Swords lowered. The men in the room looked anywhere but at Sebastian’s wife.
“My dear baroness,” Wellington said. “If you’d permit an old soldier to have the floor?”
Milly nodded—regally—and Sebastian wanted badly to kiss his wife, also to pitch her out the nearest window if it would keep her safe.
Wellington sauntered forward, to the head of the table. “You fellows heard the baroness, and now you will do me the courtesy of listening to me as well.”
His Grace picked up a plate of sautéed mushrooms, apparently intent on snitching an appetizer.
“Don’t, Your Grace!” Sebastian fairly bellowed the words. Milly regarded him with consternation, suggesting even summary executions required a certain etiquette. “Don’t touch those mushrooms. Anduvoir fancies himself something of a gourmand, and he’s been known to use poison.”
Wellington regarded the morsel in his hand. “And you know this, how?”
“He tried to poison me shortly before Toulouse fell.”
“Oh, St. Clair.” Milly crossed the room to take his hand—his left hand, which would leave his right free to reach for his knife, should he need to defend her. “Your own commanding officer. Why would he do that?”
Wellington pitched the mushroom back onto the tray and wiped his fingers on a linen serviette. “I can shed light on that, if my officers will be so good as to sheathe their swords?”
Metal scraped; Mercia took his seat. Over by the sideboard, glassware tinkled, as if someone had resumed pouring drinks.
“Pixler was the one to alert us to your location,” Wellington said. “Your aunt knew you were in the south of France somewhere, but you’d been careful not to reveal your position in what correspondence she’d had from you.”
“For obvious reasons,” Sebastian said. Milly’s fingers tightened around his hand.
“Just so,” His Grace replied. “You could not have the baroness importuned for such intelligence. Bad enough we gentlemen must choose between duty to our loved ones and duty to the Crown. No need to put the ladies in such a position—and yet, I did. Would somebody find a chair for my guest and his baroness?”
The duke’s courtesy—referring to Sebastian as a guest, having chairs fetched—set off an alarm in the back of Sebastian’s mind.
“We’ll stand,” Milly said. “And we really can’t be staying.”
Sebastian did kiss her, right on her helpful mouth. “Your Grace was saying?”
“We learned from Pixler where you were, and we also learned the boy would have died without your intervention. The beating he took was severe, true, but he said that was more Anduvoir’s doing than yours. Then came the ransom request.”
Sebastian realized too late the direction the duke’s recitation might take.
“Many officers were unofficially ransomed, Your Grace. The French needed coin badly, despite the official position.”
“True enough, but not every officer whose family lacked the funds to ransom him found the lady of the house sitting down to whist across from your dear aunt. Seems Lady Frederica had a prodigious run of bad luck when she opposed Pixler’s mother, and somehow, I gather this is not news to you.”
Milly’s arms around Sebastian’s waist went from protective to necessary, lest his very knees buckle. “How did you learn of that?”
Nobody was ever supposed to know, save Freddy and the professor, and nobody would have believed—
“I didn’t figure it out until the third or fourth occasion of such a coincidence, and then I noticed other patterns as well. Nobody died at your hands, St. Clair, and some weren’t even beaten, and yet you had a reputation for reducing a man to tears and plucking all his secrets from him.”
“At least one secret from every man,” Sebastian said, but he’d nearly whispered the words, while his worlds—his French world and his English world—collided. “I demanded one secret to show my superiors, lest somebody else, somebody worse, be given my command.”
He was at risk for babbling out all of his own secrets, so when Milly kissed him on the mouth, he shut up.
“Yes, you extracted from each officer foolish enough to be found behind enemy lines out of uniform one bit of information—more from a few of the loquacious ones—and you found a way to return them to us more or less whole. This one you ransomed with funds from your own pocket, that one you slipped into a clandestine prisoner exchange, the other escaped after a productive interrogation session—such a pity—and was not recaptured.”
His Grace appeared to study a wine goblet half-full of a pretty ruby claret, and the only sound in the room was Milly sniffling into Sebastian’s handkerchief.
“Every officer you tortured came home,” Wellington said softly. “Even Mercia, whose circumstances were complicated, indeed. I concluded you were a far greater asset to England in your French garrison than you could have been anywhere else.”
“Nobody else—” Sebastian did not know whether to be grateful for, or furious at, Wellington’s recitation.
“Nobody else figured this out? Your aunt clearly had more than an inkling, and she begged me to extricate you from a situation that was obviously difficult and dangerous for you. You were and are a peer of the realm, the Baron St. Clair, a man serving in a war zone, who lacked legitimate male progeny, and if anybody should have been offered safe passage home, it was you.”
“Yes,” Milly said, eyes glittering. “Exactly, and yet you left him there on that miserable pile of rocks, left him without an ally, without any support, and then let these imbeciles challenge him to duel after duel. How could you, Your Grace?”
She voiced Sebastian’s own questions, because incredulity was quickly giving way to rage. The anger trickled into him, a warmth and sense of rightness to it he’d craved for years.
