Miss Milton Speaks Her Mind by Carla Kelly Page B

icy fingers. Moments passed; the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to tick louder with each second it marked. Startled, she looked at the clock and wondered when it would explode with the noise and throw itself facedown on the carpet, gears and sprockets whirring everywhere.
    â€œ I know nothing of the kind, Jane,” he said finally, his eyes still closed.
    Well that is final, she thought, shocked. “My lord, you know that Blair was never in doubt,” she said gently, wanting to touch him, but repulsed somehow, which only shocked her more.
    â€œ Blair was in love, Jane,” he replied, then made a dismissive gesture, as though to ward off further questions. “If you had ever been in love, you would understand that it throws reason right out the door with the slops.”
    I beg to differ, she thought, rising and then thrusting her mending back in the basket. “My lord, I know that you were very much in love with Lady Denby, for Blair … Blair told me. And you have never been one to throw reason away.”
    He closed his eyes again and put his arm across his eyes in a gesture of rejection she could not ignore. “Perhaps we never really know each other as well as we think we do, my dear. Good night now. I do not require tending.”
    She remained where she was until his breathing was regular—whether he was fooling her or not, she could not tell—then rose to go. From the lifelong habit of doing for others, she pulled up the coverlet from the foot of the bed, moving aside the book that was there. It was the copy of his essays. Out of curiosity, she opened the book at the place marked with a scrap of paper, then closed it, wondering why he never seemed to get beyond that first humorous essay about Lieutenant Jeremy Dill and his brush with the amorous New York Royalist. Perhaps we do not know each other, she thought, as she left the room.

    It pained her to watch Lord Denby withdraw to his bed again and keep to it with a vengeance, the closer Lady Carruthers’ arrival loomed. Jane received her own peremptory letter, telling her to make sure that the second-best chamber was aired and the sheets dry. “ ‘I would be chagrined if Cecil should contract a putrid sore throat or bilious fever at this most joyful time of year, and I know you share my sentiments (or at least you should),’ ” she read out loud a week later when she allowed Mr. Butterworth to escort her and Andrew home from his lessons. Andrew had run on ahead, and was waving at her even now from the side door at Denby. She pocketed the letter and returned his wave. “If I had any brains at all, I would take to my bed, too, Mr. Butterworth!”
    He shook his head. “Not you, my dear.”
    He stopped at the place where he usually relinquished his grip on her arm, but instead of releasing her, stood looking into the water of his lake. She did not mind, beyond the fact that the wind was picking up and Lady Carruthers’ third-best cloak had never been warm. She made a slight gesture, but Mr. Butterworth might have been in another country, for all that he noticed. “Sir, I must be going now,” she said at last.
    He looked at her in surprise, as though she had recalled him from a distant field, but he did not loosen his grip. “Miss Milton, what you suffer from is an acute sense of duty.”
    â€œ Sir?” she asked, more amused than surprised at the seriousness of his tone.
    He started in motion again, but not toward Denby. He led her to a bench and sat down with her. “You would never take to your bed, because that would leave Andrew defenseless,” he said, as calmly as though they discussed the rising wind. “I think, my dear, that under your somewhat bland demeanor, you are quite a tiger, at least as far as that little scamp is concerned.”
    She didn’t know whether to be offended or delighted. “Bland, sir?” she asked.
    He nodded toward Denby. “In