The Traitor Read online

  Rather than torment himself with her uncertainty, Sebastian wrapped her in a careful hug, the way a boy might hold a pretty bird caught fluttering against his window.

  “I will sulk and pout past reason if you abandon me now.”

  Up close, Freddy smelled of roses, and in his arms, she was tiny.

  “You foolish boy, don’t you understand? I left you in France. My brother’s only son, and I left you there, and then you began that dangerous business with the money, and I knew—I knew—you would never come home, while all those other boys, those wretched, pompous English boys—”

  Milly passed Freddy a wrinkled handkerchief, while Sebastian closed his eyes and swallowed past the ache in his throat.

  “I am an English boy, sometimes wretchedly pompous—ask my wife if you don’t believe me—and I am home safe and sound. Cease with your dramatics, Baroness, and stop trying to manipulate me with your tears.”

  His insults were of more use to his aunt than his handkerchief. She pulled out of his arms and sashayed over to the sofa. “Explain yourself, Sebastian. This exchange grows tedious.”

  The professor settled on one side of her, Milly on the other, while Michael pretended to straighten a stack of music.

  “I did not understand that Michael was serving an English master,” Sebastian said when Aunt had assembled her court. “Did not even suspect it until recently. From time to time, he’d ask if I thought about returning to England, and intimated that he could see such a thing done. He was most insistent, I assure you. I would list difficulty after difficulty, and for each obstacle, he had a solution. There were pardons, quiet, informal prisoner exchanges, diplomatic accommodations, impunities, all manner of magic wands Michael was certain would be waved on my behalf. I never once took him seriously.”

  Michael left off fussing the music.

  “I tried, my lady,” he said with creditable long-suffering. “I did try, repeatedly. St. Clair would not leave the Château, though I knew if I presented St. Clair under Wellington’s very nose, we’d have had no trouble. Believes in the peerage, does Old Hookey. He believed in St. Clair’s honor, too, more’s the pity. I came very close to taking your nephew captive, not for his benefit, but to spare my own poor nerves.”

  While Michael exhibited a propensity for convincing fictions, an exchange of handkerchiefs was under way, like so many flags of truce. The professor slipped his linen into Milly’s hands, while Aunt traced the initials on Sebastian’s handkerchief. Sebastian saw that Milly was pleased though, relieved and smiling through her tears.

  He had the odd thought that breeding women could be lachrymose.

  “So you see, Aunt, Wellington put the decision to you. Michael repeatedly put the decision to me, and my judgment was in accord with your own. If you leave my household, I hope it will be because the professor seeks to make an honest woman of you, or because you’ve a sudden longing for sauerbraten and pine forests.”

  Freddy looked at the roses, at the music Michael had stacked, at the little square of cloth in her lap, and—fleetingly—at the professor.

  “I hate sauerbraten, and if we’ve beaten this subject to death, I will allow the professor to escort me up to my sitting room.”

  She marched off the field on the professor’s arm, which meant Sebastian could settle in beside his wife.

  “Shouldn’t you be off petting a cat?” Sebastian asked Michael. “Or perhaps making plans to leave for Scotland?”

  “When Anduvoir’s on a packet for Calais, bound hand and foot or in a coffin, then I’ll leave for Scotland.”

  Sebastian kissed his wife’s cheek, in part because he had to, and in part because such overtures stood a chance of embarrassing Michael into a retreat. “I thought you had a wife or a fiancée secreted in the Highlands.”

  “A bit of both actually.” Still the man sat upon the piano bench.

  Milly lifted her head from Sebastian’s shoulder. “Both, Michael?”

  “We do things differently in Scotland.”

  “And you haven’t seen this woman in how many years?” Sebastian asked.

  Michael stood, his expression not that of a man anticipating a romantic reunion. “If I had offered, even once, to get you off that godforsaken rock pile, would you have come?”

  Lavender-scented fingers settled over Sebastian’s mouth. “Don’t answer that,” Milly said. “He didn’t offer, and you were both very kind to poor Freddy.”

  “I have a cat to pet.” Michael bowed to them and departed, closing the door quietly behind him. Though he’d tried to hide it, he’d been smiling as he left the room.

  Milly subsided against Sebastian, and if he’d had the ability to purr, he would have.

  “A wife and a fiancée sounds complicated. I wonder if I should be flattered that Michael chose my company over theirs.”

  “You’ll miss him. We’ll visit him, once he’s sorted out his ladies. You had an ally you did not understand as such, and Michael has been more alone even than you.”

  Yes, poor Michael, guardian angel at large.

  “I owe him an enormous debt, which I can never repay, and so on and so forth. At the moment, I’ve had rather enough of duty, honor, debts, and deceptions. May I please read Mrs. Radcliffe to my wife?”

  He thought maybe she’d fallen asleep, so long did it take that wife to respond to his question.

  “Mrs. Radcliffe can keep, for now,” she said, kissing the corner of his mouth. “I had rather we put the evening to a different use, sir.”

  Alas for Mrs. Radcliffe, in the years following, when the Baron St. Clair offered to read to his wife, she frequently declined his literary generosity in favor of those different pursuits. While Mrs. Radcliffe was neglected, the St. Clair nursery became full to bursting, the quiet of the household entirely cut up by the laughter of the children and the many blessings of a lasting and well deserved—if noisy!—peace.

  Order Grace Burrowes's other books

  in the Captive Hearts series

  The Captive

  On sale July 2014

  Click here!

  The Laird

  On sale September 2014

  Click here!

  Order Grace Burrowes's other books

  in the Captive Hearts series

  The Captive

  On sale July 2014

  Click here!

  The Laird

  On sale September 2014

  Click here!

  The Laird

  The third installment in the Captive Hearts series

  by Grace Burrowes

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  He left his bride to go to war…

  After years of soldiering, Michael Brodie returns to his Highland estate to find that the bride he left behind has become a stranger. Brenna is self-sufficient, competent, confident—and furious. Despite Michael’s prolonged absence, Brenna has remained loyal, though Michael’s clan make it clear they expect him to set Brenna aside.

  Now his most important battle will be for her heart.

  Michael left Brenna when she needed him most, and then stayed away even after the war ended. Nonetheless, the young man who abandoned her has come home a wiser, more patient, and honorable husband. But if she trusts Michael with the truths she’s been guarding, he’ll have to choose between his wife and everything else he holds dear.

  Praise for Grace Burrowes:

  “Grace Burrowes has quickly become one of my favorite historical romance authors. The stories she tells will capture your heart and mind.”—Night Owl Reviews

  “Burrowes has a knack for giving fresh twists to genre tropes and developing them in unexpected and delightful directions.”—Publishers Weekly

  For more Grace Burrowes, visit:

  www.sourcebooks.com

  About the Author

  New York Times and USA Today best
selling author Grace Burrowes hit the bestseller lists with her debut, The Heir, followed by The Soldier, Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal, and Lady Eve’s Indiscretion. The Heir was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010, The Soldier was a Publishers Weekly Best Spring Romance of 2011, Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish won Best Historical Romance of the Year in 2011 from RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards, Lady Louisa’s Christmas Knight was a Library Journal Best Book of 2012, and The Bridegroom Wore Plaid, the first in her trilogy of Scotland-set Victorian romances, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2012. All of her Regency and Victorian romances have received extensive praise, including several starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Darius, the first in her groundbreaking Regency series The Lonely Lords, was named one of iBooks Store’s Best Romances of 2013.

  Grace is a practicing family law attorney and lives in rural Maryland. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached through her website at graceburrowes.com.

  For the latest information about Grace Burrowes’s romances, sign up for her newsletter here: http://graceburrowes.com/newsletter.php