“I’m off to seek my bed. You should do likewise, Your Grace. Morning will be here before we’re ready for it.”
“I don’t advise rousing me from my slumbers,” he said, eyeing his book. “I take exception to violations of my privacy.”
“I do apologize, and it won’t happen again. Next time, you’ll wedge a chair under the door in addition to locking it, won’t you?” She rose and put her book on his desk.
He got to his feet as well and laid his unread book beside her Blake. “If there were a next time, which there won’t be, I’d wedge a chair under the door and push a wardrobe behind the chair.”
“I understand.”
And if she meant anything she’d ever said to him, she meant those two words.
He must have sensed this, because he studied her for some moments. Perhaps because she’d been married to Greendale, perhaps because she was tired and the day had been fraught, Gilly did not divine the duke’s intent until the very last instant.
He framed her jaw with one large, callused palm and held his hand to her skin long enough for the heat of him to seep into her.
“When I rode home today, what I put in my mind that I looked forward to,” he said softly, “what saw me past the riots and mayhem and enemy patrols in my mind, was this.” He turned his head at an angle, pressed his lips to hers, and drew back half an inch. “You brought me home today, my lady. For that you have my thanks.”
He kissed her again, on the mouth, then in the center of her forehead, the slow, deliberate reverence of his gestures as stunning as it was surprising.
For one bewildered moment, Gilly held his face against her hand, then left him standing alone in the shadowed library. Before she was halfway up the stairs, she was crying for no reason she could discern.
***
“I did not keep you alive for years on that godforsaken rock pile, despite the English battering at our door, Anduvoir wreaking his intrigues, the garrison whores in constant uproar, bad rations, disease, and cold, for you to throw it all away by taking ship for England.”
Michael Brodie was the son of a wealthy Scot, though he’d found it prudent to tend toward his mother’s Irish side of the family when in France. Robert Girard, as he chose to be called, suspected dear Michael had some bulldog ancestry in his lineage too—the affectionate variety of course.
“Michel, I have a desire to see once again the land of my father’s people. You needn’t accompany me.”
Michael’s green eyes lit with a zeal that boded ill for French colonels lacking an instinct for self-preservation.
“This has to do with that damned duke, doesn’t it?”
“No, it does not.” Girard waved the serving girl away, meaning no insult to the yeasty, frothy, tepid weissbier favored at the rathskeller. “My decision to travel has to do with being weary to my soul, and England being some place where the government will not seek to kill me, not officially. Proper fellows that they are, they have sent me letters to this effect.”
In fact, the War Office had extended informal clemency to him, in order that France might offer the same courtesy to others whom the cessation of hostilities had left in delicate straits.
Michael waved the girl over, and because he was a good-looking devil who never bothered the ladies, over she came. That they spoke English also didn’t hurt, the English being the most solvent among the nationalities thronging Vienna of late.
“Drei biere, bitte.”
“Michael, are you attempting to inebriate yourself with beer?” For it would take more time than Girard had to see that accomplished, and more than three beers.
“Two of them are to dump over your fool head. You will die a painful, bloody death in England. The English gentlemen are great ones for blowing each other’s brains out or sticking one another in the lung or the gut on the so-called field of honor. The higher their title, the more likely they are to lack sense.”
“I have had enough of violence, thank you sincerely.” And to be honest, the welfare of a certain duke did also trouble him. Mercia had stayed alive for one reason—to kill his captors—and a man with such an agenda bore careful watching.
Revenge could keep a man alive against all odds, but it took a heavy toll on a fellow’s common sense.
And thus Girard did, indeed, still worry about his favorite English duke.
The beers were delivered by the smiling, handsome little brunette lady who looked about sixteen years old. They all looked about sixteen years old anymore.
Michael tipped generously, assuring both good service and privacy, and watched the serving maid as she scurried across the room in answer to a bellowed summons.
“You have a sister about her age, don’t you, Michel?”
Michael left off watching the girl and took the kind of prissy sip of his ale that suggested the foaming head of the drink was a damned nuisance. “If you’re going to England, I’m bloody well going with you.”
He ignored the question thoroughly, revealing that the sister—sisters, in fact, there being more than one—were a sensitive topic.
“The English government will not officially try to kill me,” Girard mused, “but that leaves a good dozen Englishmen who will take offense at my continued existence, your damned duke among them.”
“He’s home now, Mercia is,” Michael said, hunching over his beer stein. With his blond hair and size, he fit in easily among the locals, but his conscience meant he was not at all compatible with the prevailing sense of opportunism and self-interest loose in an otherwise lovely city.
“You should go home too, my dear, though I will allow you to join me as far as England. I get good service when I drag you about with me.”
“Are you going to England to kill him?”
“I told you, I have had enough of violence, and I am not given to dissembling,” Girard said, shoving to his feet and leaving Michael with his three beers. He tossed some coins on the table and draped his greatcoat over his shoulders, because even in summer, Viennese evenings could be chilly, and weapons could benefit from concealment.
