“No mistress for me.” Some English officer might bribe her to poison her protector. Sebastian had reason to know such tactics might be attempted—again.
“So you’ll dally with the companion until she realizes what you are?”
Michael clearly did not like that option, but he wouldn’t blame Sebastian for considering it. Michael was a tolerant soul, despite much posturing to the contrary.
“Dally is such a frivolous word.” A frivolous, wrong word where Milly Danforth was concerned, though there were no right words.
“You’ll ruin her? That’s all right, then. The brave English officers won’t get a chance at you because your own auntie will finish you off straightaway, assuming I let her have the first shot. You need practice at this confession business, St. Clair. One doesn’t announce one’s sins, one repents of them.”
“I’ll not ruin her.” He might kiss her again. He might drive out with her again.
Michael finished his drink and slid the cards across the table. “I’m vastly relieved to hear of your virtuous intentions, but you’re right: you’ve kissed her, and that’s bad enough. When your reputation catches up with you, she’ll give notice, and your aunt will be left without a friend by her side, and it will be your fault. Again.”
“You are such a cheering influence, Michael. Take yourself off to bed, there to dream of the end of the world or whatever gives a nice Catholic boy comfort on a long and cold night.”
Michael snorted. “I’m as Catholic as Miss Danforth’s cat. I’m also from the North, and I know damned good and well what comfort works best on a long and chilly night—as do you.”
Sebastian let him go, relieved to have solitude. Given the chance, Michael would shadow him everywhere, the man’s loyalty in France a backhanded gift from a God not inclined to deal kindly with soldiers who outlived their wars.
Though now, Sebastian resigned himself to keeping a close eye on his former subordinate. Even an angel could fall prey to such envy as would see him cast from heaven. Michael was a good man, but by no means an angel.
As for the quick tumble Michael prescribed to deal with virtually all of a man’s ills…Sebastian didn’t fancy it. Never had. He’d never known Michael to indulge in that sort of folly either, but then, Michael could be as discreet as death at three in the morning.
A sense of being watched plucked at Sebastian’s nerves. He glanced around the room, gratified to find his instincts still functioned.
“What are you doing here?”
The cat needed no more invitation than that to hop down from the back of the sofa and spring up onto the card table.
“You have no manners, sir.”
And no dignity, either, for the beast was purring as it stropped itself against Sebastian’s chin. Sebastian collected the cat into his lap.
“Am I your next project, cat? The next harmless old dear you intend to cozen for your meals?”
To be an old dear was a humble ambition, one Sebastian could not allow himself to aspire to. “Miss Danforth no doubt misses you, beast. You should go to her.”
Sebastian wanted to go to her and be calmed and comforted by her pretty, female scent—lavender and bergamot. He wanted to kiss her again, to touch her hand, to forget for a few minutes that he was a man with a price on his head. He wanted to watch her brown eyes light with humor and surprise as she told him his kisses were tedious and awful.
“She is lonely, too, cat. She and I would not speak of that. We would not have to.” They’d kiss, though, and that was the same discussion in a more efficient language—a language even a spinster companion might understand if Sebastian were patient enough.
For her, Sebastian could find oceans of patience.
“Your lady has no lap desk, my friend. Did you know that?” Sebastian had made a point to learn this before the woman had been under his roof four hours. “Every lady has a lap desk, and she keeps her journal in it, and her billet-doux, but your lady has nobody left to write to.”
Sebastian set the cat out in the chilly corridor, closed the library door, and returned to the table. He could tell Miss Danforth that she’d been kissed by the Traitor Baron, and tell her exactly what he’d done to earn that sobriquet.
In which case, she’d be gone by the week’s end.
He picked up the deck of cards and dealt himself a hand of solitaire.
***
“I have neglected my duty to St. Clair,” the baroness announced. “Milly, you must aid me in making reparation.”
Milly considered the seam she was working on, a curving arc between two swatches of velvet, one purple, one black. “I am yours to command, my lady.”
Across the music room, Professor Baumgartner cleared his throat but did not look up from his scribblings. The professor was a tall, dapper Prussian who said little, smiled occasionally, and generally trailed her ladyship about of a morning, though he did not live in.
Her ladyship shot a tolerant smile at her secretary. “Herr Doktor Professor is laughing at me. He can do it in at least seven languages.”
He paused in his writing long enough to smile back at her. “Nine, and a smattering of several others, if your ladyship will please recall.”
Nine languages that he not only spoke, but read fluently—and her ladyship thought such a thing a teasing matter.
“St. Clair has neglected his duty to the succession,” her ladyship went on, and from her tone, she was not teasing in the least. “We must guide him toward holy matrimony, Milly. It is our duty.”
“Of course, your ladyship.” Though Milly felt no such duty. St. Clair was as deserving of the blessings of marriage as the next wealthy, handsome, dashing baron, but guiding him anywhere was a doomed undertaking.
“He said he’d escort me to the Devonshire musicale, and His Grace tends to assemble a more forward-thinking lot. I’ll get a peek at the guest list and—”
Milly knew it was futile, but she spoke up anyway on behalf of a man who protected frightened donkeys and flirted with grieving spinsters.
