Page 33 of The Captive
“Chesterton is quite the largest horse I’ve seen under saddle, but he seems a steady fellow, and very handsome. I would guess that did your papa take you up on such a horse, Lucy, you might be able to see clear to France.”
Because he carried her on his back, Christian felt his daughter chortling—silently.
And by the time they’d inspected the entire stable, he was glad for the countess’s patter, glad for her ability to comment on everything, from the knees on the new foals to the whiskers on the kittens.
For it became obvious Lucy had inherited her father’s propensity for keeping silent, and she intended to remain that way for reasons known only to her.
Seven
Christian approached the nursery suite, Lucy still clinging like a monkey to his back. He set her down when they reached the sitting room, and she scampered off to the schoolroom, leaving Christian to wonder if his daughter’s manners had lapsed along with her words.
“She’s not normally given to rudeness of any kind,” the countess said, looking worried.
Before Christian could frame a reply—what did he know of his own child, after all?—Lucy was back, her copybook and pencil in her hand. She held the book up to her father.
“Will I come tomorrow? Yes, if you wish it, and we’ll visit Chessie again, or the kittens.” He passed the book back to her.
Why wouldn’t she speak, for God’s sake? That she’d withhold her voice from her own father made him feelpunished.
The child waved her book under his nose.
“Cousin must come too?” Excellent notion, given the awkwardness of one-sided conversations. “Countess?”
“Of course, I will be happy to come,” she said, smoothing a hand over the child’s golden hair. “Maybe you will have written a poem about clouds and lambs and kittens when we come back, or maybe about a great chestnut charger who can see to France.”
This provoked a smile from the child.
“Until tomorrow, then.” Christian turned to leave this maudlin little gathering only to find a pair of small, skinny arms lashed around his waist. The child’s embrace held desperation, and ferocious if silent determination.
“I forgot,” he said, lifting her up to his hip. “You will come down to see us after tea, won’t you?”
Lucy shook her head, pointed at her father, and drew her finger to her own chest.
“I’m to come to you? No, I think not. I came this time. You must come next time, but it will be only two floors down. If you don’t come, I’ll realize you were too fatigued, and content myself with Cousin Gillian’s company.”
He set her down, not too hastily, and turned on his heel to go, then stopped. “Countess, may I offer my escort?”
She looked torn, but made no objection. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
The door was safely closed behind them before he spoke.
“I suppose you think I bungled that, but making a great fuss over what might be nothing more than a child’s stubbornness could be ill-advised. Of course, I’m assuming the childwillnottalk, though it might be more accurate to say shecannot.”
Silence met this observation, unnerving coming from the countess—Cousin Gillian—and how odd that silence—Christian’s last, best, most trustworthy friend—was in some wise no longer welcome in his life.
***
Over a substantial tray served on the terrace, Gilly admitted that the distinction between unwillingness to speak and inability to speakmattered. His Grace was brusque, troubled, and sometimes difficult, but he was neither stupid nor free of paternal impulses.
And for that reason, Gilly confessed a transgression to him.
“I saw you greet her, Your Grace. I apologize for peeking, but I didn’t want you to start interrogating her when she’s been so anxious about seeing you.”
He sat back, a shaft of sunlight falling across his face. The sunshine was of the benevolent, early summer variety, but it illuminated both his fatigue and the white scar on his earlobe.
“And now you disclose your spying?”
He seemed amused, but Gilly did not trust her ability to read this man. She’d had no warning at all that he was about to kiss her, and she still had no idea why he’d done so or what she felt about his presumption.
