“Your brother is ill, isn’t he?” Gilly asked.
“I will have to admonish your duke that unpleasant confidences spilled over the brandy aren’t for a pretty lady’s ears.”
She led him to a bench, the topic being a sitting-down sort of subject.
“I keep you in my prayers, Colonel, and Christian considers you a friend. You needn’t worry I’ll spread gossip.” To the vicar? Who was concerned only about his leaky roof and launching four daughters?
“I would never accuse you of gossiping. Victor puts a brave face on his illness for the sake of my parents. We all know he’s consumptive, but my father acts as if Victor malingers, and we must drag him to the sea and the quacks and the countryside all in aid of denying his approaching death.”
“Once death becomes a friend, much becomes easier. Easier for the one dying, but perhaps harder for those left to grieve.”
St. Just sat beside her, a man comfortable in his skin if not entirely comfortable with peacetime. “You’ve recently buried a spouse. I am remiss to bring up such a dolorous topic when you’re in mourning.”
Gilly had been the one to bring it up, not the colonel.
“I am in mourning,” Gilly said, “but not, I think, for my late husband. Shall we walk farther, Colonel? The sun will soon set, and the light is so pretty.”
He winged his arm at her, and Gilly tried to enjoy his silent company. He was charming enough and all that was considerate, like Christian. He bore a pleasant scent and was of a height with Christian too.
But it wasn’t the right scent; it wasn’t ginger and lemon with an undercurrent of rose. St. Just was a hair too tall, a tad too thickly muscled, his eyes green not blue.
He was a good man; he wasn’t the right man. He sought a return to war, for which Gilly did not blame him, but part of why she was in love with Christian was that despite his past, he’d turned his sights to peace and to a future free of violence and destruction.
As Gilly could.
As she had, and this notion, too, was a wonderfully happy thought.
***
The duke’s appetite was in good repair, and to Marcus, that was depressing enough. His Grace laughed heartily at some joke Marcus’s ancient steward told, flirted with the tenants’ daughters, and generally comported himself with more bloody charm than a regiment of officers on leave. This Mercia had been easy to forget, the hearty, healthy man in great good spirits.
When Mercia had left London, he’d still been swilling hot water instead of tea, downing oranges to address inchoate scurvy, jumping at shadows, and barely capable of riding on his own through the park. He’d received not one caller, though dozens of calling cards from the best families had been left at his door.
Marcus’s spies might have been lying, but chambermaids were usually too stupid to know when they were being pumped for information, particularly if they were being swived silly at the same time.
“What emerges as your first priority as you put Greendale back on solid footing?” His Grace asked. They were walking their horses to the stables after spending much of the afternoon ambling around the Greendale property. They’d toured only the tenant farms in the best repair, Marcus being unwilling to reveal the full depth of the estate’s problems to anybody save his man of business.
“I cringe to say it, but probably liquidating what isn’t entailed, though that has become complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
Life had been so much easier when one’s enemies could be murdered outright.
“I must wait to get my hands on the personal estate until the lawyers have done with their fussing.”
“They should be able to turn loose enough money to maintain the estate,” Mercia said. “Bloody vultures. If you need funds, you have only to say.”
“Good of you.”
The words cost him, but Marcus fiddled with his horse’s mane in an effort to appear appropriately self-conscious.
“I can put in a word at the law offices for you if like. I might be going up to Town in the next few weeks, in any case.”
This was news. “For the opening session of the Lords?”
“Personal business. If I do go, I’d appreciate your spending some time at Severn in my absence.”
“Particularly if it’s during that exercise in manual labor, frustration, and sweat known as harvest, I can accommodate you. Does this have to do with our struggling countess?”
For whom Marcus did, in fact, have a few stirrings of genuine pity.
For the first time in that entire day, Mercia’s eyes looked bleak, lost even.
“Some misfortune has befallen her since Greendale’s death,” he said.
Delightful. “I heard the inquest grew unnecessarily nasty. Unfortunate, but it’s behind her now. If I’d been on hand, things might have gone differently.”
Very differently.
“I don’t believe she was ever truly under suspicion.” Mercia drew his horse up in the stable yard, and neither man nor beast looked the least bit fatigued, whereas Marcus had been spurring his gelding for the last three miles. “She’s had a string of accidents that haven’t struck me as accidents.”
What were cousins for, if not to confide in? “Somebody means her harm?”
“Somebody means her dead.”
In terse words, he recounted a coach wheel coming loose, a cut girth, and a near miss with poison, any one of which should have been adequate to end the countess’s life.
But they hadn’t been.
“I rather hope Gillian’s characterization of events is the accurate one,” Marcus said. “Accidents, or a jealous mistress cut out of Greendale’s will.”
“In which case, having run off the kitchen maid, Gilly is safe enough at Severn.”
Gilly?
“Where she can dote on Lady Lucille,” Marcus said, though anybody doting on the girl was not a sanguine thought. “Send word, and I will be only too happy to enjoy your hospitality for as long as you need me.” The words sounded sincere, because they were sincere. Perhaps the first sincere thing he’d said all day.
