The Duke’s Obsession Bundle (47 page)

“You’re stalling.” She smacked her hands down on the table and took his cider away. “Get busy, my lord, or I’ll hold your drink hostage.”

“Nasty tactics,” he said, picking up the last half pastry. He bit into it to find it was flavored with cinnamon, raisins, honey, and nuts, all layered within the pastry as the dough had been folded onto itself.

“It reminds me of an Eastern dessert, baklava. I like it and think it would go particularly well with hot tea on a cold morning.”

“But?” she pressed, sliding his cider across the table toward him.

“But nothing. I like it.”

“You like it. You say that about as enthusiastically as I might say I like bread that’s only one day old. What would make it better?” She was going to pester him on this, he saw. She took her little experiments seriously.

“It’s bland. Just sweet, with the spices you expect in sweet things. Cinnamon, I suppose, and a dash of clove, but not much. Mincemeat would be more interesting, pear butter with brandied pecans.”

“Make it something definite, not just a breakfast sweet. I will work on these, but you confirm my suspicion they are not ready for public consumption. My thanks.”

“You are eying my cider.” The earl gestured at the mug sitting between them. “Help yourself.”

“I will,” she said, bringing his mug to her lips. “I would have to make another trip down to the spring house to fetch more.” She’d drained the mug, he saw, feeling just the least bit thirsty now that she had.

“You would have done well as an officer’s wife,” he heard himself comment. “They were remarkable women, most of them. Far more stoic than the men and just as brave.”

“I swipe your cider, and you are willing to offer me my colors?” Miss Farnum smiled then hid a delicate yawn behind her hand.

“Those ladies did not stand on ceremony. They were practical, resilient, good-humored, and resourceful. You put me in mind of them.” They were also women who understood the place killing had in the greater scheme of life, and Emmie Farnum, smiling and yawning in the soft summer air, shared that wisdom, too.

She nodded at Red. “Was that one of your mounts?”

“He was too young to have served. I own a stud farm in Surrey, and he is one of three whose training I did not want to see lapse over the summer. His name is Ethelred. Shall I introduce you?”

“I’d be delighted.” She rose without assistance. “It isn’t every morning a lady finds two such handsome fellows on her back porch.”

“He will be happy to opine regarding your grass, I’m sure,” the earl said, walking down the steps beside her. “I think he believes it to be too long and in need of his attentions.” Red looked up as they approached but continued chewing.

“Is he a bit thin?” she asked, holding out a hand for Red to sniff.

“He is. He’s three and a half. He’ll continue to grow for at least another year, and he’s in a weedy stage. Then, too, they all dropped weight on the journey north.” As he had himself.

“Well, aren’t you handsome?” She addressed the horse, the minx. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr…?” She arched an eyebrow at the earl.

“Ethelred,” the earl reminded her, “or Red, which he seems to like better.” Red was making sheep’s eyes at Miss Farnum, sniffing at her hand then wiggling his lips against her palm. “Shameless beggar.” The earl scratched at Red’s ears. “He must like the sugary scent of you.” Without thinking, Rosecroft grasped her hand and sniffed at her palm. “Sweet,” he remarked, “and a little spicy.”

She shot him a quizzical look. “Perhaps I will experiment with making treats for your steed.”

“And wouldn’t you love that?” the earl asked his horse. Red went back to grazing, seeing the introductions were not going to afford any more attention. “Do you ride, Miss Farnum?”

“I was taught,” she said, eyes still on Red. “It has been years.”

“Would you perhaps like to ride, then? The countryside here is nothing if not beautiful, and I’m going to have to find some quiet mounts for Miss Winnie.”

She smiled at him wistfully. “Maybe someday. Winnie loves animals, you know. They’ve been her chief companions for the past two years.”

“Then we will keep her well supplied. I’ve an affinity for them myself, horses in particular. Actually, I am intruding on your morning in hopes you can advise me on a matter related to Winnie.” Well, he amended silently, tangentially related to Winnie.

“Oh?” She stifled another little yawn, and the earl recalled she’d been up all night.

