Authors: Grace Burrowes
He’s not mauling me.
St. Clair’s back was to the door, so maybe Lady St. Clair didn’t see the kiss he brushed to Milly’s cheek when Milly’s reply was muttered aloud and not merely stated in the privacy of her mind.
St. Clair pivoted, so his back was to Milly, shielding her, though he remained beside her on the cushion.
“Aunt, you will excuse me if I remain seated. Was there something you required of me?”
How cool he sounded, how amused, while Milly’s mind was unable to form thoughts, and her body unable to comprehend that her interlude with St. Clair was over.
“I
require
you to keep your randy hands to yourself. Honestly, Sebastian, it’s difficult enough for me to keep a companion about without you exerting your charms to scare them off. Milly, you must not allow Sebastian’s untoward advances to overset you. He’s half-French, and allowances must be made.”
Milly’s emotions resolved themselves into bewilderment.
“I am equally responsible for this…for this lapse, my lady. You should castigate me as well, and I do apologize.”
She would have scrambled off the piano bench, except St. Clair was as immovable as the piano itself.
“I did not intend to offend the lady,” St. Clair said—the lady being
Milly
, “nor will I allow her to take responsibility for my trespasses. You have my apologies, Aunt, as do you, Miss Danforth.”
He sounded sincere—too sincere. Milly shoved at his back. “Excuse me, my lord. I’m sure your aunt has need of me.”
Now he rose and extended a hand to her, as if she couldn’t manage to get her backside off a piano bench unassisted. “You do accept my apology, Miss Danforth?”
Milly stood in the pretty little parlor, Lady St. Clair looking on, and wanted to kiss his lordship again. Wanted to climb into his embrace and taste his passion, because in those moments—those few, fleeting moments—she’d been with the real man. This Gallic fellow who looked both grave and mocking, this English lord of the manor with precisely appropriate words, she did not know him, and wasn’t sure she’d like him if she did.
“I accept your apology. I accept that,
too
.”
His brows rose, and something came cool into his eyes. Admiration, perhaps, but not pleasure. He bowed and dropped her hand.
“Then I am content that no significant harm has been done. Ladies, you will excuse me.”
He departed, a lingering whiff of sandalwood assuring Milly she hadn’t dreamed his presence or his kisses—if the frown on Lady St. Clair’s face weren’t proof enough.
“I don’t know whether to celebrate or mourn. You do not seem discommoded, Miss Danforth, but we ladies grow expert at masking our worst hurts. If Sebastian was doing more than stealing kisses, you must tell me, and I will deal with him severely.”
If only it had felt like theft—on his part.
“Some would say I was overstepping, my lady. Trying to gain the notice of my betters.”
Alcorn would certainly say that. Milly dropped back onto the piano bench and considered Alcorn might have been—as he often was—
somewhat
right.
Lady St. Clair crossed the room to open the drapes farther, so a shaft of sunlight fell across the tulips, making the choice of a blue vase more tolerable.
“I vow you did not leap upon St. Clair and render him helpless with the powers of your charms, Milly dear. He was a soldier, for God’s sake, he knows how to fight back.”
Fight back against what? Or whom?
“We made progress with my letters.”
“I daresay you did.” Lady St. Clair snapped open another set of drapes, the light falling this time on the piano. “Well, no matter, but you must not allow any more such nonsense. Sebastian is not as sturdy as he believes himself to be. I can’t have you trifling with him.”
Trifling with
him
? He thought himself either indestructible or expendable, and Milly was not sure which was worse. “Do you suppose he was trying to scare me into quitting my post?”
Lady St. Clair’s gaze fell on the tulips. “Those flowers go so well in here. And no, Sebastian was not trying to scare you into quitting your post. Were he intent on that end, you’d be writing out your notice this instant. Sebastian will, however, believe I’d think him capable of such machinations. Come along, my dear. You must assist me to choose my jewelry for the Hendershots’ musicale. Early evening wants tact, and tact has never been my strong suit.”
