Page 105 of The Traitor
Michael sounded more puzzled than peeved, but then, the cat was not particularly French or English, either. The beast was purring and bopping its head against Sebastian’s chin.
“Peter is a defender of the hearts of women. His regard is worth having, but let’s see where the professor has got off to with that map.”
Fifteen minutes later, Sebastian had finally located the damned map in an old survey atlas. Michael found the street where Anduvoir’s rooms were, though the atlas gave it a different name.
“It’s a rooming house, is my guess,” Michael said. “One main entrance front and back, as if it used to be a dwelling for a family of some means. Three stories above the street, a tavern to the immediate left, a book shop to the right.”
Sebastian set the atlas aside, having learned all he could from it.
“We have about an hour of light if he’s taken Aunt to his rooms.” Time for him to arrive there, and time for Milly to get the hell home. No matter how often Sebastian silently cursed the clock, and no matter in which language, Milly was not yet safely home. “I want to rescue my aunt, but I need to find my wife.”
And God help him, God damn him and God help him, if he had to choose which one to protect.
“They were on foot,” the professor observed. “If he were intent on leaving the City, Anduvoir would have jumped into the nearest hack.”
Beyond the library, a door slammed elsewhere in the house.
Milly. Please, let that be Milly.
She came pelting into the library, no bonnet, no gloves. “Sebastian! Thank God you’re home. There’s a man, he’s French, he has Aunt Freddy, and you must listen to me.”
The cat vaulted onto the desk an instant before Milly slammed into Sebastian’s chest. Michael closed the door, and the professor sank into a chair.
“It’s all right,” Sebastian said. Now that he held his wife safe in his arms, everything that mattered was all right. “We know who he is, we know how he thinks. We know, and we’ll get Aunt out of there before the moon rises.”
Milly pulled back enough that Sebastian could see the desperation in her eyes. “No, Sebastian. Whatever you do, you must not go to your aunt’s aid. That’s exactly what he wants, and you must not accommodate him. It’s you he wants, and you he’s determined to see killed.”
***
“Of course, it is.” Sebastian sounded almost amused, and Milly wanted to pummel him—just as soon as she’d held on to him as tightly as her strength allowed and breathed in his sandalwood scent and kissed him to within an inch of his life.
“Shall I ring for tea?” Michael asked.
“No!” Sebastian and Milly answered in unison, Milly in a near shout, Sebastian in implacable tones of command.
“We haven’t time,” Milly said. “This man, this Frenchman, wants you to come looking for Aunt Freddy. He wanted to take me, but Freddy went out to cut some roses. His plan is…”
His plan was damned clever. Clever enough to work.
Sebastian nuzzled at Milly’s temple, a soft, soothing gesture. “Let’s sit, shall we?”
“I want to pace, Sebastian. I want to break things. He’s awful, that fellow. I think even Aunt was more scared than angry around him.”
Milly felt rather than saw the glance this comment provoked among the men.
“Did Anduvoir see you, Milly?” Despite Sebastian’s calm tone, Milly knew the question was fraught.
“No, he did not. I overheard him as he strutted and preened about his room. It’s a pleasant afternoon, and his room is at the back of some little house thirteen streets from here. He left a window open.”
To sit beside Sebastian, to hear his voice and feel him solid and strong beside her, was exactly what Milly had been craving since seeing Aunt Freddy abducted. His presence gave her the strength to call upon her memorization skills, the skills honed in a dozen cold schoolrooms and hundreds of long evenings by the fire with her aunts.
“His plan is as follows—he wanted to impress Aunt Freddy with it, or intimidate her. He has notes waiting for you all over London, sending you on a game of fox and geese to rescue Aunt. He has paid people to deny you ever came to retrieve these notes, the first of which he will have delivered right here.”
“He’s been watching us,” Michael said. “Bloody hell, I should have seen—”
“Michael.” Sebastian hadn’t raised his voice or even put much emphasis on the single word, but Michael fell silent.
“The point of this haring about is for you to be unaccounted for this evening, while Anduvoir himself assassinates the Duke of Wellington, an act for which he will see you blamed. He’ll use more notes, and some sort of poison, so that Wellington collapses before a good two dozen of his former officers at some regimental dinner. Sebastian, Anduvoir has many samples of your handwriting, and he sounded…gleefulto contemplate you being hanged for murder.”
