Page 43 of The Captive
She slipped an arm around his waist. “For now. I’ll stay for now.”
They stayed huddled like that—cuddled—until the clock chimed midnight, when the countess lifted her head and gave a yawn.
“We must to our beds, Your Grace. My riding habit is finished, and tomorrow I’d like to ride out with you and Lucy.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” Though in a small corner of his soul, the part that felt ambushed by this impulse to put his mouth on her, he also dreaded their next encounter.
She soothed, beguiled, and healed some aspect of him, brought him down off the high, cold misery of the French mountainside, and yet…revenge would be closer if he stayed on those ramparts, alone save for rage, scars, and memories.
He escorted her up to her bed, and she allowed it, another small satisfaction he’d castigate himself for in the morning—maybe. At her door, he tarried, wanting to say something, to hear something from his voluble countess.
“Sleep well,” he said, leaning down to touch his lips again to her forehead. She was standing, he didn’t have to twist his neck, and it was the easiest thing in the world to touch those lips again to her cheek as well.
“And you,” she said, lifting a hand to brush back the hair that had come loose from his queue. “Try to rest.”
He both wanted and dreaded her kiss, but she only ran her hand over his hair again, turned, and disappeared into her bedroom.
Leaving him alone in the cold, dark corridor, relieved, bewildered, and telling himself all that mattered was that she’d said she’d stay. Even if he spent time in London, off on the other estates, or tracking down and killing Robert Girard, she’d stay.
***
“With all due respect, General, you should investigate why nobody searched any harder for Mercia when he went missing.”
Devlin St. Just kept his tone casual, but no less than three generals had invited him—a mere colonel—into this late-night hand of cards. The purpose as revealed after adequate portions of brandy was to harass him into extracting a report from the Lost Duke.
Who was found, and probably still lost. God knew, Devlin often was.
“We’re happy to nose around a bit,” General Baldridge said, newly up from the South. “But it’s a delicate business when a duke goes and gets himself captured out of uniform and there’s a war on. How much effort is enough?”
General Tipton, arrow straight, sober as a Methodist preacher, eyebrows like a tangled gray hedge, took up the reins of the conversation.
“All we’re suggesting, St. Just, is that you look in on the man. Reminisce over a few brandies. He seemed to take to you.”
“And your dear papa wouldn’t mind if you were given some leave, eh?” General Porter added.
Dear Papa being the Duke of Moreland, who happened to be married to the Duchess of Moreland, who would deliver a harangue worthy of a gunnery sergeant on the topic of wasted ammunition if she learned Devlin had been offered leave and declined it.
But going home meant dealing with Devlin’s family…and feeling keenly the absence of his brother Bartholomew, and the fading presence of his brother Victor, slowly dying of consumption.
War seemed a cheerier prospect, but the Corsican, buttoned up on his island in the Mediterranean, was no longer obliging.
“I’ve my own men to see to,” St. Just said, but he understood army politics too. “Perhaps in a few weeks.”
Baldridge beamed an avuncular smile. “A few weeks, then. Word is Girard held Mercia for nearly a year, and Girard is the devil’s spawn even in the estimation of his own superiors. Damned man has turned somebody up sweet at the War Office, though—who’d have thought he came from English stock? We would give a lot to know how a soldier born to every privilege withstood Girard’s treatment, St. Just. Quite a lot.”
A promotion then, and promotions would be hard to come by in peacetime. At the very least, Devlin would have the pick of the commands available—if he could get a decent report from Mercia.
The generals wanted to know how Mercia had been abused, in detail, what torments, in what order, and how he’d withstood them. What injuries had he suffered, how had those been dealt with, or had his wounds been departures for further abuse?
St. Just knocked back two fingers of fine French brandy—he’d sent his papa a case the previous week—and excused himself from the next round of cards.
And as wearying as the prospect of dealing with his family might be, they loved him. He had no doubt of that. The alternative—shipping out for a wilderness garrison amid the Canadian winters—had no appeal whatsoever, not even in peacetime.
So he’d be the next to torture Christian Severn, this time into reliving months of hell the duke was no doubt desperately trying to forget.
***
The countess with the spine of steel, who’d so casually allowed Christian a scrap of passing affection last night, was disobeying his orders.
