Page 86 of The Traitor
“You don’t hate him, and he’s given up dueling for you, so he must hold you in considerable regard.”
Excellent points. “He also married me when he did not have to. Is your mare of Arabian extraction, Your Grace? She has a beautiful eye.”
They shared perhaps a quarter mile more of small talk before the duchess reminded her duke that they’d promised their daughter a visit at teatime. Their Graces made their farewells and turned down a shaded lane, the duke bellowing for the dogs, who came panting and barking to his side.
Sebastian sat on Fable, still as a garden statue. “Mercia named one of those enormous beasts Dimwit.”
Milly could not divine the significance of this observation. “Apparently so. I didn’t catch the other one’s name.”
Sebastian turned only his head, so his horse still faced down the lane traversed by Their Graces. “Was the duchess decent to you?”
“She was quite friendly.” Also quite frank, and she hadn’t invited Milly to call upon her. Then too, acknowledging an upstart baroness on a back road when one’s husband asked for an introduction was no guarantee of safe conduct at the local assembly.
Sebastian resumed watching the duke and duchess until a bend in the road took them from his sight.
“Mercia offered me the loan of his propagation house. Said his mother was quite the rose gardener, and the building sits mostly empty. Her Grace—the current duchess—also enjoys gardening.”
Still, he watched the empty lane.
“Sebastian?”
“My love?”
Gracious.“The next step in the dance is you send them over some rose cuttings from our gardens. The white ones with the extraordinary fragrance. Your gardener will know which ones.”
“My mother brought those with her from France.”
“All the better.”
Now he gave his horse leave to move forward, turning Fable back the way they’d come.
“You called themourgardens. His Grace asked if you might call on his wife. Said she wasn’t permitted any friendships in her first marriage, and hasn’t developed the knack for finding them yet in her second.”
The consternation in Sebastian’s eyes made sense now.
“Am I to befriend a lonely duchess all on my own? I, who haven’t even the knack of baronessing yet myself?”
“You are. I’m sure the lady has no use for me, though Mercia would probably tolerate me in small doses over a tot of brandy.” They traversed the lane in silence for some time, while Milly contemplated plain Milly Danforth from Chelsea, former poor relation, lady’s companion, and schoolroom failure, taking tea with a duchess.
A fierce duchess and a ferocious baroness. They’d get on famously.
“Something is different about Mercia’s regard for me,” Sebastian said as they crossed one of the numerous St. Clair sheep meadows.
“Perhaps marriage agrees with him. Her Grace is protective of him.”
“Marriage agrees with me,” Sebastian muttered. He glanced around, as if hoping one of the sheep might have said the words.
“One has wondered, St. Clair.” He wasn’t professing undying love, but as Her Grace had said, some conversations ought not to be rushed.
“Marriage to you agrees with me,” he said, clearly this time. “I hadn’t thought myself much of a bargain, as husbands go, but I seem to be rising to the challenge—aren’t I?”
He tugged at his hat brim then glanced back in the direction they’d come. Back toward the duke who’d suggested their wives might call on each other.
“As husbands go, I would not describe you as any sort of bargain.” Milly’s words had the desired effect of recapturing Sebastian’s attention. “As husbands go, you are an absolute treasure.” And then, because his expression had gone bashful and dear, she found the courage to add, “Iadorebeing your baroness.”
The ruin came into sight, the one that offered all manner of privacy amid sun-warmed stone.
“Mercia no longer looks at me as if all he can see is the knife in my hand,” Sebastian said. He glanced down at his black-gloved hands, which held reins, nothing more.
