The Captive

by Grace Burrowes

  A place to live “for the nonce”? He “could not know” the value of freedom?

  Christian brought Chessie to a halt, crossed his wrists over the pommel, and gave her the entire weight of his stare.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, fiddling with her reins. “You do know about losing your freedom, I didn’t mean that you didn’t…but that was war, and marriage comes with the sanctity of a sacrament, and…oh, bother. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

  “No matter. Not all men are like your late spouse.”

  He nudged the horse forward and let her stew. A change in topic was in order, but it was her turn to offer something.

  “You’re regaining your passion,” she said, nearly startling him out of the saddle. “You aren’t simply trying to recover your wind, or intent on addressing the neglect of the estate. You’re out here because you wanted to sit astride that horse.”

  “And that is a passion?”

  “You rode everywhere before you joined up,” she said. “Helene said you were a natural for the cavalry, though she hated that you bought your colors.”

  “She neglected to tell me she hated it.” And Helene had not been a woman given to keeping her own counsel.

  Unlike Lady Greendale. Worse yet, the countess was riding to the left, as most women did if they had only one sidesaddle, and Chessie was on Damsel’s right, so the countess’s face was visible only in profile.

  “Helene said she wanted you to resign your commission, but knew you wouldn’t abide by her wishes if she asked.”

  “She knew that, did she?”

  And if Helene had asked him? Would he have come home, tried again, swallowed his pride? Would they have become friends in truth, forged some sort of meaningful truce? To think maybe they would have was reassuring, to think they both might finally have matured enough to become something of a family.

  Except that now, Helene was gone, Evan was gone.

  “Must I apologize again?” the countess asked. “I did not mean to turn the topic so melancholy.”

  “Thoughtful, not melancholy.”

  She nodded, accepting his absolution. Before Christian could think of another conversational gambit, her lips turned up in a positively wicked smile.

  “I’ll race you to the bridge.”

  The mare shot forward before Christian could decide whether accepting such a challenge was gentlemanly. Chessie, however, considered it his equine duty to stick with the mare, so off they went. The larger gelding quickly came up on the mare’s flank, and Christian caught a glimpse of a grinning countess, bending low to whisper encouragement to the mare.

  And then she wasn’t smiling.

  “Christian!”

  Over the pounding of hooves, Christian perceived the fear in Gilly’s cry. Her seat slipped a hair to the left, and he caught sight of the foregirth banging loose against the mare’s side.

  He urged Chessie next to the mare, snaked an arm around Gilly’s waist, and hiked her out of the saddle just as it tipped sideways, then slid down to hang under the galloping mare’s belly. The bias girth kept the saddle on the horse, inspiring the beast to a flat-out run in her efforts to escape the nuisance beneath her.

  “You’re safe. I’ve got you.” And he did, had her firmly around the waist as he hauled Chessie to a halt. “Merciful God, Gilly.” He dropped the reins from his right hand and tightened his arms around her. “Merciful, everlasting… That might have been the end of you.”

  She leaned into him, her arms around his neck. “It wasn’t. I’m fine, I’m just…”

  She shuddered, then let out a great sigh and stayed in his arms atop the horse, clinging to him while he clung to her.

  “I can walk,” she said at length.

  “Nonsense.” He hiked himself over the cantle then slid to the ground over Chessie’s rump. “Your mare has regained her senses by the bridge. You stay right where you are while I fetch her.”

  They returned to the stables with Christian riding the mare bareback, her saddle left behind for the grooms to retrieve, while Gillian remained awkwardly perched on Chessie. When Christian assisted the lady from his horse, he paused, arms around her again, this time in full view of the lads and the house.

  “Christian?” Her voice as she burrowed against his chest was tentative. “Your Grace?”

  “Hush, you’ve had a fright. I’m reassuring you.”

  “Quite.” Her tone held humor, enough to suggest she was as reassured as she would permit herself to be.

  “I think a medicinal tot is in order,” he said, not stepping back but turning her under his arm and starting her off toward the house.

  “For my nerves?” The woman seemed utterly composed but for the slight dishevelment of her hair.

  “Yes, damn it, for your nerves.”

  “That’s what I mean, about regaining your passions.”

  “I beg your pardon?” She was going on about his passions, when less than thirty minutes ago, that damned saddle…

  “When I met you in London, earlier this summer, you would not have sworn at me. You were too controlled.”

  He could not grasp her point, and it was all he could do to refrain from grasping her. “I wasn’t swearing at you. I was swearing at the situation.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t have. Might we adopt a bit more decorous pace, Your Grace? I will soon grow winded.”

  He slowed down, hadn’t even realized he was hustling her along. “You regard my colorful language as a positive development?”

  “I do. Maybe you’re getting adequate rest and proper nutrition, maybe you’re healing in more subtle regards, but you’re making great strides.”

  They’d reached the back terrace, and when she tried to march out from under his arm, he let her get a few paces off.

  “I want to kill Girard,” he said, having no earthly idea where the words came from. “I could get passionate about that, about choking the man to death with my bare hands. Slowly. Lethally passionately.”

