Page 9 of The Winter Husband
Swallowing hard, she brushed her thigh and felt the lump stowed under her skirts.
She wasn’t completely helpless.
Summoning courage, she stepped through the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
His wife was going to be a handful tonight.
Following her into the rented lodgings, Lucas stomped his boots on the fieldstone floor, less to remove clods of frozen mud than expend some frustration. Shrugging off his cloak, he tossed it onto one of the pegs behind the door. When he turned to help Marie with her cloak, he found her staring down the hall, frozen like a doe sensing danger.
A manservant in brown serge approached through the darkness, candle in hand. “Captain Girard, Mrs. Girard.” He stopped to bow. “Your room is prepared, and dinner is laid out in the parlor.”
Lucas recognized the man as a servant in Talon’s employ. “Cedric, is it?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“My wife and I can manage from here.” Lucas laid his hands on his wife’s cloak, her shoulders flinching beneath. “You’re free to go.”
The man’s face sobered. “I’ve been instructed to wait upon you both.”
“And now your task is finished.” Lucas set his wife’s cloak onto the peg beside his, averting his eyes from her bare shoulders. “Be on your way.”
The man had the grace to look shamefaced, but not enough grace to move. “I regret I cannot, Captain.”
For one hot moment, Lucas contemplated seizing Cedric by the scruff and hurling him into the street. Wasn’t this situation difficult enough? Did Talon have to send a servant to watch their every move?
“I’ve prepared a light supper.” The servant spread his hands in the direction of a room that emanated faint firelight. “There is a bottle of wine already open. A gift from Talon, with his compliments.”
Talon had done his work well, damn it. There was no budging or bribing this servant, or his boss would hear about it in the morning. Lucas glanced at Marie and saw, by her wild eyes, that she felt even more trapped than when he’d put a ring on her finger. So he stepped in front of her in the same stoic, unflinching way did when calming a young soldier about to go into battle.
“You must be hungry,” he said, spreading his hand toward the dining room. “After you.”
He followed in her rosewater-scented wake, bending his head to enter a low-ceilinged room where a linen-covered table, gleaming with pewter and silver candlesticks, had been set before the hearth. His wife slid herself in the seat Cedric pulled out for her. The servant murmured he would return with supper in a moment and then drifted away like smoke.
Lucas yanked his chair back to make room for his greater size, staring at the utensils and plates and feeling like a hungry giant at a child’s table.
She said, under her breath, “Talon sent a spy.”
“Yes.” He reached for the bottle and filled two pewter cups. “He wants to breed us like a pair of horses.”
The table rattled. She’d hit it with her knees.Hell.Was it only this morning he’d vowed, for one night, not to be a monster? He held out an olive branch in the shape of a cup of wine. She took it without touching his hand. He shot his own cup back, drank half the contents, and welcomed the seep of warmth through his body. She didn’t join him, but set the cup down to stare into the hearth flames.
The firelight glazed her face. He wondered what thoughts swirled in that mind. She was such a puzzle, this one. He only half-believed the rumors. A thousand questions ran through his mind, but they had five winter months to fill up with conversation. Right now, he had to figure out what questions he could ask without making her bolt.
He ventured, “What am I to call you?”
She blinked at him, dazed. “Must you call me anything?”
“After a week or two, ‘Madame’ and ‘Sir’ will grow thin.”
She shrugged. “I’ll call you ‘Captain.’”
She had a way of speaking his rank that subtly curdled the word. She really didn’t like soldiers. “Call me Lucas.”
Her bare shoulder rose and fell. “As you wish.”
“What of you? Legally, you’re Madame Girard—”
