Page 34 of The Captive
“I wanted you to know what I’d done, and to express my apologies. I should have allowed you both privacy.”
He’d been exactly right with the child, perfect in fact. So kind and understanding Gilly had wanted to weep with relief—and he’d been affectionate. Little girls needed affection, particularly from their papas.
“My privacy has suffered far worse violations, my lady. You should have given us a moment, true, but you’re protective of the child, and one can’t castigate you for that, under the circumstances. You aren’t eating much. Does the company put your digestion off?”
Was he teasing her? She sat up straighter. “The company is agreeable.”
He held up a section of orange, and rather than take it from his hand, Gilly took it with her teeth, a shockingly informal way to go on. Nonetheless, he’d started it, and something about the daring of such behavior—she might one day abuse his trust and bite him—appealed to her.
“The company,” he mused, “isagreeable. Such profuse emotion, Countess. I assure you the sentiment is mutual.” He took a sprig of lavender from his lemonade glass and pitched the garnish with particular force into a bed of daisies. “I will review the physicians’ correspondence, we will have an outing with Lucy tomorrow, and I will consider where we go from here.”
Mercia twitched his fingers together—the lavender had been wet with lemonade—and Gilly wondered what exactly had been done to his hand.
To the rest of his body, to his mind. His privacy, his heart, his soul.
None of her business, as she was none of his.
“We have other business to conduct, Countess. More orange?”
“No, thank you,” she said, feeling off balance at his word choice—business, as in finances and ledgers. That sort of business. He’d eaten all but two orange sections, and put one on her plate.
“What are your long-term plans, my lady? I ask both as Lucy’s papa and as the husband of your late cousin.”
“My plans?”
Her bread and butter turned to sawdust in her mouth when she saw the considering light in his eyes. He’d ambushed her, the wretch, out here in the sunshine and beauty of a perfect summer’s day. Greendale had been a master at the ambush.
Next Mercia would explain, politely, that he needed privacy with his daughter, and an extraneous cousin-in-law on the premises must needs be a temporary imposition.
Well, damn him. Damn him and his elegant, scarred hands and his beautiful, soft voice and his lovely eyes and his kindness toward the child. Damn him for all of it.
And especially for kissing her. Those gentle, nearly chaste kisses had been so…so… Gilly had lost sleep trying to find words for Mercia’s kisses. One word kept careening into her awareness, no matter how stoutly she batted it away. Mercia’s kisses had beencherishing, as if Gilly were the reason he lived, the reason he’d bested demons and nightmares to return to her side.
Which was balderdash. He’d meandered home from Carlton House through the park, and she was pathetic to make so much of a small late-night lapse between two tired adults.
He regarded her now with an expression so far from cherishing that Gilly’s food sat uneasily in her belly.
“We’ve only just arrived at Severn, Your Grace. Must we discuss plans and arrangements now?”
“We must.” He picked up one of the sections of orange and held it out to her. “Please.”
Please eat, or please reveal her hopes and fears, as manifest in the next year’s residential particulars? His blue eyes held an odd light, and Gilly abruptly wished she had the protection of her black silk shawl, for all the afternoon was pleasant. She used her fingers to take the orange from him and popped it into her mouth.
“The army enjoys a surfeit of discipline and structure, as if to counteract all the chaos and upheaval of its daily existence,” Mercia said. “I have not had a settled life, a life to my liking, for more than three years. I impose on your good nature that we might coordinate plans, my lady.”
She chewed her orange, trying not to blame him for wanting his household to himself.
“I have no set plans for the near term.” Marcus had sent her a note of condolence upon Greendale’s passing, and that note had not included assurances that she’d be welcome in the dower house. Maybe he’d assumed assurances hadn’t been needed—she could occupy the dower house as a matter of right—but the Greendale dower house was little more than a ruin.
Across from her, the duke screwed up his thin-lipped, elegant mouth in a grimace of impatience.
“For the near term, you will stay here, my lady. We are agreed on that for the child’s sake. I’d like you to consider making your home with us permanently, though. You are in mourning, and I certainly intend to live quietly. You know this household, and I have no hostess, no lady to see to the maids and the housekeeper.”
He had no one to see tohim, as far as Gilly could tell, which apparently mattered to him not at all.
“You would take me on as a charitable relation?” Her question held caution and surprise, for his invitation was as tempting as it was unexpected.
He pushed back from the table and shot her an annoyed look.
