Page 35 of The Captive Duke
“A burn, I think,” he said, studying her hand. “A nasty burn, but old. Well healed.”
His touch was a delicate, sweet caress to Gilly’s nerves, like the summer breeze and the dappled sun. “Spilled tea. It happens.”
He patted her knuckles and let her have her hand back.
“We do heal, hmm?” He did not smile, but Gilly had the sense they’d shared something, a wink, a joke, a secret, about scars and the stories they concealed.
Not a harmless secret, for some.
“You should tell Lucy you will never send her away. Harris no doubt threatens with every imaginable dire fate to try to inspire the girl to speak. I forbade the use of violence in your schoolroom, though.”
Her presumptuousness caught His Grace’s curiosity. “An occasional birching befalls most English schoolchildren, and usually to good effect.”
“According to whom? The tutors who’ve beaten the children to silence? The pious hypocrites who misquote Proverbs?”
She should not have broached this topic, not with him, not when he had so recently noted the scar on her hand. An outburst threatened, worse than any of her previous lapses.
“A stubborn child who is never disciplined cannot learn to govern himself,” Mercia said, as if reciting some platitude he’d heard before his own backside had been caned.
“Helene was stubborn. Did you take a switch to her in hopes of eradicating the failing in your duchess?”
They were arguing. The last thing Gilly wanted was to annoy His Grace, and yet on this topic, she could barely be rational.
“I would never raise my hand to a woman.”
“But you would raise that same hand to a small child, and expect brute force to teach her self-possession and restraint. I can assure you, resorting to violence for the betterment of those helpless to defend themselves is anything but an example of restraint.”
She stared at the empty plate, her hands fisted in her lap lest she hurl the hapless porcelain against the nearest hard surface.
His Grace’s handsome head, for example.
“No birchings for my daughter, then, and no more threats, either. Not from anybody.” When Gilly dared a glance at him, his Grace’s expression suggested talk of Gilly’s eventual departure qualified as a threat. “I commend the lemon cakes to your excellent care, Countess.”
He rose, bowed over her hand, then departed, his back militarily straight.
Leaving Gilly to wonder if His Grace’s hospitality was a great and subtle kindness, or if—the notion chilled—he’d threatened her with a gilded cage.
Another gilded cage.
Christian wasn’t precisely glad to be alive. Surviving torture turned a man into a ghost toting a bag of memories that could not be shared, and inhabiting a body no longer reliable or easily maintained. That body, after torture, did not sleep well, did not exert itself unproblematically, did not ingest food easily, and certainly could not be relied upon to deal with amatory pastimes—not that Christian would be indulging in any of those.
Not soon. Not immediately.
But the hour he’d spent with his daughter made it plain the child, at least, was delighted her papa had survived, and this changed the complexion of Christian’s existence.
For himself, he could be content to languish inbitterness, to wake up each day after a bad night’s sleep—the countess would not permit a continued reversal of circadian routines—aching in body and soul, dreams of revenge his constant companion.
For his child, he would have to manage something…more, until Girard could be found and exterminated.
Lucy wanted her papa to take her up on Chessie, an exercise requiring the ability to guide the horse with his seat and one hand while he steadied the child with the other.
She wanted to hold her papa’s hand—either one would do—and to ride about on his back.
She expected his appearance in the nursery on some predictable schedule.
If anything had assisted Christian to remain upright and breathing, despite Girard’s mischief, it was the physical fitness of a seasoned cavalry officer determined to lead his men well. That part of military life—the physical challenge of it—Christian had foolishly thrived on.
The time had come to foolishly thrive again, insofar as a tired and tormented body would allow it.
