Page 76 of The Traitor
The professor took her hand, which he would not have done had Sebastian and Milly been underfoot rather than safely tucked away in Surrey. “I can send Wellington a message by means other than post.”
“And tell him what? An old flirt from his days in India wants an accounting?”
“Tell him you’re worried. Tell him you’re tired of all the games and stratagems, the war is over, and you’d like some answers.”
The hour was not late, and yet Freddy felt fatigue washing through her, resonating with the professor’s words.
“Iamtired. Sick and tired. I can only imagine what Sebastian must be feeling. Milly will have her hands full.”
Freddy suffered a soft kiss to her knuckles.
“You do not want to know what Wellington’s answers might be. This is your tender heart at work. Wellington is a gentleman. He’s had several years to deal with Sebastian, if that were his intent. Ney was permitted a civilian life, and Sebastian was by no means a field marshal. You have no reason to assume the worst.”
All very true, and no comfort whatsoever.
“There’s to be yet another duel,” Freddy said, getting to her feet. She crossed the room rather than see the pity in the professor’s eyes. “MacHugh, that great, strapping Scotsman with the nasty mouth.”
The professor rose as well, but let Freddy be the one to blow out the candles, one by one.
“Michael says MacHugh is not noted for his swordsmanship or his ability with a pistol, my dear, and his mouth is nasty, but as Scotsmen go, he’s reasonable enough.”
“Bank the fire, if you please.” MacHugh was not reasonable. He was cold-blooded, which was the worst sort of temperament for a man with a mortal grievance.
“The servants will tend to the fire, and I will escort you above stairs. If you cannot cease fretting, then send Michael down to Surrey on reconnaissance. He’s scaring the maids with his dark looks and muttered Gaelic. He too worries that Sebastian will come to harm in his wife’s arms.”
Freddy took herself into the chilly corridor and let her escort trail behind rather than wait for him to hold the door for her.
“Sending Michael down to St. Clair Manor would be an excellent notion, if I were exclusively concerned for Sebastian. You men…”
Except that wasn’t fair. The entire time Sebastian had been at war in France, the professor had been in England with Freddy, waiting and hoping while pretending to do neither.
The professor took her hand in his—he’d always had warm hands—and wrapped her fingers around his elbow. “I most humbly beg my lady’s pardon if my surmises are in error.”
Wretch, though his teasing was more welcome than his patronizing.
They gained the first landing as Freddy admitted to herself she was truly weary, and not merely tired of worrying for her nephew. “In the morning, I will dictate a note to Milly, and you and Michael will deliver it for me.”
“Isn’t sending both of us a bit obvious?”
“Sending either one of you would be obvious,” Freddy said as they neared her sitting-room door. “Sending you both suggests I want you and Michael out of my hair for a day, which is nothing but the simple truth.”
“Ah. Of course.”
In those few syllables, Freddy heard a hint of male uncertainty and felt an unbecoming gratification that she could still outthink her professor on the occasional detail. “For tonight, however, I would love to hear some poetry before I retire, assuming you’re not too fatigued?”
He opened her sitting-room door, the warmth of the room greeting Freddy before she’d taken two steps.
“My dear, I am never too tired to read poetry to you.”
He was reading to her from Dante’sDivineComedy, the language beautiful for all Freddy didn’t bother to translate half of it, when it occurred to her that the professor was waiting for Sebastian’s situation to resolve itself before he proposed again.
Sitting beside the man who’d endured wars with her, Freddy closed her eyes and worried.
***
Milly had never appreciated how a marriage—any marriage—was the sum of myriad decisions of myriad sizes, one after the other, day after day, night after night.
And each decision could either strengthen the marital bond or weaken it.
