The Traitor

by Grace Burrowes

  Sebastian saw many an Englishman’s dream in the snug, tidy cottage—many an Englishwoman’s too. “I am not cheered to think you left this for the stink and pretense of Mayfair.”

  She gave him a look, suggesting his observation was unexpected. “I am not cheered to think of you watching over old women while cannonballs whizzed overhead. The key is around back.”

  The cottage was more substantial that it appeared from the lane. Miss Danforth maneuvered the phaeton around back, where orderly gardens backed up to pastureland. When he’d set her down and tied up the geldings, she extracted a key from between two loose bricks and opened a back door.

  She gestured him inside, which was a surprise. A man and an unmarried woman ought not to be in an empty house together, not according to the strangling list of proprieties adhered to by Polite Society.

  “I am worried about Peter,” she said, taking off her bonnet and gloves. “The house might already have been let, and the next tenants are not likely to look kindly on him.”

  A soldier learned to appreciate simple things—quiet, order, solitude, and cleanliness. The house offered these gifts in abundance. The kitchen was spotless and full of light from back windows overlooking the gardens. The copper-bottomed pots gleamed, the andirons were freshly blacked, the mullioned windows sparkled.

  The curtains sported embroidered borders of pansies and morning glories, jewel-tone colors in riotous patterns. As Sebastian moved with Miss Danforth upward through the house, the same peaceful, pretty aesthetic prevailed.

  “This is a happy house.” He could feel it, just as he’d felt the misery, pain, and despair in the cold stone walls of the Château.

  “My cousins could not understand how we could be happy here, three spinster ladies with only modest means. My aunt’s bequest is in here.”

  He followed her into a bedroom, and knew immediately this was where Miss Danforth had slept.

  Except in this house, she’d been Milly. She’d been loved, and confident of that love. Her ease showed in the way she moved through the rooms, sure of her destination and her place. She knelt before a bed covered by an elaborately embroidered counterpane, peacocks and doves, beauty and peace in a pattern of green, blue, white, and gold.

  “This was to be my trousseau,” she said, dragging a trunk from under the bed. The bed was raised; nobody would have thought to consider the underspace as storage, and the trunk was not small.

  She’d flaunted propriety in the interests of availing herself of Sebastian’s muscle—practical of her. “Is there more you would retrieve before we depart, Miss Danforth?”

  “A few small things.”

  “Then I will leave you to make your farewells.” He hefted the trunk to his shoulder, happy to depart before grieving sentiments could overtake pragmatism. The trunk smelled slightly of cedar and camphor, and was surprisingly light, suggesting her trousseau did not include much silver.

  “I’ll be along soon, my lord.”

  He left her sitting on the bed, alone in a pretty house that by rights should have come to her. This thought bothered him, because he was glad her cousins had cheated her out of her inheritance, for it meant his aunt had a cheerful, practical companion who was easy to look upon and competent with the reins.

  ***

  The baron had hefted the trunk holding her trousseau as if it had been no more weighty than a wicker basket full of clean sheets. In his absence, Milly sat on the bed where she’d slept most every night of her adult life until recently, and inventoried her emotions.

  The very exercise the baron had no doubt given her solitude to undertake.

  She was in the grip of a sense of loss, but the loss had started two years ago when Aunt Mil had begun to fade. The aunts had known they were leaving Milly, and had done what they could to safeguard her future.

  The house was just a house, as Aunt Hy had said. When the baron had escorted Milly up from the kitchen, the house had felt small and empty.

  In addition to the feeling of loss was a sense of satisfaction, because the aunts’ plan was successfully implemented. Milly was safely ensconced in the employ of a Mayfair baroness, one who understood about dreadful cousins.

  And Milly was relieved too, because even if those dreadful cousins should surprise her on the premises, his lordship would deal with them, as Lady St. Clair had no doubt intended.

  St. Clair would not come back inside to retrieve her, either. His ease with difficult emotions meant Milly would not have to rush her farewells.