  Her expression didn’t change, save for a slight raising of her eyebrows. “Such thoughts are to be expected.”

  He laid an arm across her shoulders and resumed a more sedate progress across the terrace. “I lie awake at night, and instead of reliving the torture, I think now of putting Girard where I was and watching impassively while what was done to me is done to him. What I want to do to Anduvoir ought to shame me. This is not a fit topic for a lady, particularly not for a lady who nearly came to harm in my care. You will please give me your opinion of the roses.”

  She shrugged against his arm and brought them to a stop. “Bother the roses. In all likelihood, I would have come to no harm save for a few bruises. I’ve come off my share of horses, and I tend to heal quickly. You were about to fetch me a brandy.”

  She took him by the wrist and steered him toward the French doors that led into the library.

  “God, yes, a drink.”

  She was hauling him along barehanded, she’d called his name from the back of her horse, and she hadn’t turned a hair when he’d mentioned his most recent and bloody version of a lullaby.

  Of course he needed a drink, preferably several.

  ***

  His Grace downed a finger of brandy in a single swallow. Gilly, by contrast, took a cautious sip of her drink and let the heat slide over her throat. Why, when heat in quantity galloped through her veins, was she imbibing spirits?

  His Grace was regaining his equilibrium and not merely regarding the mishap with the saddle.

  While Gilly was losing hers.

  “If you actually imbibe the drink, the benefits are more apparent, though even the feel of the glass in one’s hand can be steadying too,” he said.

  He imbued his words with more force, his step with more energy. On the occasion of St. Just’s parting, His Grace had smiled. By the week, if not by
the day, he was less the man who’d survived torture and captivity and more the man…

  Whom Helene had termed “aggravatingly virile.”

  Oh, Helene.

  A tap on the door spared Gilly further scrutiny from the duke, though she wasn’t expecting a footman to come in bearing her sidesaddle.

  “How old is your saddle, my lady?” Mercia asked. He took it from the footman, dismissed him, and hefted the whole business onto a reading table.

  “Less than ten years. I brought it with me when I married, so I took it when I decamped from Greendale.”

  “Does Lucy use it?”

  “No, Your Grace. Sidesaddles are usually built to a lady’s particular measurements, and the horn wouldn’t be placed properly for Lucy.”

  He gave her a look that meant he—a decorated cavalry officer—regarded the information as suspect simply because it hadn’t crossed his notice previously.

  Aggravatingly virile, indeed.

  He peered at the girth and waggled the fingers of his left hand at her in a beckoning gesture. “Come here.”

  “You might at least append a palliative question mark to your commands,” she said, but she went to him and set her drink aside.

  “Look at this.” He pointed to the billets that held the girth’s buckles. “You see the stitching here and here is in perfectly good repair, but it broke here, or was cut.”

  “Cut?”

  “The leather’s not stressed, and we see no unusual wear on the greater area, no rub marks. Believe me, my lady, the night before a battle, a cavalryman inspects his gear and puts it in as near perfect working order as he can. Your saddle was tampered with.”

  A feeling went through Gilly, like the shock when her coziest socks scuffed over a thick rug. The sensation startled, like a bad scare, and made her insides tangle uncomfortably. She recognized the sensations as first occurring on her wedding night, a condensed and physical form of dismay with not a little panic thrown in.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Who knew when you were traveling down from Town?”

  “You think somebody loosened the coach wheel?” She picked up her drink and took a preoccupied swallow, only to take too much. As she set the glass back down and tried to keep the coughing ladylike—and how did one do that?—His Grace patted her back.

  “You need water,” he said, drawing her closer to the sideboard.

  “I’m fine,” she countered, dragging her feet on general principles. “Stop towing me about like so much cargo, and the wheel was not tampered with, and my girth just…just broke.”

  “You’re trying to be brave.”

  Gilly might have hit him, but he was passing her a glass of water. She made herself take a deep breath and let it out, lest she grab the glass and dash the contents in his face.

  Except he looked so…concerned, and she knew he was right: she was trying to be brave or rational or something. Trying to cope when she thought the worst of her coping days were behind her.

  “Just a sip.” He scolded like a mother hen, as if he expected her to do exactly as he said even though she was no longer coughing.

  She took one sip, set the glass aside, took two steps closer to the duke, went up on her toes, and kissed him.

  Her actions hadn’t been the result of any mental process identifiable as a decision, and thus made no sense to her mind, but to her body…oh, to her body, kissing was the logical reaction to any and all situations involving proximity to Christian Severn, much less a situation that had left her frightened and flustered.

  She’d meant this kiss like a slap, an abrupt, riveting departure from expected behavior. A means of disconcerting a fellow who showed every sign of assuming command without Gilly’s consent.

  But his arms came around her slowly, carefully, and his tongue traced her lips as he groaned a sort of sigh, and his embrace alone was enough to have her clinging back, tucking herself closer to him to feel how their bodies pressed together.

  “Kiss me.” His voice was low, just above a whisper, and his mouth tasted of the sweet brandy when he opened it over Gilly’s.