“Lady Frederica and I reached a compromise,” Wellington said. “I sent you a guardian angel, so to speak, and he had orders to offer you safe passage if your life were imperiled. Brodie’s first message back to us was that your life was imperiled daily by your own superior officer, by the advancing English, and by the conflicted loyalties that demanded you abuse your peers to ensure they remained in your care. He requested permission to extricate you from the Château, and I put the matter to your aunt.”
The room was quieter than a graveyard in the middle of a winter night.
“You made an old woman choose between her only living male relative and the safety of British officers held captive at my garrison,” Sebastian said, slowly and clearly, as if the words pronounced sentence on Wellington rather than verified his strategy. “Freddy chose for England, and I remained at that garrison, torturing men I ought to have served with, bankrupting my birthright and my reason, while the same old woman was left to contend with neglected estates, dwindling resources, and no family at her side.”
Had Milly not been weeping softly against his chest, Sebastian would likely have strangled Wellington right then and there. Not an entire regiment of officers would have stopped him. He would have strangled him for Aunt Freddy, for Milly, for himself, and for the men who’d challenged him, for they had been put at risk every bit as much as he.
While Sebastian frankly clung to his wife, he spared a thought for what Freddy had gone through, for the impossible choice she’d faced, much like the impossible choices Sebastian had faced.
Mercia rose. “You were betrayed,” he said quietly. Over Milly’s head, Sebastian saw him looking around the room, seeking any who would argue that conclusion. “You are no traitor to England, though England surely betrayed you. I am profoundly sorry for it.”
Mercia saluted with his wineglass. One by one, the other officers rose and offered a silent toast, until Wellington himself lifted a goblet.
“Sir, I salute you for your aid in the capture of one Henri Anduvoir, a criminal wanted by his own authorities for embezzling monies due the Ré
publique as spoils of war—substantial sums, as it turns out.”
His Grace paused for a considering sip of claret. “The French asked for our aid, which took no small toll on their pride. Anduvoir was here to see you killed—you had put those sums into his hands to be delivered to his superiors—but Anduvoir also sought to plant evidence that you had stolen that money, too. I hope you consider matters between you and the Crown acceptably addressed after this day’s work, for the Crown considers itself in your debt.”
Sebastian managed to ask the only pertinent question. “You have Anduvoir in custody, then?”
“We do. Brodie reported the address by messenger earlier today and demanded my aid in seeing your aunt to safety. Seems a certain Frenchman tried to interfere with the King’s men when about the King’s business. Dreadfully stupid of him. Mortally stupid, I should think.”
“Don’t think it,” Milly snapped. “Make sure of it, if you please.”
“I rather agree with the lady,” Mercia drawled.
A chorus of “hear, hear” followed, though to Sebastian, the words and the goodwill they embodied rang hollow. The only solid thing in his awareness at that moment was the woman who still held on to him for dear life.
“St. Clair, will you and your lady stay to enjoy the meal with us?” Wellington asked.
His Grace was extending an olive branch, and though the officers might be willing to let the past remain in the past, Wellington’s overture presaged not merely tolerance, but acceptance.
Approval, even, from the most respected subject of the British Crown. Though this might for years have been the answer to prayers Sebastian dared not admit to even himself, now it mattered not in the least.
“I think not,” Milly said. “St. Clair, I am quite fatigued. If you would please take me home?”
Sebastian did not glance at Wellington or Mercia, or anybody else who might have ventured an opinion, for the lot of them could go to blazes.
“Of course, my dear. Events have been wearying in the extreme.”
She took his arm, but they did not escape without Mercia—the man certainly knew how to make his opinions known—instigating a round of applause, in which Wellington himself joined.
***
Milly forced herself to loosen her grip on Sebastian’s hand. “Tell me you are not about to run down this street, tearing your hair and screaming French obscenities.”
“I am not.”
He walked along beside her, while Milly stifled the impulses she’d just named. For a good two dozen yards, she managed to hold her silence.
“Sebastian, how are you?”
He kissed her knuckles. “Quite well.”
Milly lasted a dozen yards this time. “Talk to me, Husband, or so help me, I will lose my reason.”
Right there in the street, with fashionable carriages rumbling past on the way to an evening’s entertainment, Sebastian stopped and wrapped her in his arms.
“I am walking out of the Château again, but this time, I am taking my heart, my soul, and my future with me. The prospect will take some getting used to.”
Milly caught a whiff of lavender from the small bouquet she’d affixed to his lapel not two hours earlier. “Will you take your baroness with you?”
His arms slipped away, and he resumed walking, not even taking her hand.
“What nonsense is this, Wife? We’re married. I was thinking of moving to Patagonia with you.”
Milly held her ground as he strolled off. “Sebastian, I left you. I purchased my own establishment in Chelsea as insurance, in case our difficulties could not be resolved. I’m worse than Wellington, who was at least trying to win a war.”
His lordship came stomping back to her side.
“You did not leave me. You shut me out, in the same manner I had first demonstrated to you. We are done with such folly. Did you read my letter?”
She’d memorized his letter. “Yes. The letter was very prettily written.”
By the light of the streetlamp, Milly saw that her answer had baffled him.
