Cook we’ll take a cold collation out on the back terrace, I’d appreciate it. Lemonade, plenty of sugar, no tea. And tell her to make it pretty.”

“Very good, milady.”

When he’d left, Gilly checked her appearance in the mirror above the sideboard, hoping her own relief was not as obvious as the footman’s had been. A hairpin had caught in her bonnet’s black netting, which caused a thick blond curl to list down around her shoulder. She hastily tucked it up, fetched her embroidery hoop, and managed to be sitting on the terrace, stitching, when His Grace came trooping through the gate from the mews.

“You’re back.” She rose, planting a smile on her face despite the inanity of her words. “How was your visit?”

“These are ruined.” He pulled off his dress gloves with his teeth, and passed them to her. “His Highness sends you his condolences. Have we anything to eat?”

“He didn’t feed you?”

“He didn’t…he…I forget.” Mercia ran a hand through blond hair coming loose from its queue. Gilly did not offer to tidy him up lest he use his teeth on her.

“I’ve ordered a cold tray.”

He muttered something as he wandered to the bed of daisies pushing up along the back wall.

“I beg your pardon?” Gilly raised her voice to carry over the clopping hooves in the alley beyond the wall.

“I said, you need not join me, Countess. I can take the tray inside.”

Despite his snappishness, the duke should not be alone. “I want to hear of your call upon the Regent.”

He wandered a few more steps, plucked a daisy, and began pulling off its petals, one by one. “You do not want to hear about my call on the Regent, which was perfectly prosaic, boring, in fact.”

“Was it boring for four or five hours?”

“I beg your pardon?” He lifted his gaze from the half-dismembered daisy, and Gilly saw the depths of an arctic winter.

“You were gone for nearly seven hours, Mercia. Prinny observes the courtesies, but by bestowing a few words here, a few minutes there. You missed tea.”

“I missed tea?” Those blond eyebrows rose, and Gilly steeled herself for a blistering set down. “So I did. Perhaps that’s why I’ll have something to eat now.”

He hadn’t said he was hungry, putting Gilly in mind of all the times she’d been too upset to eat. She was saved from concocting some reply when the footman arrived bearing a large tray.

“I’ll set it out,” Gilly said, offering the footman a smile. “My thanks.”

He bowed, shot a puzzled look at the duke, and withdrew. Mercia’s household endured a great deal of puzzlement of late.

“Come sit, Your Grace, unless you’d like to perambulate while you dine?”

He tossed away the denuded daisy and stomped over to the table.

“Strawberry?” Gilly held up a large red berry, wanting to stuff it in his unsmiling mouth. She’d worried about him, and here he was, no explanation, no apologies—nothing.

Mercia took the strawberry from her fingers with his teeth, and the air between them grew less tense.

“Please do sit, Mercia. If you loom over me, you’ll spoil my digestion.”

“Heaven forfend.” He took a seat, despite his sarcastic tone.

“You are a duke,” Gilly said, putting a half-dozen fat strawberries on a plate. “This petulance does not become you, despite what you may have heard about the privileges of rank. Shall I make you a sandwich?”

He eyed the strawberries. “Some buttered bread and cheese.”

Gilly met his glacial gaze, and folded her arms across her chest. “You forgot to say please. You are being perverse, perhaps because your afternoon left you in the mood to brawl with somebody. If you must indulge a violent urge like a territorial beast of the jungle, take yourself off to Jackson’s boxing salon, then. I am a lady. I do not brawl.”

Though God knew, the very thought of plowing her fist into Greendale’s soft belly had provided her a great deal of satisfaction. Restraining the urge had provided more satisfaction yet.

She passed the duke a roll, sliced in half and liberally buttered, a thick piece of cheddar tucked between the halves. She wanted to stuff it down his throat.

Also to cry, though she’d given that up years ago.

To think she’d worried over this…this…

“My thanks.” He took the roll from her, and they ate in uncomfortable silence for some while. Gilly had to slow her own meal to allow for her companion’s deliberate pace. His Grace was incapable of bolting his grain, even after a long, hungry afternoon with the Regent.

“You’re coming undone.” He made that observation in the same tone of voice as he might have asked for the salt.

“I am slightly perturbed with you, because you have been inconsiderate. I am not undone. I am trying to make allowances.”

The light in his eyes changed, warmed a little. “No, your hair is coming down. Here.” He brushed a hand over her shoulder, where the errant curl was once again free of its pins and bouncing at liberty behind her ear.

“
Feathers.
” To touch one’s hair while eating was unladylike in the extreme, but there would be nothing for it.

“Hold still.” He rose and removed a pin from her coronet, caught up the rebellious curl, and fastened it securely back in place. “Why are you trying to make allowances?”

“Because we hardly know each other,” Gilly said. “You are not used to answering to a household, and I am not used to the least thing about you. You could not know I would…expect you back for tea.”

He took the last bite of his cheese sandwich and dusted his hands, stopping to peer at his left hand.