“Come.” He put a hand on the small of her back and steered her toward the porch. “You are tired, and I should not keep you. I wanted only to inquire regarding Winnie’s preferences at breakfast. I need to review the menus now that breakfast will be a necessity, and I thought as you—”

“You aren’t having a proper
breakfast
?” Miss Farnum turned to stare at him. “For shame, my lord. You wouldn’t expect Ethelred to go to work without his breakfast, would you? My lands, what must you be thinking? Come along
this instant
.” She bustled up the steps and banged through her back door again, leaving the earl to follow in her wake. He found himself in a hallway leading to a large, tidy kitchen as Miss Farnum went to a desk—who put a desk in a kitchen?—and withdrew a piece of paper and a short pencil.

“Breakfast is the best meal of the day,” she informed the earl as she sat at the desk. “Show me a man who doesn’t appreciate his breakfast, and I’ll show you a man who couldn’t possibly be English. Now…” She fell silent as she scratched away. “There.”

She brandished the paper at him, and he took it.

“Winnie loves her muffins.” Miss Farnum nodded for emphasis. “But she needs the variety of fresh fruits and the substance of some butter and cheese to start her day. She is not particularly fond of meat, but one needn’t belabor that point.”

“Not at breakfast,” the earl agreed. “My thanks, Miss Farnum. I’ll take my leave of you and recommend you seek your bed.”

“I will dream of the perfect pastry.”

“Until Monday, then.” The earl couldn’t help but smile at her, so pleased did she seem with the prospect of her dreams. He bridled his horse, mounted up, and rode on home, oblivious to the pair of blue-gray eyes watching him canter off into the shade of the trees.

Rather than take herself immediately off to bed, Emmie wrote out instructions for Anna Mae Summers, the assistant who would show up in an hour so, then paused to consider her previous visitor.

As she shucked down to her skin then washed, Emmie reflected that the earl had a disarming willingness to speak plainly, to put his questions, desires, and aims into simple speech: What does Winnie like for breakfast? Did Helmsley ever succeed in his attempts to bother her? Help yourself to my cider.

He was like no kind of aristocrat she’d ever seen, much less dealt with. The great families around York might occasionally patronize her bakery, for a wedding cake, perhaps, or for particular confections. But even their footmen sent to collect the goods didn’t
see
her, and she’d always preferred it that way.

The earl saw her, and worse, she liked that he did.

Giving herself a mental lecture about bad judgments and the whims of the aristocracy, Emmie took herself off to bed. She tossed and turned for a long time before falling asleep, thinking of just how to perfect her latest experiments. Her cogitation might have been more productive, however, were she not constantly distracted by the memory of the earl’s aquiline nose tickling her palm as he sniffed at the sweetness and spice he found there.

***

The woods were lovely, cool and quiet, and a much-needed change of pace from Holderman’s bowing, scraping, and throat clearing. The man had little clue how to get the fountain re-piped and had only mumbled into his tea about getting a haying crew together before the crop got any older. The only thing for it, St. Just decided, was to go for a ride lest he strangle his steward over luncheon. So he’d saddled up and headed for a part of his property he’d yet to explore, only to find the steadiest of his mounts was tensing beneath him, ears pricking forward.

Knowing better than to ignore the horse’s reaction, the earl cautiously urged the animal to a halt. This was his third and final ride of the day, the one he saved for last, because the horse—Caesar—was such a pleasure to spend time with. Something large was moving just a few yards away. Not a wild dog, or Caesar would have been alarmed, not just alert. Something big enough to startle a horse, though.

Rosecroft’s mouth went dry, then his heart sped up, for there, through a leafy curtain, was Emmaline Farnum, naked as the day she was born, floating serenely on her back. Her hair was still bound, but the rest of her was as God made her—and God had done a magnificent job. Her breasts were full, with small pink, puckered nipples, her waist nipped in sweetly, her legs were long and muscular, and there at the juncture of her legs…

The earl was a gentleman, raised with sisters and cousins and enough females that he comprehended why the fairer gender was deserving of respect. He told himself to leave, he even cued the horse to step back, but he must have also cued the animal to remain at the halt, because five minutes later, he was still staring.

