The Traitor

by Grace Burrowes

  His hand had gone to the falls of his breeches when the first cold, wet drop slapped the back of his neck. Several more raindrops pelted him before reality penetrated his incredulity: the elements were not in agreement with Milly’s wishes—or his own.

  “Grab the blankets, Wife. If we’re quick, we can move our feast before we’re soaked to the skin.”

  He snatched up the hamper, and they dashed for the mill as the shower intensified. While they weren’t soaked to the skin, the moment, at least for Sebastian, had lost its bloom with damnable predictability.

  ***

  Milly laid out two thick blankets on the threshing floor. Ancient oak was not the softest bed upon which to consummate a marriage, but neither was it any more solid than her determination.

  “A passing shower,” she said, taking a place on the blankets. “Get down here, Sebastian, and make yourself useful.”

  Her husband apparently recognized a tone of command and left off scouting the mill’s interior. “Useful?”

  “I did not bring a shawl, this place is drafty, and you give off warmth.” He gave off sadness, too, and an exasperating sense of resignation. “You never did open the wine.”

  Hang the wine, he’d said. Milly had no doubt it was a fine vintage, which would be handy if she could ever retrieve her husband from the memories, doubts, and guilts that had also apparently found their way into the mill’s gloomy interior.

  “You are cold?” he asked, prowling away from the enormous grinding stone at the center of the building.

  “I will soon take a chill. Sebastian, how is it you were called upon to torture English officers?”

  From his arrested expression, Milly surmised that she could not have captured his attention any more effectively had she torn off her clothes.

  “An interrogation is my penance for not making love to you in the pouring rain?”

  She patted the blanket, and he came down beside her as she lied through her teeth. “We were merely kissing. Has no one asked you this question?”

  She gathered from the set of his jaw that no one had been presuming enough—or stupid enough—to ask him, and yet, of all people to entrust with tormenting British officers, a former English schoolboy was not a logical choice.

  “I was good at it.” He fitted himself around Milly’s back, so his knees were hiked on either side of her. Of course, she could not see his face as she curled against his chest.

  She did not need to. The bleakness in his words filled the entire grist mill.

  “Yes, but why you? Was it a test of your French patriotism?”

  His lips brushed her hair. Milly encircled his waist with one arm, closed her eyes, and felt Sebastian arranging the third blanket over them.

  “At first, maybe it was a test, but not entirely. I’d gone into Toulouse to meet with my superior, a nasty little man by the name of Henri Anduvoir. He’d had an English prisoner beaten nearly beyond recognition, and still, the fellow had told them nothing except his name and rank.”

  A hint of an accent had crept into Sebastian’s words—the vowels broadened, initial consonants softened: ’ee’d told hem nawthing…

  Milly kissed her husband’s throat, where these words had to be choking him.

  “But you did recognize him?” Thunder rumbled at a benign distance while the rain drummed on the roof and Milly waited for Sebastian to answer.

  “I did not immediately recognize the captive. Anduvoir had the man’s name, and I realized I’d spent a couple of years at school with an older brother. They shared a family resemblance, same blond hair, same build…”

  Something in his voice implied not much of the man’s face had remained untouched as a result of the beating he’d sustained. Milly clutched her husband more tightly. “Tell me.”

  Sebastian’s chest heaved up with a slow sigh, and Milly thought he’d keep his memories locked inside him, like the poison they were.

  “The fellow I’d known, Daniel Pixler, Viscount Aubrey, was the oldest of four boys, one hell of a batsman, and a decent chap. This was the youngest boy, Damien. I knew they had a sister, one sister. She was the youngest, and a bit slow. Daniel had written to her each week, printing the words for her.”

  “A good brother, then.” A very good brother who did not require a woman to read well in order to hold her dear.

  “I gambled that Damien was cut from the same cloth as Daniel, and told Anduvoir to stop criticizing England’s mad king, and fat, nancy prince, whom any boot boy was free to criticize and regularly did. I told him to stop beating a man who could no longer feel the pain, a man for whom each blow only fortified his resolve to remain silent.”

  Beatings could do that. Milly knew this from experience, and Sebastian had reminded her of it when they’d walked in the park.

  “What did you do, Sebastian?”

  The next kiss landed on Milly’s brow. “In a sense, I was the one who broke.” Then more softly, “I was always the one who broke.”

  Sebastian was broken, Milly did not argue that, but she doubted he’d been the one to spill England’s secrets before her enemies.

  “I could not endure what I saw before me, could not tolerate seeing a man—a good, decent soldier, regardless of his nationality—made to suffer because he’d forgotten his jacket in some tavern. They would spare his life—Anduvoir was not about to give up such an intriguing and valuable toy—but they would…”

  The things human beings could do to one another once decency had been cast aside in the name of some national delusion were the stuff of old men’s nightmares.

  “You did not allow him to become Anduvoir’s pet depravity.”

  Another big sigh, but to Milly, the quality of it was different, more weary, maybe a touch grateful that she’d not made him illuminate the darkest corners of his memory for her.

