Page 104 of The Captive Duke
“My lady.” Christian rose to hold her customary chair at his left. “Good morning. I’m off to pay a call, and St. Just has agreed to bear you company for the day.”
She visually assessed the colonel, not with anywarmth. “Don’t feel you must stay with me. I can make do with George and John.”
Oh, delightful. They would start the day quarreling. Though her pugnacity was, in its way, reassuring—probably to them both.
“Would you like your usual fare, Countess?” Christian stood by the sideboard, an empty plate in his hand.
“Please, and I’d like to know where you’re off to if Colonel St. Just must be left with my care.”
“To Greendale. Marcus has been in residence for several weeks, we’ve traded the requisite correspondence, it’s time to pay a call, and St. Just’s presence means you need not come with me—unless you’d like to? We can have the coach brought around for you.”
He kept his tone casual and busied himself preparing her plate, but he wanted her to choose his company over another day at Severn, particularly a day in St. Just’s handsome and charming company.
Which was exactly how a man felt when he was badly, sorely, and completely smitten. Gilly would no more want to spend time at Greendale than Christian would enjoy a return visit to the Château.
“I’ll bide here,” she said, tucking her serviette on her lap. “Lucy will pine if we both leave, and Greendale has no positive associations for me. Colonel, what shall we find to do with ourselves?”
She ignored Christian as politely as company would allow, and he let her. Maybe she was peeved because hewas leaving for the day, but the call really should not be put off when St. Just’s presence made leaving the property easier.
Maybe Gilly was cranky from a restless night or from being taken from her own bed when she had halfway asked to have a night to herself. Maybe she resented having to entertain company.
And maybe she would simply take her sweet time coming to terms with the fact that everybody needs an orange peeled for them, from time to time.
Gilly dabbed her toast with jam—the table boasted no butter—and ignored two large, worried men who likely did not know what to do with a grenade of female emotions lobbed into their midst, her fuse lit and burning down.
Tossing and turning in Christian’s arms—always in his arms—Gilly had come to the mortifying conclusion that Christian had been right: marriage to Greendale had left her ashamed of herself. Exactly as Christian had said—had accused—she blamed herself for her marriage and for not finding a way out of it.
Greendale had been depraved but not brilliant. Gilly could have absconded with the silver from her trousseau, taken a coach for Scotland, and made some sort of living with her needle.
She might have fought back, revealed her scars toPolite Society, arranged a visit to Helene but instead taken ship for South America. By the hour, she had listed the plans and schemes she might have, should have, anddid notattempt.
She also blamed herself for revealing the whole business to Christian, who had put all the violence he’d suffered behind him and focused on building a life around the daughter he loved and his ducal responsibilities.
And Gilly blamed herself for being rude over breakfast to the man she loved, though as awkward as things had grown between them, she didn’t like the idea of him traveling to Greendale without her.
She couldn’t say why the idea rankled, but it did.
And thus, she was on the drive after breakfast, ready to bid Christian farewell on more cordial terms than she’d shown him earlier.
“Good of you to see me off.” Christian settled on the lady’s mounting block next to where Gilly stood. “You were less than charming over breakfast, except to St. Just.”
“I am yet tired,” she said, though those words weren’t what she wanted to convey to him.
He stood and took the step necessary to close the distance between them.
“It won’t work.” He put a hand on each of her shoulders and brought her against him. “Paw and snort all you like, Gilly. Dodge, duck, and dawdle, but your temper won’t chase me off. I’m tending to a duty, but I’m also giving you some peace and quiet.”
She put her arms around his waist and let herself have the comfort of his embrace for a moment. “Don’t let Easterbrook make you smoke any of his smelly cigars.”
And that had nothing to do with anything either.
“Gilly, the only sleep you found was when I held you. I want to always be there to hold you.”
She held on to him, trying to believe what he was telling her. Christian’s mistreatment by the French made him only more dear to her. Her mind trusted that Greendale’s abuse did not sully her in Christian’s eyes, did not make her less worthy of Christian’s regard.
Her heart was more wary.
“I didn’t want you to know.” An orphan’s cry for her mama might have been more forlorn, barely. “I didn’t want you to know I’d let somebody treat me like that. A shame is less wounding if it’s private.”