“I appreciate it.” The duke crossed his wrists over the pommel. “I meant what I said about a loan, Marcus. We’re family, you looked in on my family for me, looked after my horse, held the reins while I was rotting away on a French mountainside. I owe you.”
Marcus swung out of the saddle and handed the tired gelding off to a stableboy. Mercia’s thanks should have gratified, but they only enraged. “Guarding your back was my privilege, and a loan won’t be necessary.”
“Be stubborn then, it’s a family virtue.”
“Or a vice,” Marcus said, particularly when exhibited by a captive of the French. “Stubbornness can definitely be a vice.”
Mercia smiled and cantered off, looking handsome, happy, and too goddamned healthy for words. Stubbornness might be a vice, but it was one they shared. Marcus took himself up to the house and bellowed for his secretary. That worthy came scurrying up from the kitchen and bowed to his master.
“I need to write a letter to Robert Girard, St. Clair House, on Ambrose Court in Mayfair. Have it couriered, and you’re to forget every bloody word of it before you leave this room.”
The secretary was used to such commands. He’d served under the old earl and written many a note to the fair Helene for Marcus on various visits at Greendale. She’d never written back, but that hardly mattered now.
Maybe having Mercia meet up with brigands on his homeward journey would have been easier, but the silent duke enjoyed too much popular interest now. His death would be investigated, and the first question asked would be: “Who benefits from his passing?”
So let it be this way, with Girard serving as the instrument of Mercia’s death. No code of law or code of honor would protect Girard from the consequences of killing such a well-regarded nobleman,
regardless that it was murder on the so-called field of honor. Girard at the very least would be hounded from the country, and not a soul would protest his absence.
No man whose body—whose hand—had been that badly treated could expect to prevail in personal combat, not even the unbreakable duke.
***
“Did you miss me, Gilly love?”
A great warm weight settled along Gilly’s back and shifted the mattress behind her.
“Did you lock my door?” Sleep hadn’t been elusive, it had been entirely absent, and only a portion of Gilly’s wakefulness had been on her own account.
“Of course I locked the door. What do you take me for? The maids know to leave my chambers alone come morning, but I’d be completely undone did they walk in on me here. I like this bed, it’s cozier than mine.”
“Smaller, you mean.” She flopped over onto her back, trying to see him by the moonlight streaming in the window. “And you won’t be here in the morning.”
“Will too. Budge over. Cozy means I don’t want to be hanging off the mattress all night.”
She shifted to the far side of the bed, realizing he’d once again put himself between her and the door, something she’d never had to ask him to do. “How was Marcus?”
“Too much the officer for me,” Christian said. “Stop frowning at me, love, and cuddle up. The nights grow chilly, and we can’t have your favorite duke taking an ague.”
“Heaven forfend.” She curled down against his side, tucked her head on his shoulder, and slid a knee across his thighs, for he was her favorite duke. Also her favorite man. “Better?”
“You are all that is accommodating. I ran into St. Just saying good night to his horse. He said he had a thoroughly agreeable day, and why I haven’t married you defies reason.”
“You won’t allow me to find sleep,” Gilly said on a sigh. “You must badger me for good measure, haunt my dreams, and threaten to scandalize the maids in the morning to see me flustered.”
“You’re still indisposed, aren’t you?” He twisted his head to kiss her brow. “Poor dear. Your biology makes you cranky—has anyone ever told you that?”
“I’m going to sleep now.”
“Now that I’m here, of course you are.” He drew circles on her nape with his thumb, lazy caresses that drained all the nameless worry out of her.
“What do you mean, Marcus was too much the officer?”
His fingers on her neck slowed. “He was all bonhomie and good show. He’s facing near ruin at Greendale but wouldn’t let me lend a hand.”
The estate was another victim of Greendale’s legacy, and in some ways, one bearing the more difficult wounds to overcome. “How could you tell?”
His hand shifted to knead her shoulders, and Gilly let loose a soft groan. “My countess sounds like Chessie after a good roll.”
“My duke has a few talents that might endear him after all.”
“You got the important part right,” he said. “I am your duke, but back to the matter at hand. Marcus was careful to take me around to his best farms, but still, the fences are sagging, the land is tired, the herds are adequate, but the beasts are runty enough to suggest years of inbreeding. The servants scurry around like whipped dogs, and Marcus claims the solicitors won’t turn loose of any of the estate monies because of legal restrictions.”
“Greendale had coin,” Gilly said. “Or he acted like he did.” She stifled a yawn and shifted her leg to a more comfortable position on Christian’s thighs.
“Move your leg like that again at your peril.”
Her eyes flew open. “I’m not…I’m still indisposed.”
He patted her bum through her nightgown. “That doesn’t preclude me from wanting you, or you from wanting me.”
Would anything? “It most certainly should.”
“Gilly, dearest lady, you likely treasured your indisposition because it meant old Greendale stayed at a distance. He’s dead. If you want your pleasure of me, I’m not put off by a little untidiness. Copulation is messy. That’s part of its charm.”
