The captive duke, p.26
The Captive Duke, page 26
“And still, you think you should have found a way,” Christian went on. “Passage to America, a life following the drum, a lady’s companion on some remote Scottish island. You never stopped blaming yourself, and belittling yourself, until you began to believe the things he said about you.”
She gave up wondering why Christian, of all people, would say such mean things to her, for he spoke only the truth. By the second year, her marriage had become precisely as he’d described it.
“I came to believe I wasn’t conceiving because I dreaded the prospect,” she said. “To imagine bringing a helpless child into that man’s household. The housekeeper was the one to tell me I was his fourth countess, every one of them as petite as I am, and they’d all despaired of having children too. Something my parents had carefully neglected to tell me.”
She made herself tell him the rest of it. “The housekeeper’s admission must have been overheard, for Greendale fired her without a character the next week.”
“So you stopped even looking for allies,” Christian said, staring at the fire. “You no longer even talked to the mice.”
What was he going on about with his blessed mice?
“I prayed for his death. I did not kill him.”
“You think I’d blame you?” He flicked a glance over her. “Men like Greendale need killing, badly. That his evil will have no representation in the next generation is divine justice, and did you kill him, I’d toast you for it in the streets of London.”
“And get me hanged by the neck until dead.”
Because violence begets violence, as surely as cats had kittens and horses foals.
Her logic silenced him, for of all men, Christian could understand her reasoning.
She sat in her torn nightgown and robe, trying not to feel chilled, trying not to feel anything, while the stubborn wish that he’d take her in his arms again plagued her badly.
“You cannot marry me because of what Greendale did to you,” he said at length, something in his tone both angry and weary. “Not yet.”
“I want to marry you, but I did not want you to see…to know. I contemplated death with affection, Christian, rather than face more years like that, blaming myself. And yet, I did not surrender my power on this earth. My power, my dignity were wrested from me and smashed to bits, while my family and all of Society went merrily on their way and the law applauded. One grew…bewildered.”
“I understand.”
She feared those two words were his way of initiating their goodbyes, because her bewilderment had come between them, and who knew when she might resolve it?
Then he did something odd. He slid out of his chair and knelt beside hers. She braced herself, not sure what to expect, for the moment did not call for the dramatics of a parfit gentil knight.
He slipped his arms around her waist and laid his head in her lap.
“Your Grace?” He’d done this once before, when he’d first started proposing to her. He burrowed in closer and nuzzled her thigh.
“Christian?”
“Hush, love. We can argue more later, but for now, hush. You mustn’t fret, but I cannot leave you alone right now. You have humbled me in ways I never conceived a man could be humbled.”
“I’ve humbled you?” The useless lump was back in her throat, along with useless, stupid tears. He liked it when she stroked his head, so she did that, over and over again, while the tea grew cold and her heart broke.
Over and over again.
Seventeen
THANKS TO A MERCIFUL GOD, THE DAY OF GILLY’S awful revelations saw a surprise visit from Devlin St. Just, who was in the neighborhood on a horse-buying mission.
“I wanted to smash the damned teapot, but she looked so broken,” Christian said. They’d ridden far and wide on Severn property, the day cool enough that the horses were frisky. Christian shared his confidences between brisk canters and gallops over the stiles.
“Her experience puts your situation in perspective. What will you do?”
His situation. He was a war hero for silently enduring a few months of Girard’s intermittent abuse, while Gilly remained emotionally imprisoned after eight years of silent torture, for which the law and Society both had guaranteed her tormenter impunity.
“I will give her time.” He’d give her his hands, his sight, anything, if it would help her regain her sense of worth and joy.
“You want to give her the rest of your life and all your wealth and consequence,” St. Just said. “She may never get back on the marital horse, so to speak, and you have no sons.”
“I don’t need sons. I need Gilly.”
“Have you told her that?”
“In the King’s English.”
“Not have you said the words, but have you communicated your need for her?”
Christian frowned at his friend—for surely, one in whom such confidences could be reposed was a friend—but St. Just wasn’t finished.
“You’re a duke, wealthy, powerful, reasonably good-looking when you make the effort, and a decorated war hero. She’s a penniless victim of an abusive spouse. What can she possibly have that you need?”
“Everything.”
“Gracious, you are smitten. I’m impressed.”
“With the lady’s charms?”
“With your courage. You were broken too, and for you to care like this…” St. Just fell silent while his horse danced around some droppings in the road. “You have found the best revenge, my friend.”
“I was damaged. I was never broken. Girard reminded me of that frequently.” And he’d relished those incessant reminders, though he was sure they’d been intended as taunts. “Gilly has sorted me out and put me back to rights.”
St. Just looked pained and pointed off toward the village steeple. “Race you.”
Christian put his spurs to Chessie’s sides and thought he’d have an advantage because he knew the territory. St. Just had ridden dispatch though, and beat him by a length.
“Your heart wasn’t in the steeplechase,” St. Just said charitably. “And my mount is in better condition than yours. I was planning to head closer to Town before the sun sets, but invite me to spend the night.”
