The Captive Read Online Free Page B

“but he’d be tearing into that beef if he’d been kept away from a good steak for months. I’m Easterbrook.”
    He sat across from the skinny, quiet fellow with the brilliant blue eyes, and crossed his arms over his chest.
    “My teeth are loose, Colonel,” the man said. “I cannot manage the beef, because the French became too parsimonious to feed me the occasional orange. Or perhaps they ran out of oranges themselves.”
    “Ah, but of course—shame upon those niggardly French.” Easterbrook shot a long-suffering glance toward the several officers malingering two tables over. “Perhaps we should take this discussion outside.”
    St. Just would have preferred to shoo their audience away, because the cool mountain air would cut right through the wraith at the table.
    “We should take the discussion outside, Your Grace, Marcus,” said the wraith—softly. Ducally , in St. Just’s informed opinion.
    “My apologies,” Easterbrook replied, “Your Grace, indeed.” His tone was so punctiliously civil as to be mocking.
    The man rose slowly—perhaps he could not abide leaving his potatoes unconsumed—and nobody moved to help him. St. Just discarded the notion given the determination in those blue eyes.
    “Look here,” Easterbrook said when they’d drawn a few steps away from the mess tent. “If you were Christian Severn, Duke of Mercia, you’d bloody well not be sporting that beard. You look like you haven’t shaved in weeks, your hands are dirty, and without putting too fine a point on it, I wouldn’t want to stand downwind of you on a hot day.”
    None of which, in St. Just’s opinion, had any bearing on the present situation.
    “My hands shake too badly to wield a razor, Cousin, though less so now.” His Grace—why the hell not refer to him as such?—held out a right hand that did, indeed, suffer a minute tremor. “The French would not shave me, because I might succeed in slicing open my throat against the razor, regardless of the barber’s skill. They clipped my beard occasionally instead.”
    This was more logic, but Easterbrook waved an impatient—and also slightly unsteady—hand.
    “The Duke of Mercia was a man in his prime, for God’s sake. You’re skin and bones and you have no uniform, no signet ring.”
    Which, of course, the French would have taken possession of immediately upon capturing the fellow. Inside the mess tent, shuffling and murmuring suggested the audience had shifted close enough to hear the exchange.
    “I was fed enough to keep me alive, not enough to keep me strong. You insult your cousin, Easterbrook.” The man spoke softly, as if he refused to entertain a lot of bored officers who at midday were not yet drunk.
    “Half the camp knows I was cousin to Mercia,” Easterbrook spat as Anders led his horse up. “Having me identify the imposters has become a standing joke. My cousin was left-handed, you ate with only your right hand. Explain that.”
    The explanation had St. Just itching to hop back in the saddle and ride anywhere—Paris, Moscow, Rome—provided it was far, far away. His Grace held up his left arm, on the end of which was an appendage bearing five fingers; the last two of them bore old scars and curious angles at the joints.
    “As a gift to the commanding officer, the guards decided in his absence that I was to write out a confession to present their superior upon his return from Toulouse. My captors neglected to realize I was left-handed.” The lost duke spoke slowly, each word chosen to convey the most information with the fewest syllables.
    “The guards limited their attentions to the hand they thought I could not write with,” he went on. “I did not write out the confession in any case. When Colonel Girard was done having his guards beaten for their cheek, he was effusively apologetic.” That last phrase was flourished with subtle irony and such a perfect enunciation of the final consonants, that St. Just paced off a few feet, the better to