“Until you run off to London.”
She was doing her best to show the colors, but Christian heard the undercurrent of worry in her words, worry for him, but also worry about how she’d fare in his absence.
“I’m not running off to London. I’m tending to business, the same as you did earlier this summer. You can send me long, nasty letters criticizing every aspect of my personality while I’m gone. You can draw Lucy aside and explain to her the failings of the common man, and the worse failings of her own papa. You can convert Chessie to your cause, because you’ve already turned my entire staff against me.”
“They love you,” she said, drawing away to look at him.
“They love you more, Gilly dear.” As he loved her more each day. “You looked after Lucy when I could not, and if the staff at Greendale knew something of the state of your marriage, they very likely gossiped with our staff as well.”
She paused in their progress down the barn aisle. “They should have a disgust of me.”
“You have an undeserved disgust of yourself, which you should turn on your late spouse and leave there, but here comes the colonel, looking entirely too pleased to leave us.”
“We need to talk, Christian.” She spoke quietly, all the fight gone out of her.
“You’re not leaving me.” He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to make a pronouncement to a woman who was entitled to a permanent dislike of men and their dictates.
“Christian Severn,” she said, smoothing his hair back gently. “I do not want to leave you. You are my favorite duke.”
St. Just chose now to come strutting across the gardens, saddlebags over his shoulder. He whistled a nimble, jaunty version of “God Save the King,” as if he knew his timing was awful.
“We will talk, Gillian,” Christian said, leaning closer and cadging a kiss to her cheek despite St. Just’s approach.
“I see you, Mercia, behaving like a naughty schoolboy and trying the countess’s patience,” St. Just said. “I can only thank your staff my horse hasn’t been exposed to such a puerile display.”
“His Grace is feeling frisky this morning,” Gilly said. “Autumn approaches, and he’s suffering the fidgets. Makes him prone to mischief.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Christian said as St. Just’s horse was led out. Christian took the saddlebags from his guest’s shoulder and tied them up behind the cantle.
“See to my mount, Duke, while I see to your countess.” St. Just winged an arm at Gilly and tossed out one of his charming smiles while Christian busied himself with checking over the fit of the bridle and girth. This display of caution was idle, for St. Just would repeat the inspection before mounting, but Gilly liked the colonel and deserved a moment with an ally.
They walked off toward the garden, leaving Christian to pet the beast, a big, solid bay gelding, not the same one as the last time St. Just had come through, for this one was more elegant with a more refined head.
“Cozening my horse, Mercia?” St. Just asked a few moments later.
“Cozening my countess, St. Just?”
“Stop it, you two.” Gilly sounded half-serious in her scold. “The colonel has places to be, and he’d best get to them. Cook says her knees are acting up, and that means rain by nightfall.”
“I’m off to Town, then,” St. Just said. “Mercia, I’ll be in touch. Countess.” He bussed her cheek and whispered something in her ear, meriting him a terse nod. Christian drew Gilly back and slid an arm around her waist.
“Come by any time, St. Just,” Christian said. “Cook will miss you.”
“I’ll be back,” he said, swinging onto his horse. “I want to see when Lady Lucy’s dogs are pulling a pony cart around with His Grace at the ribbons.” He blew Gilly a kiss and cantered off, the personification of elegance in the saddle.
“How did I travel the length of France with our guest and never realize he’s a devilish good-looking man with a penchant for kissing other people’s countesses?”
“His papa is a duke,” Gilly said, sliding away from his side. “That can explain a lot about a man’s penchants.”
“You are my hostess, if you’ll recall,” he said, letting her put some distance between them. “And I am your duke.”
She wandered away, into the garden, but he kept her in sight, and not only because he and the lady had some significant matters to sort out. She might tell herself she was the victim of accidents and mishaps, or that a jealous kitchen maid was capable of orchestrating the malfunction of a coach wheel or the sabotage of a saddle.
Christian knew differently.
Nineteen
Christian was the soul of patience, so much so that Gilly wondered if he’d had second thoughts about proposing to her.
His lovemaking was patient too—tender, lyrical, sweet, and silent. Gilly had fallen asleep in his arms, when her best intention had been to talk to him.
Truly talk.
She wanted to accept his proposal, wanted to embark on the joys and challenges of being a wife to Christian Severn. Not duchess to the Duke of Mercia, the Lost Duke, or the Silent Duke—that wretch was welcome to dwell in the past, along with the unfortunate Lady Greendale—but finding the right moment to talk of the future was difficult.
They were shooting at targets a week after St. Just’s departure, a pastime Gilly had taken to with relish. When Christian had first suggested it, she’d cringed at the noise and destructiveness of it, but the first time she’d hit her target, she’d felt such a thrill she’d joined him every day since.
She’d need years to catch up to him, though. He shot flying targets out of the air, hit his mark from great distances, and could manage clean shots from peculiar angles while he himself was in motion. Whatever had been done to his left hand, it hadn’t affected his ability to fire a weapon at all.
