Page 111 of The Captive Duke
He was so cheerful about the whole business, so easy with it, while Gilly felt an inconvenient urge to weep. She withdrew her hand, grabbed a handkerchief from the night table, and tossed it onto his chest.
“You’ll have to do the honors, love. You’ve shot my horse right out from under me.”
“I’m to…use this?” She dangled the small white cloth before his nose.
“Somebody had better. I’m missing in action. Felled by sniper fire,non compos mentis…”
“Do shut up.” She dabbed at him. Then used one hand to hold his softening member and the other to scrub with the monogrammed linen. She finished up rubbing briskly at his belly and resumed her place curled against his side. His passion had a scent, musky, male, and not unpleasant, but…different.
“How much longer are you indisposed?”
“Weeks.”
His belly bounced with suppressed humor, and Gilly smiled despite the ache in her throat.
“I’d wait weeks for you, Countess.”
“Provided I occasionally shot your horse out from under you?”
“Two can play at that, you know. Not only lonely dukes are susceptible to pleasure.”
“Hush, now.” She kissed his nose and tucked herself beside him.
Christian was playful, but if anything ever happened to him, Gilly would not survive his loss. Thank God,Christian was resuming the bucolic life of an English duke; thank God he’d offered to resume it with her.
He was quiet for long minutes while his hand wandered around her neck and shoulders. Shot his horse, indeed. She closed her eyes, pleased with herself, and with him too.
“I don’t want Marcus babysitting me.”
Gilly’s displeasure was evident in her tone and in the way she planted her hands on her hips. The stable lads found somewhere else to be, but Christian wasn’t fooled. The lazy blighters were all within earshot, and they’d soon let him know what they thought of the man who riled their favorite little countess so early in the day.
“I told you I wouldn’t leave you unprotected when I had to go to Town,” he said, keeping his tone reasonable with effort.
“Send St. Just to tend me, or content yourself that I’m not in any danger. They were mishaps and accidents.”
“They were not.” He was sure of it. He did not know why he was sure of it, but he was. Soldier’s instinct, maybe, or the conviction of a man who’d had too much bad luck in recent years. “I don’t even know that I’ll be traveling to Town soon, I merely wanted to remind you of the possibility in case I need tend to anything for you while I’m there. Shall I call upon Mr. Stoneleigh?Check on your funds? Find you more shawls to embroider?”
“Do not patronize me, Christian.”
Her use of his name ought to have gratified him, but given her tone, it was…chilling, like the metal-on-metal sound of iron bars locking into position.
“I’m trying to communicate with you,” he said, advancing on her. Before she could flounce away, he laid an arm across her shoulders. “St. Just will be down from the house any minute. I promise I’ll argue with you the livelong day, but might we have a short cease-fire to see our guest off?”
Ourguest. She appeared to ponder taking issue with that then gave him a terse nod. “We can.”
“I do mean it. If it makes you feel better to fight with me, Gilly, I’ll be your sparring partner.” Because he knew well the gratuitous urge to hit something—anything—when the proper object of a vengeful impulse was beyond reach.
“Until you run off to London.”
She was doing her best to show the colors, but Christian heard the undercurrent of worry in her words, worry for him, but also worry about how she’d fare in his absence.
“I’m not running off to London. I’m tending to business, the same as you did earlier this summer. You can send me long, nasty letters criticizing every aspect of my personality while I’m gone. You can draw Lucy aside and explain to her the failings of the commonman, and the worse failings of her own papa. You can convert Chessie to your cause, because you’ve already turned my entire staff against me.”
“They love you,” she said, drawing away to look at him.
“They love you more, Gilly dear.” As he loved her more each day. “You looked after Lucy when I could not, and if the staff at Greendale knew something of the state of your marriage, they very likely gossiped with our staff as well.”
She paused in their progress down the barn aisle. “They should have a disgust of me.”
