Page 125 of The Captive Duke
Christian, looking composed, tidy, and very much alive, shot his opponent a pointed look. The dark brute who must be Girard saluted with his foil and passed it to a blond fellow hovering near St. Just.
“Countess, good morning.” For a man about to fight for his life, His Grace sounded perishingly steady.
“This is not a good morning,” she said, advancing on him. “What can you be thinking?” She shot a venomouslook at Girard. “And you, you do not deserve to die. You deserve to live with the agony of what you tried to do and the fact that you failed utterly to do it.”
“Did I fail?”
Gilly had not one instant to spare for such a creature, or for his Gallic irony. “You cannot kill him like this, Your Grace.”
“Do you mean I am not capable of it, or I should not?”
This distinction mattered to him, Gilly could see that, and she forced herself to pause and choose her words.
“Of course you would dispatch him handily,” she said, her hands fisted on her hips. “But you cannot do murder. You are not some violent beast, a thing without a conscience to kill on a whim or for your own passing pleasure.”
Greendale could have behaved thus, but not her Christian.
Christian shot a look at the Frenchman, who was rolling down his cuffs, not a care in the world.
“I cannot countenance a world with Girard in it, Countess, much less him strolling the English countryside like some squire with his hounds.”
“He will die,” Gilly said. “But not by your hand. You must not. You tried to explain this to me.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Christian was very still, very quiet, and very unhappy with her.
Her heart, already racing, thumped against her ribs.
“You tried to show me,” she said. “You tried to convey to me, that after years of fighting against a bitter enemy, you can lose yourself in the belief that it’s enough merely tobehis enemy, even when the hostilities are over. But if you sustain yourself on that bitterness, your foe wins twice, for you are as much his slave as if you were still chained in his dungeon.”
Christian was listening, so Gilly pushed the next words out. “I am no longer Greendale’s drudge, no longer his marital whipping post. You tried to tell me the wars are over. I could not hear you, but you must listen to me now.”
Girard heaved a sigh when Gilly wished an apoplexy would befall him, and still Christian stared at her, as if trying to decipher words in a foreign language.
“Listen to the lady,mon duc,” Girard said in a voice as aggravatingly reasonable as it was damnably attractive. “I am not the one you need to kill, for the warisover, and I am among those who lost. We fight with swords so I might have the time to explain this as you drew my blood, and I perhaps drew a bit of yours.”
Girard’s voice was the essence of civility, the French accent soft, the tension in the words razor sharp. “Ask yourself, Your Grace, how Anduvoir knew exactly when and where to capture you. Who knew what you were about, who had something—a great deal—to gain by your death?”
“Listen to him, Christian,” Gilly said. “Marcus put the French up to capturing you. I suspect Marcus letGirard know you were spoiling for a chance to kill him.”
“Marcus is my heir,” Christian spat. “You’re both spouting nonsense.”
“Not nonsense,” Girard said. “Your cousin dealt not with me, but with Anduvoir. I commanded a garrison. I did not take captives. They were brought to me by my superiors, you among them. Your circumstances were not…” He scowled, as if the English words had evaporated with the low-lying mist. “They were not right. You were betrayed, and to allow you to leave captivity in wartime would have been to sign your death warrant. I agreed to meet you today, yes, but to warn you, not kill you.”
The Frenchman was trying to mitigate his role in Christian’s torment, though he was also, perhaps, telling the truth.
In her peripheral vision, Gilly saw Stoneleigh edge into the clearing. He led Chessie, who’d been pressed into service in the traces of a sleek, well-sprung curricle. A tense silence spread, broken only when Chessie shook his head, making his bit jingle.
Christian’s gaze shifted to take in his horse.
“Think, Your Grace,” Girard said patiently, wearily. “I was your enemy, and for that you may kill me, of course, but I am not your enemy now, and I did not kill you on the many occasions when the opportunity presented itself.”
Gilly hated Girard, but Christian was listening tohim—evento him—and the swords were safely back in the hands of the seconds.
“He had my horse,” Christian said softly. “Marcus had my personal mount.The last thing I recall of the day I was taken captive is Chessie being led off, a French private on his back. I wished to God I’d at least freed my horse before I was captured. And then Marcus had my horse, my personal mount…”
A muscle in his jaw ticked twice.
“Bloody goddamned right I had your horse.” Marcus pushed through the bushes on the far side of the clearing. “I nearly had your wife too, but she was too fond of her tiara. She didn’t appreciate that I’d had you taken captive, and her unfortunate accident with the laudanum was easy to orchestrate after that. Providence took care of the boy—never let it be said I preyed on a child.”
