Page 48 of The Traitor
“Then you, or someone else, has heard mistakenly.”
Emotion flared in icy green eyes. Surprise maybe, more likely pleasure at meeting with resistance. “My hearing is excellent, Girard.”
The name under which Sebastian had traveled while flying the French flag, and a bitter taunt. Sebastian said nothing, but noted that MacHugh was in Highland attire and would likely have a dagger in his right boot.
Though the fellow could kill with his bare hands easily enough.
A movement at the door had MacHugh glancing to Sebastian’s left. “Do ye want company for this, Girard?”
The same sort of exaggerated consideration Sebastian might have shown his prisoners.Sacrebleu, not again. “I am at your pleasure,monsieur.”
“So polite.” MacHugh fired off a toothy smile at the fellows standing in the door to the reading room—old Postlethwaite, a devotee of the rose, and a nervous young fellow named Chester, who had an avid interest in the sex life of the bean. “Ye lot will keep out of this.”
Postlethwaite stood his ground, but the green bean melted away as an enormous, purposeful fist came sailing at Sebastian’s jaw. “Name yer seconds, laddie. It’s time I was killin’ ye.”
Sebastian moved his jaw as pain radiated through his neck and shoulders. Nothing broken, a warning shot only, which hinted that MacHugh was not in as much of a temper as his burr and his words might indicate.
And the relief of the blow suggested Sebastian was in more trouble than even MacHugh knew.
“Am I to know the exact dimensions of my transgression, or do I conclude my drawing breath has offended you?”
MacHugh studied the place on Sebastian’s jaw that felt like it was turning a nice, rapidly swelling shade of red.
“Ye ran yer bluidy mouth, Girard. I was willin’ to tolerate yer presence among the living as long as the past remained the past, but ye’ve been telling tales, suggesting I couldna hold m’ liquor while in yer dubious keeping, and for that ye mun die.”
MacHugh had held a prodigious amount of liquor, attempting to drink Sebastian under the table. The misery resulting to Sebastian had lasted days, though MacHugh had failed to earn his freedom.
“I laced your drinks with laudanum, MacHugh. I cheated. You would never have won free, not even if you drank me witless—which you did.”
In his cups—deep, deep in his cups, and aided by the poppy—the Scotsman had mumbled a few facts about a shortage of fodder for the cavalry mounts. Sebastian had been able to send word up the line that the regiment would soon be breaking camp, and had likely averted at least one nasty skirmish between forces all too ready for the winter cease-fire. He’d remembered MacHugh in his prayers ever since, and avoided the near occasion of whiskey.
“Then I’ll kill ye for cheatin’andbraggin’.”
MacHugh was not stupid. He was a canny, wily, hardheaded Scot whom Sebastian—may God help him—liked.
“I’dbragabout cheating? About having to cheat?” Having to cheat so one officer at least hadn’t been threatened with torture as a means of loosening his tongue. Sebastian had considered the experiment a success—until now.
Green eyes blinked, putting Sebastian in mind of a large, hungry reptile, one capable of breathing fire. “Ye should have kept yer mouth shut, laddie.”
Sebastian would not contradict MacHugh directly, lest he be cindered right there in the reading room.
“Why do you suppose I waited more than two years to turn up stupid, MacHugh?”
“Because ye’re half-English, and they’re a bit slow. Ye’re half-French, and they’re more than a bit arrogant.”
One could not argue MacHugh’s logic. “Brodie will be my second. My choice of weapons is bare fists.”
A jolly smile bloomed on MacHugh’s craggy face—the man had campaigned across the entire Peninsula, endured months of imprisonment, and still had every one of his teeth.
“Clever. Ye want me to have to kill ye slowly, with my bare hands. Ye’re an optimistic soul if ye think conscience will prevent me from finishing ye off.”
The grin on MacHugh’s face suggested Sebastian was a dead soul.
“I am not an optimist. Upon whom should Brodie call?”
With the peculiar courtesy of a furious gentleman assured satisfaction on the field of honor, MacHugh passed over a pair of calling cards, bowed, and withdrew. Postlethwaite bellowed for some ice while Sebastian found a seat among the lilies and, once again, prepared to face death.
Nine
