Page 104 of The Traitor
Giles had found him in the music room, and Sebastian wanted answers before Michael or the professor joined them.
“He were well dressed, top hat, and fine coat, but they were walking away from us, so I couldn’t see if he had a watch chain and such. He did have a cane.”
A sword cane, likely, or a piece with a weighted handle. Old bones broke so easily.
“Anything else? What drew your eye to him in the first place?”
Giles’s brow knitted. The fellow wasn’t stupid. He was, in fact, shrewd enough to know a less than creditable answer to his betters would result in both disbelief and ridicule, and yet, Sebastian dared not prompt any particular answer.
“You must have sensed something…?”
“He walked funny, like a woman trying to draw a fellow’s notice.”
More than dress, more than accent, more than any other detail, Giles’s observation confirmed that Aunt Freddy had fallen into Anduvoir’s clutches.
“What was my baroness wearing?”
Giles described a worn brown dress, years out of fashion, one that might blend in well anywhere in LondonexceptMayfair. As Sebastian noted the details of Giles’s description—Milly was an attractive woman, maybe especially to a young footman—another part of Sebastian reached for the ability to think without feeling, to make decisions based on facts rather than emotion.
Viewed in this light, Milly’s decision to pursue Anduvoir was exactly the same sound judgment Michael had shown the previous day, and yet Sebastian wanted to throttle her for it. She did not know who or what she followed. He could only pray he had the chance to throttle her.
“Has the baroness returned?” The professor’s question was casual as he stood in the music-room door, but his posture was alert, an old hound catching the scent of trouble.
“She has not. Giles, you’re excused. Say nothing to anybody of this, and that includes—”
Michael appeared at the professor’s shoulder. “I saw Giles return on foot, and it is by no means his day off.” An accusation rather than observation.
Giles hurried from the room, and a silence took root in his wake. Michael had deserted his Highland unit to join Sebastian’s guard at the Château. No sane man had joined the French cause as the English offensive across Spain had picked up momentum.
Neither did a sane man remain in the employ of a traitor universally loathed by all of Polite Society.
Abruptly, Sebastian had no more time to gather information, to consider, to equivocate.
“Michael, you are either a traitor to the traitor, or you are my friend.”
“I am your friend.” The answer was swift, certain, and exactly what a traitor would say. Michael’s expression, though, wasn’t pugnacious, but rather, damnably understanding. “We can debate my loyalties for what remains of the day, or we can solve whatever problem has you mad enough to kill with your bare hands.”
Sebastian examined his hands, which had formed into fists. Many mornings, he and Michael rode the most remote paths of Hyde Park’s several hundred acres. Michael had had myriad opportunities to murder the Traitor Baron, if his intent were that simple.
His deeper motives would keep for another day.
“Anduvoir has Aunt Freddy, and Milly is in pursuit of them. I need a map of Bloomsbury.”
“Give me five minutes,” the professor said, spinning on his heel. “The library is full of atlases.”
Michael bent to pick up Milly’s cat, who appeared to have no qualms about the man’s uses or his loyalties. “I am not your enemy, St. Clair. I might have been at one point, but—”
Sebastian waited for the damned cat to start purring, but it leaped from Michael’s arms, hit the floor with a solid thud, and stropped itself against Sebastian’s boots.
“You needed at least one friend,” Michael went on. “A man can endure much, if he has one true friend. I’m not French, I’m not English, and that seemed to qualify me for the position.”
Which left the question, who was Michael’s friend, for Sebastian could not regard himself in that light because…
One confided one’s burdens in one’s friends.
“Aunt said Captain Lord Anderson is responsible for inspiring both MacHugh and Pierpont into challenging me. I suspect the others would also admit he had a hand in resurrecting their patriotic indignation.”
“Anderson is a buffoon,” Michael replied as Sebastian scooped up Milly’s pet. “He’s a good choice as a pawn, though. He looks the part of affronted military dignity, but for God’s sake, he spent less than a fortnight at the Château. That cat likes you.”