She swept from the room, while Milly shot a longing glance at the escritoire. Her
e
’s,
l
’s, and
o
’s lay forgotten, no obliging shaft of sunshine to illuminate them where they looped and swooped across the page.
Thank God Milly had had the sense not to attempt any
v
’s.
***
A duke generally ascended to his title knowing exactly how many princes, royal dukes, and other dukes stood between him and the British throne. In order of precedence, Christian, eighth Duke of Mercia, far outranked the first Duke of Wellington, and yet, when the summons came from Apsley House, Mercia did not tarry.
He kissed his duchess good-bye, kissed her good-bye some more (the roads being unpredictable between Surrey and London, and his duchess being the affectionate sort), and presented himself in Wellington’s soaring foyer well before supper.
“Married life agrees with you,” Wellington observed with the slightly puzzled, wistful air of a man whose own duchess was seldom on the premises.
“It emphatically does, Your Grace.”
This
time
, for Christian was a widower whose fortunes had improved with his second foray up the church aisle. “My duchess sends her regards, and charges me to invite you to Severn whenever you’re inclined.”
“Pretty little thing, your duchess.”
Wellington was an observant man, and a favorite with the ladies. From Christian’s perspective, His Grace was making the transition from general officer, to politician, and even statesman with enviable ease.
“More to the point, sir, my duchess puts up with me. I’d like to return to her side before nightfall, if possible.”
His Grace led Christian up the ornate staircase to the floor above. “You young fellows, haring in all directions, galloping about under the full moon… How’s the hand?”
Wellington was also a man who took the welfare of his staff—his former staff—seriously, which was not always convenient.
“Well enough. I can write with it—I can write with either hand now, thanks to Girard—thanks to
St. Clair’s
—guards and their penchant for violence.”
Wellington ushered him into a high-ceiling parlor that sported walls full of portraiture and other art. “It’s about St. Clair that I wanted to speak with you. Shall I ring for tea, or would you like something stronger?”
If they were to discuss St. Clair, then a tot of the damned poppy wouldn’t go amiss.
“Something stronger. The roads were dusty.” Not too dusty to dissuade a man from traveling home by moonlight when that man slept ever so much better beside his duchess.
Christian crossed to an open window, where the fragrance of stabled horses came wafting in from Tattersall’s not far upwind.
“To your health,” Wellington said, extending a small glass to him. “And to the Regent’s damned health.”
Christian took a sip of excellent Armagnac. “You’re spending time at Carlton House these days?”
“Not if I can help it, but I have ascended to the status of universal expert, you see. If there’s a bit of scandal brewing, then I must sit on the committee to investigate same. If a charitable commission is to be got up, then we must have old Wellington’s imprimatur on the thing. One doesn’t miss the battlefield, but one does sometimes appreciate what an honest, efficient place it was.”
No, one did not. In the strong afternoon sunlight, Wellington’s age was showing. He was a handsome man, his posture impeccable, and his nose, in particular, worthy of some of the nicknames given to him, but Wellington was also no longer young, and that…made Christian sip his drink.
“Excellent libation, Your Grace.”
“Thank Lady St. Clair, of all people. She knows my weaknesses, and indulges them from time to time. Our paths crossed in India when she was married to a younger son who never expected to inherit the title.”
Christian took a larger swallow and moved away from the window. “How does she deal with having St. Clair for a nephew?”
“Easily. He’s the last of his line, she loves him and will hear no wrong spoken of him. Nobody would dare cross her in this publicly.” Wellington’s tone suggested
he
wasn’t about to take on the elderly baroness either. Not directly.
And Christian hadn’t recalled, hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that St. Clair’s title was teetering toward escheat.
Which St. Clair alone was in a position to rectify.
“I saw St. Clair in the park the other day. He was walking out with a woman.” For her sake, Christian hoped the lady was some unassuming Continental, or even an American, a woman whom Society’s scorn would leave largely untouched.
“She was not…her origins looked humble,” he went on. “Humble but decent.”
Also lamentably English, though Christian could not have said why he reached that conclusion.
