Page 95 of The Traitor
A shudder passed through her, maybe cold, maybe despair.
“I have no bedroom door to lock against you, Sebastian. Had I known your life was imperiled, I would have made love with youmore.”
Sixteen
“I’ve ordered you a bath,” Sebastian said. “I’ll not have you taking a chill in addition to risking your neck on the field of honor.”
Milly could not watch as Sebastian peeled out of his wet breeches. He was all over gooseflesh, badly bruised, and worried abouthertaking a chill.
“Doesn’t it strike you as the least bit hypocritical that you should fear for my well-being, Husband, but deny me the privilege of fearing for yours?”
Stark-naked, Sebastian hunkered before the fire, added coal, used the bellows with a vengeance, and then rose to face her. His hair was a mess, bruises decorated his belly and chest, and his jaw was slightly swollen on one side.
He was also half-aroused, which shouldn’t have been possible. “Let me get you out of that dress.”
Milly turned her back, because in her haste to leave St. Clair Manor, she’d let one of the maids help her with her clothes, and the dress Milly had yanked out of the wardrobe buttoned in the back.
“You should use the bath first, Sebastian.”
“Hold still.” Perhaps his fingers were clumsy with cold, perhaps he was in no particular hurry. When he’d assisted her out of her clothing on previous occasions, it had never taken him this long.
Milly moved away as soon as she felt her dress gaping in the back. “Thank you.”
“You’ll wear your stays into the bathtub?”
“Possibly. I am that upset, you see.” She hadn’t meant to say that. She’d meant to be civil.
“Then yell at me, curse, break things, and let the entire house hear of it, but don’t shut me out. You have every right to be upset.”
“Unlace my stays, please.” She hated asking, hated standing still while Sebastian struggled with knots made impossible by the wet.
“To hell with this.” He produced a knife from somewhere and sliced at her laces. Even as they fell open, Milly’s breathing still felt constrained.
She bunched her damp clothes in her fists and kept her back to him. “You shut me out, Sebastian. You shut me out in several regards.”
“I tried to keep you safe, to keep you apart from all the…to keep you safe.” He spoke from immediately behind her but did not touch her.
Milly moved away, rummaged in the wardrobe for her only dressing gown—she’d used one of Sebastian’s at St. Clair Manor—and took it behind the privacy screen. She remained hidden away, removing her sodden attire, untangling the rat’s nest her braids had become, and trying to find solid ground in a marriage gone pitch dark and boggy.
When she emerged, Sebastian was also wearing a dressing gown, and a full tub steamed before the fire.
“You first,” Milly said, unwilling and unable to disrobe before him.
He looked prepared to pick a fight so they’d have something to wrestle with besides his lying to her, and letting some fool Scot beat him to flinders.
“My feet are filthy. After you.”
His conscience ought to be what troubled him, not his dirty feet.
“Sit on the hearth,” Milly said, picking up a flannel from the stack piled near the tub. To her surprise, he obeyed her. She poured hot water into a washbasin, dipped the cloth and wrung it out, then knelt before her husband.
His feet were cold, of course. Milly started on the right, wrapping the hot, wet flannel around toes she’d been missing just the evening before. “You’ve a sizable scratch, here,” she said, drawing her finger along the side of his arch.
“I can’t feel it. You don’t have to do this.”
She unwrapped his foot and wiped at the muddy spaces between his toes. “Why did you tell me you would engage in no more duels, when you knew of at least one?”
Sebastian closed his eyes, as if she were whipping his soles, not bathing his feet. “I said there would be no more pistols at dawn, and I spoke the truth. As the party challenged, I can select the weapons, and I will eschew pistols henceforth.”