“You had to shoot from the saddle, I take it,” she said when he’d shown her a maneuver involving shooting on the run, dropping, rolling, and discharging his second barrel.
“From the saddle, from the ground, from the trees. I was once posted as lookout in a church steeple, and fired a warning shot to my men by hitting the bell hanging from the town hall across the square. That didn’t sit well, but it was the only way to gain enough height for decent reconnaissance.”
“Do you ever miss the army?”
“No, I do not.” He passed her a loaded pistol. “Why would I?”
“St. Just said something about the Corsican making plans to escape,” she said, taking the gun. “Another man might be consumed with hunting down his captors and putting an end to them. I thank God you are not. I’ve dealt with enough violence to last a lifetime, and I could not endure it casting a shadow over the future.”
She’d worded her sentiment carefully—the future, not our future.
The pistol was small, as guns went, the barrel only four inches, which meant it hadn’t much aim over distances. Despite a mortal loathing for violence, Gilly liked knowing that, liked understanding why it was so. Christian had explained it to her, just as he’d made her learn how to clean her gun, how its mechanism worked, and how to handle it when it was loaded.
“The Corsican has nothing else to do but make his little plans,” Christian said, scanning the hedgerow and looking very ducal indeed. “Try for the twig about six feet up on that oak.”
Being short, Gilly had to train herself to aim a little higher than she thought she should, to let her hand follow her eye. Christian moved to stand behind her. She took aim and clipped the thing neatly.
“I do like it when the bullet does what I tell it to.”
“You like it when everything does as you say.” He took the gun from her hand. “More shooting, or have you had enough?” His teasing had a small edge to it, or maybe Gilly was the one on edge. He hadn’t said anything more about going up to Town, but dukes invariably spent time
in London.
“Enough practice. The air reeks of our efforts.”
“I used to hate the stench of sulfur,” he said, sounding a bit puzzled.
Ah, another quagmire, which Gilly understood well. “Just as you hated cats and the sound of the French language on a man’s lips and sudden noises and loud noises… What?”
“We’re to be disturbed,” he said, purposely setting the gun aside so a footman could approach them. “What is it, George?”
“Beg pardon, Your Grace, a letter came from Town by messenger.”
Christian held out his hand, and Gilly felt a sense of foreboding. Perhaps St. Just was planning another visit, except the man knew he need not send warning, and certainly not by courier. Christian tore the missive open and scanned its contents, his expression betraying nothing.
“I will be nipping up to Town after all.”
Feathers. Damned, perishing feathers. “St. Just summons you?”
“Something like that. Shall we see if all this racket has disturbed Lucy’s lessons?”
She let him get away with that, let him dangle the obvious distraction before her, and let him saunter along beside her through the gardens. All the while, Gilly felt a growing silent tumult.
Christian was still settling in, still recovering. He wasn’t supposed to hare off on business—he was a duke, for pity’s sake, his business came to him with a snap of his elegant fingers.
“I’ll send a note over to Marcus,” Christian was saying. “He’ll be more than happy to have a respite from the challenges at Greendale.”
“I don’t want him here,” Gilly retorted, knowing her reply was irrational, knowing her voice held a note of panic.
“Gilly…” He paused at the French doors leading to the library. “He’s family, and he’s agreed to do this for me. I’m hopeful if I ask a favor of him, he’ll let me provide some assistance with Greendale in return. It’s a sop to masculine pride, I know…”
She stomped off a few paces and turned her back to him.
“Gillian?” He walked up behind her and stood near enough that she could catch a hint of lemon and ginger, but he didn’t touch her. “Talk to me.”
Now he wanted to talk, while Gilly wanted to weep and wasn’t exactly sure why. “He smokes horrid cigars.”
A patient, considering silence greeted that pronouncement, then, “Make sense to me, Gilly. You are a wonderfully sensible woman. Explain to me your reservations, because I must go, and I must know you are safe when I do. Am I being unreasonable?”
No, but neither was Gilly.
She whirled on him, prepared to beg. “Marcus knew, Christian. He knew exactly what Greendale was about, and he did nothing. Kissed my hand and went on his way to call on Helene or scamper back to Spain or up to Town, there to drink the winter away with his fellow officers on leave.”
Christian’s arms came around her, promising security and more of his patient reason. “Did Greendale raise his hand to you before others?”
“His voice, occasionally, before the servants, not his hand.”
“Then Marcus likely suspected you suffered nothing worse than a tongue lashing.”
“That is balderdash,” she said. “I have uncles. I know how men are. You gather around the port or the brandy and you talk of women, and you have no privacy from one another regarding your bodily pleasures.”
“Some men,” he said. “But Greendale was arrogant. He would not boast of having trouble consummating his vows.”
“He would boast of bringing his rebellious wife to heel, like some hound prone to running riot.”
“You are so very angry,” he said quietly. He held her tighter, and Gilly wanted to rage and break things and cry, not because he didn’t understand—but because very possibly he did, and he was leaving anyway.
She stepped away instead and did not take Christian’s arm. They went up to the nursery in silence, a distance growing between them that Gilly both needed and hated.