  Though neither would she prolong them, because the final emotion Milly could not ignore was loneliness. She had been happy with the aunts, and she had been lonely.

  She was lonely still.

  “You can come out now.”

  Nothing, not even a rustle. Perhaps Peter was downstairs, hiding from Alcorn and Frieda, who’d probably inspected the house before Hyacinth had been measured for her shroud.

  Peter did not lack for the self-preservation instinct. “Peter Francis Danforth!”

  Still nothing. Milly turned her steps down the hallway, to Hyacinth’s sitting room, and there she found her quarry in his customary spot in the window, as if waiting for the next quilting party when all and sundry would make their obeisance to him before the workbaskets were opened.

  “There you are.”

  He glowered up at her in feline indignation, flicking his great black tail as if to ask, “Where on earth have you been?”

  “I came as soon as I could, and while I appreciate that you’ve maintained the order of the household, it’s time to go now. Aunt Hy wanted you to come with me. It’s the only thing she asked of me.”

  Milly spoke not for the cat’s benefit, but for her own. She picked him up, surprised as always at his sheer weight. A cat so fluffy ought not to weigh so much. Predictably, he began a rumbling purr.

  “You are a fraud, Peter Francis. You glower at the world, switching your tail and promising doom to all who cross you, and then you start that purr…”

  Aunt Hy had claimed the purr helped her rheumatism. She’d sat with the cat in her lap, stroking his soft, dark fur for hours while Aunt Mil had read and Milly had done piecework.

  “The baroness will love you,” Milly said around the lump in her throat. “But you’re mine now. And I’m yours. You may love her ladyship, too, but you’ll always be mine.”

  She tucked the cat against her and walked through the house, looking neither left nor right. She’d slipped a bottle of Aunt Hy’s perfume in her skirt pocket, but left everything else as she’d found it, knowing Alcorn and Frieda would note anything substantially out of place.

  When she passed through the back door, she set Peter down for a moment while she worked the key. On impulse, she slipped the key in her pocket too, then picked up the cat.

  The baron had secured her trunk to the back of the phaeton and was lounging by his vehicle, the picture of a handsome man enjoying a pretty day in the country. He pushed away from the phaeton at the sight of Milly.

  “That is a cat.” His tone was a combination of consternation and banked hostility.

  “This is Peter. Peter Francis Danforth. He was Aunt Hy’s dearest friend, and if I don’t collect him, my cousins will banish him to the stables or worse.”

  “I drove the length of the city to retrieve a cat. A black cat.”

  “He is black.” Wonderfully, unrelievedly, marvelously black with piercing green eyes and plush, long fur. “He’s very friendly.”

  That a cat was friendly was no particular recommendation. Milly should have said Peter caught a prodigious number of mice, except he’d never caught a mouse in his pampered life. As predators went, Peter was an utter failure.

  The baron’s expression did not soften, and now—now when she could not reach a handkerchief because of the burden she held—Milly’s tears welled.

  “I can find
a home for him, if you insist, but the baroness assured me…” She could not find a home for this cat. He was lazy and friendly, two mortal sins for an animal who ought to survive by hunting. He was convinced dogs were his intended companions, after old women, children, and Mr. Hamilton down at the Boar’s Tail.

  Milly brushed her cheek over Peter’s head. “I thought that’s why we brought the wicker hamper.”

  Her voice had wobbled. She buried her nose in Peter’s rumbling warmth and wondered if the baron were susceptible to begging, because Milly could not lose this cat. She would sell her trousseau, face her cousins, pawn the little bottle of scent, give up her last links with the aunts—

  A hand landed on her shoulder. “The error was mine. Of course your friend cannot be left alone in his grief. I take it he is old?”

  St. Clair’s voice was gruff, and yet his hand on Milly’s shoulder was gentle. She ran her nose over Peter’s neck. “Five.”

  “In his prime, then. He will make a lovely addition to Aunt’s sitting room, and soon have all her confidences.”

