Page 94 of The Traitor
“Who told you?”
She kept her head turned to gaze out the window, but because she wasn’t wearing a bonnet, her profile answered him handily enough. It didn’t matter which helpful, misguided soul had told her about the duel; it hadn’t been Sebastian to give her the news.
“Alcorn. He sought to reveal to me the depths of my folly in marrying a man who apparently duels for recreation. I am to turn to him for guidance. He holds out hope the marriage can be annulled.”
If she’d been seething, bitter, infuriated, or hysterical, Sebastian would have been less alarmed, but Milly was calm, terribly, unreachably calm. Sebastian recognized her achievement because he’d endured years of such calm in the mountains of southern France.
“You’re angry.” And she was no longer crying.
“I am disappointed. I will weather this blow, having managed similar tribulations in the past.”
The idea that Sebastian might have anything in common with the relatives or the fiancé who had treated her so shabbily helped him locate his own temper. “You are capable of mendacity, too, Milly St. Clair.”
His use of her married name elicited the barest, least voluntary flinch, which made his temper flare up like a glowing ember finding a fresh breeze.
“Had your aunt asked me, I would have told her plainly I read very poorly. She did not ask and did not include literacy among the qualifications required of her companion. Does it hurt?”
Her question confused him because her chilly reserve hurt him far worse than MacHugh’s fists had.
“Your jaw, your chest, all those bruises coming up where MacHugh pummeled you. They have to hurt.”
Now that she’d drawn his attention to them, Sebastian mentally inventoried his injuries. “None of it’s serious. MacHugh was still investigating my responses rather than truly attacking.”
“How fortunate. Why didn’t you go after him, too?”
She wanted to analyze an altercation that now meant nothing.
“When they challenge me, I make no resistance. It’s what they want, to have me as helpless as they were.”
She swiveled her gaze to regard him, and he wished she hadn’t. “You are an idiot.” Her eyes held a spark of emotion. Not indignation, but maybe—God spare him—pity.
“I am an idiot who has survived five challenges in less than a year.” Though somebody was determined that there be five more, which also, at the moment, did not matter.
“When you choose not to fight back, you are not helpless, Sebastian. You are controlling matters every bit as much as you did at that awful fortress in France, maybe more. What they want is a chance to meet you on fair terms, and to assure themselves that unbound, on the field of honor, in a fair fight, they could acquit themselves honorably, win or lose. You’re right that they don’t want merely to kill you, they want to kill you honorably, and you deny them that.”
She would confound him with her philosophy, and the coach had already left the park.
“Milly, none of that matters now. What matters is that I owe you an apology, and that I love you.”
Cold, wet, and coming off the excitement of battle, his body wanted to shiver. He prevented this by an act of will and forbade himself the comfort of a woolen lap robe around his shoulders.
“What are you apologizing for?”
Women.Any answer he gave would be inadequate.
“I apologize for not telling you that I was to meet MacHugh, though I’ll not ask your permission before defending my honor.”
Her calm went from cool to glacial, suggesting Sebastian had given an answer that wasn’t merely wrong, but rather, disastrous. He shifted to sit beside her and wrapped his arms around her. She permitted it, but when Sebastian kissed her cheek, her skin was as chilled as his own.
“How would it have changed anything if you’d known I had this meeting with MacHugh?”
“One confides one’s burdens in one’s friends.”
Because he held her, Sebastian could feel more tears in her clamoring for expression, and could feel her resolve building by the moment.
He struck at her verbally, even as he held her more closely. “You would not have tried to stop me? Would not have locked your bedroom door to me until I agreed to surrender my honor to you? Would not have sulked, brooded, and given me one more thing to worry about?”
She relaxed, implying his words were an egregious blunder, which he’d known even as they were leaving his fool mouth. He lied when he implied that Milly’s concern for him was an inconvenience. He treasured her protectiveness like the last flint and tinder in his possession when a long, cold winter had already gripped the land.