“So invited,” Christian said, relieved somebody would join him and Gilly for dinner—and St. Just’s mount was a splendid beast. “We’ll dine informally and find you something of mine to wear, though I warn you, embroidery is showing up on my attire in unlikely places.”
St. Just looked intrigued, necessitating a change in topic. Christian stroked a gloved hand over Chessie’s neck, for the old boy was still heaving a bit. “We caught Lucy singing to her puppies.”
“Is there a but coming?”
“But she’s still silent when she knows anybody can hear. Gilly thinks we ought to confront her. I cannot agree.”
“Why not?”
“She knows how to speak. She writes great convoluted stories using vocabulary far beyond her years. Her life is made lonely and awkward by her silence, therefore I conclude she does not speak because she cannot.”
“You didn’t speak. Perhaps she knows this.”
Why hadn’t this occurred to him? “Just so, I did not speak because it became the only means of remaining alive. Gilly kept a silence of her own, finding it the only refuge for her dignity and self-respect. Some silences we are compelled to keep.”
St. Just, who likely had a few silences to his name, didn’t argue the point. “She seems a happy child, your Lucy, but I asked Her Grace if she’d ever heard of such a thing, and she hadn’t.”
“Your stepmother?”
“She has raised ten children and was unfashionably involved in the process, as was Moreland.”
“If you learned your sister were married to an abusive old man, would you have left her to the situation?”
This time, St. Just’s gelding shied at a rabbit scampering across the path, though the rider barely took notice of the creature. “My sister would be on a boat for Denmark or Philadelphia before sunset, with substantial coin in her pocket and papers indicating she was the wife of some late yeoman.”
How quickly he answered. How blessed his sisters were. “What about the scriptural exhortations?”
“As far as I know, St. Paul had no wife, nor did the Lord himself.”
“Interesting viewpoint.”
“My father’s insight, oddly enough. I wanted to pass along some news to you, though.”
“We approach the stables, so say on.”
“I’ve heard rumors in Town regarding Girard.”
Abruptly, the moment stood out from all the moments of the day, all the moments since leaving that wretched French mountainside. The angle of the afternoon sunlight on the lake, the chestnut draft team standing nose-to-tail in the nearest paddock, the tune some stableboy whistled as he ambled along a fencerow toward the far pastures—they dropped onto Christian’s awareness like ink onto a pure white sheet of vellum.
“You’ve heard rumors about Robert Girard?” He did not refer to the man as “my” Robert Girard, but with the entitlement of one bent on revenge, Girard belonged to no other.
“Yes, Robert Girard, late of the garrison at Château de Solvigny.” St. Just leaned over to pat his mount on the neck, fussing the beast’s mane rather than studying Christian’s expression. “He’s supposedly larking about London in anticipation of taking up the management of the St. Clair barony. Of all things, he’s come into an English title. The government’s official position is clemency for veterans of any nationality.”
Christian halted his horse, as St. Just’s words were growing dim over the roaring in his ears and the pounding in his chest.
“I thought you’d want to know.”
“What I want…” Christian spoke again, less softly. “What I need is to kill him.”
Chessie moved forward without Christian asking it of him.
St. Just’s expression remained calm. He had, after all, led cavalry charges against the French. “Dueling is considered murder. Given your title and your history, not a magistrate in the realm would prosecute you.”
Which made no difference whatsoever. Girard was moving about freely in England, not three hours’ ride to the north. His proximity underscored his ability to bring harm to Gilly. “You’d serve as second?”
“And I’ve at least two brothers who’d do likewise on short notice, if need be, and their discretion is without fault.”
“Marcus might be offended if I didn’t ask him. He served with us.” And yet, Marcus was best situated to keep Gilly and Lucy safe, too.
“That is entirely your decision. You have adequate equipment?”
Christian didn’t see the stable yard; he saw the stone walls of the Château, usually damp, always malodorous. He saw a cat, lying in wait at the base of those walls.
“You don’t ask if I have adequate skill,” Christian said, satisfaction and anticipation twining through him in a peculiar combination of glee and dread, much like the sentiments of Wellington’s infantry when approaching the end of a siege.
“Girard was not reputed to have any skill with a sword,” St. Just said, “and the French pride themselves on such things. He’ll choose pistols, likely, and you have time to perfect your aim, though you were accounted an excellent shot.”
“I was good,” Christian said, drawing Chessie to a halt. “I was quite good before Girard’s men mangled my better hand.”
“So practice. I will leave you my various directions as I travel about.”
Neither man moved to dismount, and the stableboys must have sensed something of the discussion, for they lingered nearby without intruding. “You’re not settled at the Moreland family seat?”
“I stay in the country, mostly, but make my obeisance before the family as needed. Moreland wreaks havoc in the lives of his legitimate offspring, and torments his heir incessantly regarding the succession. How Westhaven deals with it is beyond me.”
“You’re always welcome here.”
St. Just swung off his horse, ran up the left stirrup, and loosened the beast’s girth. “One anticipated such graciousness, hence the present imposition.”