  The baron moved off, taking the warmth of his hand with him. Milly watched while he removed a peculiar assortment of items from the wicker hamper: A thick wool blanket, a bottle of wine or spirits. A wrapped loaf of bread, a small wheel of cheese, a jar of preserves, a quarter ham in cloth.

  He piled these offerings on the seat, and Milly realized the morning had passed. “Were we to picnic, then?”

  Dark brows rose over unreadable green eyes. For a moment, the most distinct sound was Peter’s purring.

  “Would you like to picnic, mademoiselle?”

  ***

  Somebody sought in a methodical, determined manner to kill Sebastian, and yet, he had offered to picnic with a sad young lady on a gorgeous spring day. Because surviving the tender mercies of the French Army had absorbed his most callow years, he’d never made such an offer before.

  Was one picnic in the English countryside too much to ask of an adulthood otherwise devoted to war and its aftermath?

  “I would like a picnic,” Miss Danforth said. “Peter would like that as well.”

  “Then the vote is unanimous. Have you a location in mind?”

  Of course, she did. She had Sebastian turn the horses out in an overgrown paddock across the alley from the house. While the cat followed Miss Danforth around the yard, she picked a bouquet of daffodils and disappeared for a time up the lane. When she returned, she no longer carried the flowers.

  Sebastian had spread their blanket in the spot she’d designated in the shade of the back gardens, a place not visible from the alley or the home of the one neighbor the property boasted.

  “I would have gone with you, you know,” he informed his companion as she lowered herself to the blanket.

  “With me?”

  “You went to the churchyard, to pay your last respects. One wants to do this alone, and yet one should not have to.”

  One, one, one. He was leaning toward his English side today, which was odd, because all of his funerals, including the many he’d presided over as any commanding officer might, had been in French.

  Miss Danforth opened the hamper, which Sebastian had repacked as best he could.

  “Aunt told me I was not to wallow in my grief. She was quite stern about that. I was to find a good position and make the most of it. We have no utensils.”

  Sebastian withdrew his everyday knife from his left boot and presented the handle to her. Based on Miss Danforth’s expression, this was not comme il faut at a picnic.

  A cessation of hostilities left a soldier hopelessly behindhand, though it had been some time since Sebastian had felt so very out of step with his surroundings. “Shall we retrieve napkins, forks, and such from the house?”

  She examined his knife, a serviceable, bone-handled blade whose twin reposed against the small of Sebastian’s back. He kept his smallest throwing dagger in his right boot, that being the handiest location for quick retrieval.

  “I’d rather not go back into the house, thank you.” She took the knife from his palm without touching his bare skin. “A knife is all we really need.”

  “A knife is often sufficient for the moment.” Also silent, reusable, and capable of being hurled at one’s enemies as they retreated, with more accuracy than most small pistols afforded. “If you’ll pass me the bread?”

  They managed sandwiches, and then came to another awkward moment over the Madeira.

  “You must not go thirsty on my account, Miss Danforth. Drink from the bottle, and I will manage.” Though his morning coffee was but a memory, and the ride back would be dusty.

  He’d been thirstier. He’d once gone nearly three days without much water, and the results had produced all manner of useful insights for a man whose business had been prying the truth from unlikely sources.

  Miss Danforth considered the bottle, then her companion. One or the other must have found favor. “We’ll share.”

  She tipped the bottle up and took a swallow of wine fortified with brandy. Even genteel elderly ladies might have such a drink on hand for chilly evenings and special occasions. Miss Danforth was not shy about enjoying her libation, her throat working as she took another swallow, then another.

  Was she trying to drown her grief?

  She wiped the lip of the bottle on her handkerchief before passing the drink to him. “It’s quite good. Very restorative.”

  Abruptly, the moment shifted, at least for Sebastian. Miss Danforth’s tidy bun had slipped on their journey. A dusting of dark cat hair graced her otherwise spotless bodice, and she wore no gloves. Her lips were damp from the wine, and perhaps because she’d been crying earlier, her brown eyes were…luminous.

