Page 18 of The Captive Duke
“I appreciate that my clothing should fit, but must you—?”
“Done,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “We’ll do the other side now. Helene objected to the attention you showed your daughter?” And what topic should she throw at him next, because an abundance of fabric needed to be taken in?
“Not objected, exactly. But she informed me my interest in the child was unseemly. A daughter’s upbringing was her mother’s province, and I was not to make a nuisance of myself. By that time Helene was carrying again, and I humored her.”
“Most of us humored Helene,” Gilly said around a half-dozen pins, though she’d loved her cousin, even if Gilly had been thrust at Lord Greendale while Helene had become a duchess.
“Will this take much longer?”
“Not if you hold still. I told Meems you’d be removing to Severn. He said he hasn’t heard from the house steward there for several months. Mrs. Magnus suspects foul play.”
She started up the second outside seam, pondering Helene’s version of Lucy’s upbringing. Helene had claimed Mercia had lost interest in Lucy, not that he’d been shooed from the nursery. Somehow, Gilly could not see anyone, not even Helene, shooing this man anywhere.
But then, she couldn’t see him in a nursery either, much less dandling a baby on his bony knees.
To take in the second side of his waistband, she roseand gathered the material as she had the first side, her fingers inside the waistband, next to his shirt.
Up close, he was still solid, for all the weight he’d lost. He stood motionless, not even breathing, and she soon had his breeches done, sporting pins all along his outside seams.
“Now you change breeches,” she said, stepping back. “You remove these carefully so as not to disturb the pins. We cut the seams open, sew them up as they’ve been pinned, and they’ll fit more closely. Leave your shirttails out all around when you come back.”
He stalked off to his dressing room—where was his valet, and why couldn’t that worthy tend to this little exercise in sartorial expedience?
The shirt was more complicated, because taking it in required Gilly to stand directly next to His Grace as she pinned and tucked. She positioned him with his side to the hearth, his hand extended so his fingers rested on the mantel.
Across his shoulders, the garment fit well enough. On the side where Gilly worked, the duke obligingly kept his hand outstretched. On the other side, he was back to opening and closing his fist in a slow, unhappy rhythm.
“Other side,” Gilly said, feeling a pressing need to conclude their business. She might have done so without incident, except she’d left the wrist cuffs for last.
“Shall we sit?” she suggested when he was sporting pins up both side and arm seams. “We’re almost done.”
“You’re faster than the tailors.”
“I’m not as exact, and I have no need to impress you with the care I take,” she said, finding a seat on the sofa. “Give me your hand.” He sat and offered the right one first. She put his knuckles against her thigh and gathered the fabric around his wrist. “One doesn’t want to have to move the openings for the sleeve buttons…” She took a pin from her cushion and marked how much to take in. “Other one.”
He hesitated, then extended his left hand. She took that one too, put it in her lap, then drew in a breath.
This single, prosaic appendage was some sort of key to the rest of the man. The palm was broad, the nails clean and blunt. As male hands went, this one should have been elegant, and the first three fingers were. The fourth finger was scarred, however, as if burned, the nail quite short. The smallest finger was missing the very tip. Not enough was gone to disfigure the nail, but enough to suggest a painful mishap. The joints of the last two fingers weren’t quite right either, as if they belonged on the hand of an arthritic coachman.
Gilly tugged at the fabric, intent on completing her task. She’d come across her share of disfigurements, as the lady of any manor might. Stableboys’ toes got mashed, scullery maids suffered the occasional burn, smallpox survivors abounded, and children with less than perfect features were born to the tenants.
But Mercia wasn’t a stableboy, scullery maid, or yeoman’s eleventh child. On him, such an injury was blasphemous. Gilly hadn’t wept since long before herhusband’s death, and the ache in her throat and pressure behind her eyes took a moment to decipher.
“It isn’t pretty,” the duke said. “I should have warned you.”
“You’re probably lucky to still have these fingers,” she replied, but inside, inside she was collapsing with outrage on his behalf. He wouldn’t want pity though, no fawning, no tears.
Certainly, no tears. Tears were never a good idea. Gilly’s husband had wasted no time instructing her on the matter of useless tears.
“I can no longer write comfortably with it,” he said, as if his hand were a quill pen in want of attention from a good, sharp knife. “With a glove on, it suffices for appearances’ sake.”
“It pains you, then?” Of course it hurt. Any visible scar hurt, if for no other reason than it reminded one of how the scar arose, and memories could be more painful than simple bodily aches.
“I rarely feel much with it, though I can predict approaching storms. Are you quite through?”
“Almost.” She put in one last, completely unnecessary pin, and let him withdraw his hand before she could weep over it.
She didn’t even know Mercia and might not like him if she did know him, but to have endured such suffering made her hurt for him. Men did stupid things without limit—duels, wagers, horse races, dares, bets—and war had to be the stupidest.
