“You did not capture them. You did not wrest their uniforms from them. The war is over, and has been for some while. Those officers are all walking about as free men, and yet you are trapped in that miserable garrison. Do you know that a properly timed blow to the chest can stop the heart from beating?”
He held her, while Milly waited for him to say something, to say anything honest and true. She waited for him to tell her that he’d never wanted to marry her; he was weary of living; he had more duels scheduled for the very next week.
She felt his lips graze her forehead. “The water’s getting cold, Wife.”
Yes, it was. Milly rose and wrung the soiled cloth out with particular force.
“Did you even have an appointment planned with the solicitors?”
He bent to unwrap his right foot. “Of course, I did.”
He’d scheduled such an appointment, because the best lies were packaged in mundane truths, and he folded up the damp, clean flannel so very carefully lest Milly see that truth in his eyes.
“I’ll be meeting with the solicitors myself,” Milly said, moving toward the door. “And your presence will not be needed.”
He rose, looking pale, angry, hurt, and…damn him, dear.
“Take the professor with you, or Michael. Don’t attempt to puzzle through legal documents alone, and don’t sign anything you aren’t absolutely comfortable with or sure of.”
“I’ll take Aunt Freddy. You’d best tend to your bath. The water won’t be warm much longer.”
***
Milly had known exhaustion of the spirit often, when she could not face another day in the schoolroom, when Frieda’s temper was particularly short, when word of Martin’s stupid death had come and nobody had told her until after supper.
Exhaustion of the spirit could ease with time, good company, a few kind words, and rest. As she succumbed to slumber in the bed she’d yet to share with her husband, she said a prayer that exhaustion of the heart could heal as well.
The next impression to grace her awareness was of Sebastian climbing in beside her—an answer to her prayers? He wrapped himself around her, the scent and feel of him already a bodily comfort after only a week of marriage.
“Are you awake?”
How she hated the hesitance in his voice, and how she nearly hated him, for risking death without even telling her. She tucked herself against him.
“Do not attempt to reason with me, Sebastian.”
“I do love you.”
What manner of love had no trust in it? What manner of love insisted on remaining alone with every fear and burden?
“We are in need of wisdom, Sebastian, not flowery sentiments.”
They also needed patience, compassion, and a host of other strengths, but Milly wanted desperately to give him the flowery words back, to explain to him that her anger was a well-dressed, articulate version of innumerable screaming terrors.
Terror that she might have lost him to a Scottish lout with too much pride and even more muscle.
That she might not trust her husband, not now, not ever.
That tomorrow he might face death again, and all because circumstances had conspired to put him in a situation where every possible choice had cost him dearly.
Milly kissed his brow, as he’d kissed hers before departing for London. “I am very, very angry with you, Sebastian. Enraged and disappointed.”
He kissed her mouth, humbly, if a man could kiss humbly.
“You terrify me,” she whispered, kissing him back. “I have married into a war where everybody is held prisoner and the fighting never ceases.”
Sebastian shifted over her, exactly where the most unhappy, desolate part of her wanted him, exactly where he was not entitled to be.
“Please, Milly.”
He might have held her to him by force, by reason, by legal arguments and promises of wealth, and yet, they were barely touching. Sebastian poised above her, willing to be banished from the bed and from the marriage.
She knew then the dubious honor of having broken a strong man, and knew as well that Sebastian’s plea—for understanding, for forgiveness, for time—left her broken as well.
She could not allow him to imprison himself in his endless war without even a single ally.
“You belong to me, Sebastian.” Yes, she was hurt and angry, also confused and in need of solitude, but on this point, she would have his concession.
“I belong to you. Wholly to you,” he said, some of the tension draining from him. “I always will.”
Milly pushed at him, and he collapsed onto his back as if winded. She climbed over him, needing to follow up his concession with stern kisses that turned tender, and then passionate.
“Sebastian, this doesn’t—”
He kissed her to silence and shifted them again, so he was above her, poised to join their bodies.
“We’ll talk,” he said. “Later. I understand that. We’ll talk all you please.”
He fell silent on a single, desperate, transcendently gratifying thrust, and Milly gave up on philosophy, strategy, and even thought. She put her rage and fear into her loving, her desperate need to protect him, and her consternation about how to protect herself.
He was ruthless, drawing out her satisfaction into a blend of pleasure and torment that inspired Milly to torment him right back. Never was marital discord so intimately prosecuted, until Milly understood that Sebastian needed her surrender, as she’d needed his.
They were allies, not captives, so she gave herself up to his loving, enduring pleasure upon pleasure, until Sebastian shuddered in her arms, and silence at last reigned over the battlefield.
***
“The women have been gone for hours.” Michael, predictably, was the one to voice the complaint Sebastian also felt.
Baumgartner twirled a quill pen at the desk in the town house library. “Lawyers are not usually motivated to be efficient. St. Clair, you should pay a call on Mr. MacHugh.”
Sebastian stopped staring into the library’s fire long enough to note that the professor was serious. “Why?”