“You are entirely lacking in delicacy.” And yet, his honesty, his simply lusty directness was as precious to her as the feel of his fingers circling gently on her neck.
“I am entirely lacking in subterfuge when it comes to my countess. Give me your hand.” He followed her arm down and took her hand in his. “Feel this.”
He put her fingers around his engorged shaft then took his hand away.
“You get into this state merely from talking to me?”
“And from missing you, and touching your sweet flesh, and feeling your leg brushing against my thighs in an unintentionally provocative manner.”
He fell silent, and Gilly trailed her fingers over his length—intentionally. He was quite aroused, so aroused she considered risking the sheets. And her dignity.
“You can bring me off, love, touching me like that.”
“I can…?” She stroked him again, though repeating such vulgar language was beyond her—taking her nightgown off before him had once been beyond her too.
“Take you about two minutes, and you’d have a very grateful duke in your bed, did you try it.”
“A very chatty duke…” she muttered as she sleeved him with her fingers, a light grip, and stroked over the length of him while he flexed his hips.
“That’s it,” he said, setting up a rhythm. “And you could come here and give a lonesome duke some kisses to linger over lest he rush his fences.”
The hand on her nape slid up into her hair and guided her head so he could get his mouth on hers, but she pulled back.
“I’m glad you’re home.” Foolish words, but she wanted to give him something, because in his blatant desire for her, even in her indisposition and crankiness and fatigue, he gave her a precious gift.
“I’m glad to be home.” His mouth was still smiling when he set his lips against hers.
He kissed her with easy languor, letting her take the lead until the end, when his hand closed over hers and he demanded more than a light grip. He shoved the sheets aside, bowed up, and cradled her against him tightly, while a wet warmth spilled over their hands and his breath seized in his chest. When he lay back on a sigh, he still didn’t let her hand go.
“We’ll need a handkerchief, Your Grace, or a flannel or a—”
“Hush.” He stroked her hair. “Give me a minute to hold you, and then an hour to thank you. You now have a favor to call in, Gilly, the best kind of favor.”
He was so cheerful about the whole business, so easy with it, while Gilly felt an inconvenient urge to weep. She withdrew her hand, grabbed a handkerchief from the night table, and tossed it onto his chest.
“You’ll have to do the honors, love. You’ve shot my horse right out from under me.”
“I’m to…use this?” She dangled the small white cloth before his nose.
“Somebody had better. I’m missing in action. Felled by sniper fire, non compos mentis…”
“Do shut up.” She dabbed at him. Then used one hand to hold his softening member and the other to scrub with the monogrammed linen. She finished up rubbing briskly at his belly and resumed her place curled against his side. His passion had a scent, musky, male, and not unpleasant, but…different.
“How much longer are you indisposed?”
“Weeks.”
His belly bounced with suppressed humor, and Gilly smiled despite the ache in her throat.
“I’d wait weeks for you, Countess.”
“Provided I occasionally shot your horse out from under you?”
“Two can play at that, you know. Not only lonely dukes are susceptible to pleasure.”
“Hush, now.” She kissed his nose and tucked herself beside him.
Christian was playful, but if anything ever happened to him, Gilly would not survive hi
s loss. Thank God, Christian was resuming the bucolic life of an English duke; thank God he’d offered to resume it with her.
He was quiet for long minutes while his hand wandered around her neck and shoulders. Shot his horse, indeed. She closed her eyes, pleased with herself, and with him too.
***
“I don’t want Marcus babysitting me.”
Gilly’s displeasure was evident in her tone and in the way she planted her hands on her hips. The stable lads found somewhere else to be, but Christian wasn’t fooled. The lazy blighters were all within earshot, and they’d soon let him know what they thought of the man who riled their favorite little countess so early in the day.
“I told you I wouldn’t leave you unprotected when I had to go to Town,” he said, keeping his tone reasonable with effort.
“Send St. Just to tend me, or content yourself that I’m not in any danger. They were mishaps and accidents.”
“They were not.” He was sure of it. He did not know why he was sure of it, but he was. Soldier’s instinct, maybe, or the conviction of a man who’d had too much bad luck in recent years. “I don’t even know that I’ll be traveling to Town soon, I merely wanted to remind you of the possibility in case I need tend to anything for you while I’m there. Shall I call upon Mr. Stoneleigh? Check on your funds? Find you more shawls to embroider?”
“Do not patronize me, Christian.”
Her use of his name ought to have gratified him, but given her tone, it was…chilling, like the metal-on-metal sound of iron bars locking into position.
“I’m trying to communicate with you,” he said, advancing on her. Before she could flounce away, he laid an arm across her shoulders. “St. Just will be down from the house any minute. I promise I’ll argue with you the livelong day, but might we have a short cease-fire to see our guest off?”
Our guest. She appeared to ponder taking issue with that then gave him a terse nod. “We can.”
“I do mean it. If it makes you feel better to fight with me, Gilly, I’ll be your sparring partner.” Because he knew well the gratuitous urge to hit something—anything—when the proper object of a vengeful impulse was beyond reach.
The Captive Page 29