  His tongue came gently exploring, and Gilly’s insides collapsed in on themselves, like a house of emotional cards disintegrating when a window bangs open in a stiff breeze. Had she not been gripping him tightly, her knees might have given up the job of holding her upright.

  And then she was scooped up, hoisted against the duke’s chest, and carried to the sofa, where he laid her down, her head propped on the brocade pillows.

  She wanted to protest the loss of his warmth—of his mouth—but he was back, perched at her hip and leaning down close enough she could see the variations in the blue of his eyes. This was much better. Prone, she needn’t worry about standing; she need only concern herself with pulling him closer, getting his hair loose from its queue, and fusing her mouth to his as he invited her to do exploring of her own.

  “Gilly, we have to stop.”

  She blinked; his forehead was pressed to hers. “Why?”

  “Because the door is unlocked.”

  Well, that was plain enough. Gilly thought about sitting up, but that would precipitate an awkward discussion and mean she couldn’t lie there, inhaling ginger-and-lemon aftershave while her fingers stroked over silky golden hair and her heart thudded against her ribs.

  He left her to lock the door and came back to sit at her hip. “You started it, my lady.”

  Must he look so pleased?

  And yet, he was so dear when he was pleased.

  “No denying that,” she said, hoping he’d think the flush was from the brandy—not the kiss. And it wasn’t a blush. Was. Not. “But you were hovering.”

  “I shall hover more often.”

  “I do apologize.”

  “There’s no need for that,” he said, and she hoped that was the start of a smile in his eyes, except it was a fairly fierce expression for it to be a smile. “Can you explain, at least?”

  “I wanted to stop your hovering.”

  “Interesting strategy. Has it worked?”

  “Well…no. Here you are again.”

  “Let me propose another theory to explain your rash actions.” He traced a finger over her brows, a gentle, even sweet gesture Gilly felt in her vitals. “You fancy me.”

  “I fancy…?” She blew her hair off her forehead, intending to blow his hand away. He repeated the caress instead, further threatening her composure. “I’ve never heard such a taradiddle.” She fancied him the way some women fancied shoes, bonnets, and chocolate. She fancied him like sunlight and water, like air, like—

  And that would not do.

  “You fancy me, you were overset by the topic under discussion and by the events of the day, and you sought my arms as a result.”

  “I wasn’t kissing your arms.” She muttered the words as she struggled to sit with her back against the armrest, and knew a little consternation. He sounded entirely too calm, given the content of his words.

  And the idea that he could possibly have put a ducal finger on a small truth…

  Oh, feathers. Oh, damn and blast, a real truth.

  “There’s no fancying involved,” she said, swiping at a lock of hair that insisted on dangling against her nose. “You’re good-looking enough, and underfoot. I’m a widow. Widows are allowed queer starts. You mustn’t feel the need to start blathering on about honor and poor relations.”

  She’d hit him if he gave her that speech again. The smile he directed at her was so gentle, she knew he wasn’t fooled. He scooted closer and took her in his arms.

  “Calm yourself, Gilly. I fancy you too.”

  Gilly. How she loved to hear him say her name, to verbally caress a part of her Greendale had found plebeian and unimpressive.

  And Christian fancied her. She let the pleasure of that admission wash over
her for a moment, the way she’d enjoy sinking into a hot bath before tending to her ablutions.

  “Are you about to launch into homilies on the topic of my hating you for compromising me, and grief and honor and more masculine rot?”

  “No.” He pulled back a few inches too, which created for Gilly the disadvantage of being studied when she’d rather do the studying. “I ought to, but I’ve had a shift in perspective regarding certain matters, or I think I have. Besides, some fairly tame kissing does not a lady compromise.”

  That was fairly tame?

  “I’m capable of discretion,” she said. “And I’m sensible of my duty to Lucy.”

  He frowned, as if her words were somehow complicated and layered with meaning when they weren’t.

  “I’m not sure I’m capable of discretion,” he replied, his expression disgruntled. “Not where you’re concerned. And if you wanted to distract me from the fact that somebody has tried twice now to cause you serious harm, that will take even more than your considerable charms, my lady.”

  “You fancy me.” She could not believe she’d said it aloud, and not in reply to his very stern tone of voice, but it caused him to gift her again with that gentle, wicked smile.

  “I fancy you, my dear. Alive and whole is a particularly fetching combination. You’ll humor me if I insist on some measures intended to keep you safe.”

  “I’m not going back to Greendale.” With each passing day, Gilly became more determined on that. “The memories are not cheering, and I would not crowd Easterbrook—Marcus—as he’s trying to establish his household.”

  “No, you’re not going back to Greendale. You’re staying here, where I can keep you safe from all save my own mischief.”

  She liked the sound of that, though she shouldn’t. A more prudent woman, even a prudent widow, would be appalled, and lecture him sternly about overreacting to minor accidents, suffering paranoia, and turning up ducal on her over nothing, but she didn’t.

  She leaned into his embrace and was silent.

  Thirteen