“You don’t need violence to kill a man,” Michael said, sitting back, one big hand wrapped around his drink. “As far as the English are concerned, Robert Girard doesn’t even need a reason. He kills and torments for pleasure.”
“None of them died, Michel. You alone can vouch for the fact that none of them died at my hands, though now,” Girard said, settling his hat on his head, “it appears I continue living, without a reason to justify that either.”
He took his leave, lest Michael’s capacity for impromptu sermonizing overtake him, though the fellow had a point: Mercia’s situation required resolution, and to see to that, somebody would have to die. On his good days, Girard rather preferred it not be him, and on his bad days…
On his bad days, he could think of no place he’d rather die than merry olde England.
***
“Come.” Lady Greendale took Christian by his ungloved left hand and pulled him toward Severn’s main staircase. “You’ll hide in the library, or with your stewards or your correspondence, and that child has waited weeks and weeks to see her long-lost papa. She needs to see you’re alive with her own eyes.”
“I beg your pardon.” Christian planted his feet, stopping her forward progress—barely. The countess was surprisingly strong for her size, and apparently suffering no ill effects from having endured his kisses the previous night. “I would prefer not to be dragged up to the nursery like some errant scholar come downstairs to peek at Mama in her evening finery.”
She smiled at him, appearing perfectly charmed by his mulishness.
“I’ll bet you did exactly that, and your papa pretended not to see you until your mama bid you come give her a kiss. You were likely adorable, too. How we do change.”
He had been adorable. His mama had told him so. With some effort and
no little consternation Christian identified the temptation to…smile.
“Perhaps we might compromise?” He winged his left arm at her, his momentary good humor fading. This confrontation with the child really would be better put off to when he wasn’t sporting the dust of the road, bone-weary from hours in the saddle, and completely without a plan as to how the reunion should be handled.
But thank God, the countess was filling her sails.
“…She writes to me regularly, and I to her, as I have a paucity of cousins worth the trouble, much less with legible penmanship. Hers is exquisite, though, even for a child.”
“As mine is…was.”
“Really? Well, we know she didn’t get her penmanship from Helene. Why you never hired the woman an amanuensis is beyond me, Mercia. In any case, Lucy is very much looking forward to seeing her papa, and worried she won’t recognize you. You must be sure not to look so forbidding to her. You can be the duke later, when her beaus and swains come calling. For now, enjoy being the papa.”
She marched up the steps, a ship’s captain determined to dock her vessel safely at the pier of her choosing.
“Excuse me, Countess, but refresh my memory: How many children have you had the pleasure of raising?” Perhaps if he scrapped with her a bit she’d be less nervous, and then he might be less nervous too.
She paused at the second landing, forcing him to do likewise.
“Low shot, Your Grace. Unsporting of you, though I raised my younger brothers because my mama was in a perpetual decline, which ought to be impossible. I will forgive you though, because you are anxious. A papa doesn’t rise from the dead every day.”
She’d taunted, dragged, and talked him to the nursery door.
“Hello, Nanny, Harris.” Her ladyship nodded to the nurse and the governess. “Nothing would do but His Grace must come directly to the nursery to see Lady Lucy. His Grace has reminded me her ladyship prefers to be called Lucy. She’s in the schoolroom?”
“At her letters,” Harris said, bobbing a deep curtsy. “Your Grace.”
He nodded in response, not recalling this Harris person in the least. Nanny was another matter, though, for she’d been Helene’s nanny too.
“Nanny, I hope we find you well?”
“Better now, Your Grace. Better now that my lamb’s papa is with us again.”
“Where I much prefer to be,” he said, wanting to run howling for the stables.
“Well, let’s get on with it,” the countess said, taking his hand again.
Since when had grown women been permitted to take the bare hands of grown men, so that said fellow—a duke, no less—might be hauled about like a load of garden produce? He counted himself fortunate Lady Greendale did not grasp him by the ear.
She guided him to the schoolroom, which enjoyed westerly windows that let in a good deal of afternoon sunlight. A child sat at an ornate little desk, carefully dipping her pen in the inkwell. Her tongue peeked out the side of her mouth, her lips were pursed in concentration, and her feet were wrapped around the legs of her chair. Her pinafore was spotless and nearly free of wrinkles.
She did not move, except for the hand guiding the pen, and she was so focused on her work, she didn’t look up. She had the look of a Severn, blond hair, a lithe elegance to her little frame, dramatic eyebrows…
While Christian stared at his only living child, the countess silently melted back into the sitting room. Now, now when he needed chatter and brisk efficiency more than ever, the woman deserted her post.
Nothing for it but to charge ahead.
“Lucy.”
She looked up, staring straight ahead at first, as if she weren’t sure from whence her name had been spoken. She set her pen down and turned her head.
“Lucy, it’s Papa.”
She scrambled up from the desk and started across the room, her gaze riveted on him. He went down on one knee and held up his arms, and she broke into a trot, then came pelting at him full tilt.
