Page 22 of The Traitor
“Her workbasket is large and well organized. I couldn’t get to her reticule because she was off seeing the sights in Chelsea with some fool who’s trying to get himself killed. No lap desk, no jewel box, no dancing slippers.” Michael set the cards aside and took another swig of his whiskey. “Why can’t you find a mistress to dip your wick? Fine English gentlemen have mistresses.”
“No mistress for me.” Some English officer might bribe her to poison her protector. Sebastian had reason to know such tactics might be attempted—again.
“So you’ll dally with the companion until she realizes what you are?”
Michael clearly did not like that option, but he wouldn’t blame Sebastian for considering it. Michael was a tolerant soul, despite much posturing to the contrary.
“Dally is such a frivolous word.” A frivolous,wrongword where Milly Danforth was concerned, though there were no right words.
“You’ll ruin her? That’s all right, then. The brave English officers won’t get a chance at you because your own auntie will finish you off straightaway, assuming I let her have the first shot. You need practice at this confession business, St. Clair. One doesn’t announce one’s sins, one repents of them.”
“I’ll not ruin her.” He might kiss her again. He might drive out with her again.
Michael finished his drink and slid the cards across the table. “I’m vastly relieved to hear of your virtuous intentions, but you’re right: you’ve kissed her, and that’s bad enough. When your reputation catches up with you, she’ll give notice, and your aunt will be left without a friend by her side, and it will be your fault. Again.”
“You are such a cheering influence, Michael. Take yourself off to bed, there to dream of the end of the world or whatever gives a nice Catholic boy comfort on a long and cold night.”
Michael snorted. “I’m as Catholic as Miss Danforth’s cat. I’m also from the North, and I know damned good and well what comfort works best on a long and chilly night—as do you.”
Sebastian let him go, relieved to have solitude. Given the chance, Michael would shadow him everywhere, the man’s loyalty in France a backhanded gift from a God not inclined to deal kindly with soldiers who outlived their wars.
Though now, Sebastian resigned himself to keeping a close eye on his former subordinate. Even an angel could fall prey to such envy as would see him cast from heaven. Michael was a good man, but by no means an angel.
As for the quick tumble Michael prescribed to deal with virtually all of a man’s ills…Sebastian didn’t fancy it. Never had. He’d never known Michael to indulge in that sort of folly either, but then, Michael could be as discreet as death at three in the morning.
A sense of being watched plucked at Sebastian’s nerves. He glanced around the room, gratified to find his instincts still functioned.
“What are you doing here?”
The cat needed no more invitation than that to hop down from the back of the sofa and spring up onto the card table.
“You have no manners, sir.”
And no dignity, either, for the beast was purring as it stropped itself against Sebastian’s chin. Sebastian collected the cat into his lap.
“Am I your next project, cat? The next harmless old dear you intend to cozen for your meals?”
To be an old dear was a humble ambition, one Sebastian could not allow himself to aspire to. “Miss Danforth no doubt misses you, beast. You should go to her.”
Sebastian wanted to go to her and be calmed and comforted by her pretty, female scent—lavender and bergamot. He wanted to kiss her again, to touch her hand, to forget for a few minutes that he was a man with a price on his head. He wanted to watch her brown eyes light with humor and surprise as she told him his kisses were tedious and awful.
“She is lonely, too, cat. She and I would not speak of that. We would not have to.” They’d kiss, though, and that was the same discussion in a more efficient language—a language even a spinster companion might understand if Sebastian were patient enough.
For her, Sebastian could find oceans of patience.
“Your lady has no lap desk, my friend. Did you know that?” Sebastian had made a point to learn this before the woman had been under his roof four hours. “Every lady has a lap desk, and she keeps her journal in it, and her billet-doux, but your lady has nobody left to write to.”
Sebastian set the cat out in the chilly corridor, closed the library door, and returned to the table. He could tell Miss Danforth that she’d been kissed by the Traitor Baron, and tell her exactly what he’d done to earn that sobriquet.
In which case, she’d be gone by the week’s end.
He picked up the deck of cards and dealt himself a hand of solitaire.
***
“I have neglected my duty to St. Clair,” the baroness announced. “Milly, you must aid me in making reparation.”
Milly considered the seam she was working on, a curving arc between two swatches of velvet, one purple, one black. “I am yours to command, my lady.”
