Page 53 of The Captive Duke
This last problem was particularly vexing. His left hand was growing stronger, but its dexterity was limited. The right hand was strong enough, but was still clumsy. Hands were such an obvious, integral part of bodily competence that Christian became determined to address his manual limitations.
But every day that Gillian lingered in Town, the demons rose higher in his mind: What was the point of learning to shave himself right-handed—not that he’d suffer a valet to come near him with a razor, of course. What was the point of coaxing Lucy to speak again? What was the point of continuing to draw breath? The world had thought him dead once before, and gone on turning quite handily without him.
And then he’d hear Girard’s silky voice in his ear.
“Shall I kill you today,mon ange? Would you like that? To leave me here in this miserable pile of rocks all alone, hoping the Corsican can recover not only from the drubbing of your armies, but also from the Russianwinter? Shall I give you permanent silence, and victory with it? I would envy you too badly, did I commend you to the angels, so me, I think no death for you today…”
Girard’s regard for him had been disturbingly convincing. Girard had kept Christian alive, in part through those backhanded recitations of France’s losses and tribulations, though Christian would be damned if he’d ever thank the bastard for it. And to complicate matters, Girard was apparently the son of an Englishman. What conflicted loyalties lay behind Girard’s stratagems, and had the colonel truly longed for death himself?
A clock chimed, midnight.
Put in your mind a picture of what you can look forward to and…add details to it, one by one, until the picture is very accurate and the urge to do something untoward has passed.
Christian fell asleep, finally, as he had for the previous six nights, telling himself Gillian was better off putting some distance between herself and the Severn household. He wanted her under his roof—under his protection—but he had little to offer her other than that—at least until he’d dispatched Girard.
But as sleep claimed him, he pictured her, small, golden-haired, bustling about, her voice a lullaby to calm the most tortured soul.
Gilly woke knowing the time had come to quit dawdling and get herself back to Mercia.
ToSevern. To Severn, the house, the household, the little girl who would not speak, and yes, to the man trying to find his footing with all of it. Mercia was part of what Gilly returned to; he could not be the whole of it.
“Safe journey, your ladyship.”
Meems offered his good wishes, such as they were, from the front steps as the traveling coach came around the corner from the mews.
“My thanks. You may be assured I will report to His Grace that I was graciously received by his staff in his absence.”
Meems looked pained, but offered her a nod, and then stepped back so a footman could hand her up.
She took out her anthology of poetry and tried to read, but the exercise was useless. The day was overcast, the light quite dim, and her mind darted about like a caged finch. The coach rolled on, until Gilly came abruptly awake somewhere among the fields and farms of Surrey.
The coachman’s voice came to her, low and soothing, but with a panicked note under the words. The horses cantered over a rare smooth stretch of road, and still, the coachy urged them to slow.
“Ho up, lads. Easy…easy… There we go, boys. That’s it…”
A sharp crack, and the team tried to bolt, while the coach bobbed crazily behind them.
Gilly fetched up hard against the wall, grabbed the leather strap above her head, and started praying while the coachman resumed his crooning and pleading.
“Now, laddies, ho ye, ho and ho and that’s it… Good boys you are, good boys you be…”
The coach came to a stop, swaying on its springs.
A white-faced groom peered in the door. “Yer ladyship’s right enow, then? That were a rum go there for a bit. ’Is Grace will ’ave our arses—our ’eads if ye’ve suffered ’arm.”
Eight years of marriage came to the aid of her composure. “I’m fine. What happened?”
“Wheel come loose. Lost it a good mile back, but we’ve a good team, and they came right, didn’t they?”
He was as pale as death, suggesting they’d had a very close call. The coach listed heavily, but was held somewhat upright on the three remaining wheels and the web of harness. The wheelers shifted restively at the unaccustomed distribution of weight, while the coachy kept up his spoken lullaby.
“Perhaps I’d best stretch my legs a bit,” she said, and the door was open before she’d collected her reticule.
“Perkins is ’olding the leaders, yer ladyship.” The groom’s voice still held a quaver that suggested danger had been only narrowly averted.
“I’m sure all will soon be in order,” she said, offering him a smile. Smiling was a skill, and Gilly had learned to apply it in all manner of difficult situations. “John Coachman,” she called up to the box, “your passenger is unharmed. Shall we get out the muzzle bags and send a groom for the wheel?”
“Muzzle bags?” The man blinked down at her, his complexion every bit as ashen as the groom’s. “Oh,aye, for the ’orses. Dunston, be about it, then fetch that blasted wheel.”
