The Captive (10 page)

Not soon. Not immediately.

But the hour he’d spent with his daughter made it plain the child, at least, was delighted her papa had survived, and this changed the complexion of Christian’s existence.

For himself, he could be content to languish in bitterness, to wake up each day after a bad night’s sleep—the countess would not permit a continued reversal of circadian routines—aching in body and soul, dreams of revenge his constant companion.

For his child, he would have to manage something…more, until Girard could be found and exterminated.

Lucy wanted her papa to take her up on Chessie, an exercise requiring the ability to guide the horse with his seat and one hand while he steadied the child with the other.

She wanted to hold her papa’s hand—either one would do—and to ride about on his back.

She expected his appearance in the nursery on some predictable schedule.

If anything had assisted Christian to remain upright and breathing, despite Girard’s mischief, it was the physical fitness of a seasoned cavalry officer determined to lead his men well. That part of military life—the physical challenge of it—Christian had foolishly thrived on.

The time had come to foolishly thrive again, insofar as a tired and tormented body would allow it.

So Christian began his first full day at Severn as his father and grandfather often had, by riding out. He started with the grounds of Severn itself, the bridle paths and park, keeping mostly to the walk. Yesterday’s ride down from Town had tired both him and the horse, and the purpose of the morning ride was twofold.

He wanted to regain condition, or see if it was possible to regain condition, and he wanted to see his land. The countess had been right to bring him home, for southern England was beautiful in summer.

And her ladyship apparently intended to enjoy it to the fullest, for Christian spotted her walking among his mother’s treasured gardens. For the first time, Lady Greendale wasn’t in black—he delighted in knowing even her night robes were black—and she was out-of-doors without a bonnet.

He was inclined to leave her to her wanderings, except she looked so…pretty. She wore a high-waisted walking dress in lavender, her blond hair burnished gold in the morning sun, and she was humming as she occasionally bent down to sniff a flower.

“I know I’ve been caught,” she said, kneeling to take in the scent of a red rose and getting a damp patch on one knee for her efforts. “You should not lurk in the trees, Mercia. Come into the sun, and greet the day with me.”

She ran her nose over the flower’s outer petals and gave him a soft, private smile that put him in mind of Italian Renaissance maidens who knew delightful, naughty secrets.

“Good morning, Countess. You’re up early.”

“As are you, as is the sun. And your dear friend, Mr. Chesterton.”

“My lazy friend. We were useless above a sedate trot, weren’t we, Chessie?”

The horse looked about, pricking his ears at the sound of his name. Christian swung down, gave the animal a pat on the neck, and fell in step beside the countess, leading his gelding by the reins.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked. “My mama said it’s a polite inquiry, but the question strikes me as personal.”

“I rarely sleep well,” he said, simply for the pleasure of thwarting her small talk.

“Neither do I.” Her smile became sad, and he wondered why they hadn’t met up in the library again the previous evening, where something more interesting than sleep might have befallen them. “Restless nights are the price of adulthood, perhaps.” She slipped her hand through his arm, uninvited, as if she would…comfort him?

He stepped aside, untangling their arms, and lifted his hand to his lips to fashion a piercing whistle.

Except the fingers of his left hand no longer accommodated their boyhood competence. What came out was an odd huff that would in no wise get the attention of the stableboys. His right hand did no better, and he wanted to kick something—Anduvoir’s privy parts would do for a start. He took no consolation from the stray thought that Girard alone might understand why.

“We need a groom?” her ladyship guessed. “I’ll try.”

She put her fingers to her lips and got off a stout, shrill peal, which had the stable lads looking up from across the sprawling back garden and Chessie standing quite tall in his gear. A groom scampered over, swung up on Chessie, and took the horse off toward the stables.

The sight of the groom trotting Chessie away to the stables tickled recollections Christian couldn’t quite retrieve, though the moment of déjà vu passed as quickly as it had arisen.

“What a good soul,” the countess said as Chessie obligingly decamped in the direction of his oats. “With a good memory too.”

