Silence met this observation, unnerving coming from the countess—Cousin Gillian—and how odd that silence—Christian’s last, best, most trustworthy friend—was in some wise no longer welcome in his life.
***
Over a substantial tray served on the terrace, Gilly admitted that the distinction between unwillingness to speak and inability to speak mattered. His Grace was brusque, troubled, and sometimes difficult, but he was neither stupid nor free of paternal impulses.
And for that reason, Gilly confessed a transgression to him.
“I saw you greet her, Your Grace. I apologize for peeking, but I didn’t want you to start interrogating her when she’s been so anxious about seeing you.”
He sat back, a shaft of sunlight falling across his face. The sunshine was of the benevolent, early summer variety, but it illuminated both his fatigue and the white scar on his earlobe.
“And now you disclose your spying?”
He seemed amused, but Gilly did not trust her ability to read this man. She’d had no warning at all that he was about to kiss her, and she still had no idea why he’d done so or what she felt about his presumption.
“I wanted you to know what I’d done, and to express my apologies. I should have allowed you both privacy.”
He’d been exactly right with the child, perfect in fact. So kind and understanding Gilly had wanted to weep with relief—and he’d been affectionate. Little girls needed affection, particularly from their papas.
“My privacy has suffered far worse violations, my lady. You should have given us a moment, true, but you’re protective of the child, and one can’t castigate you for that, under the circumstances. You aren’t eating much. Does the company put your digestion off?”
Was he teasing her? She sat up straighter. “The company is agreeable.”
He held up a section of orange, and rather than take it from his hand, Gilly took it with her teeth, a shockingly informal way to go on. Nonetheless, he’d started it, and something about the daring of such behavior—she might one day abuse his trust and bite him—appealed to her.
“The company,” he mused, “is agreeable. Such profuse emotion, Countess. I assure you the sentiment is mutual.” He took a sprig of lavender from his lemonade glass and pitched the garnish with particular force into a bed of daisies. “I will review the physicians’ correspondence, we will have an outing with Lucy tomorrow, and I will consider where we go from here.”
Mercia twitched his fingers together—the lavender had been wet with lemonade—and Gilly wondered what exactly had been done to his hand.
To the rest of his body, to his mind. His privacy, his heart, his soul.
None of her business, as she was none of his.
“We have other business to conduct, Countess. More orange?”
“No, thank you,” she said, feeling off balance at his word choice—business, as in finances and ledgers. That sort of business. He’d eaten all but two orange sections, and put one on her plate.
“What are your long-term plans, my lady? I ask both as Lucy’s papa and as the husband of your late cousin.”
“My plans?”
Her bread and butter turned to sawdust in her mouth when she saw the considering light in his eyes. He’d ambushed her, the wretch, out here in the sunshine and beauty of a perfect summer’s day. Greendale had been a master at the ambush.
Next Mercia would explain, politely, that he needed privacy with his daughter, and an extraneous cousin-in-law on the premises must needs be a temporary imposition.
Well, damn him. Damn him and his elegant, scarred hands and his beautiful, soft voice and his lovely eyes and his kindness toward the child. Damn him for all of it.
And especially for kissing her. Those gentle, nearly chaste kisses had been so…so… Gilly had lost sleep trying to find words for Mercia’s kisses. One word kept careening into her awareness, no matter how stoutly she batted it away. Mercia’s kisses had been cherishing, as if Gilly were the reason he lived, the reason he’d bested demons and nightmares to return to her side.
Which was balderdash. He’d meandered home from Carlton House through the park, and she was pathetic to make so much of a small late-night lapse between two tired adults.
He regarded her now with an expression so far from cherishing that Gilly’s food sat uneasily in her belly.
“We’ve only just arrived at Severn, Your Grace. Must we discuss plans and arrangements now?”
“We must.” He picked up one of the sections of orange and held it out to her. “Please.”
Please eat, or please reveal her hopes and fears, as manifest in the next year’s residential particulars? His blue eyes held an odd light, and Gilly abruptly wished she had the protection of her black silk shawl, for all the afternoon was pleasant. She used her fingers to take the orange from him and popped it into her mouth.
“The army enjoys a surfeit of discipline and structure, as if to counteract all the chaos and upheaval of its daily existence,” Mercia said. “I have not had a settled life, a life to my liking, for more than three years. I impose on your good nature that we might coordinate plans, my lady.”
She chewed her orange, trying not to blame him for wanting his household to himself.
“I have no set plans for the near term.” Marcus had sent her a note of condolence upon Greendale’s passing, and that note had not included assurances that she’d be welcome in the dower house. Maybe he’d assumed assurances hadn’t been needed—she could occupy the dower house as a matter of right—but the Greendale dower house was little more than a ruin.
Across from her, the duke screwed up his thin-lipped, elegant mouth in a grimace of impatience.
“For the near term, you will stay here, my lady. We are agreed on that for the child’s sake. I’d like you to consider making your home with us permanently, though. You are in mourning, and I certainly intend to live quietly. You know this household, and I have no hostess, no lady to see to the maids and the housekeeper.”