“That is not what he said, ma’am. His lordship said he would ask Mr. Brodie to consult the schedule and see if his lordship was available to join in your frivolous pursuits—though he referred to Mr. Brodie as ‘the ever-competent Michael.’”
Her ladyship glared down her nose at Milly, and the effect was surprisingly daunting given how delicate that nose was.
“One wants support from one’s subordinates, Milly, not lecturing. St. Clair cannot fill his nursery without first taking some sweet young thing to wife. She need not have the skills to run his household—I have that much well in hand—but she must be biddable and fertile, in other words, the typical result of English aristocratic inbreeding. We shall make a list.”
And abruptly the morning became perilous, for her ladyship wanted a list.
A written list.
Milly bent her head over her piecework, the better to suggest her hands were too well occupied to deal with pen, ink, and paper. “Perhaps the professor could serve as our amanuensis?”
“Capital! Baum, attendez-nous.”
He went on scribbling. “Always, my lady.”
“Aggravating man. The fate of the house of St. Clair rests on this list, and you scoff.”
“I scoff as well, and I bid the company good morning.”
St. Clair himself stood in the doorway, attired in subtle elegance and the tolerance of a long-suffering bachelor nephew. “Rather than hunting a bride for me, Aunt, we must find a husband for you. You are becoming obstreperous.”
The baron sauntered into the room, while the baroness came to her feet. “I had a husband, I’ll thank you to recall. A dear man whose memory leaves no room for successors, and if anybody is becoming obstreperous, it is you.”
His lordship kissed his aunt’s cheek. “I know you mean well, and your devotion to my welfare is m
uch appreciated, but there will be no lists, my dear.”
Milly’s piecework lay forgotten in her lap, because there was more to this little exchange than either party was acknowledging.
Lady St. Clair fluffed the folds of his lace cravat. “Sebastian, why must you be so stubborn? A French girl wouldn’t offend anybody, except possibly the French, and they do not signify.”
“A French girl would be torn to pieces, Aunt, and well you know it.”
Torn to pieces by whom?
“She would not, not if you kept her at St. Clair for a few years first, and got some babies on her. Three or four babies don’t take that long, and there’s little enough effort for their papa involved in the business. You could fuss with your plants and canter about on that white beast of yours and nobody—”
His lordship kissed his aunt’s other cheek and murmured something in her ear. It sounded French to Milly, and stern. Whatever it was, it sent her ladyship back to her chair by the fire.
“Play for us, then,” she said, waving a hand toward the piano. “Something to soothe an old woman’s tattered nerves and broken heart.”
St. Clair’s smile turned indulgent. “But of course. And something to cheer an underpaid companion at her needlework, and an overworked secretary at his letters.”
He folded back the cover over the piano’s keys and took the bench, the picture of an elegant gentleman at a drawing-room entertainment. Milly expected him to offer various pieces for the baroness’s consideration, the better to placate the old dear with opportunities to carp, criticize, and refuse, but he placed his hands on the keyboard.
And Milly held her breath.
He began with a soft turning melody in a minor key, arpeggios rippling beneath. Milly clutched at the velvet in her hands, missed her aunt, and wanted to close her eyes and simply absorb the torment of such aural beauty.
“Milly, if I’m to be denied an opportunity to aid my nephew, then I will at least be entertained. Fetch me some Byron from the library please. For all his sins, he at least knew to take a wife.”
How was one to find a single volume of poetry in a room full of books? “Wouldn’t you rather listen to the music, your ladyship?”
“For goodness’ sake, child, I can listen to poetry and music at the same time. Baum can no doubt listen to poetry in one language and a song in another while the conversation takes place in a third. Be off with you, and have the kitchen send up some tea.”
“Of course, your ladyship.” Milly took great pains to fold up her sewing. Perhaps if she could find the butler, or even Mr. Brodie…
No, not him. He was a sneak and not to be trusted.
“If you’re looking for Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, it’s on the third shelf above the atlases,” the baron said from the keyboard. “A little volume bound in green, and much used, owing to my aunt’s preference for racy verse. There’s a volume of poetry bound in red which you open at your peril just beside it.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Milly rose and set aside her sewing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
She retrieved the volume based on his lordship’s exact directions, and based on the fact that her own middle name was Harriette, which sounded a bit like Harold at the front end, and—she hoped—looked a bit like Harold as well.
Milly was back in her seat, the professor scratching away, the baron playing his soft, mournful tune when she realized she ought to have lied and said the book was nowhere to be found, because now…
Her heart began to thump, began the slow dirge that presaged humiliation and the possible death of any independence from her cousins’ schemes. Milly wanted to hurl the little green book into the fire.
The baron brought his piece to a die-away cadence and rose.
“Aunt, you cannot mean to make Miss Danforth read that tripe. She is gently bred, proper, and has done nothing to deserve such a punishment. You are upset with me, and I shall read your naughty poetry.”
