Page 60 of The Traitor
The inconvenient, untidy sentiments rose higher. Milly shifted, wrapping her arms around her fiancé and pulling his head down to the breasts he’d neglected.
“I wrote those letters in case you changed your mind, Sebastian. In case you came to your senses, which I fully expected you to do. You won’t, will you? Please say you won’t. I could not bear to remain near you, knowing you don’t care for—”
His tongue swiped up her cleavage, and then his voice rumbled against her heart. “Your letters gave me a start, madam. I can’t go racketing about, chasing every fiancée who takes a notion to tour the West Riding. A man has obligations to see to, herbs to raise, an aunt to supervise.”
And a donkey to spoil. Milly kissed his temple, having the curious conviction that he’d have come after her at a dead gallop if she’d been on the northbound stage out of King’s Cross.
“You might have tried discussing matters with me, sir. I can be reasoned with, even if you do neglect my breasts.”
His shoulders moved. Milly took a moment to grasp that she’d made him laugh, and then she was laughing too. There on the hard table, amid the dust, sunshine, and scents of old herbs and new love, they laughed together.
***
DearAcornwas a man with problems, and like every man with problems Henri had had the tedious honor to know, an application of spirits provoked a recitation of those problems.
“Frieda says I should have the blasted chit declared incompetent, but that’s the perishing problem.”
Henri moved the bottle closer to Upton’s elbow. “Madame Frieda offers her opinion too freely?” Frieda, whose poor husband had not been permitted conjugal comfort since Wellington had shipped out for Spain.
“Damned right she does.” Upton glanced around the taproom, likely to ensure nobody had overheard his domestic treason. Henri had appropriated that uniquely English vantage point, the snug. This cozy corner of the common put Henri in mind of the confessional of his boyfriend, though now, Henri assumed the role of confessor.
“If the young lady is not well in the head, then could your Frieda’s plan have merit?”
“It could not.” A long, slow burp followed this pronouncement, one of those masculine vulgarities that was nearly melodic and the pride and joy of boys under the age of fifteen when in one another’s company. “Milly makes up in memory what she lacks in letters. She can recite the entire New Testament from memory, like a monkey…like a monk.”
He enunciated the last word carefully, suggesting Frieda also begrudged her spouse strong spirits in any quantity.
“Even dumb animals can be taught tricks,” Henri observed mildly.
“Milly ain’t dumb,” Upton countered, his head swiveling as a buxom barmaid sashayed by. “The house ran ever so much better when we had the keeping of her. The help did their jobs, the place was clean, the meals decent, the children…”
He took another swallow of brandy that any fool would know had been watered.
“You miss your young cousin, and you are worried for her. Your devotion does you credit.”
Upton shifted his considerable bulk on his chair, his hand disappearing under the table in a manner Henri would not dwell on when he sat less than three feet away.
“I miss her, right you are. Vincent has stopped asking about her, though.”
Henri was drinking ale, the better to endure Upton’s presence with a clear head.
“You say the ungrateful girl has gone into service?” She wasn’t a girl. The sparrow was small and plain, but she wasn’t a girl.
“Service, of all the queer notions. Vincent was ready to offer for her—he did offer, in a manner of speaking—and she upped and went for a companion. The Traitor Baron’s old auntie employs her now, and I’ll never get my money.”
Henri’s grasp of English law was tenuous, but he failed to see how a mother’s funds left in trust to her daughter were any property of the daughter’s cousin. He tut-tutted the wayhisold auntie would have.
“This must beverytrying, and after you sheltered the girl for years and saw to her every need.”
“For five years, anyway, though Grandfather left a sum for her needs. We spared her no expense, of course, and that meant little dowry was left from Grandpapa’s funds, but who’d want a chit that ain’t rigged up right in the brainbox?”
The girl had lived in a poorly ventilated garret on crusts of stale bread, wearing mended clothing. Henri would have bet the same old auntie’s last bottle of cognac on it.
“A man with low expectations would take on such a woman, of course, or a saint would. Have a bit more brandy. It’s rare to find an Englishman who’ll pass the time with a visiting Belgian.”
The same auntie would have slapped Henri stoutly for lying about his nationality. Henri would have slapped her back, and had on more than one occasion.
“Fine stuff, this,” Upton said, smacking his lips. “Helps a man forget his troubles.”