He had no one to see to him, as far as Gilly could tell, which apparently mattered to him not at all.
“You would take me on as a charitable relation?” Her question held caution and surprise, for his invitation was as tempting as it was unexpected.
He pushed back from the table and shot her an annoyed look.
“I am the relation deserving of charity, Lady Greendale. I will be up to my ears in estate matters, for Easterbrook made it clear the stewards and tenants were as reluctant as the bankers to do anything on his say-so as my successor. I have no time for the household matters, no time for the child, no time for the social nonsense that ought to go along with my title. I quite honestly need your help, and I am asking you to give it on a more or less permanent basis.”
For him that was a protracted and reassuringly loud speech. The part of Gilly that had wanted only to be useful rejoiced to hear it, but some other part of her—that had been briefly cherished in a shadowed library—was disquieted.
“You’ll remarry,” she said, drawing on that sense of disquiet. He should remarry, and not because he needed an heir. He needed somebody to sit with him in the library when he could not sleep, needed somebody to see that he ate regularly. Needed somebody to find him the perfect valet.
Needed, and deserved, somebody to cherish him.
“I might remarry eventually, particularly if Easterbrook doesn’t sell out. I don’t look forward to the prospect though, and intend to observe some mourning of my own. I learned of Helene’s passing only when I met up with Easterbrook outside Toulouse.”
This was news. “And Evan?”
“At the same time.”
He was so matter-of-fact…so heartbreakingly matter-of-fact. Gilly was especially glad she’d seen him on his knees, hugging Lucy to him so tightly.
“I will think on this, Your Grace. You are generous, an
d as a place to bide during first mourning, Severn has a great deal of appeal.” A place to be needed and busy, a place to heal from eight years of being Greendale’s countess.
“First mourning is only six months for some, your ladyship.” He held out the last orange section to her. “Give me a year. Give me and Lucy your full year of mourning.”
In that year, would he give her more kisses? She took the orange and set it on her plate.
“I will think on this,” she said again. “We will see what transpires with Lucy. You might well decide to send her to a convent, where her silence will be viewed as a spiritual achievement.”
“No, I will not.” He appropriated the orange section from her plate and munched it into oblivion. “I am disinclined to send her away for any reason. You have a scar, Countess.”
What on earth?
He took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb over the back of her knuckles. For all his hand had been mistreated, his grip was firm. Also warm. Perhaps even cherishing.
“A burn, I think,” he said, studying her hand. “A nasty burn, but old. Well healed.”
His touch was a delicate, sweet caress to Gilly’s nerves, like the summer breeze and the dappled sun. “Spilled tea. It happens.”
He patted her knuckles and let her have her hand back.
“We do heal, hmm?” He did not smile, but Gilly had the sense they’d shared something, a wink, a joke, a secret, about scars and the stories they concealed.
Not a harmless secret, for some.
“You should tell Lucy you will never send her away. Harris no doubt threatens with every imaginable dire fate to try to inspire the girl to speak. I forbade the use of violence in your schoolroom, though.”
Her presumptuousness caught His Grace’s curiosity. “An occasional birching befalls most English schoolchildren, and usually to good effect.”
“According to whom? The tutors who’ve beaten the children to silence? The pious hypocrites who misquote Proverbs?”
She should not have broached this topic, not with him, not when he had so recently noted the scar on her hand. An outburst threatened, worse than any of her previous lapses.
“A stubborn child who is never disciplined cannot learn to govern himself,” Mercia said, as if reciting some platitude he’d heard before his own backside had been caned.
“Helene was stubborn. Did you take a switch to her in hopes of eradicating the failing in your duchess?”
They were arguing. The last thing Gilly wanted was to annoy His Grace, and yet on this topic, she could barely be rational.
“I would never raise my hand to a woman.”
“But you would raise that same hand to a small child, and expect brute force to teach her self-possession and restraint. I can assure you, resorting to violence for the betterment of those helpless to defend themselves is anything but an example of restraint.”
She stared at the empty plate, her hands fisted in her lap lest she hurl the hapless porcelain against the nearest hard surface.
His Grace’s handsome head, for example.
“No birchings for my daughter, then, and no more threats, either. Not from anybody.” When Gilly dared a glance at him, his Grace’s expression suggested talk of Gilly’s eventual departure qualified as a threat. “I commend the lemon cakes to your excellent care, Countess.”
He rose, bowed over her hand, then departed, his back militarily straight.
Leaving Gilly to wonder if His Grace’s hospitality was a great and subtle kindness, or if—the notion chilled—he’d threatened her with a gilded cage.
Another gilded cage.
***
Christian wasn’t precisely glad to be alive. Surviving torture turned a man into a ghost toting a bag of memories that could not be shared, and inhabiting a body no longer reliable or easily maintained. That body, after torture, did not sleep well, did not exert itself unproblematically, did not ingest food easily, and certainly could not be relied upon to deal with amatory pastimes—not that Christian would be indulging in any of those.
Not soon. Not immediately.