  “I told him to insult Pixler’s sister, as violently and vulgarly as he could. Told him how to threaten the girl by name, described the family seat where she lived, so Anduvoir could suggest her safety hung in the balance. I insisted that an offer of private ransom be put before the man as well, a sincere offer. For hope to be an effective torment, it must be grounded in reality. Anduvoir was as greedy as he was cruel, and my plan was…successful.”

  Success had never been achieved while bearing such a razor-sharp blade of irony. Sebastian’s plan had worked out well for this Anduvoir demon, for the République’s coffers, and even for Mr. Pixler, who likely strolled the grounds of the family seat with his sister to this day.

  Milly pushed Sebastian to his back and straddled him. “You preserved Damien Pixler from becoming Anduvoir’s pet depravity, but condemned yourself to that torment instead.”

  She uttered the words because she could not bear to make him say them. Beneath her, a soldier felled by memory stared up at the beamed ceiling of the dusty old mill.

  “Not immediately. The next time Anduvoir caught an officer out of uniform, he miscalculated, and the prisoner died without offering up any information. The fatality was a boy, barely sixteen. My guess is he had nothing to give, but a general got wind of it and had all the English officers sent to me if they were caught without the protection of their uniform.”

  Milly silently cursed astute generals, war, France, Anduvoir, and boys who joined up before they learned to shave.

  “Love, don’t cry.” Sebastian kissed her cheek, where a stupid tear was tracking down toward her chin. “Please, don’t cry. It was long ago and far away, another time, another country.”

  His voice was rough, the accent banished. Milly lashed her arms around his neck, knowing that for Sebastian, these awful memories, the experience of them, was no farther away than the great, ancient grinding stone at the center of the mill.

  The thunder came again, closer, as Milly sat up and fumbled with the fastenings of her dress. She’d purposely chosen something simple, a
garment that let her unfasten a few buttons and get at the front laces of her country stays.

  Sebastian remained silent, but his eyes, so cold and distant, gradually warmed. “You’ll take a chill.”

  “We’ll keep each other warm.” When she’d wrestled her dress off and was wearing only her chemise, Milly started on her husband’s cravat. “We have blankets, and nobody will come looking for us until the storm passes. Let me do your cuffs.”

  He allowed her to remove his waistcoat and shirt, their clothing becoming an untidy pile near the edge of the blankets, until Sebastian grabbed her dress and his shirt and wadded them into a pillow. He let her plow her fingers through the dusting of dark hair on his chest, let her feel his hands shaping the contour of her breasts.

  “Your touch is warm, Husband.”

  And he was becoming aroused. Milly knew this because she sat upon the part of him most honestly able to communicate such a development.

  “I am glad you married me, Millicent St. Clair. Glad of it, and I always will be.”

  Ah, finally. Milly hadn’t been sure, hadn’t known if she was a blessing or another burden to him, hadn’t dared hope his sentiments matched her own.

  “I’m glad too. You will please now exert yourself to make me even more glad.”

  She added that last because already she had learned that her husband responded to a tone of command, even if the words were half-whispered and full of wonder.

  Twelve

  “Mercia, you must celebrate with me!”

  Christian folded down his newspaper to regard former Captain Lord Prentice “Pretentious” Anderson grinning at him with a sense of bonhomie usually reserved for a much later hour.

  And for much closer acquaintances. “Anderson.”

  Anderson stuck a pale hand in Christian’s face. “I’m to be a papa, again. Her ladyship told me at breakfast, said kippers would not be on the menu for some while. Sure a sign as ever there was. She can’t abide kippers when she’s on the nest.”

  Christian rose from his reading chair, his irritation with the captain and with the day fading marginally. “That is splendid news. This will be your third?”

  Anderson gave a ponderous wink. “Third time’s the charm, not that I don’t adore m’ girls, but a fellow has a duty, dontcha know.”

  Christian, being a duke without extant male progeny, did know, though he wouldn’t trade his daughter for all the trees in Surrey. Anderson was beaming at the books encircling the club’s reading room as if the entire burden of gestation and childbirth was one he’d personally undertaken in service to the succession.

  “You’re having champagne?”

  “Told the steward to bring up the best,” Anderson said. “The fellows are in the dining room, but somebody recalled you were hibernating in here.”

  Hibernating. Christian was serving out a sentence handed down by his duchess, to get out and enjoy the day. Her Grace was likely stealing a nap, rest being of paramount interest to a woman in anticipation of a blessed event.

  “One drink, then. A man deserves to celebrate such good fortune.” And as Anderson’s former commanding officer, however briefly, Christian was obligated to celebrate it with him.

  “Say what you will about the damned Frenchies,” Anderson observed as they quit the sanctuary of the reading room, “they brew fine drink. Suppose that’s why we let some of them live, what?”

  Christian remained silent, because precious few men, precious few young men, had survived France’s bid for glory. The ones who’d survived had been lucky, and damned brave.

  The crowd in the dining room had clearly been alerted to Anderson’s happy news. Glasses were full, the noise level rising with one bawdy toast after another.

  “Mercia! It’s an occasion indeed when you deign to join us.” Lord Hector Pierpont’s voice held the grating good cheer of a man masking self-consciousness with lubricious manners. “Steward, another bottle for His Grace!”

