Page 46 of The Captive
“You brought it in without asking, Lucy, and it’s bad enough they lurk in the stables and granary, hang about the hay mows, and haunt the dairy. I’ll not have such as this bedamned, benighted, spawn of the devil under my roof, and you are not to bring another into the house.”
Lucy stamped her foot, crossed her arms over her chest, and glared right back at him, while Harris looked on in dumbstruck horror.
“Excuse me,” Gilly said, crossing into the room. “Lucy and Harris can see to returning this little fellow from whence he came.”
She lifted the kitten from the duke’s palm, passed it to a startled Harris, and spared Lucy a warning look. Lucy took Harris by the hand and towed her from the room.
“You’re excused,” the duke said, his expression still thunderous.
Gilly waited until the child and her governess were gone, closed the door, and considered a duke far more upset than the situation called for.
“You never sneaked a kitten into your rooms as a child, Your Grace?”
“I did not.” He was the picture of paternal pique, and over a kitten.Akitten?
“A puppy then? A frog? You didn’t put a butterfly in a jar or some minnows from the swimming hole in a watering can and hide them in your closet until you should have been abed, only to take them out and examine them by the light of a single pilfered candle?”
He ran a hand through his hair and turned his back on her.
“The child does not need your fits of temper, Mercia.”
“She damned well doesn’t need that flea-infested bag of mischief under her covers either.”
“Many people dislike cats.” Butkittens? Who could dislike a kitten?
“I loathe them.”
He turned to face her, his expression…ducally unreadable. “I suppose you expect me to apologize to Lucy?”
“For what?” She crossed her arms as Lucy had done. “You are lord and master here, and she did not have permission that I know of to bring the cat indoors even to play with.”
He stalked past her. “I have not the manners necessary to spar with you over this. I bid you good day.”
And then he was gone, temper and all, leaving Gilly to take up a rocking chair near the windows and watch as three stories below, Harris and Lucy made their way through the gardens to the stable. His Grace had been dressed for riding, which meant he’d probably cross paths with Lucy in a few minutes.
And he might apologize for the way he spoke, but not for ordering the cat out of the house. He’d been near panicked to find the kitten in the nursery, and God help Cook’s big, fat mousers if His Grace ever dropped in on the kitchens unannounced.
***
Christian was enough of a horseman not to take out his temper on Chessie, but he needed to gallop, to charge headlong over his fields and fences, not trot sedately within the limits of his imperfect stamina.
The cat…that blasted little orange ball of fluff dashing across his boots…
He rode for miles, knowing he’d pay for his exertions, only gradually able to notice the terrain he covered. Severn tenant farms, a corner of the home wood, the gently rolling hills leading to the Downs, bridle paths he’d learned as a boy, streams he’d first crossed on his pony behind his papa on the way to the local meets.
His, and if he wasn’t careful, Easterbrook would be administering the lot of it while the Duke of Mercia occupied a tidy suite of rooms at Bedlam.
His estate was in disarray, his daughter gone mute, his household likely in no better condition than the land but for the countess’s efforts to take it in hand, and the Duke of Mercia was completely undone by the unexpected sight of a stupid, fluffy little cat. How was he to pursue Girard, track the man down, and administer justice if the sight of akittennigh parted him from his reason?
His upset had cooled to mere irritation—at himself, his daughter, and still, at the bloody cat—by the time he walked across the back terrace, intent on ordering some decent sustenance.
He would be bone tired from overexerting himself, but for the present, he was pleased to be ravenous. He couldn’t recall being ravenous at any point in the past year, and he considered it something of an accomplishment.
“What the hell are these?”
He put the question to a passing footman, who scooted back two steps before answering.
“Her ladyship’s trunks, Your Grace, for her trip into Town tomorrow.”
