Page 25 of His Darling Duchess
“Oh.” Aurelia looked at him with wide eyes. “You’re accompanying me? I’d thought you would ride.”
“I can, if you would prefer not to have my company.” It was already raining, though, as it had every day that week, and Rhys had spent far too many days in the last few years riding in the rain. It was a miserable endeavour he’d rather not repeat unless he had to.
“Oh, no!” She smiled at him again as the driver whistled to his horses and the coach began to move. “Not at all. Trying to read or sew while travelling makes me feel dreadfully nauseous, so I had quite resigned myself to being thoroughly bored. I’m delighted to have your company.”
“I’m not sure how entertaining I will be, but I’ll do my best to stave off your boredom.” Relieved she really didn’t object to his presence, Rhys picked up a folded blanket lying on the seat beside him. “There should be heated bricks in that basket at your feet; allow me to put this on your lap to keep you warm.”
“Thank you.” She lifted her hands, sheathed in fine kidskin gloves, and placed them back atop the blanket once he’d spread it over her knees. “This is a very elegant travelling coach,” she noted. “Even my father’s isn’t as fine.”
“Like almost everything else I own, it was a purchase of my father’s,” Rhys said. “He did not stint himself on his luxuries.”
“Almost everything?” Aurelia queried.
“The clothes on my back.” Rhys smiled ruefully. “Not that my father lacked an impressive wardrobe, but he was some five inches shorter than I, and considerably stouter. And my horse, too, was of my own selection.”
“Yes.” She glanced back, as though she could see through the closed back of the coach, to where his horse was tethered behind. “I saw him; a magnificent animal. What’s his name?”
“Brutus. He carried me through countless battles on the Continent; I do not exaggerate when I say I would most certainly not be alive without him.”
“A noble steed, indeed. Yet you’re not riding him?” Her glance was arch, and he realised he hadn’t given her a reason why he was in the coach with her instead of outside on his horse.
“I hate riding in the rain,” he admitted sheepishly.
Aurelia’s laughter was soft and silvery, and she leaned across towards him to say confidingly “Me too.”
Chapter Eleven
Hearing her husband, sostone-faced and tough-seeming, admit to a dislike to getting wet in the rain made him seem a great deal more approachable suddenly. He looked quite sheepish about it too, casting his eyes down and shaking his head as though he thought expressing such a weakness beneath his dignity. He looked back up when she admitted a dislike for the rain too, though, that almost-smile she’d noticed on his face before just touching his lips.
“Do you smile?” Aurelia asked impulsively, and in an instant, the expression was gone, his dark eyes shuttering as he looked away.
“I must seem grim and serious to you. In truth, I was raised in a household that allowed for no such emotions as happiness or amusement, and I left there for the army, plunging straight into war. Nonetheless, I found happier times on the battlefield than I ever did in my father’s house.”
Her heart ached for Rhys as he told her the facts in a passionless tone, looking out of the window to avoid meeting her gaze. “The war is over,” she said gently when a minute of silence had stretched between them, “and your father is dead.”
Rhys’s eyes came back to hers, and she thought again how she had never seen eyes as dark, almost black.
“It’s hard to believe, sometimes, that he’s gone,” he said quietly. “He was… a force to be reckoned with.”
She wasn’t sure what to say. Her own father could be described that way, but Lord Lymsey was a good man, and Aurelia was very sure the previous Duke of Stowe had been far from good.
“If you would ever like to talk about it,” she said at last, after a very long time in which the only sound was the thunder of the horses’ hooves and the rattle of the coach wheels, “I will be glad to listen, and you need never fear that another living soul will hear of it from my lips.”
He shook his head slowly, midnight gaze still locked with hers. “I would not sully your ears with it any more than I would tell you of the gore and violence of the battlefield, Aurelia.”
“You were courageous enough to suffer through it. I can be brave enough to hear it.”
“I don’t doubt your bravery,” Rhys said, and Aurelia thought he meant it. He didn’t seemed to have learned any skills at lying or evasion; either that or he was such a good liar the daughter of an experienced politician could not detect him.
“I’ve never had to be brave in my life until these last few days,” she told him honestly.
“You were plenty brave trying to fight off my cousin when he attacked you.” Rhys immediately grimaced. “Ah, that was crude of me, I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Forgive me?”
Aurelia lifted her chin. “I lived through it. I’m brave enough to talk about it. Yes. I was angry with myself afterwards, actually,for not fighting more effectively. For being foolish enough to go off with him alone, as well.”
Rhys’s expression softened, and he reached out unexpectedly, putting his hand over hers and squeezing gently. “Grantleigh wasn’t a stranger to you. You had every reason to trust him.”
Tears prickled at her eyes, and she blinked them away angrily. “No unmarried young lady should ever permit herself to be unchaperoned alone with a gentleman.”
