Page 60 of The Captive Duke
The best part of these outings was that Lucy insisted Gillian join them, and this spared Christian having to hunt the lady down.
She’d become a ghost, sending her regrets at meal times, no longer drifting down to the library with her books at night, barely sparing him two words when they passed in the corridors.
And it killed something in him to see her diminished in any way. She was putting distance between them, salvaging her dignity in the face of what she could only regard as his rejection. So he opened his campaign to preserve their friendship with the most effective weapons he could muster.
“Come along, Countess.” He held out his left hand to her, while Lucy kited around on his right. “Lucy and I must inspect the stables, lest the lads think they can laze away a pretty summer day.”
“You two run along. I’ve a few things to see to.”
“They can wait, right, Lucy?”
His unwitting conspirator let go of his hand, crossedto the countess, and dragged her by the wrist over to Christian. He seized the lady’s hand in his own.
“My princess has spoken, as it were. Go gracefully to your fate.”
Gillian’s blue eyes reflected exasperation, but also something he hadn’t expected to see: hurt. She tried to mask it, but it caused his smile to falter.
“Please, Countess. I’ve been shut up with the ledgers all morning, and I would have this respite with the fair ladies of my household.”
She slipped her fingers through his. “Very well, but we mustn’t linger too long. Lucy has sums to do, and I have correspondence of my own.”
“Who commands your letters?” he asked as Lucy took his free hand and fell in step beside him.
“Marcus Easterbrook,” she said, her tone gratifyingly impatient. “I can report to him that my things are removed from Greendale.” Her usually confident stride hitched. “Heis Greendale, now. How…odd.”
“It is odd,” Christian said, resisting the urge to carry Lucy, because that would mean dropping the countess’s hand. “You finally get comfortable with your courtesy title, assure yourself the real title holder will live forever, and then—poof!—he’s gone, and you’re the duke, or the earl, and everybody calls you something you don’t answer to, and looks to you for decisions you’ve no idea how to make.”
“I don’t think Easterbrook—Marcus—will be quite so at sea,” the countess said. “He’s waited an age to succeed to the title, though he and the old earl were hardly close.”
“They were uncle and nephew?” Though Christian didn’t care for the topic particularly, he was glad they were having some sort of conversation—while they held hands.
“Great-nephew, the title being one preserved through the female line. Their visits were mostly a matter of Marcus putting up with his lordship’s condescension. Marcus came to Greendale when on leave, but was always relieved to be on his way to Severn when proprieties had been observed.”
“He came by in my absence?”
“He was dutiful, and your heir.”
“Not once Evan was born.” Lucy tugged on Christian’s hand, dragging him over to a bed of roses, and forcing him to give up his connection to the countess. “You know, princess, when you don’t speak to me, it means you communicate more often with your touch. You pull me about, turn my head, touch my arm… I’m not sure I miss your words as much as I’d miss this.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the countess was listening to him. Good. She thought he would not compromise her, but it was more a matter of hecouldnot, despite wanting to.
But neither would he let her slip into indifference when they could be friends—good friends.
“Maybe you should not encourage Lucy to remain silent,” she said as he knelt to sniff a rose. “Maybe we should all stop speaking until she relents.”
He rose, pleased to feel the motion fluid and noparticular strain on his thighs or knees. “Then perhaps I should have to touch you more, Countess, and you would have to touch me, hmm?”
He took her hand again, she didn’t fight him, and they managed to reach the stables without trading any more salvos. Even sparring with her was a pleasure though, and Christian kept his powder dry mostly out of deference to his daughter.
“Princess, I was out with Hancock yesterday,” he said as they ambled down the barn aisle. “I came across a little fellow who demanded to make your acquaintance. He doesn’t speak much, not so a duke could understand him, but he managed to insist that you befriend him.”
Lucy cocked her head, her expression solemn and puzzled. The countess was pretending to pet Chessie, but she was listening too. He knew it by the angle of her head, and the slight tension in her shoulders.
“Where is he, this stray fellow demanding to be your friend? Come, I’ll show you.”
He drew Lucy farther down the aisle, while the countess trailed them. When he opened the half door to an empty stall, Lucy peered around her papa’s side into the gloom.
“He’s resting,” Christian said. “No doubt exhausted from chewing old boots, cadging treats, and tripping up the lads.”
