Page 54 of The Traitor
In the face of such a revelation, Sebastian trod lightly. “Not much summer that far north.”
“What there is has no comparison anywhere in the world.” Michael petted his horse, a Roman-nosed bay gelding with a tendency to nip and spook.
“You are homesick, Michael. Many a married man does without a valet.”
A gaggle of ladies with their grooms appeared on the path ahead of them, Lady Amelia among them.
“Are you sending me away,mylord?”
HolyMother, preserve me from the pride of the Celt.“I could neither send you away nor summon you to my side unless you wished it, Michael. You cannot protect me from every enraged English officer who wants me dead. Your family must miss you, and they should be your first obligation.”
“As your family has been yours?”
Lady Amelia’s group passed them single file, grooms bringing up the rear. When it came Amelia’s turn to pass him—to snub him—she instead gave him the barest, most infinitesimal nod, her gaze touching Sebastian’s for only an instant.
The grooms came along on their unprepossessing mounts, and Sebastian waited until they’d passed to resume the conversation with his self-appointed conscience.
“You told me not to marry Miss Danforth, Michael, and yet marrying her fulfills both my obligations as a gentleman and my obligations to the succession—to my family. I am mindful of my obligations.”
And Amelia had acknowledged him. His engagement to Milly Danforth had become public earlier in the week, and Amelia had acknowledged him.
Michael glanced around, likely making sure nobody else could overhear.
“Do you suppose Lady Amelia feels safe from you now that you’re betrothed to somebody else?”
Betrothed was a sweet word, a word full of belonging and hope—also sadness, an emotion Sebastian used to brush aside like so many ashes in a hearth.
“Lady Amelia’s group came from that direction,” Sebastian said, pointing to a rise off to the north. “She saw no less than the Duke of Mercia acknowledge me with conversation, and hence allowed the smallest crack in her reserve toward me. We should get back to the house, or Lady Freddy will pronounce us late for breakfast. Thank MacHugh for his forbearance, and tell him I will meet him one week after the wedding.”
Michael swore in Gaelic and sent his bay forward in a smooth canter, while Sebastian held Fable back to a brisk trot. Lady Amelia had acknowledged him, and yet, he’d rather she’d cut him once more, for instead of indifference, her gaze had held wariness and loathing.
Sebastian was damned sick of people watching him with that same uneasy, anxious gaze, as if he’d drag them off and delight in applying manacles and thumbscrews in hopes of learning how much they owed the tradesmen or what they’d lost at the tables last week.
He kicked Fable up to the canter, and admitted to himself he was marrying Milly Danforth—hecouldmarry Milly Danforth—in part because she had never once regarded him with wariness and loathing.
Ten
“Walk with me, Miss Danforth.” Mr. Brodie winged his arm at Milly, but when she leveled a stare at him in response, he managed to tack on the requisite sop to manners. “Would you mind walking with me for a moment,please?”
He was trainable, then. Milly doubted Sebastian would have kept Mr. Brodie about if he were not, though Sebastian—what a delight, to think of him thus—could not be choosy about his familiars.
A daunting thought, when she might well become one of them.
“A few minutes only,” Milly said as they turned down between two rows of silvery green lavender. “Lady Freddy will get into mischief if she’s left without supervision for very long.”
Mr. Brodie looked as if he had wind, or perhaps was trying not to smile. “On a horticultural farm bordering Chelsea?”
“Anywhere. St. Clair and the professor can curb her natural impulses for only so long, and then she must meddle. She’ll be telling his lordship what’s amiss with his herbs, and the gardener won’t dare countermand her directions. She’ll tell the lads how to feed that wretched donkey and demand they groom the burrs from the stable cats.”
Mr. Brodie bent and snapped off a sprig from a low-growing bush, bringing it to his nose then passing it to Milly. “Does she know what’s amiss with his herbs?”
“Only his lordship can puzzle that out, but you did not request this stroll to discuss Lady Freddy’s queer starts or his lordship’s horticulture.”
“I did not. I requested this stroll so I might return some correspondence to you.” He produced a packet of letters from an inside pocket and passed them to Milly. “I assume the professor abetted you.”
Milly glanced at the letters fleetingly, as if they were contraband, then slipped them into the pocket of her walking dress. To give herself time to sort the emotions rioting through her at the sight of her own handwriting—the professor had helped her only a little with these employment inquiries—she brushed the sprig of lavender under her nose.
“It’s a comforting scent,” Mr. Brodie said, “having only positive associations.”
