Page 42 of The Captive Duke
“You let me.”
That smile again, sweet, a little sad, a little self-mocking. He got up—the hearthstones were damnedhard under his backside—and went to his desk, opening the bottom drawer.
“I have something of yours,” he said, crossing back to the hearth. He resumed his place beside her, there on the hard, warm bricks, and unfolded her black silk shawl, letting the slippery pleasure of it run through his fingers, warm now, not cool.
“Here.” He looped it over her shoulders and used it to draw her close, holding the gathered hem with its delicate, extravagant embroidery in one hand, and bringing his free arm across her shoulders.
Such slender bones she had, and so sturdy.
“You’re cold. Despite the fire, your bare feet have made you cold.”
Or maybe she was merely lonely, but beside him, right beside him, the tension gradually seeped out of her.
Like the sands in an hourglass sinking from one chamber to the other, Christian felt loneliness trickling from her into him. Or maybe what filled him was his awareness of being set apart by his experiences, the way a widow is set apart by her grief. The distance was always there, but with activity, chronic fatigue, and determination, he could ignore it.
She burrowed closer, and it relieved something in him, that she wasn’t put off by that distance he carried inside him. His simple, animal warmth could draw her closer.
“Tell me you’ll stay.” The words were out, unbidden.He was foolish for having to speak them aloud, and desperate for her answer. “Countess…” He closed his eyes, but this was no help, because it made him more aware of her warm, rosy female scent. “Gillian.” He leaned closer, thinking to say more, right into her ear, but his lips grazed her temple.
“Say you’ll stay with us.” He whispered the words, hoping his voice reached her over the soft roar of the fire.
He gave in to the impulse welling up over the loneliness, and kissed her temple, then her cheek, letting his lips linger, then drawing away.
Those kisses had not been erotic, but neither had they been exactly cousinly—not to him. She should slap him, she should bolt, she should politely tell him she would depart at week’s end…
She slipped an arm around his waist. “For now. I’ll stay for now.”
They stayed huddled like that—cuddled—until the clock chimed midnight, when the countess lifted her head and gave a yawn.
“We must to our beds, Your Grace. My riding habit is finished, and tomorrow I’d like to ride out with you and Lucy.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” Though in a small corner of his soul, the part that felt ambushed by this impulse to put his mouth on her, he also dreaded their next encounter.
She soothed, beguiled, and healed some aspect of him, brought him down off the high, cold misery of the French mountainside, and yet…revenge would becloser if he stayed on those ramparts, alone save for rage, scars, and memories.
He escorted her up to her bed, and she allowed it, another small satisfaction he’d castigate himself for in the morning—maybe. At her door, he tarried, wanting to say something, to hear something from his voluble countess.
“Sleep well,” he said, leaning down to touch his lips again to her forehead. She was standing, he didn’t have to twist his neck, and it was the easiest thing in the world to touch those lips again to her cheek as well.
“And you,” she said, lifting a hand to brush back the hair that had come loose from his queue. “Try to rest.”
He both wanted and dreaded her kiss, but she only ran her hand over his hair again, turned, and disappeared into her bedroom.
Leaving him alone in the cold, dark corridor, relieved, bewildered, and telling himself all that mattered was that she’d said she’d stay. Even if he spent time in London, off on the other estates, or tracking down and killing Robert Girard, she’d stay.
“With all due respect, General, you should investigate why nobody searched any harder for Mercia when he went missing.”
Devlin St. Just kept his tone casual, but no fewer than three generals had invited him—a mere colonel—into this late-night hand of cards. The purpose as revealedafter adequate portions of brandy was to harass him into extracting a report from the Lost Duke.
Who was found, and probably still lost. God knew, Devlin often was.
“We’re happy to nose around a bit,” General Baldridge said, newly up from the South. “But it’s a delicate business when a duke goes and gets himself captured out of uniform and there’s a war on. How much effort is enough?”
General Tipton, arrow straight, sober as a Methodist preacher, eyebrows like a tangled gray hedge, took up the reins of the conversation.
“All we’re suggesting, St. Just, is that you look in on the man. Reminisce over a few brandies. He seemed to take to you.”
“And your dear papa wouldn’t mind if you were given some leave, eh?” General Porter added.
