Page 30 of The Traitor
He drew his finger over the flowers she’d embroidered along one hem—purple irises, red tulips, an occasional spike of yellow gladiolus, and a froth of greenery. “You have sketched the pattern on the fabric, and this tells me you can copy what you see. Your colors are accurate for the subject, and I haven’t seen you wearing spectacles.”
He continued to stroke a single finger over the linen, and Milly realized that, all unaware, the baron was admiring her new summer nightgown.
Saintsabide.She set the hoop back in her workbasket. “My vision is quite functional, though I will occasionally use spectacles when I’m fatigued, your lordship, and I am most eager to learn my signature.”
He straightened, but not before Milly noticed that her froth of greenery was the exact same shade St. Clair’s eyes had been when he’d dealt with Alcorn.
“Then prepare to walk with me. When one’s decisions can result in men losing their lives, one learns to gather information before choosing a course. I would hear from you about your previous efforts in the schoolroom.”
Escaping the house held vast appeal, even if it meant marching about with St. Clair. Milly was tying her bonnet ribbons when his lordship joined her in the foyer, his expression disapproving.
“English women do not see themselves,” he said, brushing her fingers aside. “You look in the mirror, and you think, ‘Ah, my hat is upon my head, exactly where it should be. The bow is secure, and I will not have to chase my bonnet in a sudden wind.’ You should look at the picture you make with that hat, and adjust your appearance accordingly. If there’s a sudden wind, the young English gentlemen should all be trying to peek at your ankles anyway.”
Already he was lecturing her, so perhaps there was hope for the project they were to undertake. He set her bonnet back an inch farther on her head, and retied her ribbons so the bow was off not to the right, where Milly generally tied it, but to the left and more loosely, the ribbons curling down over her heart.
“That sudden wind might carry off my only everyday bonnet, your lordship.” Though as Milly regarded herself in the mirror, she allowed that the results of St. Clair’s fussing were somehowfetching—even on her.
“Then I shall look a proper smitten gentleman when I go tearing down the lane after it, will I not? Come along.”
If Milly had been concerned for the propriety of walking out with her employer, her concerns were put to rest. Mr. Brodie fell in behind them, as did Giles the footman, and Rumsfeld, the senior upstairs maid.
“Are we all to learn our letters in the park, my lord?”
“We are all to enjoy a bit of fine weather while it holds,” he replied. “Aunt runs Giles about mercilessly, and the maid—Clothilde, Chloe, I forget her name—is enamored of him.”
“Her name is Rumsfeld.”
“Not to Giles it isn’t.” This observation was made with no humor whatsoever, merely another detail to be managed as St. Clair supervised the subordinates under his authority.
“What would you like to know about my attempts to read, my lord?”
“Everything.”
Everythingtook them to the park, along the Serpentine, and past children playing with the loud good cheer engendered by a sunny spring day. Everything included a recitation of tutors, punishments, and more punishments, humiliations, and small glimmers of hope doused by buckets of despair.
“Shall we sit?” St. Clair asked, gesturing toward a bench in the shade.
Giles and Chloe—Chloe Rumsfeld—had taken a bench a few yards off, and Milly did not see Mr. Brodie anywhere about.
And still, the baron put more questions to her: Was a slate any more helpful than pencil and paper? Did memorizing a recited spelling inform her attempts to make the letters with her hand? Could she recognize words without being able to name the letters in them?
“This is not easy for me to discuss, your lordship.”
“Do you suppose this recitation of beatings, beratings, and deprivations is easy for me to listen to?” he retorted. “If I lamented your miseries, waved my handkerchief at you, and allowed my distress to become obvious, would your story be less painful?”
He sounded testy. The way Milly’s aunts had often sounded when their aches and pains were troubling them.
“I think you marched me away from the house, away from what’s comfortable and comforting to me, to shake loose my confidence. I am much attached to what confidence I have, your lordship, and I can assure you, if teaching me to write my name involves surrendering my dignity into your hands, I’ll keep my ignorance a while longer.”
Milly’s only sign that he’d heard her was a slow blink and a pursing of his lips, while across the path, Chloe laughed at something Giles said.
“I cannot like—” The baron paused and glanced around. “You should not have been beaten. A gratuitous beating will have the opposite of its intended effect; witness, the beating intended to humiliate you only made you more proud.”
At the oddest moments, he turned up French—or something.
“I’m not arrogant.”
“Proud, Miss Danforth, is no relation to arrogant. Come along, you have caught me at my game, and I have a sense of how to start on our objective.” He assisted Milly to her feet and kept her hand wrapped around his arm.