But the hour he’d spent with his daughter made it plain the child, at least, was delighted her papa had survived, and this changed the complexion of Christian’s existence.
For himself, he could be content to languish in bitterness, to wake up each day after a bad night’s sleep—the countess would not permit a continued reversal of circadian routines—aching in body and soul, dreams of revenge his constant companion.
For his child, he would have to manage something…more, until Girard could be found and exterminated.
Lucy wanted her papa to take her up on Chessie, an exercise requiring the ability to guide the horse with his seat and one hand while he steadied the child with the other.
She wanted to hold her papa’s hand—either one would do—and to ride about on his back.
She expected his appearance in the nursery on some predictable schedule.
If anything had assisted Christian to remain upright and breathing, despite Girard’s mischief, it was the physical fitness of a seasoned cavalry officer determined to lead his men well. That part of military life—the physical challenge of it—Christian had foolishly thrived on.
The time had come to foolishly thrive again, insofar as a tired and tormented body would allow it.
So Christian began his first full day at Severn as his father and grandfather often had, by riding out. He started with the grounds of Severn itself, the bridle paths and park, keeping mostly to the walk. Yesterday’s ride down from Town had tired both him and the horse, and the purpose of the morning ride was twofold.
He wanted to regain condition, or see if it was possible to regain condition, and he wanted to see his land. The countess had been right to bring him home, for southern England was beautiful in summer.
And her ladyship apparently intended to enjoy it to the fullest, for Christian spotted her walking among his mother’s treasured gardens. For the first time, Lady Greendale wasn’t in black—he delighted in knowing even her night robes were black—and she was out-of-doors without a bonnet.
He was inclined to leave her to her wanderings, except she looked so…pretty. She wore a high-waisted walking dress in lavender, her blond hair burnished gold in the morning sun, and she was humming as she occasionally bent down to sniff a flower.
“I know I’ve been caught,” she said, kneeling to take in the scent of a red rose and getting a damp patch on one knee for her efforts. “You should not lurk in the trees, Mercia. Come into the sun, and greet the day with me.”
She ran her nose over the flower’s outer petals and gave him a soft, private smile that put him in mind of Italian Renaissance maidens who knew delightful, naughty secrets.
“Good morning, Countess. You’re up early.”
“As are you, as is the sun. And your dear friend, Mr. Chesterton.”
“My lazy friend. We were useless above a sedate trot, weren’t we, Chessie?”
The horse looked about, pricking his ears at the sound of his name. Christian swung down, gave the animal a pat on the neck, and fell in step beside the countess, leading his gelding by the reins.
“Did you sleep well?” she asked. “My mama said it’s a polite inquiry, but the question strikes me as personal.”
“I rarely sleep well,” he said, simply for the pleasure of thwarting her small talk.
“Neither do I.” Her smile became sad, and he wondered why they hadn’t met up in the library again the previous evening, where something more interesting than sleep might have befallen them. “Restless nights are the price of adulthood, perhaps.” She slipped her hand through his arm, uninvited, as if she would…comfort him?
He stepped aside, untangling their arms, and lifted his hand to his lips to fashion a piercing whistle.
Except the fingers of his left h
and no longer accommodated their boyhood competence. What came out was an odd huff that would in no wise get the attention of the stableboys. His right hand did no better, and he wanted to kick something—Anduvoir’s privy parts would do for a start. He took no consolation from the stray thought that Girard alone might understand why.
“We need a groom?” her ladyship guessed. “I’ll try.”
She put her fingers to her lips and got off a stout, shrill peal, which had the stable lads looking up from across the sprawling back garden and Chessie standing quite tall in his gear. A groom scampered over, swung up on Chessie, and took the horse off toward the stables.
The sight of the groom trotting Chessie away to the stables tickled recollections Christian couldn’t quite retrieve, though the moment of déjà vu passed as quickly as it had arisen.
“What a good soul,” the countess said as Chessie obligingly decamped in the direction of his oats. “With a good memory too.”
“Very good,” Christian replied. “If Chessie hadn’t recognized me, I’m not sure I could have survived more stumbling about the French countryside, trying to prove my patrimony to the authorities.”
For some starving French farm wife would doubtless have killed the bearded scarecrow who’d forgotten how to talk.
“I’m glad Chesterton’s memory did not fail him.” Her ladyship slipped her arm through Christian’s again, then slid her hand down to encircle his left wrist. “What exactly befell your hand?”
War. Pain. Evil in the form of drunken corporals who likely could not have understood his English if he had broken his silence. “The French.”
They strolled along without further words, the lovely summer morning making the memory of the torture obscene, but less real too. Without him willing it, Christian’s mouth formed more sounds.
“The guards sought to wring a confession of treason from me, so even if I did escape, my own people would put me to death. The idea was not to cause physical pain for its own sake—though a certain variety of soldier enjoys torturing prisoners for that reason—but to destroy my sanity. A dream of escape often sustains a prisoner, and Girard wanted me to have that dream, probably to torment me as much as comfort me. Girard was livid when he realized what the guards had done with his pet duke.”
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