“The ladies tend to be more practical than we gentlemen.” Wellington fell silent as a footman arrived bearing a cold collation. A second footman brought along a tea tray, though Christian would have preferred more of Lady St. Clair’s Armagnac.
“St. Clair’s situation is not resolving itself.” Wellington settled on a gilt love seat upholstered in rose velvet, a delicate piece for a man of his height and bearing.
“What has St. Clair to do with me? My dealings with the man are over, and I intend that they stay that way.” Christian resisted the urge to rub the fingers of his left hand, also the urge to make a fist with it.
“Several others have challenged him since you slapped a glove across his face. They’ve all missed, and then St. Clair has deloped. My officers are excellent marksmen, but St. Clair’s luck thus far exceeds their skill.”
Christian returned to the window rather than remain where his host could see his expression.
“St. Clair is a perverted excuse for a human being, one who could inflict suffering on his captives and watch that suffering without so much as flinching. His immediate superior at least took obvious pleasure in our humiliation, and under the circumstances, that humanity—evil though it was—was far preferable to St. Clair’s disinterest.”
St. Clair
had
watched that suffering, day after day, and then ensured the most competent doctors and best available rations were reserved for the prisoners he’d abused.
“This is, of course, loathsome behavior,” His Grace observed, arranging slices of cheese and ham on a plate. “Also the same treatment French officers captured out of uniform were shown by our own forces, minus the medical care and food.”
Christian heard the philosophical thread in the duke’s voice and recalled this was the same fellow who’d reportedly once been given a clear shot at Napoleon himself, and had declined to fire on the basis of battlefield protocol.
General
officers
do
not
fire
upon
one
another.
“I should tell you I hate St. Clair,” Christian said, “and the truth would be that I do, but I also don’t know what to make of him. As you point out, his treatment of me was loathsome, though consistent with the situation.” Christian clenched and unclenched his left hand, grateful that he could. “St. Clair gave me my freedom when Toulouse fell, though he left it to his pet jailer to unlock my cell. I owe him my life, and that is…complicated.”
Owed him his life many times over, and owed him every single damned nightmare he’d had in recent years as well.
“Complicated, yes,” Wellington said between bites of cheese. “The French share your consternation. He’s an embarrassment, a traitor to both of his heritages, and an intelligence nightmare from which two countries would like to waken. Have some food, Mercia. One must keep up one’s strength.”
One
must
keep
up
one’s strength.
The same admonition St. Clair had used to coax Christian into eating, when Christian had once again decided to die rather than endure more of St. Clair’s abuse.
Christian took a chair at an angle to Wellington’s pretty love seat. “Just some cheese, please, and a slice of buttered bread.”
“You’ve become abstemious in your dotage, Mercia. I’m sure your duchess would want you to eat more than a schoolboy’s ration.”
His duchess. Even the thought of that dear lady soothed something that discussion of St. Clair had set amiss. “A spot of tea to wash it down, too, then.”
Wellington loaded up a plate with three kinds of cheese, a few slices of ham, and three slices of bread slathered with butter.
“We must do something about St. Clair. More duels are in the offing, and while his death under such circumstances wouldn’t be remarked, there’s the off chance he might injure an opponent, and then all hell will break loose.” His Grace paused with the teapot poised above a jasperware cup. “Cream and sugar?”
“Neither, thank you. You’re sure more duels are in the offing? There’s little honor in challenging a man who has deloped on three previous occasions.”
“Little honor perhaps,” the duke said, passing Christian the steaming cup of tea, “but significant satisfaction. Eat your food, Mercia, and pay attention. You are not yet acquainted with all of the salient aspects of St. Clair’s situation, and yet you of all people ought to be consulted before further action is taken.”
Christian listened as Wellington provided a concise, dispassionate military briefing on a situation Christian wanted nothing whatsoever to do with. His tea cooled in his cup, bars of sunlight crept across the thick carpet, and something akin to pity stole across Christian’s heart for a man he ought to go to his grave hating.