Page 49 of The Captive Duke
“We’re adults. Spoiling dinner is one of few prerogatives thereof. You were saying?”
“About?”
“The kitten.”
She watched him with those big blue eyes, but they weren’t judging, they were solemn, patient, and kind.
“Cats…” He had to look elsewhere, at the porcelain service adorned with birds the same color as her eyes. “Cats toy with their prey. They delight in toying with their prey, and teach their young to do likewise.”
“The French?”
He nodded. “The Château had an abundance of cats.” Miserable, hungry wretches who had had the freedom to leave but remained, like rats skulking about the foundation of a ruin, only meaner and more deadly.
She slid her arm around his waist and hugged him.“We must put you back on your mettle. Have another cake.”
He had five.
The trip to Town was providentially well timed, for conflicting emotions besieged Gilly.
She was developing tender feelings for the duke, and that would not do, because she was determined never again to be under a man’s thumb. Not by action of marriage, not by action of her foolish, lonely heart.
Maybe a little in love would be acceptable, except Mercia wasn’t a little-in-love sort of man. He was mad, dark passion, sweeping emotion, and complete loss of reason, with his gaunt male beauty, his wealth and power, and his haunted past. He also needed another bride, preferably a sweet young thing with pots of money, a fertile womb, and not a thought in her head save the pleasure of wearing a tiara.
What sensible widow crowding close on twenty-six years on earth wanted to watch a man she was even a little in love with pursued by that sort of competition?
But where else was she to go?
Mercia would be offended when—not if—she took herself off to dwell elsewhere, even if Lucy were managing better by then. His Grace honestly regarded Gilly as a relation deserving of his protection, and he was determined to provide it.
Maybe he needed to.
As Gilly prowled the sitting room that served as antechamber to Mr. Stoneleigh’s offices, her musings were interrupted by a tidy young man sporting a deal of Macassar oil.
“Mr. Stoneleigh will see you now, your ladyship.”
He ushered her into a baronial inner sanctum, one graced with thick Turkey rugs, a huge marble fireplace, and a massive dark desk, behind which, like a tall, dark-haired captain on his poop deck, stood Mr. Gervaise Stoneleigh.
“Countess.” He came around the desk and offered her a bow. “You are in good looks, my lady. My apologies for asking you to travel while your loss is so fresh.”
“Nonsense, Mr. Stoneleigh. Location does not lessen or enhance grief, particularly when I feel anything but bereaved.”
He looked peevish or perhaps nonplussed at her honesty.
“Come now,” Gilly said, handing him her black jacket. “You told me I may speak freely with you, did you not?”
“I did.” He looked at the jacket as if he hadn’t a clue where it had come from, then deposited it on a hook on the back of the door. “Please have a seat, and assure me you’re going on well since last we met.”
His solicitude was offered in such punctilious tones Gilly wasn’t sure it was genuine, but then she caught him looking at her, dark eyes focused with peculiar intensity.
“I am in good health and enjoying the hospitality of the Duke of Mercia, a cousin by marriage through his late duchess. He’s asked me to assist him in putting his household to rights at the family seat, and to take an interest in my niece, which is hardly an imposition.”
“You’ve retrieved your belongings from Greendale?”
“I have, though you didn’t tell me what the urgency is.”
“I’m not sure there is any, but I’ve received word Easterbrook may take up residence there sooner than later. He’s mustering out.”
Thank goodness she’d retrieved her belongings, though she and Marcus had always rubbed along civilly. “Leaving the army? I thought he loved it.”
