Page 50 of The Captive
The trip to Town was providentially well timed, for conflicting emotions besieged Gilly.
She was developing tender feelings for the duke, and that would not do, because she was determined never again to be under a man’s thumb. Not by action of marriage, not by action of her foolish, lonely heart.
Maybe a little in love would be acceptable, except Mercia wasn’t a little-in-love sort of man. He was mad, dark passion, sweeping emotion, and complete loss of reason, with his gaunt male beauty, his wealth and power, and his haunted past. He also needed another bride, preferably a sweet young thing with pots of money, a fertile womb, and not a thought in her head save the pleasure of wearing a tiara.
What sensible widow crowding close on twenty-six years on earth wanted to watch a man she was even a little in love with pursued by that sort of competition?
But where else was she to go?
Mercia would be offended when—not if—she took herself off to dwell elsewhere, even if Lucy were managing better by then. His Grace honestly regarded Gilly as a relation deserving of his protection, and he was determined to provide it.
Maybe he needed to.
As Gilly prowled the sitting room that served as antechamber to Mr. Stoneleigh’s offices, her musings were interrupted by a tidy young man sporting a deal of Macassar oil.
“Mr. Stoneleigh will see you now, your ladyship.”
He ushered her into a baronial inner sanctum, one graced with thick Turkey rugs, a huge marble fireplace, and a massive dark desk, behind which, like a tall, dark-haired captain on his poop deck, stood Mr. Gervaise Stoneleigh.
“Countess.” He came around the desk and offered her a bow. “You are in good looks, my lady. My apologies for asking you to travel while your loss is so fresh.”
“Nonsense, Mr. Stoneleigh. Location does not lessen or enhance grief, particularly when I feel anything but bereaved.”
He looked peevish, or perhaps nonplussed at her honesty.
“Come now,” Gilly said, handing him her black jacket. “You told me I may speak freely with you, did you not?”
“I did.” He looked at the jacket as if he hadn’t a clue where it had come from, then deposited it on a hook on the back of the door. “Please have a seat, and assure me you’re going on well since last we met.”
His solicitude was offered in such punctilious tones Gilly wasn’t sure it was genuine, but then she caught him looking at her, dark eyes focused with peculiar intensity.
“I am in good health and enjoying the hospitality of the Duke of Mercia, a cousin by marriage through his late duchess. He’s asked me to assist him in putting his household to rights at the family seat, and to take an interest in my niece, which is hardly an imposition.”
“You’ve retrieved your belongings from Greendale?”
“I have, though you didn’t tell me what the urgency is.”
“I’m not sure there is any, but I’ve received word Easterbrook may take up residence there sooner than later. He’s mustering out.”
Thank goodness she’d retrieved her belongings, though she and Marcus had always rubbed along civilly. “Leaving the army? I thought he loved it.”
“Napoleon is at long last vanquished, and the options for those who want to remain in service are far flung, and not likely to offer as much action. Many of the officers are happy to return to home shores.”
“And the Army can hardly afford to keep them on when there’s no war to fight.” Though men did so love to commit slaughter in the name of patriotism, didn’t they?
Some men. She couldn’t see Mercia ever again setting foot on the field of battle, thank heavens.
Stoneleigh’s lips twitched, probably his version of a fit of hilarity.
“Let us sit, Mr. Stoneleigh, and let us be direct with each other. You may speak freely, and I assure you I will not quote you.”
He led her to a conversational grouping near the yawning fireplace—no fire for the man of law, not on a pleasant summer day.
“You truly are in good looks,” he said, his tone puzzled. “Was marriage to Greendale as bad as all that?”
Her marriage had been a hell beyond the worst imaginings of the seventeen-year-old innocent she’d been. She suspected even Stoneleigh would have found the circumstances daunting, and he was far from innocent.
“Marriage to Greendale was worse than I’d wish on the Corsican himself.”
