Page 25 of The Captive
But men did not operate according to the principles of any logic Gilly could fathom, and so she did as women had long done—she waited. She finished the last of the polite replies to invitations, she consulted with Mrs. Magnus on which staff to send down to Severn and which to leave in Town, she embroidered the hem of one of her black handkerchiefs, using a pearly gray thread she liked for the way it caught more light than any true gray ought.
She started embroidering a cream silk handkerchief with the Severn crest done in royal blue, and still the duke didn’t come home.
When it came time for late tea, and the afternoon had passed into early evening, Gilly rounded up the two largest footmen the household boasted and prepared to make a charge on Carlton House.
She conjured up any number of explanations. Mercia had run into old chums from the army; he’d been invited to join the Regent for tea; his horse had turned up lame… But what if he’d taken a misstep, perhaps pulled a knife on a footman, lost his patience with the Regent himself, or lost his way? What if he’d flown into a rage because he couldn’t manage his gloves or a cat had nipped at his finger?
Losing one’s way was easy enough to do.
***
When Christian had gone for a soldier, the cavalry had been the natural choice because he’d long had an appreciation for the horse. He’d been riding since before he could walk, if being taken up before his papa counted, and so he’d hidden in the Carlton House mews after enduring a half hour of George’s good wishes and shrewd regard.
Prinny had prosed on about his uniform from the 10th Hussars, an outfit he’d designed himself, and Christian hadn’t known whether to laugh or weep at the notion of military dress reduced to a flight of fashion.
When that interminable half hour had passed, the grooms had let Christian sit on a tack trunk and pass an hour in idleness, watching the comings and goings common to a busy stable. One hour became two, then afternoon became evening, and one old groom remarked to another that a man shouldn’t be made to wait so long for his ladybird, no matter how pretty her ankles.
Time to leave then.
Christian signaled he was ready for his horse, and walked out into the soft light of a summer evening.
Without warning, his heart pounded, his ears roared, and the periphery of his vision dimmed. A sense of dread congealed in his chest, making him want to both collapse and run.
“You a’right, guv?”
“He’s a bloody dook, that one. The missin’ dook. Yer Grace?”
“He ain’t missin’ if he’s standin’ right cheer. Maybe missin’ his buttons.”
This exchange, quintessentially British in its accents and intonation, and in its cheek, helped Christian push the darkness back.
“Gentlemen, I can hear your every word.”
“You looked a mite queerish, Yer Grace. Your ’orse is ready.”
The groom held up Chessie’s reins, as if thequeerishdookmight have forgotten he even had a horse. Christian reached up with his left hand out of habit, then had to switch hands to take his horse.
This enraged him, that a particular angle of sunlight should plummet him back to the day he was captured, that he was not able to use the hand God Himself had intended him to use, that his heart was ready to fight to the death when no enemy was about.
The elderly stable lad stood there, looking concerned but also uneasy, and Christian wanted to wallop the little fellow into next week.
With his left fucking hand.
“My thanks.”
The groom sidled away, sending one last leery look over his shoulder as Christian led the horse to the mounting block. He tarried, checking the girth, the length of the stirrups, each buckle and fitting on the bridle, because the sense of dread had not receded.
London was prone to riots, and Christian was out of uniform. This summer, everybody was in love with the soldiers in uniform. Hungry men or widows unable to feed their children might bear ill will toward a duke, but not toward a decorated cavalry veteran.
He should have worn a uniform. Again, he should have…
Some part of him watched as his mind prepared to launch into a flight borne of irrational fear and rootless anxiety, even as his horse stood patiently at the mounting block. Christian inhabited two simultaneous realities: the pleasant early evening in the stables, and the inchoate, amorphous disasters gathering in his mind.
Putinyourmindapictureofwhatyoucanlookforwardto, and…add details to it, one by one, until the picture is very accurate and the urge to do something untoward has passed.
A snippet of the countess’s chatter, and yet it had lodged in his mind like a burr. The western facade of Severn popped into his head, with its long, curving drive that ran past the smaller lake. This time of year, the rose gardens around the central fountain would be in bloom, and the groundsmen would scythe the park lawns twice weekly. The air would be fragrant with the ripening hay fields and the cropped grass, while the fountain made a soft, splashing undercurrent, different from rain but equally clear and soothing.
An occasional lamb would bleat for its mama…