Why didn’t Christian invite her to go with him to Town?
Why couldn’t St. Just be recruited to serve as her nanny again?
What had been in that damned note?
And why, despite all his importuning Gilly to talk with him, had Christian grown in some way, once again, silent?
“How is my scholar doing today?” Christian asked.
Lucy held up her copybook for him to inspect.
“You have the prettiest hand,” he said. “You get that from me. Your dear mama’s scribbling was nigh incomprehensible, but she told the best stories over tea and had a marvelous sense of fun.”
Lucy pantomimed shooting with a gun by cocking her thumb and forefinger.
“Yes, we were shooting, the countess and I. When you are twelve, I will show you how to shoot as well, if you like. You may start with the bow and arrow when you are ten, if you’d enjoy that?”
She nodded vigorously, and Gilly was struck as she often was by how badly Lucy must want to communicate with her father. Christian had the knack of carrying on conversations with the child better than the nurse, the governess, or even Gilly herself. His skill with the child was gratifying and maddening, both.
“I must beg your company at tea today,” he said, “because I’m off for a few days to Town. I have business the stewards cannot resolve.”
What business?
Lucy put her forefingers to her temples and trotted in a little circle.
“No, I will not take Chessie. I’ll make better time with the curricle. You can take Chessie out for me in my absence, can’t you? At least bring him some treats so the old fellow won’t mope.”
Lucy grinned and swung her father’s hand.
“I’ll miss you too, princess, and I will miss our countess, and Chessie, but I will not miss those two.” He nodded at the puppies—already showing the promise of great size—slumbering on a rug. “They will be as big as ponies ere I return, but with only half the wit. I am glad horses do not bark, else we’d have no stables.”
He nattered on, about how interested he’d be to see Lucy’s drawings when he returned, and he might stop by the shops while he was in Town to pick up some pretty hair ribbons for his pretty daughter. Gilly went to a window seat and watched while father and daughter charmed each other.
“You won’t have time to miss me,” Christian said, “and Cousin Marcus will come stay at Severn while I’m gone. I’m sure it has been an age since he’s seen you, and he’ll be very impressed with how much you’ve grown.”
The transformation in the child was so swift and radical, Gilly would not have known it was the same little girl. Lucy drew back, crossed her arms over her chest, and shook her head vigorously side to side. Her expression was a small thundercloud as she glared up at her father.
“You don’t want me to go,” Christian said. “I’m sorry, dear heart, but go I must, though not for long.”
She seized his hand, and the shake of her head became frantic.
No, no, no, no.
Her mouth worked, and Gilly prayed this tantrum might be a backhanded means of compelling the child to speak, but Lucy merely formed the word “No” silently, repeatedly. Then, “Stay. Please, stay.”
“Lucy…” Christian knelt at eye level with the girl. “Enough of this. I am not off to war. I am merely trotting up to Town, and I have provided for company in my absence. The countess will visit you daily, at least. You have promised to look in on Chessie for me, and I will not indulge the antics of a toddler in my grown-up girl.”
He ran his hand down the side of her face, just as Lucy’s tears began to fall in awful, wrenching silence.
Something was wrong; something was more wrong with the child than usual. Christian picked Lucy up and settled her in his lap while he took a rocking chair near the window.
“Don’t cry, child. I’ll be back, and all will be
well, you’ll see.”
Tell him, Gilly thought as her throat constricted. Tell him what’s wrong, and he will bend his whole being to repairing it, but you have to tell him. You must tell him what you want, in words he can hear and understand.
She left them their privacy but did not know if she admonished the child or herself.
***
“You think to leave me.” Christian waited until he had Gilly in bed to make his accusation. “Why, Gilly?”
Though he knew why. In some intuitive, female corner of her soul, Gillian apparently suspected her favorite duke was plotting a murder, the first of several, and calling it pressing business.
Why else would he leave his distraught and teary daughter in the nursery with a sanctimonious lecture about growing up and making Papa proud?
“Why are you leaving us, Christian?”
A woman whose very life had depended on vigilant study of her husband would not be put off by platitudes. She’d trust her instincts, as Christian had learned to trust his.
“Us?” He shifted over her and ran his nose along her temple, taking in a whiff of roses and Gillian.
“Me and Lucy. I have never seen anything more heart wrenching than a child who will only cry silently on her papa’s shoulder.”
Neither had Christian, and yet, if Girard had plotted to end Gilly’s life, he was not above taking the child, even harming the child, for ends Christian could not fathom.
“She’s concerned I’ll go off to war again and be captured by another mad Frenchman, which is understandable.” He kissed the smooth warmth of Gilly’s brow, as if he might kiss away her doubts.
“She’s not concerned, she’s wildly upset.”
As was Gilly.
As was, truth be known, Christian. In his headlong glee to put a period to Girard’s existence, he had failed utterly to account for Gillian’s dim view of men and their violent behaviors.
Of all men who indulged in violent behaviors, and her reaction was entirely reasonable, while for Christian, backing down from the opportunity to dispatch Girard was unthinkable.
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