“Very good,” Christian replied. “If Chessie hadn’t recognized me, I’m not sure I could have survived more stumbling about the French countryside, trying to prove my patrimony to the authorities.”

For some starving French farm wife would doubtless have killed the bearded scarecrow who’d forgotten how to talk.

“I’m glad Chesterton’s memory did not fail him.” Her ladyship slipped her arm through Christian’s again, then slid her hand down to encircle his left wrist. “What exactly befell your hand?”

War. Pain. Evil in the form of drunken corporals who likely could not have understood his English if he
had
broken his silence. “The French.”

They strolled along without further words, the lovely summer morning making the memory of the torture obscene, but less real too. Without him willing it, Christian’s mouth formed more sounds.

“The guards sought to wring a confession of treason from me, so even if I did escape, my own people would put me to death. The idea was not to cause physical pain for its own sake—though a certain variety of soldier enjoys torturing prisoners for that reason—but to destroy my sanity. A dream of escape often sustains a prisoner, and Girard wanted me to have that dream, probably to torment me as much as comfort me. Girard was livid when he realized what the guards had done with his pet duke.”

“The torture was merely a means to an end?” She spoke the word so casually, and her fingers laced through his.

Gently, but unapologetically. The way Girard had handled him after Anduvoir had departed to terrorize the camp whores.

“The goal of my captors was to rob me of my reason, to reduce a proud little dukeling to a puling, begging cipher. Breaking me became a game for them, and to some extent for me, too.”

As best he could figure. Why else would Girard have alternated inhuman treatment whenever Anduvoir came around with punctilious care and feeding?

“A game, like a duel to the death.”

“My death, or the death of my reason.”

She brought his hand up, holding the back of it against the extraordinary softness of her cheek. Until he’d taken liberties with her in the library, he’d forgotten how wonderfully, startlingly soft a woman’s cheek could be. As soft as sunshine and summer rain, as soft as the quiet of the English countryside.

“Shall we sit?” he asked, though she’d likely release his hand if they sat. He was a widower, though, and she ought not to begrudge him simple human contact when he’d been so recently bereaved.

She let him lead her to a shaded bench near the roses, the morning air faintly redolent of their perfume. When Christian seated her, the countess kept his damaged hand in hers.

“I was not allowed to garden at Greendale,” she said, fingers drifting over his knuckles. “The estate had gardens, because his lordship would not be seen to neglect his acres, but I was forbidden to walk them, or to dig about in the good English soil, or to consult with the gardeners regarding the designs and plantings.”

Based on the studied casualness of her tone, this prohibition had been irksome.

“You are free to garden here all you like. I ask only that you not disturb my mother’s roses.”

“They are lovely.”

“She was lovely.”

Another silence, while Christian became aware of his surroundings beyond the small hand holding his. The roses were in their early summer glory, and why Polite Society insisted on staying in Town through most of June was incomprehensible, when the alternative was the English countryside. The sunshine was a perfectly weighted beneficence on his cheek, the scent of the gardens heavenly, and the entire morning aurally gilded with the fluting chorus of songbirds.

He wanted to kiss the lady beside him again, not in thanks, not as a good-night benediction, but for the sheer pleasure of the undertaking.

“You were right about Severn,” Christian said. “I rode a few of the home-farm fields, and those are in good repair, but the bordering tenant farms are not as spruce.”

“You’ll soon put matters to rights.” She patted his hand, didn’t squeeze it. “My goal this morning was to inspect the family plot and the chapel grounds.”

“You wanted to tend the graves?” He didn’t like this idea, instinctively loathed it.

“I doubt Nanny or Harris have thought to bring Lucy to see them. When Lucy visits, all should be pretty and soothing.”

What about when
he
visited? Though Helene had apparently taken her own life, and no amount of flowers would pretty that up.

“You would bring Lucy to see the graves?”

“I’ll tend the graves first,” she said, her chin coming up. “Lucy’s father ought to take her to visit them.”

