Page 3 of The Traitor
“You wouldn’t be married to one of them, would you?”
Milly nearly choked on soft, buttery pastry. “I am not married.” For which she might someday be grateful.
“Then I will regularly scandalize your innocent ears and enjoy doing it. Eat up. When Sebastian gets back from his morning ride, he’ll go through that sideboard like a plague of locusts. If you prefer coffee, you’d best get your servings before he comes down in the morning. The man cannot abide tea in any form.”
“The plague of locusts has arrived.”
Milly’s head snapped around at the mocking baritone. She beheld…her opposite. Whereas she was female, short—petite, when the occasion was polite—red-haired, and brown-eyed, the plague before her was male, tall, green-eyed, and sable-haired. The divergence didn’t stop there.
This fellow sauntered into the parlor, displaying a casual elegance about his riding attire that suggested time on the Continent. His tailoring was exquisite, but his movement was also so relaxed as to approach languid. The lace at his throat came within a whisker of being excessive, and the emerald winking from its snowy depths stayed barely on the acceptable side of ostentatious, for men seldom wore jewels during daylight hours, and certainly not for so mundane an undertaking as a hack in the park.
This biblical plague had…sartorial éclat.
Again, the opposite of Milly, who generally bustled through life, wore the plainest gowns she could get away with, and had never set foot outside London and the Home Counties.
“Aunt, you will observe the courtesies, please?”
This was the rascal of a nephew then, though as Milly endured his scrutiny, the termrascalstruck her as incongruously affectionate for the specimen before her.
“Miss Millicent Danforth, may I make known to you my scamp of a nephew, Sebastian, Baron St. Clair. St. Clair, Miss Danforth—my new companion. You are not to terrorize her before she and I have negotiated terms.”
“Of course not. I terrorize your staff onlyafteryou’ve obligated them to a contract.”
If this was teasing, Milly did not regard it as humorous. Her ladyship, however, graced her nephew with a smile.
“Rotten boy. You may take your plate to the library and read your newspapers in peace.”
His lordship, who was not a boy in any sense, bowed to Milly with a Continental flourish, bowed again over Lady St. Clair’s hand, tucked some newspapers under his arm, and strolled from the room.
“He’s been dueling again.” The baroness might have reported that her nephew had been dicing in the mews, her tone truculent rather than aghast. “They leave the poor boy no peace, those gallant buffoons old Arthur is so proud of.”
For all his smoothness, something about St. Clair had not sat exactly plumb, but then, what did it say about a man if he could face death at sunrise and appear completely unaffected by the time he downed his morning coffee?
“How can you tell he was dueling?” For ladies weren’t supposed to know of such things, much less small elderly ladies who lived for their correspondence and tattle.
“He’s sad. Dueling always makes him sad. Just when I think he’s making some progress, another one of these imbeciles finds a bit of courage, and off to some sheep meadow they go. I swear, if women ruled the world, it would be a damned sight better place. Have I shocked you?”
“Several times, my lady.”
“Excellent. Have another pastry.”
Milly munched away on a confection filled with chocolate crème—one could learn to appreciate such fare all too easily—while Lady St. Clair waxed enthusiastic about the affairs of Wellington—for who else could “old Arthur” be?—and his officers.
And still, something about the Baron St. Clair lodged in Milly’s awareness like a smudge on her spectacles. He was quite handsome—an embarrassment of handsomeness was his to command—but cold. His smile reached his eyes only when he beheld his elderly aunt.
Perhaps dueling had taxed his store of charm.
“…and the ladiestrès jolie, you know?” Lady St. Clair was saying. “Half the fellows in government claimed they needed to go to Paris to make peace, but the soiled doves of London went into a decline until the negotiations were complete. Making peace is lusty work, methinks.”
“I’m shocked yet again, my lady.” Though not by the baroness’s bawdy talk.
St. Clair—a baron and peer of the English realm—had spoken with a slight aristocraticFrenchaccent.
“Excellent. We shall get on famously, Miss Danforth, provided you aren’t one to quibble about terms.”
“I have not the luxury of quibbling, my lady.”
The baroness peered at her over a pretty teacup. “Truly odious cousins?”