She’d gotten out of the water and was kneeling on a towel, letting the long, wet ropes of her hair down from her bun. Even wet, her hair was golden, falling in abundance to her hips. She raised her hands to work up a lather in her hair, the action causing her breasts to hike and shift gently. He surveyed the line of her back, graceful and strong but mouthwateringly feminine, too. Sitting on his horse, he had the urge to bite her nape, to steady her hips with his hands, bend her over, and show her what pleasures could make a lazy summer afternoon perfect. When it was time to rinse, he was almost relieved to see her slip back into the water, her rounded derriere flashing in the sunlight as she dove under.

With a distinct sense of disorientation, the earl found the fortitude to nudge his mount quietly back up the path, but he was in such a condition that the walk was the only feasible gait.

And he was smiling like the lunatic he feared he was becoming, more pleased and relieved with his body’s reaction than he could have admitted to another living soul. A half hour later, he and Caesar ambled into the stable yard, the echo of that smile still in his mind.

“Same drill tomorrow, Stevens.” The earl handed off the reins.

“Tomorrow’s the Sabbath,” Stevens reminded him, clearly bewildered.

“Sabbath.” The earl frowned. “My apologies. Monday, I suppose. We’ll have crews on the grounds to work on various projects then, as well. When the roof and the haying are done, the stables are due for some attention.”

“Aye, milord.” Stevens sounded less than enthusiastic about a schedule put forth by a man who could forget the day of the week.

Well, thought the earl, suppressing a grin, when a man experienced his first conscious trouser salute in more than two years, the day of the week faded in significance by comparison.

“My lord.” Steen bowed to him at the front door. “You have a visitor in the library. He, um…” Steen found something worth examining on the earl’s sweaty riding gloves. “He arrived with luggage, my lord.”

“Did he leave a card?” Luggage?

“He said he was family.” Steen’s entire bald head suffused with pink.

“Ah.” For Steen to have asked exactly how this fellow was family would have been rude, of course, and one couldn’t
be
rude to the earl’s family. “I will see him; send along some refreshment—lemonade, sandwiches, a sweet or two.”

His father, having suffered a heart seizure just weeks previously, would not have journeyed north. His brother Gayle, having just married, would not have journeyed two feet from his bride, left to his own devices. It had to be his youngest brother, Valentine.

“So, Val,” the earl strode into the library then stopped dead. “
Amery?
” The man before him was not tall, green-eyed with wavy dark hair, as each of the surviving Windham sons were. He was tall, blond, blue-eyed, and the most poker-faced individual St. Just had ever met, for all that his features had the austere beauty of a disappointed angel. “To what, in all of God’s creation, do I owe the honor of a visit from my niece’s stepfather?”

“Pleased to see you, as well, St. Just.” Viscount Amery put down the book he’d been perusing and turned his gaze on his host. “Or should I say, Rosecroft?”

“You should not.” The earl frowned, advancing into the room. “What have I done to be graced with your presence?” He didn’t mean to sound so unwelcoming, but he was surprised. No cavalry officer liked surprises.

“I am here at the request of the Duchess of Moreland and at the request of my viscountess, both of whom are fretting over you—and with some grounds, I’d say.”

“Good of them, though I am well enough.”

“You are thinner, you appear fatigued to me, and your fences, St. Just, are sagging.”

“Ever the charmer, eh, Amery?” The earl arched an eyebrow, and Amery arched his in response. Douglas Allen was the most unflappable, steady, serious person St. Just had encountered. The man had had the balls to stop a wedding between St. Just’s brother Gayle Windham, the Earl of Westhaven, and Douglas’s present wife, Guinevere, mother to Rose, the only Moreland grandchild. The wedding had badly needed to be stopped in the opinion of all save the Duke of Moreland, whose conniving had brought it about in the first place.

“I do try.” Douglas picked his book back up and put it in its proper place on the library shelves. “Rose is with your parents, and Welbourne is between planting and harvest, as most of the country is, so my lady could spare me. She suggested Rosecroft might be a bit of a challenge after three years in Helmsley’s care. I see she did not exaggerate.”

“She did not,” the earl said, grateful for plain speaking. He was also grateful when a knock on the door, heralding the tray of refreshments, gave him a moment to collect his thoughts and get him and his guest seated.

“So how bad is it?” Douglas asked as he took a long swallow of cold lemonade.

“Bad enough.” The earl passed Douglas a sandwich. “The fences are indicative of the situation as a whole: sagging but still functional.”