Page 34 of The Traitor
“Why?”
“Because I do not want you to use your eyes to learn the shape of your name, Miss Danforth. I want you to learn it the way you learn a seam, the way you learn a pattern of notes, by feel. I want you to be able to make these patterns in the darkness, the way you could sew in the dark, or play a favorite serenade on an instrument you’ve loved for years.”
Perhaps he was making some sophisticated innuendo, but it was more likely that Milly’s naughty imagination found mischief where none had been intended. St. Clair’s theory was worth exploring, in any case, though Milly had wanted to watch as his hand guided hers over the paper.
“I can make theMeasily enough.”
His fingers glided away from her knuckles as he held up a sheet of foolscap covered with her scrawling. “Most of the time, you can write the whole business legibly enough.”
“Legibly, like a child toiling to make it just so. When I’m tired, it’s nearly impossible. Spaces pop up in the middle of words, the ink blurs, sometimes the letters look like they’re swirling down a drain. If I must attempt to read or write, I never attempt it in the evening.”
He sat back, making the gilded chair creak. When the professor sat at this desk in that chair, he looked studious. St. Clair in the same pose looked elegant.
“Why would you deal with the reading or signing of documents when you were tired?”
“Because that’s when my cousin would ambush me with them. I never did sign, though. My aunts rescued me.”
He flicked the foolscap aside, rose, and crossed to a bouquet of red, white, and yellow tulips near the window.
“Explain.”
“I came into a competence from my mother’s settlements when I was eighteen. Alcorn sought to manage it for me, and there were documents involved. I never signed them. I could not satisfy myself as to what the documents said, not truly. The solicitors drew them up, and I’m sure everything was in order, but Marcus told me never to sign anything unless I was confident of its import. Because it was Marcus who told me that, Alcorn had to tolerate my delays.”
St. Clair rearranged the tulips, so the several white tulips were more in evidence, then stuck his finger into the blue ceramic vase they stood in.
“Go on.”
“A green vase would have gone better on that table, and with those colors.”
He shook a drop of water from his finger. “So it would. What else did your dear cousin want you to sign?”
Milly picked up a pen, dipped it in ink, and tried for anM.
“Nothing of any significance. Just the occasional correspondence, that sort of thing.” She brushed the feathery end of the quill over her nose, which had developed a slight itch, though the firstMturned out passably well.
As far as she could tell.
“What of this competence, now, Miss Danforth?”
AnotherMwent even better, so Milly became daring.
“The funds sit in the cent-percents, gathering interest. My aunts assured me the sum was tidy, and while I did not trust Alcorn, I did trust my aunts and their solicitor.”
St. Clair used the pitcher on the sideboard to add water to the vase. “Who might that be?”
Vowels were difficult, because they all consisted of curves. Curves could go awry more easily than straight lines. “Mr. Dudley. He’s in the City on Clockminster Court.”
Which was none of the baron’s business, but Milly had given up resisting his questioning, because she sensed his inquiries intended no harm to her.
“May I ask you a question, my lord?”
He’d wandered to the fire, which he was poking up, though the day was cool rather than cold. “You just did.”
“When we passed your fiancée in the park yesterday, and she gave you the cut direct, did it hurt?” She hadn’t been the only one, but Milly would have thought a man was owed some civility from a woman the newspapers claimed he’d been engaged to since childhood. The aunts had read the society pages out loud, and Milly was nothing if not an attentive listener. She was sure the papers had said not one word about the baron’s military past, though.
St. Clair stood by the hearth, the poker in his hand. When Milly dared to peek up from several attempts on a lowercaserand that perennial rascal, the letterg, his expression was amused.
“Noticed that, did you? Or have the servants been gossiping?”