“Because,” Michael said from his perch in the window seat, “MacHugh is not a hothead, not some fired up, titled puppy drunk on his expectations. Somebody goaded him into challenging you. Somebody lied to him convincingly enough that he’d risk his life over pistols or swords—and put your life in jeopardy as well.”
Lied to MacHugh, as Sebastian had lied to his wife, for reasons he himself was no longer entirely sure of.
“Somebody badly wants me dead,” Sebastian said. “And my wife is out running around the City with no one but Giles and Aunt Freddy to keep her safe.”
“St. Clair,” the professor said, tossing the feather to the blotter, “pay attention to your man. He makes sense. Talk to the officers who challenged you, and a pattern might emerge.”
And that pattern could lead straight to Michael, or straight to the Iron Duke himself, in which case emigration to Patagonia might extend Sebastian’s years on earth.
“Mercia could be behind it.” Sebastian rose from the couch rather than keep the library’s tray of decanters in sight. “My instincts have been spectacularly wrong on occasion.”
“Your instincts are superb,” Michael muttered. “They always have been.”
Suggesting what? Sebastian could not read Michael’s expression, because the man was staring out the window. Again.
“Fine, then. When Milly gets back, tell her not to wait dinner for me. I’m off to call upon MacHugh.”
Professor and valet exchanged a glance Sebastian could easily decode.
“Perhaps I should go,” Baumgartner said. “Or at least go with you. As an observer. I’m feeling decidedly Germanic, and perhaps even princely, now that I consider the matter.”
Michael let loose a particularly profane curse in
Gaelic, an oath Sebastian hadn’t heard for more than a year.
“It’s him,” Michael said, springing off the window seat. “It’s Anduvoir. I know it.” Sebastian and the professor joined Michael at the window. “That fellow leaving the tavern on the corner, the one with his hat at the wrong angle.”
“He’s too far away to be sure,” Sebastian said, but the hair on his arms and nape was prickling disagreeably. “It could be him.” Anduvoir prided himself on the creative use of heel lifts, costumes, and cosmetics, but something in the arrogance of the walk, the angle of the hat, the attitude of the walking stick was definitely Continental.
“It’s him,” Michael said, moving swiftly toward the door. “I know that little shite’s bullying swagger.”
“Michael!” Sebastian’s voice stopped him at the door. Michael turned, impatience in every line. “Don’t let him see you. If he’s here, there’s a game afoot, and his games usually end up deadly for those who least deserve it.”
“He’ll not catch sight of me.”
Michael was gone, a wisp of lethal Celtic smoke dissipated on the spring air, but Sebastian spoke aloud anyway. “Be careful. For God’s sake, my friend, be careful.”
The professor remained to the side of the window, where light and shadow would not reveal his presence unless a person knew exactly where to look. “Brodie can take care of himself, but you do realize our womenfolk are abroad without us, and now Anduvoir is loose in the same city?”
Dread curled into a hard ball in Sebastian belly.
“I made Anduvoir rich and earned him more than one promotion. He has no reason to bear me ill will.”
The words were like a child’s prayer, equal parts fantasy and hope.
“Anduvoir bears every living creature ill will,” the professor said. “He’s a putrid excrescence on the face of humanity. My guess is the French won’t mind should we find a dung heap to fling his remains upon.”
“I would mind. I served France for five years without once taking a human life. My wife would not be pleased were I to turn up murderer now.”
Baumgartner gave a shrug that looked far more Gallic than German. “So don’t tell her. Lady Freddy and I long ago came to the realization that discretion is not only prudent on some occasions, it is also kind.”
For all the pragmatism in Baum’s words, he seemed uncomfortable with them. And well he should.
Amid the panic swirling in Sebastian’s gut, and the dire possibilities crowding his mind, he found a point of stability.
“I would tell my wife if I’d gone after Anduvoir. Milly would want to know. She would rather endure my truths than my self-serving attacks of kindness. I realize that now.”
She would deserve to know, because her loyalty was that reliable, and because Sebastian could not afford cowardice where she was concerned. He only hoped he had a chance to explain that to her.
“Michael’s on his tail,” Baumgartner said softly.
Out on the street, as Anduvoir strolled around the corner, a big, shambling character in a disreputable coat sauntered after him. The disreputable character paused to buy a nosegay from a flower girl, a useful ploy for reconnoitering the street and for giving a man something to hold before his face should the need arise. The fellow tipped a battered hat at the flower girl and disappeared from view.
***
“Where the hell is my wife?”
Sebastian’s tone assured Freddy he was no longer her indulgent, faintly amused nephew. He was a tormented man.
“I have no idea.” Freddy wrenched off her gloves. “She deposited me in the mews then had John Coachman drive her elsewhere. If I never meet with another solicitor again, it will be too soon.”
Rather than face more questions to which she hadn’t any answers, Freddy made a try for the stairs.
“You will join me in the music room,” Sebastian said, voice cracking like a whip. “And do not think for one instant that a megrim or any other petty drama will spare you my company. Anduvoir is in London.”
Freddy paused, hand on the newel post because she needed the support to remain upright. “Henri Anduvoir is in London?”