Her ladyship looked pleased. “Yes, you shall. Milly is working on her trousseau, while you are idling away your morning.”
Milly passed over the book, but the baron hesitated for a moment before taking it from her hand. His eyes held humor and resignation.
“Miss Danforth, my thanks.”
He took the seat directly to Milly’s left, bringing with him his masculine fragrance and a reading voice as lovely as his music had been. When he recited Byron’s sad, sly whimsy, he did not sound French, and yet, there was a lyricism to his words that transcended public-school English too.
Occasionally, as he’d turn a page or finish a stanza, his lordship would glance over at Milly, and invariably, he would find her neglecting her stitchery. When she jabbed herself in the finger for the third time, Milly gave up all hope of progress on her mending—not her trousseau—and surrendered to the pleasure of the baron’s naughty verses.
Five
Behind Byron’s world-weary, dissipated innuendo lay the heart of a man bewildered and exhausted by the world’s disappointments. His poetic lordship had traveled the fringes of war and lived at the heart of the beau monde. He had seen what violent and greedy impulses run amok could do, and had probably reflected at too great a length on the same impulses manifest in himself.
All of which was to say, Sebastian did not enjoy Byron’s poetry. He maundered on anyway, mostly from memory, not so much to placate his aunt, but rather to enjoy the sight of Milly Danforth plying her needle beside him.
If Sebastian narrowed his eyes, the colors of her fabrics blurred and blended, like the colors of a slow sunset—reds, oranges, and yellows shifted through green to blue, purple, and the next thing to black. Her hand had a rhythm to the way it formed stitches, like a violinist with her bow or a poet with a line of verse. Byron made sad jokes with his words; Milly Danforth made soft, unlikely beauty with her sewing.
“I beg your ladyship’s pardon!”
That expostulation came from Helsom, the butler, who puffed indignantly near the door. A corpulent fellow in gentleman’s attire stood at his side, a man losing the battle against brown hair gone thin and a middle gone thick.
“This person disregarded my insistence that the family is not receiving. Your ladyship, your lordship, I do apologize.”
“I’m not calling upon the family.”
Beside Sebastian, Miss Danforth’s head bent closer to her piecework, though she’d ceased stitching.
Aunt remained enthroned by the fire, but Baumgartner had taken up a post behind her chair.
“Sir,” her ladyship said, “I do not know you. I will thank you to leave a card and be on your way.”
“The Honorable Alcorn Festus Upton, at your service.”
Sebastian lifted a finger toward the door, and Helsom melted away.
“Were you honorable,” Aunt replied, “you would observe the simplest civilities of Polite Society and take yourself off. I will have you removed forcibly should you fail to mend the error of your ways.”
Upton took hold of the lapels of his own coat, like Mr. Garrick taking center stage. “I will remove myself happily, madam—happily!—provided my misguided and vulnerable cousin removes herself with me.”
Well, of course. Unease dissipated as Sebastian set the poetry aside and resisted the urge to pat Miss Danforth’s hand. This was not a French emissary bearing knives or poison; this was that most universal of nuisances: the Interfering Relative.
Sebastian rose and marshaled his best Etonian accents. “St. Clair, at your service. Perhaps, Upton, you expected to find Miss Danforth in the employ of a short, hunchbacked, squint-eyed little frog?”
Miss Danforth shrank further at his words, and that…it more than aggravated Sebastian, it enraged him.
“I did not address myself to the likes of you, sir,” Upton sniffed. “Millicent, gather your things. You cannot realize the extent to which you’ve blundered this
time, and I refuse to tarry here while I explain your missteps to you. Trust me, dearest, most misguided cousin, when I assure you those missteps are egregious.”
Michael slipped into the room, Helsom beside him. A glance assured Sebastian that Baumgartner was also prepared to act.
Aunt took a considering sip of her tea. “Sebastian, you will recall there are ladies present, even if this cretin does not.” No violence, then. No broken furniture, no spilling of English blood on Aunt’s pretty carpets.
Ah, well. A man learned to live with his disappointments.
“Aunt, I will accede to your judgment. Miss Danforth, would you perhaps like to accompany her ladyship up to her sitting room?”
The little companion rose slowly, her piecework clutched in her fists. “Alcorn, explain yourself.”
“And be quick about it,” Sebastian suggested pleasantly, “because you inconvenience my aunt, and I suspect you embarrass your dearest cousin—to say nothing of aggravating me, Mr. Brodie, and Herr Baumgartner.”
Upton lost his grasp of his lapels, apparently noticing for the first time that he faced not only one little old lady, a smallish cousin, and a disgraced Frenchman, but three stout fellows who all topped him by at least half a foot.
“Millicent, come with me,” Upton snapped. “You really don’t know what you’ve done by accepting this post. If you come quietly, we may be able to keep your little frolic in service from anybody’s notice, though if Vincent gets wind of this, your chances will be permanently queered. Another opportunity is not likely to come along for one of your limitations. I beg of you, heed my direction this instant.”
Sebastian had heard such self-assured direction before, usually from commanding officers about to send their men into needless danger.
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