  Sebastian took the bottle, wondering if there were ever a convenient time to be ambushed by lust. He drank deeply and passed the bottle back. “The cork is around here somewhere.” He’d seen the cat batting it about, in fact.

  She produced the cork, jammed it in the bottle, and then sank back, bracing her weight on her hands, turning her face up to the sun. “You are being very kind, my lord. I appreciate it.”

  Sebastian did not want her gratitude. Of all the inexplicable, inconvenient impulses, he wanted his bare hands on her naked and possibly freckled breasts, alas for him. Such were the burdens of being half-French that the freckles had something to do with his unruly impulse.

  “Do you think it’s such a trial for me, Miss Danforth, to enjoy the company of a pretty lady on a lovely day? Do you think bread, cheese, wine, and some viands cannot satisfy my appetite because some ancestor of mine survived a foolhardy charge into the enemy lines for his king centuries ago?”

  Any subordinate under his command, any prisoner in his keeping would have known that soft tone presaged temper or worse.

  Miss Danforth closed her eyes, making her complexion an offering to the sun. “You sound very English when you’re in a pet. Your consonants when you conversed with that ragman could have cleaved gems, and I know good and well I am not pretty.”

  No, she was worse than pretty, as Sebastian had had occasion to conclude earlier; she was alluring. Her attractiveness came from slightly disheveled red hair—not auburn, not titian—eyes that slanted a bit, a complexion that bore a hint of porcelain roses, and a mouth…

  Sebastian looked away. A commanding officer became very skilled at looking away. After a few years, it was nearly a reflex.

  “A woman need not be blond and blue-eyed to appeal to a man’s aesthetic sensibilities. More wine?” Much less appeal to his ill-timed and completely illogical lust. The French side of him was overcome with hilarity at the expense of his dignity, while the English side tried to think of Aunt’s collection of Sèvres bud vases.

  “No, thank you. No more wine for me. Who was the last person you lost, my lord?”

  Maybe she was unused to any spirits at all, or maybe
she was trying to distract herself from her grief. Two feet beyond the blanket, the black cat stretched itself out to an enormous length, then curled up and commenced vibrating.

  “Who was the last man you kissed, Miss Danforth?”

  As an interrogator, he knew the value of a sneak attack, knew the value of a question lobbed at a flagging mind from an undefended angle. His inquiry, however, had emerged without any warning to him.

  Her lips quirked; she did not open her eyes. “I kissed Peter. That is not an appropriate question, my lord.”

  He shifted on the blanket, so he could undertake his folly properly. When he slid a hand into Miss Danforth’s hair, she opened her eyes, and up close, Sebastian could see flecks of gold in her irises.

  “I cannot bear to talk of death, Miss Danforth. Not now.”

  She regarded him, her expression putting him in mind of the cat. Unreadable, unafraid, unblinking. Something in her vibrated too, with intelligence, warmth, and feminine awareness.

  He would never again picnic on a lovely day with a pretty girl, not because his death warrant had already been signed, but because the occasion provoked him to odd behaviors.

  Sebastian leaned forward another inch. “No more talk of dying and grieving, no more tears and suffering. I cannot bear it. Do you hear me?”

  Though when a grieving woman could not cry, she was a much more worrisome creature.

  He kissed her, perhaps because he hadn’t cried since his mother’s funeral, but more likely because the unreadable depths of Miss Danforth’s chocolate-brown eyes shifted and became, if not warm, then at least curious.

  For a kiss that bore more than a little anger on Sebastian’s part, the touch of Miss Danforth’s lips on his was sunlight-soft. She scooted closer, one of her hands wrapping around the back of his head, the other cradling his cheek.

  She tasted of the wine, of sweetness, and a little of grief. He kissed the grief then nudged it aside by stroking his fingers over her cheek, her throat, her temple. Though she was a redhead, her hair was silky soft, and her skin…