“I’m home,” he said, taking in the little-girl shape and sheer reality of her. “Papa’s home.”
She held on to him tightly, arms around his neck like she’d never let go.
“You’re glad to see me, hmm?” He kept his arms around her too. They were alone after all, and he hadn’t seen her for three damned years.
She nodded vigorously, nearly striking him a blow on the chin with her crown.
“I’m glad to see you too, Lucy Severn, very glad. What were you working on?”
She wiggled away, though letting her go was an effort, and pulled him over to the desk—another determined little female towing him about.
“‘Welcome home, Papa. Love, Lucy,’” he read. “Your hand is lovely, Lucy. What else have you written?”
She showed him, opening sketchbooks, copybooks, and pointing out books she’d either read or was reading. He did as his father had done, exclaiming here, praising there, asking a question occasionally.
But only occasionally, and all his questions were answerable with a nod or a shake of the head.
Lucy led him into the sitting room, her expression radiant.
“Look who you’ve found, Lucy,” Lady Greendale said, rising from the settee. “He isn’t lost anymore, our duke, you’ve found him. Will you take him to see the kittens in the stables now?”
“Really, kittens are perhaps more in line with a countess’s responsibilities than a duke’s, don’t you think?”
Christian speared the lady with a look, but his daughter swung his hand and peered up at him with big blue eyes.
Severn eyes, but prettier for Helene’s contribution to their setting.
“You come home from war only once,” Lady Greendale said. “Why don’t we all pay a visit to the kittens?”
She reached for Lucy’s free hand, but the child drew back. At first Christian felt an unbecoming spurt of pleasure that Lucy wanted to hold only her papa’s hand, not her cousin’s, but as he led the child toward the door, she dropped his hand too, and shook her head.
“She doesn’t want to go out,” Lady Greendale said. “Nurse warned me it was getting worse.”
“It’s a lovely day,” Christian said with a breeziness he’d likely never feel again. “I want to spend time with my daughter, and what’s more, Chessie will want to see how much she’s grown while he was off campaigning on the Peninsula. You recall Chesterton, don’t you, Lucy?”
She nodded, her gaze going from one adult to the other.
“Well, come along then.” Christian scooped the girl up bodily and settled her on his back. “We’ve a stable to visit.”
The countess started in with her chatter, which was a relief, for the child continued to say nothing.
“Chesterton is quite the largest horse I’ve seen under saddle, but he seems a steady fellow, and very handsome. I would guess that did your papa take you up on such a horse, Lucy, you might be able to see clear to France.”
Because he carried her on his back, Christian felt his daughter chortling—silently.
And by the time they’d inspected the entire stable, he was glad for the countess’s patter, glad for her ability to comment on everything, from the knees on the new foals to the whiskers on the kittens.
For it became obvious Lucy had inherited her father’s propensity for keeping silent, and she intended to remain that way for reasons known only to her.
Seven
Christian approached the nursery suite, Lucy still clinging like a monkey to his back. He set her down when they reached the sitting room, and she scampered off to the schoolroom, leaving Christian to wonder if his daughter’s manners had lapsed along with her words.
“She’s not normally given to rudeness of any kind,” the countess said, looking worried.
Before Christian could frame a reply—what did he know of his own child, after all?—Lucy was bac
k, her copybook and pencil in her hand. She held the book up to her father.
“Will I come tomorrow? Yes, if you wish it, and we’ll visit Chessie again, or the kittens.” He passed the book back to her.
Why wouldn’t she speak, for God’s sake? That she’d withhold her voice from her own father made him feel punished.
The child waved her book under his nose.
“Cousin must come too?” Excellent notion, given the awkwardness of one-sided conversations. “Countess?”
“Of course, I will be happy to come,” she said, smoothing a hand over the child’s golden hair. “Maybe you will have written a poem about clouds and lambs and kittens when we come back, or maybe about a great chestnut charger who can see to France.”
This provoked a smile from the child.
“Until tomorrow, then.” Christian turned to leave this maudlin little gathering only to find a pair of small, skinny arms lashed around his waist. The child’s embrace held desperation, and ferocious if silent determination.
“I forgot,” he said, lifting her up to his hip. “You will come down to see us after tea, won’t you?”
Lucy shook her head, pointed at her father, and drew her finger to her own chest.
“I’m to come to you? No, I think not. I came this time. You must come next time, but it will be only two floors down. If you don’t come, I’ll realize you were too fatigued, and content myself with Cousin Gillian’s company.”
He set her down, not too hastily, and turned on his heel to go, then stopped. “Countess, may I offer my escort?”
She looked torn, but made no objection. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
The door was safely closed behind them before he spoke.
“I suppose you think I bungled that, but making a great fuss over what might be nothing more than a child’s stubbornness could be ill-advised. Of course, I’m assuming the child will not talk, though it might be more accurate to say she cannot.”
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