Page 114 of The Captive
“Cozening my horse, Mercia?” St. Just asked a few moments later.
“Cozening my countess, St. Just?”
“Stop it, you two.” Gilly sounded half-serious in her scold. “The colonel has places to be, and he’d best get to them. Cook says her knees are acting up, and that means rain by nightfall.”
“I’m off to Town, then,” St. Just said. “Mercia, I’ll be in touch. Countess.” He bussed her cheek and whispered something in her ear, meriting him a terse nod. Christian drew Gilly back and slid an arm around her waist.
“Come by any time, St. Just,” Christian said. “Cook will miss you.”
“I’ll be back,” he said, swinging onto his horse. “I want to see when Lady Lucy’s dogs are pulling a pony cart around with His Grace at the ribbons.” He blew Gilly a kiss and cantered off, the personification of elegance in the saddle.
“How did I travel the length of France with our guest and never realize he’s a devilish good-looking man with a penchant for kissing other people’s countesses?”
“His papa is a duke,” Gilly said, sliding away from his side. “That can explain a lot about a man’s penchants.”
“You are my hostess, if you’ll recall,” he said, letting her put some distance between them. “And I am your duke.”
She wandered away, into the garden, but he kept her in sight, and not only because he and the lady had some significant matters to sort out. She might tell herself she was the victim of accidents and mishaps, or that a jealous kitchen maid was capable of orchestrating the malfunction of a coach wheel or the sabotage of a saddle.
Christian knew differently.
Nineteen
Christian was the soul of patience, so much so that Gilly wondered if he’d had second thoughts about proposing to her.
His lovemaking was patient too—tender, lyrical, sweet, and silent. Gilly had fallen asleep in his arms, when her best intention had been to talk to him.
Truly talk.
She wanted to accept his proposal, wanted to embark on the joys and challenges of being a wife to Christian Severn. Not duchess to the Duke of Mercia, the Lost Duke, or the Silent Duke—that wretch was welcome to dwell in the past, along with the unfortunate Lady Greendale—but finding the right moment to talk of the future was difficult.
They were shooting at targets a week after St. Just’s departure, a pastime Gilly had taken to with relish. When Christian had first suggested it, she’d cringed at the noise and destructiveness of it, but the first time she’d hit her target, she’d felt such a thrill she’d joined him every day since.
She’d need years to catch up to him, though. He shot flying targets out of the air, hit his mark from great distances, and could manage clean shots from peculiar angles while he himself was in motion. Whatever had been done to his left hand, it hadn’t affected his ability to fire a weapon at all.
“You had to shoot from the saddle, I take it,” she said when he’d shown her a maneuver involving shooting on the run, dropping, rolling, and discharging his second barrel.
“From the saddle, from the ground, from the trees. I was once posted as lookout in a church steeple, and fired a warning shot to my men by hitting the bell hanging from the town hall across the square. That didn’t sit well, but it was the only way to gain enough height for decent reconnaissance.”
“Do you ever miss the army?”
“No, I do not.” He passed her a loaded pistol. “Why would I?”
“St. Just said something about the Corsican making plans to escape,” she said, taking the gun. “Another man might be consumed with hunting down his captors and putting an end to them. I thank God you are not. I’ve dealt with enough violence to last a lifetime, and I could not endure it casting a shadow over the future.”
She’d worded her sentiment carefully—thefuture, notourfuture.
The pistol was small, as guns went, the barrel only four inches, which meant it hadn’t much aim over distances. Despite a mortal loathing for violence, Gilly liked knowing that, liked understanding why it was so. Christian had explained it to her, just as he’d made her learn how to clean her gun, how its mechanism worked, and how to handle it when it was loaded.
“The Corsican has nothing else to do but make his little plans,” Christian said, scanning the hedgerow and looking very ducal indeed. “Try for the twig about six feet up on that oak.”
Being short, Gilly had to train herself to aim a little higher than she thought she should, to let her hand follow her eye. Christian moved to stand behind her. She took aim and clipped the thing neatly.
“I do like it when the bullet does what I tell it to.”
“You like it when everything does as you say.” He took the gun from her hand. “More shooting, or have you had enough?” His teasing had a small edge to it, or maybe Gilly was the one on edge. He hadn’t said anything more about going up to Town, but dukes invariably spent time in London.
“Enough practice. The air reeks of our efforts.”