“You came home on the strength of a pretty letter? I bare my soul to you, offer my most profound and heartfelt sentiments…?”
She did not want him marching off into the darkness, so she took his hand. “The letter was very nice, but the book decided me.”
Sebastian allowed her to tow him in the direction of their home. “You came back to me for Mrs. Radcliffe?”
“I came back to you because my heart and soul were in your keeping, and if your sole fault was protectiveness toward me—a protectiveness which was apparently well-founded—then I stand guilty of the same transgression toward you. I could not leave you to deal with those enemies you referred to by yourself, and I could not forgive myself if I’d added to your worries when your enemies were skulking about London itself.”
He looped her arm through his, as a proper escort would, or as a man intent on preventing a woman from fleeing might. “Mrs. Radcliffe told you that?”
“Yes.”
Milly’s husband had more patience than she, because he let her wander along at his side in silence until they were nearly home.
“We have all of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels in the library, you know.” He offered this as they tarried on the steps of the town house, Sebastian two steps higher. Milly could see his face in the shadows of the porch light, could see he was asking a question.
“I cannot read well,” Milly said. “I never will. This does not matter to you, much as your military past does not matter to me, though anything that troubles you troubles me as well. I have longed for the ability to curl up with a novel on a rainy afternoon, swilling tea before a crackling fire while enjoying a rousing tale of love and adventure.”
“I want that for you too. I wanted it for you in Chelsea if I couldn’t provide it to you in Mayfair. I hoped you’d understand that.”
Milly touched the lavender on his lapel. “It’s a silly dream, to indulge in such a pastime. More than I ever wanted that rainy afternoon, I want a tale of love and adventure with you. You will read to me, Sebastian. You will deal with children who perhaps don’t read so well. You will guard my heart and allow me to guard yours. I will go to Patagonia with you, of course I will, if that dream can be ours.”
He came down the steps and enveloped her in his arms. “I will love you. I do love you.”
Milly twined her arms around him. “And I love you.”
She didn’t know how long she stood on the steps, reveling in her husband’s embrace, but the door opened, and Michael stood in the entrance, the light from the foyer turning his blond hair into a nimbus.
“I don’t know about all this talk of moving to Patagonia,” he said, “but Lady Freddy’s in the music room, threatening to decamp for the Continent, and the professor isn’t having much luck talking her out of it.”
***
Sebastian was not about to face Freddy without reinforcements. He tucked Milly against his side and headed for the music room.
“You, I will deal with later,” he tossed over his shoulder at Michael.
Michael, the imbecile, flourished a salute and fell in behind them.
“Sebastian, you must not be too hard on Aunt. She’s old, and she is more tenderhearted than she seems, and you—”
“Hush,” Sebastian said as he held the music-room door for his baroness. “We will deal with this.”
Lady Freddy sat in the middle of the sofa, while the professor stood sentry duty near the piano. “She thinks you will throw her out,” Baum said, a German accent much in evidence.
“For what? Conduct unbecoming?”
Freddy’s head snapped up. “I’ll go. You need not indulge in dramatics, though I will take a few days to make my farewells.”
She launched off the sofa, while Baumgartner looked increasingly distraught.
“Where will you go?” Sebastian asked. “France?”
“I hate France, and while we’re about it, I very nearly hate England,” she said, pacing to the window, turning, and pacing back. “Wellington left the decision in my hands, you see, and what was I to do? If you came home, you’d want to buy your colors anyway, and then—”
“There I’d be,” Sebastian finished for her, “wondering if I’d shot Cousin Luc today, or made a widow of Cousin Lisbette. Perhaps if the invasion of France were successful, I’d be treated to the sight of my men torching Grand-père’s estate, or pillaging his vineyards. What a fine treat that would have been.”
Freddy stopped fluttering around the room. She pretended to study a bouquet of bloodred roses, while her eyes filled with years and years of grief.
“Or you would have stayed here, humoring an old woman’s fears, hating your duty to the succession, worrying for your mother’s people. Here, you had only me. In France, you had aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents. Do you know how many letters I started, asking you to come home?”
“Too many,” Sebastian said.
“Liebchen,” Baumgartner murmured, “this serves nothing.”
“We’ll tour the pumpernickel courts,” Freddy said. “They’re a friendly lot, and my German is passable.”
“I’ll not have you deserting at this late date,” Sebastian said, “though if you truly want to muster out, say, for a wedding journey, I’ll consider it.”
Milly looked worried, and Sebastian’s heart felt none too sturdy, because his words seemed to have no effect.
“I suppose I could tolerate Italy, if we must winter there,” Freddy informed the roses. “Italian servants are insolent, though. I will probably deal with them very well.”
Sebastian strode over to the window and seized his aunt gently by the shoulders. “You will go nowhere you don’t wish to go.”
She blinked up at him, looking small, old, dear, and uncertain.
“I will go wherever I please, in any case, young man, but when your only paternal relation leaves you to deal with torture and treason on some frozen pile of French rocks, when she might instead have had you brought home with a full pardon, then you are entitled to your sulks and pouts.”
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