Not that Sebastian’s baroness would have any invitations to send.
“St. Clair has spent at least two hours with you each day this week, working on your letters.”
“Are you jealous of me, Mr. Brodie?”
For this notion had occurred to Milly. Such was the influence of a pair of wily old ladies who’d known more of the world than anybody guessed, and such was the puzzle of Michael Brodie.
“I offered to find you another husband to marry you in his stead.”
First her letters handed back to her, and now this? Milly took another fortifying whiff of Mr. Brodie’s sorry excuse for an olive branch.
“Whatever can you be about, Mr. Brodie? If you agree that I’m not a proper fiancée for his lordship, if you’re willing to go to that unimaginable length to thwart this marriage, why sabotage my attempts to investigate employment opportunities elsewhere?”
He was silent for a moment, then gestured to a bench that bordered the lavender. Milly took a seat, though lounging about in the sun without her bonnet would get her a crop of freckles that would take weeks to fade.
“I’ve changed my mind, that’s why. For whatever time he has with you, I think St. Clair could be happy. He doesn’t care that you struggle with your letters. I think he likes it, in fact.”
The very problem in a nutshell.
“And two years from now, when I am still mistaking p’s, b’s, and d’s, Mr. Brodie? Will his lordship enjoy instructing his poor, stupid baroness then? When I cannot help my children with their letters? When one of my children turns out to share my affliction? When Sebastian’s heir cannot sign his name any better than I can sign my own? Will he still enjoy pitying his wife then?”
The notion of sending her son off to Eton to be beaten and taunted and made a laughingstock for something he could not help, could never help…
A handkerchief appeared in her lap, snowy linen bordered with delicate lace, and monogrammed with the initials MBO. Milly had to trace her finger over the big, flourishy B to be sure what it was.
“Cease sentimentalizing, Miss Danforth. St. Clair will hire the appropriate tutors and work with the boy himself, the way he’s worked with you, assuming he’s alive to see his son grow.”
Milly blotted her eyes with the handkerchief, the lavender scent on her fingers mingling with vetiver. “You are such a ray of sunshine, Mr. Brodie. One can see why Sebastian treasures your company.”
“If you’re to marry him—and I hope you do—you should do so with your eyes open. Many would rather he were dead.”
“You refer to all those English officers he stretched on the rack? They want him dead?”
“For some of them, it was worse than that.”
He spoke quietly, no teasing, no prickliness. The real Michael Brodie had come forth, and Milly liked his quiet reserve far better than his posturing and pride.
She was not as comfortable with the sense of remorse he exuded. Was he sorry for what Sebastian had done, or did Michael Brodie have his own regrets?
“Sebastian doesn’t speak of it,” she said. “He starts to, then he checks himself, as if my cousin never sent me letters telling me what war is really like. As if my aunts’ old friends never reminisced on the same subject.”
Late at night, several hours into the Madeira, while Milly embroidered in a quiet corner and hurt for old men who would never be free of their memories.
Mr. Brodie shifted, as if the hard bench pained him.
“St. Clair has a talent for knowing when somebody is telling the truth, and he has a talent for knowing how to make them want to tell that truth—to him.”
In Milly’s experience, this was accurate. Based on very little information, St. Clair had realized she could not read well.
“And these officers, they did not want to tell him anything?”
“Their names, their regimental affiliations—the same information they’d impart if they’d been captured in full uniform. If they told him that much, there was a chance St. Clair could negotiate a quiet and thoroughly improper ransom for them, though he was under no obligation to do so. They knew, though, that the price for that ransom was information.”
A sense of dread washed through Milly while, across the field, Sebastian clapped his gardener on the back. “He made traitors of them.”
“No, he did not. He had most of them at least nominally beaten by the guards, limited them to scanty rations and inadequate warmth. He fashioned some scheme of pain and deprivation for each man, calculated to most efficiently part that man from whatever scruples guarded his tongue. They each surrendered something to him, and in fairly short order.”
“They surrendered their honor, their self-respect, and so they must hate him for it.”
“That was his plan and his gift to them—that they suffer at his hands so they might hate him for it enough to survive, rather than hate themselves, but his plan was flawed.”
Milly waited for the rest of the explanation, while Sebastian stopped to pet the donkey. The creature would always bear scars, but it held still for a good scratching under its hairy chin—all trust had not been destroyed. There was hope.
For the donkey.
“The flaw in his plan was that he measured his captives by his own standards,” Mr. Brodie said. “Had he been taken prisoner and some truth flogged out of him, he would have understood it to be part of the normal course of war. He would not have wasted years later hating his gaolers, or hating himself for his humanity. He might hate the memory, hate all war, but not the people involved.”
“These captives of his, they hate him so they need not admit they hate themselves.”
“You perceive the problem.”
Milly understood that Mr. Brodie’s disclosures were made out of a charitable impulse, though from him it was a scarred, battle-weary version of kindness. He was acquainting her with the horror Sebastian endured daily and nightly, because Sebastian was unlikely to burden her with these truths himself.
The donkey butted Sebastian’s hand, begging him for one last scratch.
