The Traitor Read Online Free PDF Page A

you glance at that door, I will catch you at it every time, and Tante will not join us.”
    St. Clair’s voice was not exactly accusing. Milly regarded her breakfast companion over a plate of sinful lemon pastry and saw something in his eyes though. Humor? A challenge?
    She lifted the pot—more old-fashioned Sèvres. “Tea, my lord?”
    “If you please.”
    He had a way with silence, just as Aunt Mil had had. Milly poured but did not ask him how he preferred his tea. She set the pot down, went back to savoring her lemon tart, and did not glance at the door.
    The lemon pastry was lovely—flaky crust cooked to an even, golden brown, the sweet, rich filling still warm. The very scent of it proclaimed wealth and ease; the taste of it comforted in ways the jingling of coins never could.
    “What will you do with your morning, Miss Danforth? It appears we’re in for that most rare of English treats, the sunny day—or a sunny morning, at least. One doesn’t want to tempt the gods of English weather.”
    He picked up a slice of bacon and tore off a bite with his teeth, appearing both savage and elegant even in so mundane an activity.
    “If your lordship is going out, I thought I’d spend some time with the piano. Lady St. Clair said I might use the music room when she has no duties for me.”
    The bacon was dispatched in about three bites. He paused with a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth.
    “She will not have use for you this morning. She is resting, and also plotting. Tonight is that bacchanal known as Lady Arbuthnot’s card party. Like witches, the coven gathers on the Tuesday nearest each full moon. They tell everybody they’re playing whist, but in truth they’re casting spells on fashionable bachelors for all their nieces and granddaughters.”
    He was…teasing. Like any other nephew might tease about an elderly aunt upon whom he dotes.
    “And has Lady St. Clair spared you from her magic, my lord? You would seem to qualify as a fashionable bachelor.”
    The baron also qualified as titled, wealthy, handsome, and at a marriageable age without an heir to his name, which constituted a puzzle.
    He held up another crispy, aromatic strip of bacon as if regarding a bottle of wine or a fine miniature.
    “This is curious, now that you mention it. Aunt has powerful magic—she claims Gypsy blood on her dam side—and yet I sit before you unscathed by holy matrimony.” He bit off an inch of bacon and crunched it to oblivion. “Much like yourself.”
    Milly took refuge in her pastry, because just possibly, that was a rebuke.
    Very likely that was a rebuke.
    He waved his fork with an elegant gesture of the wrist. “Who is your favorite composer?”
    “Herr Beethoven.”
    “You prefer a German over your native talent?”
    Not “our” native talent. Perhaps that was why he was unmarried. He did not favor English beauties, and they did not favor him. He was large, dark, and French, after all.
    Milly considered her lemon pastry. “Herr Beethoven’s music balances abundant technical talent with abundant passion. He’s not afraid to rage or laugh or grieve in his music, though one is told the man is stone deaf.”
    She braced herself for another tease/rebuke/challenge, but St. Clair only twirled his teacup a quarter turn by its tiny handle.
    “Well put. Would you like a few pages of the paper, Miss Danforth? The society pages, perhaps?”
    He was neither teasing nor rebuking nor challenging, and yet his polite question was worse than if it had been all three.
    “No, thank you, my lord. Would you pass the jam pot, please?”
    The question came out too brightly, and Milly endured a baronial perusal before he moved the raspberry jam closer to her plate. Raspberry symbolized remorse, and it was her favorite flavor of jam.
    “I enjoy Beethoven as well,” St. Clair said, getting back to his eggs. “Though Clementi is a pleasure for the hands, and Mozart can be a wonderful confection for the ear. More tea, Miss