No, not at each other. The fellow in the kilt was pounding on Sebastian, who ducked, feinted, and dodged as many blows as the Scot landed.
“Fight, damn ye, St. Clair!”
“I drugged your drinks. I didn’t give you a fair chance,” Sebastian panted back, just as another blow landed on his jaw. He’d jerked back, but the sound of a fist on flesh was enough to make Milly’s gorge rise.
“I mean to kill ye, and I’ll not—bluidy blue blazes!”
Milly saw when the Scot caught sight of her, because he trotted backward, away from Sebastian, and let his fists drop.
“Get away from my husband, you, you meat wagon.” Milly tromped up to the Scot and planted her hands on her hips. “What would your wife say about this stupidity? Does she know you’re out prancing around in the rain in nothing but a kilt, intent on killing a man who was not to blame for your capture?”
“Milly—”
She rounded on her husband, who’d spoken her name in quiet, patient tones.
“Quiet, please, your lordship. This fellow owes me an answer.” She turned back to the Scot rather than behold the sight of Sebastian’s red and puffy jaw.
“Be she daft?” The Scot spoke over Milly’s head, the consternation in his voice real.
“I am not daft, I am married to the most impossible man in the realm. A man who did not capture you, did he?”
Sebastian’s opponent eyed Milly as if she might be something worse than daft—as if she might be right.
“Nay, he did not, but I was turned over to him the next day.”
“And this is his fault? If you’d come across a French officer out of uniform, would you have wished him good day and gone whistling on your way?”
He widened his stance. “That’s not the point. The point is St. Clair brought it all up again, before another officer, and I willna, I canna allow—”
“Another officer,” Milly spat. “Some other officer caught with his breeches around his ankles while he made the acquaintance of a French maid. Some other fellow St. Clair did not capture, did not relieve of his uniform, and did not ask to have thrust into his keeping.”
“Milly, please.”
If she looked at Sebastian, she’d cry. She’d cry and throw herself against his wet, naked chest, where, if she weren’t mistaken, other bruises were soon to manifest.
“Go home, sir,” Milly said to the meat wagon. “Unless I miss my guess, the same arrogance that had you running around behind enemy lines without your uniform is responsible for causing this folly today.”
She ruined the effect of this pithy observation by swiping a lock of wet hair from her eyes.
“St. Clair, I dinna mean to make her cry. We said no blows below the belt, but this—”
The wretch was pleading with Sebastian. While Milly stood blinking furiously in the rain, Sebastian’s hand landed on her shoulder.
“Perhaps, MacHugh, you will see the futility of further attempts to settle our differences through pugilism. I am sorry that you’ve been upset, and I did not breathe a word to anybody of what passed between us in the officer’s mess at the Château. I was not proud of my tactics, but your disclosures spared both sides a final useless skirmish—or worse—before the winter camps were set up.”
MacHugh rubbed his jaw, an angle of bone that looked like it could hold up to a solid kick from a plow horse without sustaining damage. “That’s all?”
“Nothing more. I will not insult your temper by swearing it, but you have my word.”
Tears ran hot down Milly’s cheeks, like the anger trickling through her as the men exchanged reminiscences of war. MacHugh’s temper would be nothing compared to hers, though it was some consolation that Sebastian would be alive to suffer her wrath.
A second hand landed on Milly’s opposite shoulder. She wrenched away.
“The woman is protective of ye,” MacHugh observed. “I expect she’ll deliver ye a thrashin’ far more punishin’ than what I might have done.”
“She will,” Sebastian said, and perhaps the man still possessed a shred of common sense, because he’d answered in earnest.
“I wanted ye…” MacHugh regarded Milly as he spoke. “I wanted ye to know the keen despair of having lost, St. Clair. Lost your honor, your wits, your little part of the war. And for nothing. It haunts a man.”
Milly knew that despair. She swiped at her hair again and tried not to think of how good it might feel to lay about with her fists—at the Scot, at Sebastian, at Michael trying not to look worried as the rain dripped from his hat brim.
Sebastian spoke softly. “It does. Haunts his every waking and sleeping moment.”
MacHugh bellowed to his second, “Ewan, my flask.”
A silver flask came sailing through the air. MacHugh caught it in an appallingly large hand. He took a drink and held it out, not to Sebastian, but to Milly.
“My apologies, mum. A slight misunderstanding, ye see. No harm done. A tot will ward off the chill.”
Milly wanted to hurl the flask at him, wanted to bellow and rage and scare the horses, except a sip from the little flask would eliminate one threat to Sebastian’s welfare.
“We all make mistakes,” Milly said, tipping the flask up. “Some of them more serious than others.”
“Aye.” The Scot’s expression might have borne a hint of humor. Milly did not care that he was amused, did not care that he was perhaps impressed, or even that he might have pitied Sebastian his choice of wife.
“St. Clair, I bid ye good day, and”—he gave Milly an appraising look—“I bid ye good luck.”
He bowed slightly to Milly and stomped off, leaving her with the flask and the temptation to pitch it at his retreating backside.
