The Captive by Grace Burrowes

in short doses anyway.
    Except even in this small task, His Grace had to frustrate her.
    She rapped softly on the open library door—startling a man who cuddled up with knives was not well advised.
    “Come.” He uttered the word without looking up from his desk.
    “Good evening, Your Grace.”
    He set his pen down with the long-suffering air of a composer interrupted by the charwoman. “I thought you were a footman coming to trim wicks and build up the fire.”
    “Sorry to disappoint. What are you working on?”
    “A report.”
    “I couldn’t sleep.”
    “Obviously.”
    His foul humor was so palpable Gilly wanted to stomp from the room. No wonder Helene had despaired of the man, despite his former good looks.
    “I came to find a book, something soothing to quiet my mind, something to take with me on the journey to Severn.” She crossed to the bookshelves, which held more volumes than she could count in a month. “Shouldn’t you be in bed if we’re to be awake at first light?”
    “Sleep eludes me as well.” He was up, prowling around, then poking at the fire.
    “When Greendale died, the physician left me with enough sleeping draughts to put down a small herd of horses. I tried not to be offended.”
    “He didn’t mean for you to use them all at once.” Now he tidied up his desk, capping the inkwell, opening and closing drawers.
    “I’ve never been certain. Have you read all these books?”
    “The ones in Latin, English, or French, probably. My Greek is rusty.”
    “Then you might show a hint of good manners—nothing binding or impressive—and help me select a book I can take to bed with me and read in the coach tomorrow.”
    “Poetry,” he said, banging a drawer loudly. He came over to stand beside her, which meant they were in some proximity, the rows of shelves positioned to accommodate one person browsing, not two. “Here.”
    He took down a volume of Blake. “Bucolic, but with occasional nods toward the profound.”
    “Read me a few lines.”
    His scent came to her, rosemary and sandalwood, fresh, a little piney, male, and clean—even at this hour.
    Had he eaten anything since he’d disappeared into the mews in the last of the day’s light?
    “‘Like a fiend in a cloud, with howling woe,’” he quoted, “‘After night I do crowd, And with night will go.’ From the Poetical Sketches .”
    “Not very soothing. Try something else, and this time read it, please, do not draw upon the gloomy reaches of your memory.” She leaned back against the bookshelf, crossed her arms, and closed her eyes, the better to hear the beauty of the poetry and ignore the grouch reading it.
    “‘He loves to sit and hear me sing, Then, laughing, sports and plays with me; Then stretches out my golden wing, and mocks my loss of liberty…’ I cannot read this.”
    He held out the book, and Gilly would have bet her favorite silk shawl he’d never opened it. He’d been quoting all the while. The bleakness in his eyes was unnerving.
    “Today? When I did not come home?” he said, staring at the little book. “I was waiting.”
    He was a foot taller than Gilly, battle hardened, and capable of meanness. He’d killed for King and Country, and endured all manner of privations in captivity, but at that moment, he was…uncertain.
    “What were you waiting for?”
    “The park…it wasn’t safe.”
    She took the poetry from his grasp. “Explain this to me, Your Grace. I do not take your meaning.”
    “I rode to Carlton House through the parks, to avoid the streets, the shops, the people…at midday, nobody’s in the park.”
    “And later in the day, everybody who is anybody is in the park.” She took his arm and steered him back toward the fire, which was roaring merrily, thanks to his attentions. “You did not want to deal with the awkward questions and the well-meant stupidity.”
    He frowned down at her. “I have underestimated you.”
    “Most do. I prefer it that way.”
    “As a widow, you’re