“Michael spotted him and went in discreet pursuit. The professor is taking a few pints at the tavern on the corner in hopes of learning more. You are coming with me.”
He spun on his heel with military precision, no proffer of a polite escort, no waiting for Freddy to gather her wits. More than she’d feared the English troops, more than she’d feared winter in the French Pyrenees, more than she’d feared Wellington himself, Freddy had feared Henri Anduvoir would be the death of her nephew.
So she swept into the library, head held high. “Do you know it’s Anduvoir? Frenchmen in London are common enough these days.”
Sebastian glowered at a painting of puppies playing tug-of-war with a hunting whip.
“Michael was certain, and if the impulse to cast up my accounts is any indication, I am certain as well.” He ran his finger across the bottom of the frame, as if checking for dust. “Somebody should notify the foreign office, or Wellington.”
Sebastian did not like to even say the duke’s name.
“You would notify His Grace?”
“Henri is a scourge whose menace transcends national boundaries, and thanks to me, he’s a wealthy scourge, much respected in a certain strata of French society. What transpired at the solicitors?”
“I hardly know.” Freddy took the seat at Sebastian’s desk, for several reasons. A wall at one’s back was generally a safe proposition, the desk commanded a good view of the entire room, and it afforded some protection against whoever might come charging in the door—or across the room.
“I have no patience, Baroness. None. My wife might well be running away from me, right into Anduvoir’s waiting arms. Do you know what he’d do to one of Milly’s strength of will? She has no allies, no safe harbor, no one whom she feels she—”
“Whom she feels she can trust,” Freddy finished for him. “And you know the exact contours of such misery.”
Knew them only too well. Freddy very much wanted to get drunk and give His Grace the Duke of Wellington the rousing set down he richly deserved.
“Where is my wife?”
“I expect John Coachman can tell us when he returns. Milly closeted herself with that dusty little fellow who worked for her aunts, while I kicked my heels in an anteroom and was roundly ignored by a bunch of children masquerading as law clerks.”
Sebastian focused on a point above Freddy’s left shoulder. “You did not read her any documents?”
“Not a one. She was with the solicitor for ages, and need I remind you she was exhausted before we departed for the City. I’m fairly certain she had documents in her reticule when we left.”
Sebastian was exhausted too. The grooves around his mouth, the shadows under his eyes, the tension in his posture were proof of his need for rest.
“You will make a series of social calls,” Sebastian said. “Start today, now, with MacHugh.” He listed several other names, each one a former prisoner of his who’d challenged him unsuccessfully.
“I am happy to ask these fellows for the details regarding who goaded them to their foolish bravery, but aren’t you concerned they’ll say you’re hiding behind my skirts?”
“I am hiding behind your skirts,” Sebastian snapped. “I’d bloody wear skirts down the middle of St. James’s Street if it would bring Milly home to me safely, but I can’t leave this house until she’s been located. If she comes home to find me gone—”
“You’re afraid she’ll pack her things and slip away permanently.”
Long ago, Freddy had been Sebastian’s confidante, the harmless older relation to whom a boy could confess his dreams and troubles. That boy was as dead as many of Wellington’s brave soldiers, and Freddy did not know whether to blame the duke or the French—or her
self.
“I am afraid of that very possibility, Aunt: that Milly will leave me, and then she’ll try to make her way, without coin, without much ability to read, without a character, without friends…while my enemies, whom I taught a great deal about torture and interrogation, lie in wait for her. How does a woman keep herself safe when she can barely read street signs?”
“The solicitor treated her quite well, all bows and good manners. He did not treat her as if she were a penniless bother. Milly knows how to command respect.”
Though what a miserable measure of the situation, that Freddy was reduced to offering a solicitor’s manners as a comfort.
The door banged open, and Michael strode in, looking like some Midlands drover after the sheep had been delivered and before the drinking had concluded.
“It was Anduvoir. I followed him to his rooms in Bloomsbury, and he’s traveling under a fictitious last name. He’s gained weight and lost hair.”
Milly’s cat came strolling in behind Michael, who closed the door when the animal had made its stately progress into the room.
Sebastian swore creatively in French and English both.
“Milly hasn’t come back. Aunt, please send a footman to retrieve the professor. We must make plans, and you must make calls.”
She was being dispatched like a recruit taking messages to the officers’ mess, a punishment for having failed so badly on the outing to the solicitors. Freddy scooped up Milly’s cat, which had gained weight and not lost hair since joining the household.
“I will be gone within the half hour, Sebastian, and I will find you some answers, you may depend upon it.” She owed him at least that—some answers, not all the answers.
Freddy deposited the cat in Sebastian’s arms, and couldn’t resist a single blow in her own defense.
“The way you feel now, sick with dread and worry, afraid anything you do to remedy the situation might make it worse? I felt that way for years, about you, and you came home in one piece. Remember that.”
For an instant he looked puzzled.
“The coach is back,” Michael said from his post at the window. “I don’t see the baroness getting out of it.”
The Traitor Page 27