Page 88 of The Captive
“I also…” She gathered her dressing gown at the throat and glanced over at the window, where another lovely summer day was gaining its wings. “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“Ofme? I’m a duke, I’m wealthy, I’m twenty-seventh in line for the damned throne, I’m—”
She put soft, rose-scented fingers to his lips, the ghost of a smile playing around her mouth.
“So modest, Mercia.” The smile faded, and her hand cradled his jaw. “You are grieving so much, healing from so much, and your instinct to protect overwhelms your sense. I will remain at Severn, and we will talk later of marriage.”
She urged him against her so he could pillow his cheek on the silk covering her thigh. Yes, his protective instincts had overwhelmed his sense, and so they would continue to do until he’d identified her malefactor.
As her hands settled in his hair, another insight struck: Gilly’s protective instincts had overwhelmedhertoo, and when Christian had those instincts of hers settled down, he’d make the lady his next duchess.
***
Gilly had spent the night in Christian’s bed and slept wonderfully, despite the events of the previous day, and now she was…
She ran her hands over the soft abundance of his unbound hair.
Now she was so befuddled, by passion, by fatigue, by fear, byhim. Christian nestled against her, knelt at her feet like a tired child, and he was no doubt fatigued, but he was also canny as hell.
“Perhaps you should send me away.”
He raised his head up, his hair in disarray from her attentions. “Perhaps I should take you away.”
“Where would we go?” She should not have asked that question. If she went away with him, she’d have no choice but to marry him.
“I have property in a dozen counties. You choose.” He rose and took her hand to assist her to her feet, then stood frowning down at her in the gathering morning light. “After our first night of loving, I don’t want to part from you.”
Their first, because he was confident they’d share others, and so—may heaven help her—was Gilly.
“I’m traveling clear across the hallway, Your Grace.”
He smiled crookedly at her form of address and put one of his hands on each of her shoulders.
“For last night, thank you, my lady. I wasn’t…” He tucked her closer, and Gilly allowed it because some things need not be said staring a woman directly in the eye.
And he’d already delivered her a lengthy lecture about the poison, and not eating or drinking anything unless he was with her.
“You doubted yourself,” Gilly said. “Doubted your manhood over that business with the French and their perishing knives, may they rot in hell.”
Along with Greendale. Gilly hadn’t thought she couldbeany more enraged at her late spouse, but the morning brought that revelation too.
“I doubted myself, yes.” Christian brought her fingers to his lips. “I have doubted myself for months, but a man doesn’t sort out such things easily on his own.”
“You’re sorted out now,” she said, smiling up at him, because this, too, was a scar they shared. “I am a bit sorted out as well.”
Not entirely, of course. She might never be entirely sorted out. She’d been married to Greendale for 3,147 nights—she’d done the math the day he’d died—and each one had been awful.
No wonder she was hesitant to accept Christian’s proposal, even though every single particle of her heart, mind, soul, and strength craved to become his wife.
***
In the days that followed, Gilly felt as if her true grieving were getting under way. Christian came to her room each night, scooped her up, and bore her away to his bed. At first, he was careful with her, his attentions always tender and sweet and limited to one coupling per night. By degrees, he became bolder.
Gilly had the sense it wasn’t his confidence that was increasing, it was hers.
And therein lay some of the grief. As Greendale’s wife, she’d quickly grasped that her marriage was a sad caricature of what a marriage should be. With Christian’s example to compare it to, though, she realized her marriage hadn’t been merely sad.
Her union with Greendale had been tragic, a murder of a marriage. Thank God that Christian was a man who understood the futility of violence in any form.
