Page 24 of The Captive
“My ring was the only thing I was wearing when I was captured.”
Her hands momentarily paused, holding his. Her grip around his fingers was warm, firm, and lovely. Sensation in his left hand had become dodgy, but he felt her hold on him and made no move to withdraw.
“Then why did they torture you? Your ring gave away your identity.”
Why, indeed. Christian had been weeks in Girard’s dungeon before that question had occurred to him, emerging into his awareness in the middle of a dream about Chessie being led away by the grinning, laughing French.
“What ring, my lady? The ring disappeared, just as they claimed not to have seen my uniform drying in plain sight over the bushes. I was out of uniform, and therefore due none of the courtesies afforded an officer in captivity.”
“A nation of lawyers, the French…” She retied his cravat and repositioned the pin, the whole effect more fluffy and elegant than what Christian had managed. Had she patted his left knuckles too? Christian was too preoccupied with her casual use of the word torture. Even in his mind, he shied away from the blunt term.
Misadventure, ordeal, difficulties, captivity…nottorture.
“You’ll start a fashion with this beard.” She brushed her fingers over his cheek, a passing caress startling in its familiarity. Mothers and sisters might touch their menfolk thus, and wives certainly did, though duchesses did not.
Had not.
Her touch sparked none of the bristling and roiling in his gut he might have expected, particularly when she’d been making free with his person for some minutes.
“I’ll soon be late,” he countered. “My thanks for your assistance.”
“You’ll be all right?” She went quiet, didn’t follow the question up with more of her patter or fussing.
He would never be all right, had stopped even wishing for it, for then his Christian duty to forgive his enemies might gain a toehold in his conscience. “I beg your pardon?”
“Today, putting up with the nonsense of it all. George means well, you know. I think he’s really quite a lonely man.”
George…the Regent, the sovereign, the de facto King. And the countess thought the man lonely.
And was very likely right. “I will manage.”
“Yes, you shall.” She linked her arm through his, another casual touch that ought to have startled, but didn’t…quite. “If you find yourself in difficulties, wanting to smash something, say, or scream profanities and take up arms, you put in your mind a picture of what you can look forward to, and you add details to it, one by one, until the picture is very accurate and the urge to do something untoward has passed.”
He liked that she’d walk arm in arm with him, liked that she’d lecture him about how to endure…torture. “You do this when the morning calls become too boring?”
She looked down, as if puzzling something out.
“When I am vexed beyond all tolerance, but can do nothing to aid myself, when I want to descend to the primitive level of those who lash out in violence at blameless victims, then I do this in my mind. I think of Lucille, or my mother’s flower gardens, or a nice rich, hot cup of chocolate on a cold and blustery morning when we might see the first snowflakes of the season.”
St. Just had told him to endure by concentrating on his hatreds, but such guidance hadn’t been particularly useful when the length of the list alone left a man helpless and overwhelmed.
Lady Greendale told him to endure by focusing on something he looked forward to.
Whatever that might be.
She walked him right out through the back gardens, to the mews, to the very mounting block where Chessie stood, one hip cocked, swishing a luxurious russet tail at nothing in particular.
“Safe journey, Mercia, and of course, my regards to dear George.” Lady Greendale went all the way up on her toes and kissed not his cheek—his cheeks being covered with neatly trimmed beard—but his unsuspecting mouth. Perhaps because he’d had no warning, he felt that kiss. Felt the soft brush of her mouth against lips no longer chapped, the weight of her balancing against his chest, the momentary press of her breast against his arm.
She lingered near for a moment, long enough to whisper, “Courage, Your Grace.”
Then she stepped back so he could mount his steed and tilt at the day’s windmill.
He rode the distance to Carlton House by sticking mainly to the quiet paths through the parks, and when he arrived, he’d found one thing, and one thing only, to look forward to—another kiss from the countess, soft, sweet, freely given, and wholly unexpected.
***
Mercia’s eyes had been a trifle wild as the groom had tightened Chessie’s girth, and Gilly had wanted to tell His Grace to stay home. This call on the Regent was a courtesy extended by the Crown toward a loyal—also wealthy and impressively titled—soldier. The soldier should have been free to decline the honor.
