Page 45 of The Traitor
He closed his eyes. “Those Englishmen were my countrymen, and I was a traitor to them. I gained a reputation for knowing how to deal with English officers, for making them yield secrets to me even they didn’t know they were keeping.”
St. Clair was attempting a confession or a condemnation of himself; Milly wasn’t sure which, but she did know she wanted to take him in her arms when he spoke like this.
“Every time you describe your role, you paint yourself as more and more of an animal, and less and less a man.” And he let her see more and more of the cost to him for having played that role.
He opened his eyes. “Iaman animal, a traitorous animal, but I’d rather be honestly viewed as that than as any woman’s toy, ever.” He touched Milly’s chin, so she had to look him in the eye. “Itorturedthoseofficers, Milly.I studied them, toyed with their trust, and determined how best to wrest from them their dignity, their health, their sanity. Among the English I gained the sobriquet ‘The Inquisitor,’ and I was very, very good at what I did.”
His hand remained under her chin, as if he’d will Milly to repeat his ugly words. His gaze pleaded with her to agree with their import, to accept the truth of his self-characterization.
“And nobody was torturing French officers, were they?” Milly spat. “Englishmen are too noble, too decent, too moral to engage in such activities, even in times of war?” She rose, though she was too short to stand nose to nose with him. “But I forget! Here in England, we torture each other when needs must. I’m told there are all manner of ghoulish devices stored at the Tower for just such purposes. We’ve tortured Catholics and Jews, witches and imbeciles. Of all the Englishmen engaged in tormenting their fellow creatures, I suspect you were among the few whose justification qualified as typical wartime behavior.”
“Milly, please don’t shout.”
Milly. She loved that he called her Milly, and hated the sorrow in his eyes.
“You are not a diversion to me, my lord. That you think I would consider you thus suggests it’s you who cannot keep the role you played separate from the man you are now. I am the paid companion. You are my employer’s nephew and a titled lord. You are a decent man, and my regard for you is decent as well.”
She’d surprised him with her bold speech, and that felt good. It felt right to set him back on his pins, to punch through his self-absorption.
Which did not explain, not in any way, why she went up on her toes and kissed his cheek—gently, the way she might offer comfort to a friend on a sad occasion.
“You are a man like any other, and they are silly, bored women whose husbands have neglected them for years. You are not depraved because you considered giving them something of what they wanted so that you might have something of what they offered.”
One dark eyebrow quirked, andmonsieurlebaronabruptly joined the conversation. “What does a chaste companion know of such transactions?”
“I know nothing of such transactions, but I know worlds about being lonely and invisible. I’ll thank you not to insult me for it.”
That was her exit line, but he spoiled it, the wretch. He spoiled it by letting something show in his eyes—not humor, exactly, but tenderness, regret, and possibly respect tinged with self-mocking.
“Mademoiselle is tired and must not be kept from her prayers.Bonnenuit.”
He’d caressed the words, making them courtly and old-fashioned,ma demoiselle. My lady.
And then he caressed her cheek, one large male hand cradling her jaw against his palm. His touch was gentle, warm, and enticing—also blessedly brief.
“Good night, my lord.”
A woman in a dressing gown and nightgown didn’t curtsy, not when the hour approached midnight and she’d accosted a fellow in his shirtsleeves by the light of a few candles.
St. Clair’s lips quirked—the closest thing to a smile Milly had seen from him. She took the warning and turned to go, just as the blasted, treacherous, infernal rascal blew her a kiss.
More Gallic foolery. His petty flirtation didn’t for one moment hide the fact that he was as lonely as Milly, and even more starved for tenderness.
She picked up one of the few lit candles and left him to his darkness and shadows.
***
Surveillance was more difficult than Henri wanted to admit, particularly when it involved sitting on a hard bench, hour after hour, pretending to swill ale and eat brown bread smeared with mustard whilenotappearing to stare out a flyspecked window.
The ale grew flat, the brown bread stale, and the mustard—acidic, stinging, not a hint of spice to cut the most abrasive vinegar—was such as no self-respecting French innkeeper would have served to his pigs.
And yet, surveillance gave a man time to think.
St. Clair had walked in the park with a petite sparrow of a woman last week, the same sparrow of a woman who apparently went about with Lady St. Clair. The baroness took the sparrow with her shopping, socializing, and on the Sunday church parade in the park, suggesting either a poor relation had been added to the household, or a lady’s companion.
Though St. Clair would not be walking out with a lady’s companion—would he?
Henri tore off a bite of execrable brown bread and appeared to study it, when in truth he was watching the progress of a rotund fellow who had shown up twice earlier in the week at about this time.