Milly folded up the little handkerchief and stuffed it among her inquires to the agencies in Yorkshire.
“The Duke of Mercia acknowledges St. Clair, Mr. Brodie. Surely that example must carry some weight with the rest of the officers?”
“Mercia was the exception. He gave up nothing, and in a sense, St. Clair guarded him more closely than any of the others—also tortured him the worst, though much of that must lie at the feet of St. Clair’s superiors. It’s not my story to tell, but you should ask him. Mercia is not to be trusted.”
This from a man about whom nobody in the household seemed to know much of anything? “Is anybody to be trusted, Mr. Brodie?”
“St. Clair has the special license.”
That was a qualified “yes.” Mr. Brodie—was that even his name?—trusted her, somewhat.
“His lordship and I are agreed a quiet ceremony will serve best. How do you know I’ll not leave him standing at the altar?” Mr. Brodie standing beside him, of course.
This question earned her a smile, a sweet, unlikely, charming smile from a man who snooped, stole correspondence, and was like no valet Milly had ever heard of.
“I can’t allow it, Miss Danforth. You’ve learned to dodge and duck, to bluff when you had to, and to remain out of sight to the extent possible. You would have been a wonderful spy, particularly given that you never forget a word of what you’ve heard. I’ve concluded, though, that St. Clair is right.”
Across the field, a homely little love-struck donkey watched her new favorite turn and stride in the direction of the bench.
“Right about what, sir?”
“St. Clair could not care less about your penmanship or your letters. What he treasures is your trust, my lady. You are acquainted with the salient features of his past, and yet, they move you
to neither pity nor horror. You accept him, and he accepts you.” Mr. Brodie rose and extended a hand to her. “Don’t you think it’s time you accepted yourself?”
Milly rose, shook out her skirts, and tried to pretend Mr. Brodie’s question didn’t land at her feet like a lit Catherine wheel, sending sparks flying in all directions.
“You stole my employment inquiries because, upon reflection and after trying to talk St. Clair out of this marriage, you think I will make a passable baroness?”
“You will make an excellent baroness, and I only borrowed those inquiries. If you try to send them again, I will not stop you. But ask yourself, Miss Danforth, do you truly want to turn your back on a worthy man who esteems you greatly, and consign yourself to a life of quiet, lonely anonymity? Do you deserve only that?”
He tucked her hand around his arm and patted her knuckles, as if he understood what a troublesome question he posed.
Mr. Brodie was a pestilence of a man, but he’d given Milly insights into her prospective spouse nobody else could pass along, save St. Clair himself. Then too, when he referred to St. Clair, his voice held both respect and affection.
Much as Milly’s did. On that thought, she allowed Mr. Brodie to escort her back to the baron’s side, the unsent inquiries crackling softly in her pocket.
***
Across the plot of lavender, Milly led Michael Brodie around the gravel paths. She’d link arms with him and tow him along for a few paces, then pause and bend to sniff at a plant or examine a flower. Michael waited with a patience Sebastian knew was foreign to his nature, then let himself be led off to some other clump of shrubs.
“She’s pretty, your lady.”
The head gardener was a man by the name of Kincaid, a big, fussy, cheerful soul who’d served on the Peninsula and knew more about hard work than about plants. Kincaid might have been forty, he might have been sixty, and his weathered, sandy blond looks and bright blue eyes would change little if he lived to be eighty. Sebastian had never seen him with clean fingernails or wearing a frown.
“She’s beautiful,” Sebastian said. “She’s also trying to bolt before I can get her to the altar.” The professor had passed along that tidbit, resorting to Spanish to convey his message, lest Freddy or one of her spies overhear him.
“Skittish, then. The smart ones know how to lead us a dance, don’t they?” Kincaid winked and strode off, a man in charity with the world—and him six months sober, too.
Except Milly did not believe herself to be smart, and Sebastian knew in his bones she hadn’t sent inquiries to agencies in the North as any sort of game. He marched himself across the field, intent on securing the would-be fugitive—also on rescuing his friend.
“Brodie, turn loose of my baroness.”
Michael’s expression was bemused. “She’s not your baroness yet, and she says your soil is too damp for your weeds.”
Milly straightened and dusted her hands together. “They are herbs, Mr. Brodie, and they keep the fleas from your bed and the infection from your wounds. Show some respect.”
Michael’s consternation was a lovely addition to a pretty day. “Listen to my baroness,” Sebastian said, taking Milly’s hand. “I certainly intend to.”
They left Michael among the shrubs, his bemusement blossoming into a smile.
“Michael smiling is an unnerving proposition,” Sebastian said as they moved between rows of plants. “Puts one in mind of Lady Freddy going quiet, or the professor lapsing into Russian.”
“Marriage to you is an unnerving proposition.”
His Milly had such courage. “Marriage to me, or marriage in general?”
“Both.”
He closed his fingers more snugly around hers. “You will tell me why.”
“You need a baroness whom none will find fault with, St. Clair. I am a nobody, though for the most part, I’ve been happy in that state.”
