Page 102 of The Captive
“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 anomdeguerreor 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.
