Page 102 of The Traitor
Seventeen
Without people to love it, the cottage was no longer home. Milly had not even a cat to share that realization with. Despite a lack of appetite, she was making an evening meal of bread and cheese, when she heard a knock on the kitchen door.
“Sebastian.”
Though if he’d come for her, Milly was at least resolved they’d arrive to some understandings before she returned to his household. She tidied the crumbs off the table, touched a hand to her hair, and opened the door.
“Your ladyship.” Giles bowed low, an incongruous gesture given that he was in a workingman’s rough clothing rather than footman’s livery.
“Giles, good evening. Is anything amiss?”
He came up smiling. “That’s what I was to ask. His lordship sent me to make sure you didn’t need anything.”
Milly needed her husband’s trust, she needed sleep, and she needed courage. She glanced behind Giles, half hoping to see the St. Clair town coach in the alley.
“I wasn’t sent to fetch you unless you want to be fetched, mum. The dog cart is waiting up at the corner.”
“You’re not to bring me home?” Not that she’d allow any but her husband to escort her.
“Not unless you’d like to go home, but I am to bring you this.” He hefted a familiar-looking wicker basket.
“You may set it on the counter.” Milly stared at the basket long enough to know Peter was not among its contents, which was some reassurance. “How did you leave his lordship, Giles?”
Giles set the basket on the counter. Crockery within the wicker tinkled at the shift. “He be in a taking, you ask me, and ain’t nobody never seen his lordship in a taking.”
Oh, dear. “His hair is sticking up in all directions, he can’t hold still, and he sounds very English?”
Giles apparently found the basket worthy of study too. “He be cursin’, ma’am, in English and Frenchie both.”
Protectiveness and guilt tugged at Milly’s resolve.
“The tavern halfway down the block on the high street serves a wonderful summer ale, Giles. Perhaps you’d enjoy a pint and then check back with me?”
He bowed again. “Always did enjoy a good summer ale.”
When he was gone and Milly had put away her bread and cheese, she considered the hamper. Darkness was falling, though the moon would be up in less than two hours. She could return to Mayfair safely enough with Giles’s escort…if she had to.
She opened the hamper and lifted a book from among the contents. The title was not easy to decipher, but Milly recognized a capitalM, and kept puzzling it out, just as she’d puzzled out every word of the bill of sale she’d signed earlier in the day.
When she realized she was holding a copy ofTheMysteriesofUdolphoby Ann Radcliffe, an ache started up in her throat. A letter in Sebastian’s flowing hand fell from between the pages of the book.
As she stumbled, trudged, and groped her way through her husband’s letter, Milly began to cry.
Dearest Milly,
I have betrayed your trust, and for this I can only apologize. The habit to protect those I care about is of long standing, and at times has been all that has sustained me, my only lodestar. I am blessed with a wife who can protect herself better than most, who is resourceful, resilient, and capable of making her own sound decisions. I see this, now.
I pray you will decide to resume your place beside me, and promise you most solemnly that I have presumed on your forgiving nature, at least as regards my past, for the last time.
No more duels, Milly. I vow this. No more contests of honor, not by sword, pistol, fists, whips, knives…none of it. No more lies to spare me difficult explanations, no more assuming my secrecy shows regard for any save myself. The debt to my past must be regarded as paid with interest if I am, as you say, allowing it to rob me of a future, much less a future with you.
I await your response, but urge you not to rush. Your answer matters to me so very much, I will be as patient as you need me to be.
I’ve learned that my enemies are abroad right here in London, old foes who would harm any I care about in their effort to harm me. Be careful, my love. Bad enough I jeopardize your regard with my present folly. Don’t allow the enemies of my past to jeopardize your person as well.
I remain your most loving husband,
Sebastian