“Don’t,” Sebastian said, easing the flask from her grasp. He’d moved up behind Milly and spoken softly. She could feel the heat of him, could catch a whiff of his sandalwood scent over the smell of damp earth and wet greenery.
He turned her by the shoulders and wrapped his arms around her. “Say something.”
She rested her forehead against his bare, bruised chest, emotions and words tangling up in her throat.
How could you?
Why did you?
How am I ever to trust you?
“Take me home.”
***
Sebastian walked out of the clearing half-naked, sopping wet, and barefoot, none of which mattered. He climbed into Milly’s coach and took the bench across from her, though she was just as wet as he.
“Who told you?”
She kept her head turned to gaze out the window, but because she wasn’t wearing a bonnet, her profile answered him handily enough. It didn’t matter which helpful, misguided soul had told her about the duel; it hadn’t been Sebastian to give her the news.
“Alcorn. He sought to reveal to me the depths of my folly in marrying a man who apparently duels for recreation. I am to turn to him for guidance. He holds out hope the marriage can be annulled.”
If she’d been seething, bitter, infuriated, or hysterical, Sebastian would have been less alarmed, but Milly was calm, terribly, unreachably calm. Sebastian recognized her achievement because he’d endured years of such calm in the mountains of southern France.
“You’re angry.” And she was no longer crying.
“I am disappointed. I will weather this blow, having managed similar tribulations in the past.”
The idea that Sebastian might have anything in common with the relatives or the fiancé who had treated her so shabbily helped him locate his own temper. “You are capable of mendacity, too, Milly St. Clair.”
His use of her married name elicited the barest, least voluntary flinch, which made his temper flare up like a glowing ember finding a fresh breeze.
“Had your aunt asked me, I would have told her plainly I read very poorly. She did not ask
and did not include literacy among the qualifications required of her companion. Does it hurt?”
Her question confused him because her chilly reserve hurt him far worse than MacHugh’s fists had.
“Your jaw, your chest, all those bruises coming up where MacHugh pummeled you. They have to hurt.”
Now that she’d drawn his attention to them, Sebastian mentally inventoried his injuries. “None of it’s serious. MacHugh was still investigating my responses rather than truly attacking.”
“How fortunate. Why didn’t you go after him, too?”
She wanted to analyze an altercation that now meant nothing.
“When they challenge me, I make no resistance. It’s what they want, to have me as helpless as they were.”
She swiveled her gaze to regard him, and he wished she hadn’t. “You are an idiot.” Her eyes held a spark of emotion. Not indignation, but maybe—God spare him—pity.
“I am an idiot who has survived five challenges in less than a year.” Though somebody was determined that there be five more, which also, at the moment, did not matter.
“When you choose not to fight back, you are not helpless, Sebastian. You are controlling matters every bit as much as you did at that awful fortress in France, maybe more. What they want is a chance to meet you on fair terms, and to assure themselves that unbound, on the field of honor, in a fair fight, they could acquit themselves honorably, win or lose. You’re right that they don’t want merely to kill you, they want to kill you honorably, and you deny them that.”
She would confound him with her philosophy, and the coach had already left the park.
“Milly, none of that matters now. What matters is that I owe you an apology, and that I love you.”
Cold, wet, and coming off the excitement of battle, his body wanted to shiver. He prevented this by an act of will and forbade himself the comfort of a woolen lap robe around his shoulders.
“What are you apologizing for?”
Women. Any answer he gave would be inadequate.
“I apologize for not telling you that I was to meet MacHugh, though I’ll not ask your permission before defending my honor.”
Her calm went from cool to glacial, suggesting Sebastian had given an answer that wasn’t merely wrong, but rather, disastrous. He shifted to sit beside her and wrapped his arms around her. She permitted it, but when Sebastian kissed her cheek, her skin was as chilled as his own.
“How would it have changed anything if you’d known I had this meeting with MacHugh?”
“One confides one’s burdens in one’s friends.”
Because he held her, Sebastian could feel more tears in her clamoring for expression, and could feel her resolve building by the moment.
He struck at her verbally, even as he held her more closely. “You would not have tried to stop me? Would not have locked your bedroom door to me until I agreed to surrender my honor to you? Would not have sulked, brooded, and given me one more thing to worry about?”
She relaxed, implying his words were an egregious blunder, which he’d known even as they were leaving his fool mouth. He lied when he implied that Milly’s concern for him was an inconvenience. He treasured her protectiveness like the last flint and tinder in his possession when a long, cold winter had already gripped the land.
A shudder passed through her, maybe cold, maybe despair.
“I have no bedroom door to lock against you, Sebastian. Had I known your life was imperiled, I would have made love with you more.”
Sixteen
“I’ve ordered you a bath,” Sebastian said. “I’ll not have you taking a chill in addition to risking your neck on the field of honor.”
Milly could not watch as Sebastian peeled out of his wet breeches. He was all over gooseflesh, badly bruised, and worried about her taking a chill.
“Doesn’t it strike you as the least bit hypocritical that you should fear for my well-being, Husband, but deny me the privilege of fearing for yours?”
