Page 70 of The Traitor
Wifey. That Anderson’s brain could allow a peer of the realm and avowed traitor to have awifeywas a telling comment on the cramped dimensions of his intellect.
“When did St. Clair take a wife?”
Some of Anderson’s inebriation seemed to fall away. “This morning, probably right about the time my lady was denying me a plate of kippers. I like kippers. I’ll miss them.”
“Order yourself a plate of kippers to go with your champagne. And you must not say another word to anybody regarding this situation with St. Clair.”
Anderson brightened. “Kippers and champagne? Suppose I shall.”
He turned to go, but Christian stopped him with a hand on his sleeve. Once, Anderson’s life had been Christian’s responsibility, and a dearth of intelligence was no more a man’s fault than a ducal title or a French mother.
“In future, I’d avoid this Henri fellow, Anderson. It strikes me as curious that England would turn to a Frenchman to dispatch one of our own. We’ve plenty enough talented officers on hand to see to such a thing, if needs must.”
Anderson blinked, and in the space of that blink, Christian perceived that Anderson himself had come to the same conclusion, and then, having no alternative short of admitting gross stupidity, had rejected it.
“Avoid him, I shall. I’ll be too busy deciding what to name my heir and missing my kippers.”
He sauntered off, a fool in charity with the world and intent on committing the gastronomic equivalent of treason by washing his kippers down with champagne.
***
Milly did not know how to retrieve Sebastian from Toulouse, London, or whatever sad, safe place he’d gone. She cuddled down to his chest. “I am cold. The temperature has dropped considerably.”
Sebastian grasped the blanket and wrapped it more closely around her. “You’re intent on consummating our vows now, aren’t you, Baroness?” He sounded amused, which was an improvement over his earlier mood.
“Sooner would suit me better than later, Sebastian, and the idea that each of your twenty-nine servants will know exactly what we’re about when we retire this evening…it unsettles me. I never thought to be a baroness, you know.”
“My apologies for the imposition. I thought you said there were thirty servants.”
“The boot boy, Charles, must be presumed innocent of marital intimacies.”
Sebastian’s chin came to rest against Milly’s temple. “You recall his name. You would have made a good commanding officer.”
He’d no doubt meant it as a compliment, though Milly could not hear anything military as flattering.
“Sebastian, you must lead this charge. Perhaps, in future, when I am more accustomed to my—”
His kiss was soft, reassuring. He would lead the charge, but a full-out gallop was not where they’d start. “Let me get my breeches off. If we’re to consecrate the mill with marital intimacies, a fellow wants to be out of uniform.”
He probably felt her cringe at that analogy. Milly now knew that only officers captured out of uniform were tortured. She pitched off of him onto the blankets, grateful somebody had thought to provide them three.
Sebastian stood to remove his boots, stockings, and breeches. From the way he went about it, a snowstorm could have been howling and he would have been equally impervious to the elements.
“You are wonderfully put together, sir.” Wonderful—had such a prosaic word been applied to the Apollo Belvedere? Sebastian was perfect proportions on a generous scale, his musculature in evidence as he tossed his breeches onto the clothes pile.
And for a man who’d spent years soldiering, he had no visible scars.
“Shall I strut my wares, Baroness?”
She allowed him to leer, because he was trying to set her at ease. Trying to give her a few moments to gather her courage.
“Your wares are adequately in evidence, though they do me no good wandering about the threshing floor.” Milly delivered her lecture with the blanket held firmly to her throat, and Sebastian’s leer became a smile—a tender smile.
He settled beside her and let her have her blanket—his nudity, the cold, the cavernous space apparently of no moment to him.
“I wonder if in the history of this venerable mill, anybody has ever put this threshing floor to the use we contemplate.”
Thunder cracked, a loud, startling clap, followed immediately by a flash of lightning.
