Page 92 of The Captive Duke
“They wanted you driven mad.” She kissed his forearm where it lay along her collarbone. “They did not succeed.”
“Of course they did. I saw things that weren’t there, Gilly. I had no idea if I was dreaming or waking most days. I prayed to any god who might hear me.” He dropped his voice even more. “I tamed the mice so I wasn’t so alone in my cell. I pretended they brought me news. I named them. We had conversations, the miceand I. Sometimes when I was sure I was alone in the darkness, I whispered to them.”
He dropped his forehead to her nape, the nape he loved to stroke and kiss.
“You befriended the mice, so you forgive me the murder of my husband?”
“It isn’t for me to forgive or judge or anything,” he said, relieved she wasn’t questioning him about the mice. “It’s for me to protect you, cherish you, and keep your confidences.”
As she protected him, cherished him, and kept his confidences—kept his very heart.
She had no immediate reply, so he held her, his body bowed over hers, while common everyday English sunshine beamed in the windows and a pleasant summer breeze fluttered the lacy curtains.
“Find out who owns that château now,” she said, laying her cheek on his arm.
“In God’s name why?”
“So you can blow the damned thing up and erect a monument to old Wellie on the site, or to good King George,or to the mice.”
“And you wonder why I must make you my duchess.”
Sixteen
GILLY WAS LOSING GROUND TOCHRISTIAN DAILY, nightly. No matter how she picked fights, argued, resisted, and flounced off, Christian showed her tolerance she didn’t deserve. He’d learned this endless forbearance in France—from that dratted Girard fellow—when Gilly’s dithering should have turned him into a violent lunatic.
Thank a merciful deity, it had not. She could not have fallen in love with another man prone to violence.
Her courses arrived, and she was honestly grateful—though a failure to conceive gave her no cause for rejoicing. She’d hoped an indisposed female might be unattractive to Christian, but no. He brought her to his bed, the same as any other night.
“Put me down,” she said before he’d left her bedroom. “I am indisposed.”
“By ill humor? This is no impediment to what I have planned for you. For us.”
“Christian, no.”
He peered down at her, looking so dear, so bewildered and ducal at the same time, she took pity on him. “I am…enduring a feminine indisposition.”
“For pity’s sake…” He sat with her on her bed. “No wonder you’ve been such a shrew lately. Poor lamb.” He kissed her temple, and she wanted to smack him.
“I have not been a shrew.”
“No, dearest.” He kissed her again, trying not to smile. “Of course you haven’t.”
She turned her face to his shoulder. “I am not your dearest.”
“That is rather for me to say. Are you uncomfortable?”
“You are incorrigible.”
“Also very understanding of female complaints.” He picked her up and headed for the door. “Will you need anything in particular? A tot of the poppy?”
“I refuse to answer such questions.” Her face was flaming, but she should have known he’d be like this: forthright, concerned for her, cheerfully willing to demolish anything between them as inconsequential as her privacy or her dignity.
She’d developed the habit of looking forward to her courses because it meant a week free of her husband’s company. He’d called it a filthy female tendency, a noisome blight resulting from a woman’s failure to conceive and submit to her God-given duty.
How she had treasured the filthy, noisome blight for eight years.
“Seriously, love.” Christian bumped his bedroom door closed with his hip. “You must tell me if you’re uncomfortable.” He set her on the bed and crossed the room to lock the door, disappearing momentarily tolock the sitting-room door as well. He came back and set his hands on his hips, studying her.