Stark-naked, Sebastian hunkered before the fire, added coal, used the bellows with a vengeance, and then rose to face her. His hair was a mess, bruises decorated his belly and chest, and his jaw was slightly swollen on one side.
He was also half-aroused, which shouldn’t have been possible. “Let me get you out of that dress.”
Milly turned her back, because in her haste to leave St. Clair Manor, she’d let one of the maids help her with her clothes, and the dress Milly had yanked out of the wardrobe buttoned in the back.
“You should use the bath first, Sebastian.”
“Hold still.” Perhaps his fingers were clumsy with cold, perhaps he was in no particular hurry. When he’d assisted her out of her clothing on previous occasions, it had never taken him this long.
Milly moved away as soon as she felt her dress gaping in the back. “Thank you.”
“You’ll wear your stays into the bathtub?”
“Possibly. I am that upset, you see.” She hadn’t meant to say that. She’d meant to be civil.
“Then yell at me, curse, break things, and let the entire house hear of it, but don’t shut me out. You have every right to be upset.”
“Unlace my stays, please.” She hated asking, hated standing still while Sebastian struggled with knots made impossible by the wet.
“To hell with this.” He produced a knife from somewhere and sliced at her laces. Even as they fell open, Milly’s breathing still felt constrained.
She bunched her damp clothes in her fists and kept her back to him. “You shut me out, Sebastian. You shut me out in several regards.”
“I tried to keep you safe, to keep you apart from all the…to keep you safe.” He spoke from immediately behind her but did not touch her.
Milly moved away, rummaged in the wardrobe for her only dressing gown—she’d used one of Sebastian’s at St. Clair Manor—and took it behind the privacy screen. She remained hidden away, removing her sodden attire, untangling the rat’s nest her braids had become, and trying to find solid ground in a marriage gone pitch dark and boggy.
When she emerged, Sebastian was also wearing a dressing gown, and a full tub steamed before the fire.
“You first,” Milly said, unwilling and unable to disrobe before him.
He looked prepared to pick a fight so they’d have something to wrestle with besides his lying to her, and letting some fool Scot beat him to flinders.
“My feet are filthy. After you.”
His conscience ought to be what troubled him, not his dirty feet.
“Sit on the hearth,” Milly said, picking up a flannel from the stack piled near the tub. To her surprise, he obeyed her. She poured hot water into a washbasin, dipped the cloth and wrung it out, then knelt before her husband.
His feet were cold, of course. Milly started on the right, wrapping the hot, wet flannel around toes she’d been missing just the evening before. “You’ve a sizable scratch, here,” she said, drawing her finger along the side of his arch.
“I can’t feel it. You don’t have to do this.”
She unwrapped his foot and wiped at the muddy spaces between his toes. “Why did you tell me you would engage in no more duels, when you knew of at least one?”
Sebastian closed his eyes, as if she were whipping his soles, not bathing his feet. “I said there would be no more pistols at dawn, and I spoke the truth. As the party challenged, I can select the weapons, and I will eschew pistols henceforth.”
Milly rinsed and wrung out the cloth in the basin, muddying the water.
“You lied by omission then. I can assure you my sense of betrayal does not abate because you were lawyerly in your untruths. Why lie at all?”
This time, she wrapped the hot cloth around his arch.
“Most gentlemen would not burden their lady wives with such information.”
His heels were cal
lused, something Milly had noted during evenings in the library. “You are not most gentlemen, Sebastian. The real reason, if you please. Did you think I would leave you?”
Would he have missed her, or been relieved at her absence? He was a reluctant husband, for all that his efforts to assure the succession had been enthusiastic.
As had hers.
“I wanted to spare you, wanted to preserve you from tossing and turning all night, offering desperate, useless prayers by the hour, choking down your morning tea while you waited for news. Ask Lady Freddy how agreeable such a course is, for she’s had to suffer it too many times in the past year.”
Under the guise of wrapping his clean foot in a dry cloth, Milly hugged her husband’s foot against her middle.
“You would have me believe your lying was a form of consideration, Sebastian, but earlier, you reminded me that I’ve lied too.” She used the basin again, needing to finish before the water cooled. “Give me the left one.”
“You were desperate,” Sebastian said. “You needed employment if you were to avoid your cousin’s schemes. I understand that.”
Milly started on the second foot, which, thankfully, was free of abrasions.
“Do you also understand that lying about mortal combat and lying about an ability to read well are not the same thing at all? You gave me a false promise that you would not duel, then deceived me again as to the nature of your business in Town. Had Alcorn not written that note, had I not been able to wrest a location from Their Graces, had the moon not been full…”
She scrubbed at his foot even when she’d removed all the mud.
“I’ve apologized, Milly, but I do not control who challenges me. How can I make you see that these men will not cease trying to redeem their honor by the only means available to them? This one I had beaten, that one deprived of water, MacHugh I drugged, another who was so fastidious was made to lie chained in his own—”
Milly stopped this recitation by virtue of wrapping her arms around her husband’s waist.
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