  Christian accepted a drink—he’d said he would.

  “Give us a toast, Your Grace. Like old times, eh?” somebody called.

  Wellington believed in reassembling his staff periodically at Apsley House for social dinners. He trotted out the full Portuguese service and the best wines, an occasion for men who’d shared a war to take a step in the direction of sharing peace.

  Christian had dodged every invitation thus far, and intended to keep dodging them indefinitely.

  He held up his glass and waited for order to assert itself. “To our ladies. May they weather their challenges as safely as we have weathered ours.”

  His duchess would have been proud of his restraint. He did not disrespect good wine by downing it all at once, another feat of which his duchess would have approved.

  After a beat of silence, a general chorus of, “The ladies! Hear, hear!” greeted Christian’s sentiments. He stood on the periphery of the group, sipping his drink while more toasts were raised.

  The steward was a shrewd little fellow from Alsace, and had known better than to disturb the best vintages for this impromptu cricket party. The wine was good, though, and for the first time since Christian had dragged himself from the Château, the company of his former fellow officers was not entirely objectionable either.

  He’d learned to accept any measure of progress, however small. Learned from his duchess.

  “So, has MacHugh asked you to second him?” Anderson had sidled away from the group to join Christian lounging against a doorjamb.

  The name MacHugh brought to mind a big, tough, hardheaded Scot, though hardheaded Scot was a redundant term in Christian’s experience.

  “Has MacHugh insulted somebody’s daughter? I never took him for a fool.”

  Unlike Anderson, whom nobody would mistake for clever.

  “Not hardly,” Anderson said, tossing back a gulp of champagne. “He’s taken offense at Girard’s maunderings—though I suppose we’re to refer to him as St. Clair these days.”

  Christian set his half-full glass aside as a sharp twinge afflicted his left wrist. “I beg your pardon?”

  Anderson glanced about over the rim of his glass. “I had a hand in things, if you must know. That Henri fellow said I was the best suited to it.”

  The champagne curdled abruptly in Christian’s gut, though half the French nation answered to the name Henri.

  “Anderson, join me for a moment at the window.” He took his former subordinate none too gently by the arm and steered him away from the group. “Has MacHugh challenged St. Clair?”

  His lordship straightened with the exaggerated dignity of those inebriated while the sun yet shone.

  “He most certainly has. A few words over a tot or two of whiskey, and MacHugh was ready to permanently solve the problem of St. Clair for two grateful governments, not that I told him that. He’d likely make a hash of it just to be contrary if I had. Pierpont blundered badly, but he never was very accurate with a pistol.”

  More glancing about followed these disclosures as a shout went up from the group across the room.

  Christian didn’t particularly enjoy being a duke; it was simply his lot, like being blond, tall, or Church of England rather than a Dissenter. One didn’t quibble with it, but one did learn to exploit its benefits. He took Anderson’s empty glass from his lordship’s hand and let a silence spread beneath the raucous drollery of the other men.

  And then, when Anderson realized awkwardness was upon them, Christian posed his question in the tones of a titled superior officer whose patience was ebbing. “What’s afoot, Captain?”

  “Old Hookey hasn’t told you?”

  “Wellington is off in Hampshire, dealing with household matters.”

  The gears of Anderson’s mind ground forward slowly, but they moved in the direction Christian had known they would.

  “St. Clair is an embarrassment,” Anderson sa
id, enunciating carefully, as if he’d repeated this to himself many times. “An em-barr-ass-ment to two governments. Henri and I, we’re the fellows to set things to rights. Clever chap, Henri—subtle, for a Frog.”

  “Describe Henri.”

  Anderson gave a description that fit exactly the worst of the specters haunting Christian’s nightmares. He suspected the same specter haunted St. Clair’s as well.

  “So you lied to MacHugh, goaded him into challenging St. Clair, and are trusting to the Scot to see to the killing of an English peer?”

  “A traitor baron who won’t be missed. Prinny’s never shy about taking on an estate or two left begging for an heir, not that I’d want credit for my part. I told the Frenchie this was my last contribush—my last part in it. St. Clair hasn’t bothered anybody since Waterloo, after all.”

  Since Toulouse had fallen, though “bothered” was a spectacular euphemism for what St. Clair had got up to in the years prior to the False Peace.

  “You’re smart to keep this to yourself, Anderson. You can’t breathe a word to anybody. Not Pierpont, not your lady, nobody. When is the duel to take place?”

  Across the room, a song started up, a dirty little tune about plowing the fields of France, probably no worse than the French infantry had sung about the fields of England, but it increased Christian’s need to quit the premises.

  “I dunno when they fight, but it’s to be a bare-knuckle encounter, of all things. MacHugh will finish him, I’ve no doubt. I expect MacHugh is giving Girard—St. Clair—time to get the wifey in an interesting condition first.”

  Wifey. That Anderson’s brain could allow a peer of the realm and avowed traitor to have a wifey was a telling comment on the cramped dimensions of his intellect.

  “When did St. Clair take a wife?”

  Some of Anderson’s inebriation seemed to fall away. “This morning, probably right about the time my lady was denying me a plate of kippers. I like kippers. I’ll miss them.”