Page 21 of The Captive Duke
“Might I have a bite of your orange?” She didn’t meet his eyes, and Christian had the sense her question was some kind of test.
Women were the subject of many a campfire discussion among Wellington’s soldiers, and a point of rareagreement among men who drank, fought, swived, and killed daily: there was no understanding women. Not their minds, not their moods, not their passions or lack thereof. Christian was confident the French soldiers, the Dutch, the Russians, the Hessians, they all had the same discussions, and all came to the same conclusion.
“I am happy to share.” He held up a section, and she leaned over and took it between her teeth, as he had previously.
And she chewed tidily, sparing him a small, smug smile.
She was staying. That’s what her little demonstration was about. She wasn’t running off because of an awkward moment, wasn’t succumbing to matronly vapors, wasn’t flinching at the sound of distant cannon.
He offered her another section.
Five
THE LAST NIGHT BEFORECHRISTIAN ANDDEVLINST. Just had arrived in Paris, they’d camped beside yet another farm pond, and St. Just had bluntly asked Christian when he planned to bathe properly.
“My scent offends you?”
“You’re as tidy as a man can be when he bathes regularly in a bucket,” St. Just said. “But you face the generals tomorrow, and you’ll want to look your best for them.”
A great deal went unsaid around Devlin St. Just:You’ll want to look your sanest for them, for example.
“I was accosted at my bath,” Christian said, unrolling his blankets. “One moment I was in that frigid, clean water, scrubbing away, thinking dirt was the worst part of soldiering, the next I was surrounded by grinning Frenchmen, a half-dozen rifles aimed at my naked backside.”
St. Just rummaged in his saddlebags. “And that was the start of it. Thereafter you were probably denied the opportunity to be clean, or it was forced upon you. Shall I throw you into yonder pond?”
The offer was as sincere as it was insightful. St. Justwas an inch or two taller than Christian’s six feet and two inches; he was as fit as the devil and damned quick.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Fine, then.” St. Just pitched a bar of hard-milled French soap at Christian’s chest, but Christian’s right hand wasn’t up to the challenge of catching it. The soap smelled of roses and mint. “In you go. I’ll just clean my weapons here while you scrub up.”
St. Just offered one of his rare, charming smiles, this one with a bit of devilment in it. And then he extracted a knife case from the same saddlebag and opened it to reveal six gleaming throwing knifes. A brace of elegant pistols that looked to be Manton’s work followed, a short sword, and of course, his cavalry saber as well.
“Point taken.”
Christian would be well and thoroughly guarded while he bathed, and still, he dreaded the necessity to strip down before another human being.
“I can’t guard you if I don’t watch what you’re about,” St. Just said, unsheathing his saber. “Else I’d politely turn my back.”
“You aren’t guarding me. The only threats I see are a lot of bleating sheep and two brindle heifers. You’re playing with your toys.”
“Right. You could also wait until dark, but then the sea monsters might come out and gobble you up.”
“Fuck you, St. Just.”
“So many wish they could.” He heaved a theatrical sigh and went about polishing his sword as if Christianweren’t kneeling on his blankets, feeling like a complete buffoon. The legacy of his tenure among the French would accrue usurious interest—if he allowed it to. Christian pulled his shirt over his head, shucked out of his breeches, and took his damned bath.
And to be clean again, really truly clean, had been worth the humiliation.
Except St. Just hadn’t said a thing about the scars, the eccentricity of a titled officer being afraid to bathe, or the need for a grown man to be reassured of his own safety in the bucolic surrounds of the French countryside.
Christian’s heart had still been thundering against his ribs when he emerged from the pond and toweled off.
“Shall I trim your beard?”
“Are you trying to provoke me?”
“I’m trying to tidy you up. You look like a wild man from darkest Africa in your off moments.”
