The Captive Read Online Free

break.”
    “You don’t know that.” St. Just rose too easily for a man who’d ridden the distance from Paris. “My thanks for the hospitality, for the meal, the drink, and your company. I’m off to check on my horse.”
    Bless the beast. “Your horse?”
    “I ride my own mounts. I’m safer that way, and as much ground as we’ve covered the past few days, I need to take him out and stretch his legs, keep him from stiffening up. You’re welcome to join me.”
    “Excuse me, Colonel Easterbrook, Colonel St. Just?” A subaltern who might soon be of an age to shave came puffing to a stop right outside the tent, then saluted with the exaggerated enthusiasm of the young and never injured.
    “Anders.” Easterbrook took one last drag on his smoke, tossed the stub to the ground, and rubbed it out with the toe of his boot. “Are you on an errand for Baldy?”
    “General Baldridge has another lost duke for you, sir. We put him in the officers’ mess.”
    “Famous.” Easterbrook chugged the dregs from the brandy bottle and tossed it aside. “Does this one at least speak English?”
    “He doesn’t say much at all, sir, though his eyes are a frightful blue.”
    “Well, the poor devil got that much right. Fetch my horse, Anders. St. Just and I will hack out when we’ve dispensed with His Latest Grace. Come along, St. Just. Lost dukes only show up once a week or so in these parts. They’re our entertainment, now that the Frogs no longer oblige.”
    ***
    Christian stood outside the tent, the spring breeze nigh making his sore teeth chatter—though it hadn’t obscured a word of the exchange that had taken place inside.
    “He’s another lost duke.” The subaltern had kept his tone expressionless as he passed along the message to some general. “Third one this month, but we’ve sent for Colonel Easterbrook, sir.”
    “Poor Easterbrook.” The senior officer blew out a gusty breath, and Christian heard what sounded like a pen being tossed onto a table, then a chair creak. “I suppose this one has a tale as well?”
    “Not that I’ve heard, sir. He looks… Well…”
    “Permission to speak freely, Blevins.”
    “If I were claiming to have wandered the heights for months, living on nothing, perhaps crazed from a blow to the head or captured by Frogs, it would help if I looked like him, sir.”
    “Elaborate.”
    “He’s skinny as a wraith, and his eyes look like he had a front-row seat in hell. He isn’t babbling and carrying on like the last two did.”
    “The last four, you mean. I suppose Easterbrook will be forced to denounce this one too, but a bit of Christian charity won’t go amiss. Take the man to the mess tent, observe the proprieties, and get him a decent meal. One never knows, and it doesn’t do to offend a duke, particularly not a mad one.”
    Interesting point, suggesting this commanding officer had a grasp of strategy.
    “Aye, sir.”
    Blevins stepped out of the tent, conscientiously retying the flap, though it continued to luff noisily in the breeze.
    Sounds were something Christian was getting used to again. Sounds other than iron bars clanging open and shut, rats scurrying, Girard’s philosophizing, his jailer’s doleful brogue-and-burr mutterings…
    “You’re to be fed while we await further orders,” the blond, ruddy-faced Blevins said. From the crisp look of his uniform, Blevins either came from means, was particularly vain of his appearance—thinning hair could do that to a young fellow—or he’d only recently bought his colors.
    Christian mustered two words. “Your Grace.”
    “Beg pardon?” English manners had Blevins bending nearer, for the fifth lost duke spoke only quietly.
    When he spoke at all.
    “You’re to be fed, Your Grace ,” Christian said slowly, each word the product of a mental gymnastic, like tossing separate pebbles into the exact center of a quiet pond.
    “Oh, right you are, sir, er, Your Grace.” The man’s ears turned red and he marched smartly