“The torture was merely a means to an end?” She spoke the word so casually, and her fingers laced through his.
Gently, but unapologetically. The way Girard had handled him after Anduvoir had departed to terrorize the camp whores.
“The goal of my captors was to rob me of my reason, to reduce a proud little dukeling to a puling, begging cipher. Breaking me became a game for them, and to some extent for me, too.”
As best he could figure. Why else would Girard have alternated inhuman treatment whenever Anduvoir came around with punctilious care and feeding?
“A game, like a duel to the death.”
“My death, or the death of my reason.”
She brought his hand up, holding the back of it against the extraordinary softness of her cheek. Until he’d taken liberties with her in the library, he’d forgotten how wonderfully, startlingly soft a woman’s cheek could be. As soft as sunshine and summer rain, as soft as the quiet of the English countryside.
“Shall we sit?” he asked, though she’d likely release his hand if they sat. He was a widower, though, and she ought not to begrudge him simple human contact when he’d been so recently bereaved.
She let him lead her to a shaded bench near the roses, the morning air faintly redolent of their perfume. When Christian seated her, the countess kept his damaged hand in hers.
“I was not allowed to garden at Greendale,” she said, fingers drifting over his knuckles. “The estate had gardens, because his lordship would not be seen to neglect his acres, but I was forbidden to walk them, or to dig about in the good English soil, or to consult with the gardeners regarding the designs and plantings.”
Based on the studied casualness of her tone, this prohibition had been irksome.
“You are free to garden here all you like. I ask only that you not disturb my mother’s roses.”
“They are lovely.”
“She was lovely.”
Another silence, while Christian became aware of his surroundings beyond the small hand holding his. The roses were in their early summer glory, and why Polite Society insisted on staying in Town through most of June was incomprehensible, when the alternative was the English countryside. The sunshine was a perfectly weighted beneficence on his cheek, the scent of the gardens heavenly, and the entire morning aurally gilded with the fluting chorus of songbirds.
He wanted to kiss the lady beside him again, not in thanks, not as a good-night benediction, but for the sheer pleasure of the undertaking.
“You were right about Severn,” Christian said. “I rode a few of the home-farm fields, and those are in good repair, but the bordering tenant farms are not as spruce.”
“You’ll soon put matters to rights.” She patted his hand, didn’t squeeze it. “My goal this morning was to inspect the family plot and the chapel grounds.”
“You wanted to tend the graves?” He didn’t like this idea, instinctively loathed it.
“I doubt Nanny or Harris have thought to bring Lucy to see them. When Lucy visits, all should be pretty and soothing.”
What about when he visited? Though Helene had apparently taken her own life, and no amount of flowers would pretty that up.
“You would bring Lucy to see the graves?”
“I’ll tend the graves first,” she said, her chin coming up. “Lucy’s father ought to take her to visit them.”
He disentangled their hands, which required an odd little struggle. The countess didn’t seem to understand what he was about until he shook his fingers free.
“I am of no mind to linger about graves, my lady, not now.” Not ever. Children succumbed to flu, so Christian could not directly blame Girard for the boy’s death, but it was time to send out letters, to call in favors, to pester the generals, and start tracking the French pestilence down.
“Then don’t visit the graves now,” the countess said, her expression more puzzled than disapproving. And yet, she seemed to expect something from him, something in the nature of an apology or explanation.
So be it.
“I joined up to get away from Helene, and she was pleased to see me go.”
The admission was out, made mostly to the toes of Christian’s riding boots—his loose riding boots. He willed himself to get the devil off the bench, but his tired ducal arse stayed right where it was.
“She was a difficult wife, I take it.”
Helene had been a difficult cousin too, based on the countess’s dry tone.
“Helene was vain, spoiled, selfish, and mean,” Christian said. “At times. She was also gorgeous, generous, scatterbrained, and capable of kindness, but we did not suit, and we were both growing to accept that.”
Though accepting Helene’s penchant for flirting had been beyond him, and that was what had eventually driven him onto Wellington’s staff.
His duchess had been faithful, so far as he knew, but in the curious manner of troubled marriages, Christian had the sense if he’d remained underfoot, his presence would have goaded her to cross even that line.
“Did you go to war to get yourself killed? Over a woman? I cannot picture the Duke of Mercia being so romantic.”
Neither could he, thank God. “I did not go off to get killed. I went off to serve King and Country, and if I might point out, I succeeded.” The notion was no comfort whatsoever, but torture did that too—put a man beyond any comfort.
“You succeeded spectacularly.”
The small woman beside him worried her upper lip with her teeth, probably biting back more words. She had a healthy sense of self-preservation, did the countess.
And a way with a silence.
“I wanted more children,” Christian said, giving up the struggle to maintain any dignity in this conversation. “A spare seemed a prudent undertaking. She said she’d gut me in my sleep did I attempt it. I thought time apart would help. It did not. It had not as of the last leave I took.”
“She owed you a spare,” the countess said, her tone stern. “We talked about this before we married, Helene and I. She pitied me because Greendale was my lot, but I was prepared to present him with children.”
