Page 51 of The Traitor
“Put the jewels away first, my lord. They shouldn’t be left sitting out to tempt any footman or parlor maid who comes around to tend the fire.”
His smile was tired, and all the more charming for it. “As you wish.”
He moved aside a painting of the casting of the hounds: a jolly field of squires and their ladies having a nip under the trees while the hounds went sniffing around for the scent of their quarry. He stowed the jewels in their vault, and yet, Milly’s anxiety increased.
“Why aren’t the dueling pistols on the mantel?”
St. Clair replaced the painting and regarded the hounds nosing about in the undergrowth on the canvas.
“Michael cleans them from time to time. I suppose it’s a habit left over from his military days. Would you like some scones with your chocolate?”
What she’d like was some honesty with her baron, but when he took her arm and propelled her toward the door, she did not fight his effort to eject her.
“I didn’t realize a valet was charged with maintaining the arsenal.”
“There is much you don’t realize, Miss Danforth. When you’re saying your prayers tonight, your cat purring at your feet, add that to the list.”
Perhaps fatigue was making him French, for his consonants and vowels had stolen off across the Channel.
Milly paused with him outside the library, where the scent of roses and greenery wafted on cool breezes from the foyer.
“You’re in trouble, aren’t you? Either you’ve spent too much replacing Lady Freddy’s jewels or your lavender is failing or you’ve—”
The bleak humor in his eyes told her she was sniffing in a promising direction. She hadn’t guessed the whole of it, but he was in difficulties of some sort.
“I am forever offending somebody, Miss Danforth. This is my fate, and you must not allow it to upset you. I believe on occasion I have even offended you?”
He winged his arm, but Milly could not deal with his lordly flummery, not when two dueling pistols had been sitting on top of their case right beside the jewelry tray.
Had he been reviewing his last will and testament? Was that what the infernal brooch had been about?
“You could marry wealth, my lord. The Germans always have some princesses on offer, the professor would know which ones to ask. A French aristo with no taste for republican government would do. Lady Freddy is desperate for you to have somebody to love.”
They paused near the foyer.
“Lady Freddy is desperate for me to have sons. She’s worked too long and hard to keep the St. Clair holdings together to see the Crown get its hands on generations of family wealth. And while I am inclined to share her sense of possessiveness—”
Milly could not abide the drawling humor in his tone. She got her hands onhim. Sank her fingers into his every-which-way hair, plastered herself to him, and kissed his fool, blathering mouth into silence.
“She wants you to have somebody tolove, you idiot man,” she growled against his teeth. “Somebody toloveyou.”
He might have argued, except Milly was not turning loose of his mouth. Something shuddered through him, a groan or a sigh, and his arms came around her slowly, then quite, quite snugly.
“Better, my lord.”
“My aunt has hired a madwoman.”
He was a madman, but he kissed wonderfully, turning Milly’s assault into a dance, a twining of tongues, sighs, and bodies that had nothing to do with dueling pistols—at least in Milly’s mind.
She would never presume to know his lordship’s.
St. Clair’s hand cupped Milly’s breast from below, a lovely caress, one that inspired her to sink her fingers into the firm musculature of his backside. The urge to climb him stole into Milly’s imagination, along with a burning desire to relieve St. Clair of his remaining clothes.
“I’ll just get my fich—”
Lady Freddie’s voice stopped abruptly as the front door was thrown open, and cold air swirled into the foyer.
“Sebastian, unhand Miss Danforth.”
