Page 42 of The Captive
He sat on the hearth beside her uninvited, because he hadn’t wanted to give her a pretext for popping off to her widow’s bed. “Thank you for protecting me from Vicar and his wife. I’d forgotten he has four girls to fire off.”
“He was subtle about it, but a new roof for the nave must take precedence, I’m sure.” She hugged her robe more tightly around her, despite the fire hissing and popping softly behind them.
“Is the church in such bad shape as all that?” And shouldn’t Christian take Lucy—and the countess—to services some fine Sunday morning?
“I don’t know. When I visited here, Helene wasn’t inclined to attend services.”
“We neither of us were. I used to go occasionally, show the flag, admire a few babies. Vain of me, playing the duke.”
“And was your faith much help when you were captured?”
“No,” he said, the question taking him too much by surprise for him to make the proper polite noises. “Not in the sense you mean. The Old Testament, perhaps, where simple justice is endorsed, but certainly not that tripe about turning the other cheek and forgiving them, for they know not what they do. They knew damned good and well what they did, delighted in it.”
Though Girard had seemed sincerely regretful too, which Christian desperately wanted to attribute to malignant genius. And yet, an echo of the blond guard’s final apology—“I’m sorry for it… Girard is sorry for it, too”—rose up from memory. Did the devil apologize for his own wickedness?
“It’s frightening,” her ladyship said, hugging her knees, “to think such evil is truly walking among us, probably going to services, admiring babies, even as you once did.”
Did she regard her late spouse, fencing her away from the roses, denigrating her intelligence, as an exponent of such evil?
“I was morally asleep,” Christian said. “I wish to God I had remained in such a state of innocence.”
She turned her head, her cheek pillowed on her knees. “You don’t sleep well now, do you? I can find you down here most nights up until all hours. You ride out at first light, and you look…unrested.”
“You are in an observant mood tonight, my lady.”
Except she could always be counted upon to harpoon him with the occasional pithy observation, the periodic disconcerting question. He wasn’t sure he liked her for it, but he liked her for the courage it suggested.
And for bearing such a sweet, restful fragrance.
“One worries about you,” she said, huddling down more closely to her knees. “You are almost as quiet as your daughter, Mercia, and when one thinks the company of your military fellows might be useful to you, you’re stuck here in the country, partly at my insistence.”
“You did insist, didn’t you?”
“You let me.”
That smile again, sweet, a little sad, a little self-mocking. He got up—the hearthstones were damned hard under his backside—and went to his desk, opening the bottom drawer.
“I have something of yours,” he said, crossing back to the hearth. He resumed his place beside her, there on the hard, warm bricks, and unfolded her black silk shawl, letting the slippery pleasure of it run through his fingers, warm now, not cool.
“Here.” He looped it over her shoulders and used it to draw her close, holding the gathered hem with its delicate, extravagant embroidery in one hand, and bringing his free arm across her shoulders.
Such slender bones she had, and so sturdy.
“You’re cold. Despite the fire, your bare feet have made you cold.”
Or maybe she was merely lonely, but beside him, right beside him, the tension gradually seeped out of her.
Like the sands in an hourglass sinking from one chamber to the other, Christian felt loneliness trickling from her into him. Or maybe what filled him was his awareness of being set apart by his experiences, the way a widow is set apart by her grief. The distance was always there, but with activity, chronic fatigue, and determination, he could ignore it.
She burrowed closer, and it relieved something in him, that she wasn’t put off by that distance he carried inside him. His simple, animal warmth could draw her closer.
“Tell me you’ll stay.” The words were out, unbidden. He was foolish for having to speak them aloud, and desperate for her answer. “Countess…” He closed his eyes, but this was no help, because it made him more aware of her warm, rosy female scent. “Gillian.” He leaned closer, thinking to say more, right into her ear, but his lips grazed her temple.
“Say you’ll stay with us.” He whispered the words, hoping his voice reached her over the soft roar of the fire.
He gave in to the impulse welling up over the loneliness, and kissed her temple, then her cheek, letting his lips linger, then drawing away.
Those kisses had not been erotic, but neither had they been exactly cousinly—not to him. She should slap him, she should bolt, she should politely tell him she would depart at week’s end…