She was blushing, which restored his spirits, if not his dignity. The touch of color looked well on her, as did a color other than black. The lady was, viewed in a certain soft morning light, attractive. Certainly attractive enough to remarry.
“You would have loved any children you bore old Greendale.” This truth was the closest he could come to consoling her.
Though for what? Childlessness? For being married to an old martinet who was jealous of his flower gardens? For having to serve as Helene’s most recent confidante?
And how did they get onto this indelicate and personal topic?
“I am to meet my steward directly after breakfast,” he said. “Shall I walk you back to the house?”
“Please.” She extended her hand, he drew her to her feet, and this time, it was Christian who was ambushed.
She gave him another of those kisses to the mouth, rose up off the bench and kept coming, a one-woman, fragrant, soft cavalry charge of pleasure and comfort. After she’d brushed her lips across his, she also gave him a more intriguing gift.
She rested against him, fully, gave him her weight for a moment, let his greater height and what strength he had hold her upright. The sensations were exquisite.
Her hair tickling his chin.
Her breasts, unapologetically soft and full against his chest.
Peppermint—from her tooth powder?—lingering on his lips.
His reactions were slow, and she seemed to understand they would be, for she remained against him long enough that he could loop his arms around her waist, rest his chin against her temple, and let the peace of the embrace settle over him.
Girard deserved to die, slowly and painfully, but of all the things Girard had destroyed in Christian
’s life, he had not, nor would he ever, destroy this moment.
“I wanted the graves to be tidy for you, too,” she said. “For all of us, the graves should be tidy.”
The countess was protective of those she cared about, and in her admission, Christian found proof that she cared about him. She hadn’t assured him she’d remain for her entire year of mourning—the most he could ask of her, for now—but she’d given him a morsel of her trust.
He turned her under his arm and walked her back to the house without allowing her to leave his side.
Eight
“Why not a hack about the park one day soon?” Mercia asked his daughter. He had the knack of pausing long enough to invite the child to answer, but not so long as to create expectations. Gilly wondered where he’d learned such interrogatory skill, or if he simply had a gift.
“Hearing no objection,” he went on, “I’ll invite the countess to ride with us.”
“I haven’t a proper habit, but I will make one up, now that I know the stables are open to guests.”
Something nonplussed then a trifle aggravated flickered in Mercia’s eyes.
“We’ll choose her ladyship a mount, shall we?” He put the question to his daughter and extended a hand to the child. “One must indulge in some anticipatory spoiling if one is to form an alliance with a horse or a member of the opposite sex. You are not to repeat that to your governess, Lucy.”
As if she’d repeat anything to anybody.
Mercia took his daughter from stall to stall, eventually lifting her onto his hip, something the girl was old enough to object to, and wise enough to enjoy. She was content to wander from one velvety equine nose to another, her head resting on her father’s shoulder.
And the picture they made, two blond heads nestled together, the duke occasionally murmuring quietly to his daughter, gave Gilly an odd pang for Helene. This was lost to Helene, this simple outing to the stables with father and daughter, lost forever. Watering the flowers in the library, surreptitiously watching His Grace scratch out letters to his old army connections—many of them still on the Continent—that was lost too.
Peeling his oranges.
Kissing him. Reveling in the sandalwood scent of him. Feeling his heart beat with the firm, steady rhythm of a trotting horse.
“Come, Countess, there’s a lady asking to make your acquaintance,” the duke said. “I presented this one to Helene on the occasion of Evan’s birth.”
Gilly caught up to His Grace and peered over an open half door at a dainty golden mare with four white socks, a white blaze, and a flaxen mane and tail.
Gilly stretched out a hand to the horse. “She is darling. It’s a shame she’s not being ridden.”
“The lads no doubt dice for the privilege of taking her out,” Mercia said. “But she’s the right size for you. Helene disdained her because of her modest size.”
He said it casually, as if having such a generous lying-in gift disdained wasn’t of any moment, but Gilly had begun to wonder if anything Helene had said about her husband was true. Perhaps a sojourn in the army had done him good, or perhaps Helene’s judgment had been less than objective.
The duke was not grim; he was serious, as a mature man might be serious.
He was not selfish; he was disciplined.
He was not a great brute, but rather a tall, handsome—if lean—man, whose kisses were the opposite of brutish.
And if he was a ravening lecher, Gilly saw no evidence of it. Helene had claimed he’d kept mistresses and conducted several liaisons simultaneously. Gilly hadn’t questioned where such lurid information came from, but had prayed Greendale might do likewise and leave her in peace.
“Child, your hour of liberty has flown,” the duke said, easing Lucy to her feet. “Will you join me here tomorrow? Perhaps we’ll put you on a leading rein, and let you have a turn on Damsel while the countess cheers you on.”
Lucy’s little face lit up, and she clapped her hands together as she nodded emphatically.