“Sebastian. You are to be my wife, and that gives me the privilege of hearing you say my name. For years, I was Robert Girard, some fool Frenchman with a reputation for nastiness and no family to speak of. Please call me Sebastian.”
“Robert Girard? Those are your middle names, aren’t they?”
“They are. Why would you recall something so inconsequential?”
Against his palm, her hand was dusty and warm.
“Your very name could not be inconsequential to me, any more than you’ve brushed aside my name as a silly exercise in penmanship. Where are we going?”
“Out of the sun.” They were engaged. According to the contradictory and labyrinthine rules of proper English behavior, they could now be alone together for brief periods. Unfortunately, privacy was in short supply on a small horticultural farm. Sebastian led Milly to the drying shed, a building larger than its name would suggest, but upwind from the stables, the fields, and anything else that might pollute the fragrances captured there.
“Come harvest time, this place will be full to bursting with bundled herbs hung up to dry. The scent then is intoxicating.”
“It’s lovely now.” Milly leaned close to an old wooden workbench, sniffing the surface. “That is remarkable.”
“It’s a cutting table, which you can no doubt tell from the scars, but it absorbs the oils of the plants year after year. Why are you afraid to marry me, Milly?”
She turned and hiked herself up onto the cutting table. She could do that because she was a nobody, a village girl gone into service, not a bloody, simpering debutante. “Not afraid, reluctant. Come here.”
Two of his favorite words, when she spoke them. Sebastian moved to stand at her knees. “Have I a smudge on my nose?”
“A bit of lavender in your hair,” she said, brushing his temple. “I do like you, you know.”
He captured her fingers and kissed them, dust and lavender making the taste of her pleasant and summery. “You’re not afraid of me, then?”
She didn’t withdraw her hand, and in the light slanting through the old windows, her complexion had a luminous quality.
“Why would I be afraid of you? You’re patient with the elderly, clean about your person, kind to abused donkeys, a generous employer, and an inspired teacher of penman—”
He kissed her. Kissed her because she didn’t understand the question, though she might possibly understand the answer. “We’ll be intimate, Milly. Horrendously, inescapably intimate. Does that bother you?”
He kissed her again, because he didn’t want to hear her dithering and dodging. With her aunts as her finishing governesses, it was quite possible that Milly—despite a taste for passionate kisses and a surfeit of courage—did not look forward to the wedding night.
She hauled him closer by his lapels, and damned if he didn’t feel her boot hooking around his flanks. “I like being intimate with you, St. Clair.”
“Sebastian.” He growled this against her mouth, then smiled as her second boot hit him on the backside. “There’s more to a wedding night than kisses, you know.”
She dropped his lapels, and her boots fell away, leaving Sebastian standing between her spread knees. “I am not uninformed, sir.”
“You might well be misinformed. Do you look forward to the wedding night?” That wasn’t what he’d meant to ask, but she was breathing heavily, her breasts shifting gently in a fashion that directed his blood some distance south of his feeble male brain. “Do you know what happens on a wedding night?”
“One is intimate with one’s spouse.” She gently dusted the fabric of his lapels, the gesture wifely, but not in a league with her kisses. “One attempts to conceive the baronial heir.”
He stepped closer and hauled her forward by virtue of his hands scooping under her derriere. “One pleasures one’s wife witless.”
His motive for providing a demonstration was complicated. He did not want her disappearing to the North, and he did not want her
anxious about their conjugal intimacies. Those reasons for sealing his mouth over hers again were real and true.
Also paltry compared to the lust roaring through him.
He wedged himself against her sex, letting her feel the evidence of his arousal, and needing to know she would not shrink away.
“Sebastian—”
She squirmed closer. Her hands ran riot over his neck, his ears, through his hair, and down his arms. He hoped she was leaving a trail of dust for all to see, hoped his imprimatur on her would be equally clear as a result of his kisses.
He wrestled with her skirts, shoving them aside enough that he could get his hand on one bare, delectable knee. “We can’t—”
She twisted her fingers in his hair, a compelling, entirely delightful pain. “Talk later; kiss—”
He kissed her like a man dying for warmth and starving for lack of kisses. Kissed her even as he turned her and laid her down on the old wooden table, the window light bathing her in sunshine. He traced her lips with his tongue as she went quiet, flat on her back, one knee propped up, her skirts falling in disarray.
“Hush,” he said as he got his coat off, folded it, and tucked it under her head. “I’m not finished kissing you.”
Not nearly, though how kissing resulted in a man climbing onto a table, taking his lady in his arms, and spooning himself around her was not entirely clear. Their dealings shifted, became slower, less desperate, even as Sebastian’s fingers reveled in the smooth warmth of Milly’s knee…and…thigh.
“No freckles here,” he observed, drawing her skirts up higher. “Only perfection.” Though even her freckles struck him as perfect, he wasn’t about to tell her that.
“I cannot think when you touch me like this, Sebastian. I don’t want to think.”
Good. A woman incapable of thought was incapable of planning a journey to Yorkshire. Sebastian brushed his hand up the silky inside of her thigh, his fingers drifting through soft, springy curls.
“Lift your knee, love.”
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