He disentangled their hands, which required an odd little struggle. The countess didn’t seem to understand what he was about until he shook his fingers free.

“I am of no mind to linger about graves, my lady, not now.” Not ever. Children succumbed to flu, so Christian could not directly blame Girard for the boy’s death, but it was time to send out letters, to call in favors, to pester the generals, and start tracking the French pestilence down.

“Then don’t visit the graves now,” the countess said, her expression more puzzled than disapproving. And yet, she seemed to expect something from him, something in the nature of an apology or explanation.

So be it.

“I joined up to get away from Helene, and she was pleased to see me go.”

The admission was out, made mostly to the toes of Christian’s riding boots—his loose riding boots. He willed himself to get the devil off the bench, but his tired ducal arse stayed right where it was.

“She was a difficult wife, I take it.”

Helene had been a difficult cousin too, based on the countess’s dry tone.

“Helene was vain, spoiled, selfish, and mean,” Christian said. “At times. She was also gorgeous, generous, scatterbrained, and capable of kindness, but we did not suit, and we were both growing to accept that.”

Though accepting Helene’s penchant for flirting had been beyond him, and that was what had eventually driven him onto Wellington’s staff.

His duchess had been faithful, so far as he knew, but in the curious manner of troubled marriages, Christian had the sense if he’d remained underfoot, his presence would have goaded her to cross even that line.

“Did you go to war to get yourself killed? Over a woman? I cannot picture the Duke of Mercia being so romantic.”

Neither could he, thank God. “I did not go off to get killed. I went off to serve King and Country, and if I might point out, I succeeded.” The notion was no comfort whatsoever, but torture did that too—put a man beyond any comfort.

“You succeeded spectacularly.”

The small woman beside him worried her upper lip with her teeth, probably biting back more words. She had a healthy sense of self-preservation, did the countess.

And a way with a silence.

“I wanted more children,” Christian said, giving up the struggle to maintain any dignity in this conversation. “A spare seemed a prudent undertaking. She said she’d gut me in my sleep did I attempt it. I thought time apart would help. It did not. It had not as of the last leave I took.”

“She owed you a spare,” the countess said, her tone stern. “We talked about this before we married, Helene and I. She pitied me because Greendale was my lot, but I was prepared to present him with children.”

She was blushing, which restored his spirits, if not his dignity. The touch of color looked well on her, as did a color other than black. The lady was, viewed in a certain soft morning light, attractive. Certainly attractive enough to remarry.

“You would have loved any children you bore old Greendale.” This truth was the closest he could come to consoling her.

Though for what? Childlessness? For being married to an old martinet who was jealous of his flower gardens? For having to serve as Helene’s most recent confidante?

And how did they get onto this indelicate and personal topic?

“I am to meet my steward directly after breakfast,” he said. “Shall I walk you back to the house?”

“Please.” She extended her hand, he drew her to her feet, and this time, it was Christian who was ambushed.

She gave him another of those kisses to the mouth, rose up off the bench and kept coming, a one-woman, fragrant, soft cavalry charge of pleasure and comfort. After she’d brushed her lips across his, she also gave him a more intriguing gift.

She rested against him, fully, gave him her weight for a moment, let his greater height and what strength he had hold her upright. The sensations were exquisite.

Her hair tickling his chin.

Her breasts, unapologetically soft and full against his chest.

Peppermint—from her tooth powder?—lingering on his lips.

His reactions were slow, and she seemed to understand they would be, for she remained against him long enough that he could loop his arms around her waist, rest his chin against her temple, and let the peace of the embrace settle over him.

Girard deserved to die, slowly and painfully, but of all the things Girard had destroyed in Christian’s life, he had not, nor would he ever, destroy this moment.

“I wanted the graves to be tidy for you, too,” she said. “For all of us, the graves should be tidy.”

The countess was protective of those she cared about, and in her admission, Christian found proof that she cared about
him
. She hadn’t assured him she’d remain for her entire year of mourning—the most he could ask of her, for now—but she’d given him a morsel of her trust.