Page 45 of The Captive Duke
“You are told and shown and shown again that you do not matter, and you never mattered. Not to your captors, which is only fair, but not to the mates you fought beside, not to your King, not to your own family. They tell you that until it makes sense, and you cast aside whatever you believed that doesn’t fit with that truth. But, Countess, I promise you, your grave will be tended when God calls you home, and you will be mourned.”
He had not comforted her with those words, for she shuddered against him, her tears the more profound for being so quiet.
He didn’t know what else to do but to hold her, stroke her hair, and wonder at this capacity for sorrow. Her grief felt as if she cried not for Helene and Evan, not even for herself, but for him.
“I’m s-sorry,” she said, sighing like an overwrought child against his chest. “I’m so sorry.”
He did not ask her for what or whom she was sorry, and neither did he let her go.
Nine
GILLY STOOD IN THE DOOR TO THE NURSERY SUITE, arrested by the scene before her.
“This…this vermin is not to be brought into my house, is that clear?”
The duke spoke softly, with a lethal edge, while an orange kitten mewled piteously from its place in his gloved hand. He wasn’t squashing the thing, but his tone of voice alone would terrify it.
“Very clear, Your Grace.” Harris bobbed a curtsy. “Very clear.”
But Lucy stretched up a hand toward the kitten, wiggling her fingers in a silent plea for the little cat. The duke held the beast higher, the epitome of the schoolyard bully as he glared down at his daughter.
“You brought it in without asking, Lucy, and it’s bad enough they lurk in the stables and granary, hang about the hay mows, and haunt the dairy. I’ll not have such as this bedamned, benighted, spawn of the devil under my roof, and you are not to bring another into the house.”
Lucy stamped her foot, crossed her arms over herchest, and glared right back at him, while Harris looked on in dumbstruck horror.
“Excuse me,” Gilly said, crossing into the room. “Lucy and Harris can see to returning this little fellow from whence he came.”
She lifted the kitten from the duke’s palm, passed it to a startled Harris, and spared Lucy a warning look. Lucy took Harris by the hand and towed her from the room.
“You’re excused,” the duke said, his expression still thunderous.
Gilly waited until the child and her governess were gone, closed the door, and considered a duke far more upset than the situation called for.
“You never sneaked a kitten into your rooms as a child, Your Grace?”
“I did not.” He was the picture of paternal pique, and over a kitten.A kitten?
“A puppy then? A frog? You didn’t put a butterfly in a jar or some minnows from the swimming hole in a watering can and hide them in your closet until you should have been abed, only to take them out and examine them by the light of a single pilfered candle?”
He ran a hand through his hair and turned his back on her.
“The child does not need your fits of temper, Mercia.”
“She damned well doesn’t need that flea-infested bag of mischief under her covers either.”
“Many people dislike cats.” Butkittens? Who could dislike a kitten?
“I loathe them.”
He turned to face her, his expression…ducally unreadable. “I suppose you expect me to apologize to Lucy?”
“For what?” She crossed her arms as Lucy had done. “You are lord and master here, and she did not have permission that I know of to bring the cat indoors even to play with.”
He stalked past her. “I have not the manners necessary to spar with you over this. I bid you good day.”
And then he was gone, temper and all, leaving Gilly to take up a rocking chair near the windows and watch as three stories below, Harris and Lucy made their way through the gardens to the stable. His Grace had been dressed for riding, which meant he’d probably cross paths with Lucy in a few minutes.
And he might apologize for the way he spoke, but not for ordering the cat out of the house. He’d been near panicked to find the kitten in the nursery, and God help Cook’s big, fat mousers if His Grace ever dropped in on the kitchens unannounced.
