Page 17 of The Traitor
“A knife is often sufficient for the moment.” Also silent, reusable, and capable of being hurled at one’s enemies as they retreated, with more accuracy than most small pistols afforded. “If you’ll pass me the bread?”
They managed sandwiches, and then came to another awkward moment over the Madeira.
“You must not go thirsty on my account, Miss Danforth. Drink from the bottle, and I will manage.” Though his morning coffee was but a memory, and the ride back would be dusty.
He’d been thirstier. He’d once gone nearly three days without much water, and the results had produced all manner of useful insights for a man whose business had been prying the truth from unlikely sources.
Miss Danforth considered the bottle, then her companion. One or the other must have found favor. “We’ll share.”
She tipped the bottle up and took a swallow of wine fortified with brandy. Even genteel elderly ladies might have such a drink on hand for chilly evenings and special occasions. Miss Danforth was not shy about enjoying her libation, her throat working as she took another swallow, then another.
Was she trying to drown her grief?
She wiped the lip of the bottle on her handkerchief before passing the drink to him. “It’s quite good. Very restorative.”
Abruptly, the moment shifted, at least for Sebastian. Miss Danforth’s tidy bun had slipped on their journey. A dusting of dark cat hair graced her otherwise spotless bodice, and she wore no gloves. Her lips were damp from the wine, and perhaps because she’d been crying earlier, her brown eyes were…luminous.
Sebastian took the bottle, wondering if there wereevera convenient time to be ambushed by lust. He drank deeply and passed the bottle back. “The cork is around here somewhere.” He’d seen the cat batting it about, in fact.
She produced the cork, jammed it in the bottle, and then sank back, bracing her weight on her hands, turning her face up to the sun. “You are being very kind, my lord. I appreciate it.”
Sebastian did not want her gratitude. Of all the inexplicable, inconvenient impulses, he wanted his bare hands on her naked and possibly freckled breasts, alas for him. Such were the burdens of being half-French that the freckles had something to do with his unruly impulse.
“Do you think it’s such a trial for me, Miss Danforth, to enjoy the company of a pretty lady on a lovely day? Do you think bread, cheese, wine, and some viands cannot satisfy my appetite because some ancestor of mine survived a foolhardy charge into the enemy lines for his king centuries ago?”
Any subordinate under his command, any prisoner in his keeping would have known that soft tone presaged temper or worse.
Miss Danforth closed her eyes, making her complexion an offering to the sun. “You sound very English when you’re in a pet. Your consonants when you conversed with that ragman could have cleaved gems, and I know good and well I am not pretty.”
No, she was worse than pretty, as Sebastian had had occasion to conclude earlier; she wasalluring.Her attractiveness came from slightly disheveled red hair—not auburn, not titian—eyes that slanted a bit, a complexion that bore a hint of porcelain roses, and a mouth…
Sebastian looked away. A commanding officer became very skilled at looking away. After a few years, it was nearly a reflex.
“A woman need not be blond and blue-eyed to appeal to a man’s aesthetic sensibilities. More wine?” Much less appeal to his ill-timed and completely illogical lust. The French side of him was overcome with hilarity at the expense of his dignity, while the English side tried to think of Aunt’s collection of Sèvres bud vases.
“No, thank you. No more wine for me. Who was the last person you lost, my lord?”
Maybe she was unused to any spirits at all, or maybe she was trying to distract herself from her grief. Two feet beyond the blanket, the black cat stretched itself out to an enormous length, then curled up and commenced vibrating.
“Who was the last man you kissed, Miss Danforth?”
As an interrogator, he knew the value of a sneak attack, knew the value of a question lobbed at a flagging mind from an undefended angle. His inquiry, however, had emerged without any warningtohim.
Her lips quirked; she did not open her eyes. “I kissed Peter. That is not an appropriate question, my lord.”
He shifted on the blanket, so he could undertake his folly properly. When he slid a hand into Miss Danforth’s hair, she opened her eyes, and up close, Sebastian could see flecks of gold in her irises.
“I cannot bear to talk of death, Miss Danforth. Not now.”
She regarded him, her expression putting him in mind of the cat. Unreadable, unafraid, unblinking. Something in her vibrated too, with intelligence, warmth, and feminine awareness.
He would never again picnic on a lovely day with a pretty girl, not because his death warrant had already been signed, but because the occasion provoked him to odd behaviors.
Sebastian leaned forward another inch. “No more talk of dying and grieving, no more tears and suffering. I cannot bear it. Do you hear me?”
Though when a grieving woman could not cry, she was a much more worrisome creature.
He kissed her, perhaps because he hadn’t cried since his mother’s funeral, but more likely because the unreadable depths of Miss Danforth’s chocolate-brown eyes shifted and became, if not warm, then at least curious.
