Page 55 of The Captive
Another inch of hem and Gilly had the handkerchief done, the wheel was on, and the horses were trotting sedately on to the village.
“I tell you,” Perkins was saying up on the box, “it ain’t natural. A normal woman woulda had the vapors and been a-shriekin’ and a-carrying on.”
“Normal woman?” John Coachman paused to speak soothingly to his leaders. “There’s women been following the drum all over Spain for years, women raising children in Seven Dials. Courage don’t limit itself to men.”
“Not this man.” Perkins heaved a mighty, mighty sigh. “I seen that wheel come loose, I about shit myself.”
“I about pissed myself,” Dunston said from the roof behind them. A pause suggested medicinal spirits produced from the well-stocked boot were making the rounds.
“And if I’d had a free hand,” John said quietly, “I would have crossed myself, like my old Irish granny did.”
“While ’er ladyship does her tatting,” Perkins said. “It ain’t right. I tell ye, it just ain’t right.”
Because the coach was moving slowly, and Gilly had the slot open to the box, she heard their conversation. She’d heard its like before—the help muttering that her ladyship lacked the delicacy her position demanded—particularly early in her marriage.
What her ladyship had lacked was proper discernment about choosing a husband.
When the men fell silent, she took out the book of poetry, embroidery in a moving coach being more than even she undertook with any success.
***
Christian stood naked from the waist up before a small mirror propped on a windowsill in his sitting room. A bowl of steaming water sat at his elbow, his shaving kit laid out in gleaming order beside it. Bright afternoon sunshine was intended to make his task easier, though it didn’t. Nothing could make his task easier.
The staff had orders to leave him in peace until teatime. He was not home to callers.
He’d trimmed the damned beard close to his face without cutting himself, save the once, a nick bleeding sluggishly down his neck into the hair sprinkled over his chest.
He’d been shaving for nearly half his life, and scraping the razor along his throat should be no great matter. The blade was sharpened to a fine edge, a sharp blade being safer than a dull one.
But which hand to use? The damaged left, the awkward right? And what did it matter, for they both shook.
How long he stood, razor in his hand, blood oozing gently down his scarred chest, he did not know. When he thought of bringing the sharp edge to his skin, his guts knotted up, his ears roared, and his vision dimmed at the edges.
His heart pounded so hard, it must surely be trying to escape his chest.
And even as he knew his reactions, while not rational, were to be expected, another part of him was inexorably parting ways with his reason. The longer he stood, shifting the razor from hand to hand, a bearded stranger staring back at him with wild blue eyes, the harder it was to breathe slowly, to think.
Why was he doing this?
Where was Girard?
Would Christian welcome the burning kiss of the razor if his hand slipped? Welcome it like a long-lost friend?
“Your Grace.”
The countess quietly closed the door behind her, but Christian was so far gone in his memories and fears, he merely watched her. He knew who she was; he didn’t want her to see him like this—again—but he could not form the words to chase her away.
“You were lost in thought,” she said, crossing the room sedately. “You did not hear me knock.” Still she didn’t look at the brutality mapped on his chest, arms, and torso, didn’t look anywhere but into his eyes. “I should have knocked louder, I’m sure.”
She stood before him, a little green bottle in one hand, and reached up a finger to his collarbone.
“You’re bleeding, you wretched man. Why…?” But as she dropped her gaze, she took in the accoutrements of his task.
“You were seeing to your toilette,” she said, relief in her eyes. “You’ll let me help you.”
Her voice pushed back the worst of the shadows in his mind. He passed her the razor, relieved when she took it from his hand.
“Shall you sit, Mercia? You are too tall for me to attend you properly when you stand.” She brought a dressing stool over to the window and stood back, arms crossed as if his height were a minor transgression for which sitting was the prescribed penance.
