Page 24 of The Traitor
And Milly held her breath.
He began with a soft turning melody in a minor key, arpeggios rippling beneath. Milly clutched at the velvet in her hands, missed her aunt, and wanted to close her eyes and simply absorb the torment of such aural beauty.
“Milly, if I’m to be denied an opportunity to aid my nephew, then I will at least be entertained. Fetch me some Byron from the library please. For all his sins,heat least knew to take a wife.”
How was one to find a single volume of poetry in a room full of books? “Wouldn’t you rather listen to the music, your ladyship?”
“For goodness’ sake, child, I can listen to poetry and music at the same time. Baum can no doubt listen to poetry in one language and a song in another while the conversation takes place in a third. Be off with you, and have the kitchen send up some tea.”
“Of course, your ladyship.” Milly took great pains to fold up her sewing. Perhaps if she could find the butler, or even Mr. Brodie…
No, not him. He was a sneak and not to be trusted.
“If you’re looking forChildeHarold’s Pilgrimage, it’s on the third shelf above the atlases,” the baron said from the keyboard. “A little volume bound in green, and much used, owing to my aunt’s preference for racy verse. There’s a volume of poetry bound in red which you open at your peril just beside it.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Milly rose and set aside her sewing.Thankyou, thank you, thank you.
She retrieved the volume based on his lordship’s exact directions, and based on the fact that her own middle name was Harriette, which sounded a bit like Harold at the front end, and—she hoped—looked a bit like Harold as well.
Milly was back in her seat, the professor scratching away, the baron playing his soft, mournful tune when she realized she ought to have lied and said the book was nowhere to be found, because now…
Her heart began to thump, began the slow dirge that presaged humiliation and the possible death of any independence from her cousins’ schemes. Milly wanted to hurl the little green book into the fire.
The baron brought his piece to a die-away cadence and rose.
“Aunt, you cannot mean to make Miss Danforth read that tripe. She is gently bred, proper, and has done nothing to deserve such a punishment. You are upset with me, and I shall read your naughty poetry.”
Her ladyship looked pleased. “Yes, you shall.Millyis working on her trousseau, while you are idling away your morning.”
Milly passed over the book, but the baron hesitated for a moment before taking it from her hand. His eyes held humor and resignation.
“Miss Danforth, my thanks.”
He took the seat directly to Milly’s left, bringing with him his masculine fragrance and a reading voice as lovely as his music had been. When he recited Byron’s sad, sly whimsy, he did not sound French, and yet, there was a lyricism to his words that transcended public-school English too.
Occasionally, as he’d turn a page or finish a stanza, his lordship would glance over at Milly, and invariably, he would find her neglecting her stitchery. When she jabbed herself in the finger for the third time, Milly gave up all hope of progress on her mending—not her trousseau—and surrendered to the pleasure of the baron’s naughty verses.
Five
Behind Byron’s world-weary, dissipated innuendo lay the heart of a man bewildered and exhausted by the world’s disappointments. His poetic lordship had traveled the fringes of war and lived at the heart of the beau monde. He had seen what violent and greedy impulses run amok could do, and had probably reflected at too great a length on the same impulses manifest in himself.
All of which was to say, Sebastian did not enjoy Byron’s poetry. He maundered on anyway, mostly from memory, not so much to placate his aunt, but rather to enjoy the sight of Milly Danforth plying her needle beside him.
If Sebastian narrowed his eyes, the colors of her fabrics blurred and blended, like the colors of a slow sunset—reds, oranges, and yellows shifted through green to blue, purple, and the next thing to black. Her hand had a rhythm to the way it formed stitches, like a violinist with her bow or a poet with a line of verse. Byron made sad jokes with his words; Milly Danforth made soft, unlikely beauty with her sewing.
“I beg your ladyship’s pardon!”
That expostulation came from Helsom, the butler, who puffed indignantly near the door. A corpulent fellow in gentleman’s attire stood at his side, a man losing the battle against brown hair gone thin and a middle gone thick.
“This person disregarded my insistence that the family is not receiving. Your ladyship, your lordship, I do apologize.”
“I’m not calling upon the family.”
Beside Sebastian, Miss Danforth’s head bent closer to her piecework, though she’d ceased stitching.
Aunt remained enthroned by the fire, but Baumgartner had taken up a post behind her chair.
“Sir,” her ladyship said, “I do not know you. I will thank you to leave a card and be on your way.”