“We’ve an assignation, then, so be off with you.” The duke turned her by her shoulders and gave her a gentle shove. “Mind you go straight to the nursery, and don’t get your pinafore dirty on the way, lest Nanny and the countess be wroth with me.” He shook a playful finger at her, then blew the child a kiss.
Grim?
The girl scampered off, turning to wave at them from the barn door, then cutting a line across the gardens toward the house.
“She’s more animated for having you about,” Gilly said. “The entire staff is elated to have you home again.”
“Oh, quite. Risen from the dead and all that. Would you walk with me, Countess?”
He wrapped her hand over his arm, the ease of it giving Gilly a private pleasure. On those occasions when it had been necessary to walk with Greendale, he’d spent the entire promenade hissing criticism at her, while presenting a bland countenance to the world. Strolling on Mercia’s arm felt…peaceful.
And protected, the opposite of Greendale’s carping and threats.
“You’re silent. This makes a man nervous, Lady Greendale.”
“We’re sharing a roof, Your Grace, and we have been cousins by marriage. Might you call me Gillian? Nobody does anymore.” Not that Greendale had. His names for her had been…not worth recalling. Gilly leaned closer to her escort.
“Gilly is a pretty name.”
In his less vile moods, Greendale had called it a peasant name. “How long do you suppose you’ll stay, Your Grace?”
“Stay?” The duke snapped off a red damask rose, took a whiff, then passed it to her. “This reminds me of you.”
Another compliment?
“Stay here at Severn,” Gilly said, wanting to touch the rose to her nose, but finding the impulse oddly intimate. “Before you leave.”
“I’ve quite sold out, Countess, and the only reason I’d set foot on the Continent would be if old army matters required it of me, and they well might.”
“But you’ve estates elsewhere. Business in Town, matters that will take you from Severn.” Part of her wanted him to travel on, lest she cross the line from kisses given out of friendship and comfort to kisses of a different nature.
“Are you asking if I have a mistress in Town, languishing for lack of my company? That would have been fast work, my dear. Should I be flattered or insulted that you suspect such a thing of me?”
My dear? Was he teasing? She recalled him shaking his finger at his daughter in mock sternness. “You should be quiet. I would never ask such a thing.”
Though she might suspect it.
“Helene did.” He disentangled their arms and took her by the wrist instead, leading her to a shaded bench. “At great, vociferous, and tiresome length, she accused me of being quite the blade on the town.”
Good heavens. It was one thing to complain to a cousin, quite another to rip up at one’s husband. “You cut a dash. Greendale remarked it.”
“Greendale was still wearing powder and patches. He’d criticize the angel Gabriel for flying. I was faithful to my vows, Countess. My parents were a love match, and I married Helene hoping to esteem her greatly.”
He fell silent while Gilly cast about for a change in topic—Helene had hoped to be esteemed greatly, and apparently she had been. The duke went on, his tone thoughtful.
“I often suspected Helene had a wandering eye and couldn’t quite admit it to herself, so she must see the fault in me.”
To his list of attributes, Gilly added astuteness, which was not a great blessing under some circumstances.
“She very much enjoyed being Duchess of Mercia,” Gilly said, relieved that it was the truth.
“She did. I take consolation from that.”
“Will you observe mourning for her and Evan?”
“That depends in part on the guidance I receive from Vicar, but I a
m inclined to take up second mourning, as Helene will soon have been gone for a year.”
“And Evan, too.”
The duke’s lips twisted in an expression Gilly recognized not as distaste so much as impatience.
“What?”
“I feel as much guilt as grief where the child is concerned,” he said. “For various reasons, but in part because the little fellow needed me more than my duchess did—the best person to show the next duke how to go on is the present version. And yet, my presence in the nursery was barely tolerated, and the army seemed like a good use of an extraneous duke.”
He was confiding in her, and Gilly was equally dismayed and touched. Damn Helene for her selfishness anyway, and English dukes numbered only several dozen in a good year. How could even one be extraneous?
“You are not extraneous, Your Grace. Not to Lucy, not to your tenants and staff.”
“What about to you, Countess?” Despite the gravity of the question, his blue eyes held humor, and maybe something else—curiosity?
“You are not extraneous to me, either. I am the one imposing on your household.”
“You will disabuse yourself of that notion.” He rose and drew Gilly to her feet. “When Vicar comes to call, you will pour. When Lucy needs her first habit, you will supervise the creation of it. When the tweeny steals the underbutler’s attentions from the first parlor maid, you will intervene, or civilization throughout the shire will cease.”
“While you do what?”
“Wait for my daughter to speak and try to address what needs addressing regarding my past.”
He gave her a little bow, touched his finger to the flower Gilly still held, and took himself back up toward the house.
Leaving Gilly to wonder, if in his questions and confidences the duke might—without any conscious intent to do so—have been flirting with her, just a little.
***
To Christian’s great pleasure, in response to inquiries regarding Girard and Anduvoir, a letter arrived from Devlin St. Just. Out of the pile of otherwise trivial social correspondence, that one was saved back, to be read in the solitude of the library at the end of the day.
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