Page 14 of Duke in Darkness

“I am hungry. I didn’t eat very much yesterday.”

Gabriel handed her a fine china plate. “Then get to work, corporal. You can’t march…on an empty stomach.”

Her lips twitched ever so slightly as she added a slice of toasted bread and buttered it. “So they say.”

“Tea? Or chocolate?” he added, feeling like a fool, but breakfasting with a virgin wife was never going to be anything other than awkward.

Lilian glanced longingly at the chocolate pot, then sighed. “Tea.”

He poured her a steaming cup of the rich chocolate. “Here you go.”

“I asked for tea.”

“But you don’t want tea. Just as I suspect…you’d rather have something…other than plain toast.”

She stilled. “Is something wrong, Exton?”

“No.”

“Have you…” her voice dropped to a whisper, “have you been drinking?”

Gabriel put down the chocolate pot and rubbed a hand across his jaw, as the monstrous scar decorating half his face began to tingle. Mocking him. “Not today.”

“Then why are you speaking as if you have been?”

Humiliation struck like an arrow. Exactly why he tried to keep his sentences short, otherwise he did sound three sheets to the wind even when sober.

Yet she needed to know the truth, about this at least. “My scar. The Army surgeon…did the best he could. But the damage…”

“Exton.” Lilian’s cheeks went regimental scarlet. “I am sorry. Nobody ever mentioned…how foolish of me. It is so obvious. Does it hurt to speak? Oh, I do beg your pardon. You don’t have to answer that.”

Oddly, some of his tension eased. “I’ll answer if you eat. And drink chocolate.”

She blinked in surprise. Then lifting her chin, added some coddled eggs and two slices of ham to her plate, and a spoonful of berry preserve to her toasted bread. After sampling some of each, she met his gaze with a haughty raised eyebrow and took a mouthful of chocolate.

Gabriel almost smiled as he tested some coddled eggs and toast on his empty gut. Remarkably, they, and a raisin pastry, went down without fuss. “It doesn’t hurt to say a little. But more and my jaw aches. And I sound ridiculous. Why did you ask for tea? And only take a little toast…when you’re so hungry?”

Lilian seemed to take forever to finish a bite of ham. “Partly habit. Now I think back, the household economized long before Father informed us of, ah, matters.”

“And mostly?”

“Grandmother taught us gluttony is a sin,” she replied primly. “A lady must eat like a baby bird…why is that amusing?”

He couldn’t help it. “It’s not. But you have a spot of jam…on your face.”

“Where!?”

“Here,” he said, touching his chin, almost laughing now as she frantically scrubbed at her face and somehow managed to miss the spot entirely.

“Is it gone?” she cried.

“No. Lean over.”

Pushing the breakfast trolley away, Lilian tilted her face up toward him.

As soon as he touched her, his tension returned. Her skin was soft. Like creamy satin. Quickly scooping the tiny dab of jam with his thumb, he brought it back to his mouth and licked it off. Then he reached out again.

“Didn’t you get it all?” she asked, her voice not quite steady.