Christian dismounted as well, prepared to get particulars from St. Just regarding the source of his rumor, when a thought intruded.
“You haven’t badgered me about my report.” And St. Just had barely mentioned it on his last visit, though Christian had every sense St. Just’s superiors wanted the document badly—nosy blighters.
“Nor shall I badger you.”
“I’ve written it. I haven’t parted with it.”
They fell silent until the stableboys led the horses away.
“You will,” St. Just said, “when you’re ready. If you do go up to Town, you need to know you’ve acquired a nom de guerre or two. They’re calling you
the Unbreakable Duke and the Silent Duke, also the Quiet Duke.”
“I appreciate the warnings.” All of the warnings. He turned toward the house, where his unbreakable, silent, and quiet Gilly waited. “And those appellations are rather an improvement over being the lost duke.”
Gilly was grateful to Devlin St. Just for keeping Christian occupied for the afternoon, grateful to him for providing most of the conversation at dinner, and yet still more grateful that the colonel offered to take his host off for a brandy in the library.
“Gilly, are you headed upstairs?” Christian addressed her as Gilly, not Countess, which should have been some reassurance, but she hadn’t been able to get her bearings with him all day.
“I thought to make an early night of it.”
His gaze moved over her, and she wished he didn’t have such intimate knowledge of her bodily cycles.
Or her past.
Or her heart.
“St. Just, you will pour me a drink while I light the lady up to her chamber.”
St. Just, the wretch, merely offered her a good-night bow.
Christian waited until they’d reached the first landing to start his interrogation, though of course a simple question would have been too direct.
“You look tired, Gillian, but then you did not sleep well last night.”
“Perhaps I’d better remain in my own bed tonight.”
The words were out, unplanned, but she didn’t want him to be the one to make the awkward excuses. Her disclosures had changed things, allowed doubts and despairs to break free that she’d spent months walling up, brick by brick.
“Do you forget somebody has tried three times to kill you?” Christian moved along at her side, his voice holding a thread of steel.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Gilly said. “I’ve concluded it was merely a batch of meadow tea gone wrong. Somebody thought they were picking mint and pulled up a noxious weed. And as for the other, wheels come loose, leather breaks.”
“Meadow tea is not served in my household above stairs,” Christian said with painful gentleness. “And it did not taste like meadow tea. That was a strong black tea, the household blend, Gilly, sweetened no doubt to cover the taste of poison.”
She’d known he’d say that, but hearing the words put her anxiety that much closer to out of control. At least in Greendale’s household, she’d known exactly who her enemy was, and that his malevolence had predated her marriage to him.
“I would ask you to use my bed,” he said, “and have done with this farce we endure nightly, carting you about from room to room, but you will not oblige me.”
“So you’ll let me have some solitude tonight?”
“You crave solitude?”
She craved him, and she craved an innocence so far lost to her, nothing would resurrect it. “I am tired.”
“Then, my love, you must find your bed.” He stopped outside her door, pushed it open, and peered in to see the candles and the fire had been lit. He stepped aside to let her pass then followed her in.
And that was a relief, that he’d still presume to that degree.
He sat on the bed while Gilly went to the vanity and began to take down her hair.
“No matter what I say to you right now,” he mused, “it won’t come out right.”
“Say it anyway,” she rejoined, using the mirror to appreciate the picture he made at ease on her bed. “You talk to me, remember?” And how she loved him for that.
He lounged back on his elbows, a great, lean, ducal beast of a man with far too much patience.
“You think things have changed between us because I know what a hell your marriage was, and you’re right: things have changed. I can’t view you the same way.”
She bent her head, as if to locate her brush, but all she really wanted was to hide her eyes and weep, for with his changed view, her own view of herself dimmed too.
“I never wanted you to know. I never wanted anybody to know. That was my one victory, you see.”
“You wanted to keep your silence, because you believe your experiences have disfigured you on the inside as Greendale tried to on the outside.”
Greendale had tried and succeeded.
Gilly stared at boar bristles and wood, the same hairbrush she’d taken with her from the schoolroom to her marriage, for Greendale begrudged her even so small a thing as a brush.
“I can’t stand the sight of a buggy whip or a riding crop, and can’t use them myself. I’m always nervous serving tea to guests, afraid somebody will be burned. I hate the smell of burning tobacco, and I can’t abide the thought of sleeping with the bedroom door unlocked.”
His expression in the shadows behind her was tired and thoughtful.
“Go to sleep,” he said. “You’ve trusted me with only the start of a very long list of transgressions Greendale perpetrated during your marriage. If St. Just were not here, I’d be brushing your hair, did you allow it, while you told me more of the abominations you’d rather not acknowledge.”
“I’d allow it.”
She offered the words as an olive branch, a small reassurance that though things between them might be changing, her regard for him was constant.
“You should know of my plans,” he said, picking up the candle from the mantel. “I might have to go up to Town in the next weeks, though not for any great length of time. If I do go, I’ll ask Marcus to bide here temporarily.”
