Page 93 of The Traitor
She ruined the effect of this pithy observation by swiping a lock of wet hair from her eyes.
“St. Clair, I dinna mean to make her cry. We said no blows below the belt, but this—”
The wretch was pleading with Sebastian. While Milly stood blinking furiously in the rain, Sebastian’s hand landed on her shoulder.
“Perhaps, MacHugh, you will see the futility of further attempts to settle our differences through pugilism. I am sorry that you’ve been upset, and I did not breathe a word to anybody of what passed between us in the officer’s mess at the Château. I was not proud of my tactics, but your disclosures spared both sides a final useless skirmish—or worse—before the winter camps were set up.”
MacHugh rubbed his jaw, an angle of bone that looked like it could hold up to a solid kick from a plow horse without sustaining damage. “That’s all?”
“Nothing more. I will not insult your temper by swearing it, but you have my word.”
Tears ran hot down Milly’s cheeks, like the anger trickling through her as the men exchanged reminiscences of war. MacHugh’s temper would be nothing compared to hers, though it was some consolation that Sebastian would be alive to suffer her wrath.
A second hand landed on Milly’s opposite shoulder. She wrenched away.
“The woman is protective of ye,” MacHugh observed. “I expect she’ll deliver ye a thrashin’ far more punishin’ than what I might have done.”
“She will,” Sebastian said, and perhaps the man still possessed a shred of common sense, because he’d answered in earnest.
“I wanted ye…” MacHugh regarded Milly as he spoke. “I wanted ye to know the keen despair of having lost, St. Clair. Lost your honor, your wits, your little part of the war. And for nothing. It haunts a man.”
Milly knew that despair. She swiped at her hair again and tried not to think of how good it might feel to lay about with her fists—at the Scot, at Sebastian, at Michael trying not to look worried as the rain dripped from his hat brim.
Sebastian spoke softly. “It does. Haunts his every waking and sleeping moment.”
MacHugh bellowed to his second, “Ewan, my flask.”
A silver flask came sailing through the air. MacHugh caught it in an appallingly large hand. He took a drink and held it out, not to Sebastian, but to Milly.
“My apologies, mum. A slight misunderstanding, ye see. No harm done. A tot will ward off the chill.”
Milly wanted to hurl the flask at him, wanted to bellow and rage and scare the horses, except a sip from the little flask would eliminate one threat to Sebastian’s welfare.
“We all make mistakes,” Milly said, tipping the flask up. “Some of them more serious than others.”
“Aye.” The Scot’s expression might have borne a hint of humor. Milly did not care that he was amused, did not care that he was perhaps impressed, or even that he might have pitied Sebastian his choice of wife.
“St. Clair, I bid ye good day, and”—he gave Milly an appraising look—“I bid ye good luck.”
He bowed slightly to Milly and stomped off, leaving her with the flask and the temptation to pitch it at his retreating backside.
“Don’t,” Sebastian said, easing the flask from her grasp. He’d moved up behind Milly and spoken softly. She could feel the heat of him, could catch a whiff of his sandalwood scent over the smell of damp earth and wet greenery.
He turned her by the shoulders and wrapped his arms around her. “Say something.”
She rested her forehead against his bare, bruised chest, emotions and words tangling up in her throat.
Howcouldyou?
Whydidyou?
HowamIevertotrustyou?
“Take me home.”
***
Sebastian walked out of the clearing half-naked, sopping wet, and barefoot, none of which mattered. He climbed into Milly’s coach and took the bench across from her, though she was just as wet as he.
