Page 24 of The Captive Duke
Her touch sparked none of the bristling and roiling in his gut he might have expected, particularly when she’d been making free with his person for some minutes.
“I’ll soon be late,” he countered. “My thanks for your assistance.”
“You’ll be all right?” She went quiet, didn’t follow the question up with more of her patter or fussing.
He would never be all right, had stopped even wishing for it, for then his Christian duty to forgive his enemies might gain a toehold in his conscience. “I beg your pardon?”
“Today, putting up with the nonsense of it all. George means well, you know. I think he’s really quite a lonely man.”
George…the Regent, the sovereign, the de facto King. And the countess thought the man lonely.
And was very likely right. “I will manage.”
“Yes, you shall.” She linked her arm through his, another casual touch that ought to have startled, but didn’t…quite. “If you find yourself in difficulties, wanting to smash something, say, or scream profanities and take up arms, you put in your mind a picture of what you can look forward to, and you add details to it, one by one, until the picture is very accurate and the urge to do something untoward has passed.”
He liked that she’d walk arm in arm with him, liked that she’d lecture him about how to endure…torture. “You do this when the morning calls become too boring?”
She looked down, as if puzzling something out.
“When I am vexed beyond all tolerance, but can do nothing to aid myself, when I want to descend to the primitive level of those who lash out in violence at blameless victims, then I do this in my mind. I think of Lucille, or my mother’s flower gardens, or a nice rich, hot cup of chocolate on a cold and blustery morning when we might see the first snowflakes of the season.”
St. Just had told him to endure by concentrating on his hatreds, but such guidance hadn’t been particularly useful when the length of the list alone left a man helpless and overwhelmed.
Lady Greendale told him to endure by focusing on something he looked forward to.
Whatever that might be.
She walked him right out through the back gardens, to the mews, to the very mounting block where Chessie stood, one hip cocked, swishing a luxurious russet tail at nothing in particular.
“Safe journey, Mercia, and of course, my regards to dear George.” Lady Greendale went all the way up on her toes and kissed not his cheek—his cheeks being covered with neatly trimmed beard—but his unsuspecting mouth. Perhaps because he’d had no warning, he felt that kiss. Felt the soft brush of her mouth against lips no longer chapped, the weight of her balancing against his chest, the momentary press of her breast against his arm.
She lingered near for a moment, long enough to whisper, “Courage, Your Grace.”
Then she stepped back so he could mount his steed and tilt at the day’s windmill.
He rode the distance to Carlton House by sticking mainly to the quiet paths through the parks, and when he arrived, he’d found one thing, and one thing only, to look forward to—another kiss from the countess, soft, sweet, freely given, and wholly unexpected.
Mercia’s eyes had been a trifle wild as the groom had tightened Chessie’s girth, and Gilly had wanted to tell His Grace to stay home. This call on the Regent was a courtesy extended by the Crown toward a loyal—also wealthy and impressively titled—soldier. The soldier should have been free to decline the honor.
But men did not operate according to the principles of any logic Gilly could fathom, and so she did as women had long done—she waited. She finished the last of the polite replies to invitations, she consulted with Mrs. Magnus on which staff to send down to Severn and which to leave in Town, she embroidered the hem of one of her black handkerchiefs, using a pearly gray thread she liked for the way it caught more light than any true gray ought.
She started embroidering a cream silk handkerchief with the Severn crest done in royal blue, and still the duke didn’t come home.
When it came time for late tea, and the afternoonhad passed into early evening, Gilly rounded up the two largest footmen the household boasted and prepared to make a charge on Carlton House.
She conjured up any number of explanations. Mercia had run into old chums from the army; he’d been invited to join the Regent for tea; his horse had turned up lame… But what if he’d taken a misstep, perhaps pulled a knife on a footman, lost his patience with the Regent himself, or lost his way? What if he’d flown into a rage because he couldn’t manage his gloves or a cat had nipped at his finger?
Losing one’s way was easy enough to do.
When Christian had gone for a soldier, the cavalry had been the natural choice because he’d long had an appreciation for the horse. He’d been riding since before he could walk, if being taken up before his papa counted, and so he’d hidden in the Carlton House mews after enduring a half hour of George’s good wishes and shrewd regard.
Prinny had prosed on about his uniform from the 10th Hussars, an outfit he’d designed himself, and Christian hadn’t known whether to laugh or weep at the notion of military dress reduced to a flight of fashion.
When that interminable half hour had passed, the grooms had let Christian sit on a tack trunk and pass an hour in idleness, watching the comings and goingscommon to a busy stable. One hour became two, then afternoon became evening, and one old groom remarked to another that a man shouldn’t be made to wait so long for his ladybird, no matter how pretty her ankles.
Time to leave then.
Christian signaled he was ready for his horse, and walked out into the soft light of a summer evening.
