Page 20 of The Captive Duke
He’d snarled a question at her.
“I’m leaving, of course, in a moment. Your tray is on its way, though, and when you’ve broken your fast, I’ll await you in the library.”
Though she’d seen many of his scars—by no means all—the countess hadn’t left Christian’s household, and this pleased him more than it should. Of course, she might depart still, probably would, in fact, but she hadn’t run off, a silly note in her wake referencing pressing business or whatever polite fiction women resorted to when terrified out of their wits.
By a scarred, emaciated duke wielding a knife, may God have mercy upon him.
Christian dressed in waistcoat and shirtsleeves—hang the bloody cravat—and stepped into a worn pair of Hessians that had once been nearly painted onto him but fit him loosely now. As he brushed his hair back into its queue—barbering required proximity to scissors too—a footman appeared with a breakfast tray.
The scent of bacon in close quarters, of any cooked meat, nearly drove Christian to retching. “You will please take that down to the library.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
He didn’t recognize the man, didn’t recognize half his staff, and it had been only two years since his last leave had sent him pelting through London on a lightning spree of self-indulgence.
Helene had disdained to come up to Town for more than a week of it, and he’d applauded her stubbornness, if anybody had cared to ask. What an idiot he’d been, and what a silly twit he’d married.
And yet, he’d give anything to be that idiot again, and for the silly twit to be at his side now, sniffing and judging and trying to tell him what to do.
He paused outside the library and rolled his shoulders as if he were loosening up for a cavalry charge. The countess, being widowed, no doubt had a dower house, but she’d struck him as a woman who’d rather be around family than moldering away on her late husband’s estate.
He opened the door, rehearsed contrition at the ready.
“I do apologize for intruding on your slumber, Your Grace.” The countess was in good looks this morning, dressed in a black gown that showed her figure to great advantage. Three years ago, he would have stolen a kiss to her cheek.
Idiotdid not begin to cover the matter.
“You need not apologize in the slightest, my lady, nor do I sense that you are genuinely sorry.” His breakfast tray waited on the low table before the countess, so he took a place more or less beside her. “Your intent was to rouse me, else you would not have gone through two locked doors to achieve that end.”
“Your orange?” She handed him a plate of fruit, the orange peeled and divided into sections for him. “I’ve told the kitchen they’d best be seeing to the preparation of the foods you enjoy regularly. They’re happy to do it, you know, even to peeling your oranges. I did this one myself. Tea?”
“Without the tea.”
Cautiously, he took a bite of orange. The scent of it was appealing, particularly when blended with the countess’s soap-and-flowers fragrance.
“I’ve basted up your clothes from yesterday’s fitting. If you can spare the time, we’d best see how they do. Scone?”
“Please.”
“Meems is moping,” she went on. “He wants you to sport about Town for a bit so the household might have bragging rights on the lost duke.”
“Lady Greendale—”
She wrinkled her nose, as if a foul scent had wafted in through the open window, which was silly when the window looked out on the gardens where honeysuckle bloomed in riot. “You can’t blame them, really, but I told Meems you were needed at Severn, which you are. Butter?”
“Countess.”
She wound down, as he’d hoped she would, and sat with the scone on the plate in her lap, the butter knife balanced beside it.
“I apologize for what you saw yesterday.”
Before he’d fallen asleep eighteen hours earlier—and before he’d nearly held the lady at knifepoint—he’d come at the problem a dozen different ways in his head. To apologize or express regrets? To apologize deeply, profoundly, sincerely? To be heartily sorry, most sorry, most heartily sorry… Endless words, and none of them sounded quite the note he wanted.
He was not sorry to be alive—only living men could achieve revenge—but he was sorry his misadventures had visited themselves on her in even a minor, indirect, visual way.
“I was married for some years, Your Grace, and to a man who thought a wife’s first responsibility was to valet her husband on all but formal occasions. I would not have taken your shirt from you had I not been prepared to see youen déshabille. Any apologies are due you from me, and you have them.”
He considered forcing the point, but she was passing him his scone, the butter having been liberally applied.
