Page 27 of The Traitor
She did not want to be Lady St. Clair’s cross either, but was confident that good dame would never entertain such a notion.
“Marcus is another cousin?”
The roses were beyond help, so Milly took the bouquet off the windowsill, set it on the sideboard, and began removing them from the vase. Petals fell all about, but there was no help for that.
“Marcus was my cousin, Alcorn’s younger brother. Marcus did not survive the Peninsular campaign.”
His lordship went to the desk and rummaged in a drawer. “I might have held your cousin as a prisoner, Miss Danforth. Might have questioned him most rigorously. Are you still content to remain in my employ?”
The baron held a pair of shears, and despite his lace and grace, he looked—and sounded—very severe.
“Marcus was never taken prisoner. He fell off his horse and suffered a blow to the head. I ought to change this water. Roses always leave such a stench.” And why did his lordship look so relieved at Milly’s answer?
He passed the shears to her, which meant she could trim up the stems on the sprigs of lavender. “Peter is not your only ally, Miss Danforth.”
Milly tossed the roses in a dustbin near the desk and swept dead petals into her palm. “You use a military word—ally. I hope I’m not engaged in battle with Alcorn.”
St. Clair stalked closer, nothing comforting at all about his expression or his posture.
“Your dear cousin beat you, when he had to realize that beatings were unavailing toward the furtherance of your education. He denied you wages for your labor. He belittled you and suffered others to do likewise. He limited your access to your aunts until you were of age—or am I wrong?”
Milly sat abruptly on the piano bench, a bunch of dead rose petals in her hand, soft as velvet, but not the same thing at all as a plush fabric. “You make it sound as if I was a prisoner.”
He sat beside her, causing the bench to creak. There was barely room for the two of them, because St. Clair was no delicate flower.
“You felt like a prisoner. Your imagination and determination were all that sustained you, and possibly, the occasional visit from your aunts. Will you stay with us, Milly Danforth?”
Allies were not friends, but they could be loyal and useful. If one had allies, did that imply one had enemies as well? “I should cut more roses.”
He took her wrist and pried her fingers open, then turned her hand palm down, so the rose petals fell into his larger hand. Because Milly had been holding the petals in a warm grasp, their scent wafted to her nose.
“Aunt would be heartbroken to lose you, and nobody in this house cares one whit if you can read or write. Nobody.”
“Icare if I can read or write. I’ve tried to tell myself that it’s like singing—some people have a natural talent for it, and others do not. I have no talent for letters and words.”
He swore. Milly’s ear for French was more than passable, because she’d always liked the sound of it—as if velvet had a sound—and his cursing was creative and vulgar.
“I can teach you to write your name, Millicent Danforth, but not if you let Alcorn win.”
She had no intention of letting Alcorn remove her from this household, but that wasn’t what St. Clair had referred to. “How will you teach me, when governesses, tutors, Marcus, and my aunts were unable to?”
He stood peering down at the rose petals in his hand. “It’s not complicated. You will learn your name by stitching it.”
***
“Confound it, Sebastian, you are uncanny. How could you know such a thing about my Milly?”
Aunt paced the elegant dimensions of her sitting room, Baumgartner looking on from the corner desk.
“I didn’t know it, not until Upton started with his buffoonery.” Aunt’s sitting room was pretty, full of lemony light from the yellow silk on the walls, the mirrors, and the gilt, but the room held no flowers.
“Do sit down, Sebastian. Were you guessing?”
No, he’d not been guessing. He’d been relying on the same instinct that allowed him to reduce grown men—brave, determined grown men—to weeping, undignified children. Sebastian appropriated the rocking chair by the fire and tried to fashion an answer.
“English cavalrymen riding dispatch were forever getting caught with orders in their boots, their shirts, their hats, their sleeves. A few were clever enough to make hidden slits in the leather of their saddles, or false compartments in their saddlebags. A very few admirable patriots secreted orders in their underlinen.”
Aunt liked that part about the underlinen. She lit on a cream-colored sofa and poured herself a cup of tea. “Do go on. Tea, Professor?”
