The Heir - Catherine Coulter [88]
He sighed, coming down onto his side, balancing himself on his elbow. “You are perceptive, Elsbeth. You see a lot.” He saw the pleasure his easy words gave her. She would be anything he wanted her to be, do anything he asked of her. At least he prayed it was so. He considered his next words carefully, saying at last, “You must know that the earl and I do not deal well together. His antipathy toward me grows daily. I believe if he could manage it, he would kill me. No, no, Elsbeth, it’s all right. I can deal with the earl. You know, I wonder why he hasn’t ordered me to leave, but he hasn’t. It is strange. I do not understand him nor do I understand this hatred he has for me. I have done him no ill.”
Elsbeth could not help herself. “Kill you, oh no! Surely that is going too far. Besides, you wouldn’t allow it. You are brave and strong and smart. He is nothing compared to you. You wouldn’t allow anyone to harm you. I hate him. What shall we do?”
She believed everything she had said. So passionate she was. He had found himself wondering about that passion of hers, if perhaps he’d not seen her as she really was, but listening to her now, the passion in her was real, very real. And he knew that passion was the same in all things. He smiled at her. He could be sure of her now.
She clutched at his sleeve. “He hates you because he is jealous of you, Gervaise, I know it. He sees that you are everything that he is not. He despises you for it. Oh God, what will we do?”
Completely satisfied, the comte smiled a tender, slightly bitter smile, and said softly, “You are always so sensitive to the feelings of those around you, Elsbeth. Perhaps you are correct about the earl, perhaps there is something in him that makes him feel less the man when I am around. But it doesn’t matter. Evesham Abbey belongs to him. I am merely a guest. I can become uninvited anytime.” He shook away the pain of it, and took her small hands between his. “In any case, just a while ago he more or less ordered me to leave Evesham Abbey by the end of the week. Our time together grows short, my love.” The earl hadn’t really ordered him, but it had amounted to the same thing. He had merely asked Gervaise to the library, closed the door, faced him, saying finally, “You will wish to leave Evesham Abbey by the end of the week.” Nothing more, just that, for the longest time. And he had looked at Gervaise with that cold deadness in his eyes, his body perfectly still, and Gervaise had felt such an instant of fear, that he found he could not yet speak. “What? Not a word? You have nothing at all to say to me?”
Still, Gervaise had said nothing, merely shrugged his shoulders.
“There is a lot about you that offends me, comte. But I have allowed you to stay—for many reasons. But those reasons will resolve themselves very soon now. The end of the week. Now, leave me.”
And that had been all that was said. Gervaise left the library, leaning against the wall when he was alone, hating himself because he had not told the earl that he was a coward, a bully, and not worthy to wear Gervaise’s boots. No, he had said nothing.
“Yes,” he said now to Elsbeth, “our time grows short. I must be gone by the end of the week.”
Elsbeth started forward. “Oh no, it cannot be so. Gervaise, I cannot let you go away from me. I have just found you and I won’t want to lose you. No, please.” Tears filled her eyes. She gulped, trying to control herself, but she couldn’t. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “It isn’t fair. Arabella has everything—truly, even if she doesn’t appear to enjoy what she has. Even Lady Ann is now her own mistress; she can do anything she wishes to. It’s only I who have been the supplicant all my life, the one outside, the one nobody wants. I can’t bear it. Please, I don’t want to be alone again.”
He couldn’t bear it, this pain in her that colored everything she thought, everything she said. But he had no alternative. The comte gently flicked away the tears and said, “We must be brave, Elsbeth.