Page 63 of The Traitor
The clergyman recruited to perform the wedding apparently understood that excesses of sentiment were not called for, though he was both quick and credibly friendly. Milly spoke her vows sincerely, and when it came time for her to sign the documents, she dipped the quill in the ink pot, blotted the tip, paused…
And panicked.
The professor cleared his throat. Mr. Brodie, looking fierce and handsome in his kilt, took to studying the opposite wall of the library where the hound painting hung in its usual location.
Sebastian, however, appeared amused. “We can pursue an annulment if you’re having second thoughts, Baroness.”
Mr. Brodie glowered rather gratifyingly at his employer. “There’ll be no damned—”
“Mr. Brodie,” Milly interrupted. “His lordship is teasing.” And he was challenging, and in some male way, also being helpful. The signature would not be binding unless witnessed, so Milly dipped the pen again, wiped the tip on the blotter and…
The letterMwas the same shape as a lady’s décolletage when her hands were at her side. Andiwas a simple dance maneuver…
Sebastian began humming a waltz, and Milly’s pen picked up momentum. She’d practiced this and practiced it, until her signature became a rote recitation for her hand, and one by one, thirty-three letters flowed onto the page.
“I used to wish my name were Ann,” she murmured as she set the pen back in its stand.
Sebastian sprinkled sand over the ink. “And now?”
“I wish our last name did not use the abbreviation.”
Ourlast name. His smile was so proud and naughty, Milly wanted to kiss it—to kiss him, because he understood that she wished for more hours closeted with him in libraries and private sitting rooms. He shuffled papers and presented additional documents to tend to, and on this, her wedding day, that was a sort of kissing too. Michael and the professor appended witness signatures where needed, and Aunt—Milly was to call her Aunt now—herded everybody to the formal dining room for a wedding breakfast.
“You’re not eating much, Baroness.” Sebastian held up a bite of cake on a fork right before Milly’s mouth.
“The sooner this meal is over, the sooner we depart for St. Clair Manor.” She took the bite, savoring the sweetness and…lavender in the icing, exactly as she’d requested.
“You will need your strength, Millicent. The day is not over.”
He sounded stern, as if he worried about her fainting dead away over a fifteen-minute formality in the library. Milly held a bite of cake up to his mouth.
“I’m not the only one who will need to keep up my strength, Sebastian St. Clair. Did you or did you not promise to make your regard for me a priority in all things?”
“You and your memory.” He took the cake from her fork and dispatched the remainder of his serving without lecturing Milly further.
The trip to St. Clair Manor, a rambling pile in the wilds of Surrey, was accomplished by midafternoon. And Milly’shusband—a lovely word beginning with anh, much like Harriette—carried her over the threshold to the cheers of a platoon of servants. Milly endured the introductions to some thirty souls, from the butler to the boot boy, each of whom seemed genuinely happy to see the master married.
As Milly was genuinely happy.
“Shall we retire above stairs, Baroness?”
Sebastian’s question was a study in domestic consideration.
“We shall not. It’s a beautiful day. We’ve been shut up in that coach for nearly two hours, and I want to move.”
In his morning attire, Sebastian looked quite handsome, also severe—except for the boutonniere of lavender on his lapel.
He winged his arm. “A tour of the gardens then?”
A tour of the gardens—with servants watching from every window, as Milly tottered around in her wedding finery like some…some baroness?
“I will change my clothes, Sebastian, and then you will take me on a picnic. I want to see your favorite place to dream when you were a boy.”
Her request—well, it hadn’t quite been a request—did not appear to please him. “The most likely spot is a good mile from the house, if you’re willing to hop a few stiles.”
Sebastian was not usually so dense, but perhaps he was suffering the nerves of a new husband.
“Bring ablanket, Sebastian, and some of that food Aunt packed for us, and give me twenty minutes to change my clothes. I suggest you do likewise, because hopping stiles can be hard on wedding finery.”
