Page 52 of The Traitor
Four little words, but they presaged Milly’s ruin. Over her shoulder, she saw the professor intently examining the roses—or studying the scene in the mirror—while Lady Avery and Lady Covington examined Milly and Sebastian.
And Sebastian did not unhand her, for which Milly’s knees were grateful.
“Aunt, my ladies, I do beg your pardon. You will forgive me for taking the liberties a fiancé ought not to attempt unless privacy is assured.”
Milly’s head came off Sebastian’s shoulder, only to be shoved gently against his shirt. He was back on his English, and sounding coolly pleased with himself.
“A fiancé?” Lady Avery echoed. “You’re snatching your aunt’s companion for your baroness, St. Clair?”
Lady Covington produced a lorgnette. “She’s a pretty little thing. Nottooold.”
“I amnot—” Milly began, only to find Sebastian’s mouth brushing over hers.
“My dear Millicent is not in the habit of permitting me kisses. I must apologize for having become carried away.” And then, murmured right next to her ear, “Calme, s’il vous plaît, petite tigresse.”
His petite tigress stifled the urge to bite him. She settled for stomping on his toes, which had no effect whatsoever.
“Blessed saints,” Lady Freddy said, clapping her gloved hands. “I own myself relieved to have a simple explanation for a small lapse. Milly, you will go straight up to bed, and, Sebastian, you shall draft the particulars for the professor to send to our friends. Ladies, shall we away? I cannot abide the idea that the Countess Thrall might be winning every hand for want of our steadying influence on the gentlemen.”
With pointed looks at Sebastian and Milly, Freddy’s companions followed her out. The professor lingered only a moment, his expression bemused.
The instant the door closed, Milly wrestled free of Sebastian’s embrace.
“What have you done?! Those, thosewomenwill bruit it about all over London that we’re engaged, and because of a mere kiss!”
“Amerekiss?”
Milly paced the confines of the foyer, arms crossed, skirts swishing.
“And Lady Freddy will be so disappointed when there’s no ceremony. You should be ashamed!”
“I should beashamed? Of kissing you?”
Milly rounded on his lordship. “I’m well aware that I should be ashamed for kissing you, my lord. Well aware, but there are employment agencies in York, and a small indiscretion can be overlooked when an unattached, titled gentleman is involved. But now you’ve gone and—”
Sebastian was smiling at her, and that more than any rousing argument suggested to Milly he might not grasp the situation in all its terrible entirely.
“I cannot marry you, my lord.”
“You can kiss me, but you can’t use my name?”
“And I cannot marry you. I am a companion, in service, in case you’ve forgotten.” His smile did not falter, so Milly fired her biggest cannon. “Icannotread.What baroness cannot even read the menus put before her by the cook? Cannot read bedtime stories to her own children? Can barely follow along in the Book of Common Prayer—”
His smile shifted, becoming tender rather than pleased.
“You can sing to the children instead, tell them stories you make up, or listen to their own fanciful tales. You’re resourceful, my dear, and you shall contrive. As a baroness, you will contrive magnificently.”
Based on the pride Milly heard in his tone, St. Clair had already dispatched announcements to Lady Freddy’s cronies, cried the banns, and said his vows. He was not resigned to this dire turn of events; he was rejoicing in it.
While she…could not read. When St. Clair slipped his arms around her again, Milly leaned into him and tried not to cry.
***
“MacHugh said you may have as much time as you like to put your affairs in order. He’s offended by you, not by the entire St. Clair succession.”
Michael could not have sounded more disgusted as he rode along at Sebastian’s side.
“So I’m to get a child on my prospective wife, allowing MacHugh the comfort of knowing he won’t put Lady Freddy on the Crown’s charity when I’m laid to rest? And what if my baroness is so disobliging as to present me with a daughter? Or she doesn’t carry the child safely through birth? Am I to put MacHugh off, year to year, until my heir and spare are grown to manhood and MacHugh and I are too old to give a good account of ourselves?”
