The Duke’s Obsession Bundle (75 page)

***

It took a week for Emmie to get over her cold, get up her nerve, and figure out what to bake. In the end, it was simple: Apple tarts, of course. Devlin’s recipe with a few of her enhancements. She waited most of the day, hoping the hand of God would descend from the pressing overcast and pluck her troubles from her shoulders, but that Hand was as contrarily invisible as ever, so she donned two cloaks, put on her sturdiest walking boots, and headed off through the woods, apple tarts still warm in their basket.

The closer she got to Rosecroft, the more the sky seemed to press down on the wintery landscape. There were still patches of snow clinging to the hedgerows and fence lines from the last little storm, and there was a pervasive grayness that suited her mood. Her discussion with St. Just would be difficult, but what she wanted—to be with Winnie—was no more than what he’d urged on her from the outset. And as for being with
him
, well, nothing much had changed. She was still a baseborn baker from nowhere, he was still the firstborn of a duke, titled in his own right, a decorated war hero, and far above her touch.

Then, too, she had lied to him. There was that detail.

She gained the back door, stomped her boots, and scraped the mud off them as best she could, then raised her fist to knock. She lowered it slowly, her heart having begun to pound.

“Emmie Farnum,” she spoke to herself sternly, “you are being ridiculous. St. Just is not a barbarian.”

Except, in a way, he still was. She watched a half-dozen lazy snow flurries drift down from the pewter sky and was still trying to locate her resolve, when the door opened, and the barbarian himself stood there, frowning.

“Are you coming in?” he asked, stepping back. “Or is it sufficient to chat with yourself on my back steps in the bitter air?”

The sight of him, just the tall, frowning, slightly untidy sight of him standing there, cuffs turned back, no neckcloth, an ink stain on the heel of one hand… When Emmie only stared, he plucked the basket from her hand and took her by the wrist into the warmth of the house.

“I’ll put these in the kitchen.” He lifted the basket slightly, sniffing.

“I can’t stay long,” Emmie said to his retreating back, but he moved on as if she hadn’t spoken. Like an imbecile, she stood there for another moment then realized she had two cloaks to unfasten. He was filling a teapot when Emmie stood in the kitchen doorway, feeling uncertain but determined.

“How’s Winnie?” She asked, chin tipping up minutely. He was not required to tell her, of course, but then, legally, she was still Winnie’s guardian—she hoped.

“Winnie is managing,” St. Just said, putting the kettle on the stove. “Let me put us together a tea tray, and we can discuss that, if you’ve the time?”

All right, Emmie thought, in the kitchen, then.

“Shall we investigate these tarts?” he asked, his voice even. “Or did you intend them for dessert tonight?”

“Why don’t we split one?” Emmie suggested, slightly mollified. “I’ll get the plates.” At least he wasn’t going to refuse her baking.

They assembled their fare and sat on opposite benches at the table.

“Winnie is managing?”

“She is.” St. Just was frowning again. “I don’t wish to give offense, Emmie, but shall you pour, or shall I?”

“You pour,” Emmie said, schooling herself to patience. “You like your tea just so, and I am not as likely to get it right.”

He did the honors and passed her hers. “I never had any complaints when you fixed me tea, Emmie.” She let him savor the first sip of his tea then prepared to grill him again on Winnie’s situation. He spiked her guns, however, by tossing a question at her while she was still stirring her tea.

“So how are
you
, Emmie?” he asked, regarding her through hooded eyes. “You look pale and not particularly hearty.”

“I’ve had a cold,” Emmie said, seeing no harm in the truth, “and I was tired. I’m doing better now. And you?” She realized the question was genuine. She was concerned for him and wanted him to be well and happy. He didn’t look particularly hearty himself, but weary and a little rumpled.

“Like Winnie.” He didn’t quite smile. “I am managing.”

“I wanted to talk to you about Winnie,” Emmie said, setting her teacup down a little too loudly.

“What did you want to say?” he asked, staring at his tea.

“I miss her. I really, really miss her.”

“She misses you, as well.”

“If the offer to assume the rearing of her is still open,” Emmie said, heart abruptly pounding, “then I would like to discuss it further.”

“It is still open, on certain terms.”

“What are your terms?”

“Shall we negotiate over an apple tart?”

“I won’t taste it,” Emmie said in a low, miserable voice.

“I beg your pardon?” He took a knife and cleanly divided a warm, steaming tart.

“I hope they taste good,” Emmie improvised, but St. Just kept his focus on the task of shifting one half of the tart to each of two plates, adding a fork to each, and passing one plate to Emmie.

“Emmie.” He sat back, his expression suggesting he’d heard her perfectly well, “don’t be anxious.” He glanced around the kitchen as if he might spy just the right words sitting on the spice rack or the hearth. In the end, his words were simple and devastating. “I would not keep you from your daughter.”

She could not catalog the emotions prompted by his weary disclosure, did not even try, but both grief and relief figured among them. “How long have you known?”

“I still can’t say I know,” St. Just said, studying her. “I drew some pointed conclusions when I began to learn more about your aunt. Neither she nor Helmsley look like Winnie, but you do. You were here, and then you weren’t, which might allow for a pregnancy to be covered up, but I don’t have the details. For some reason, your aunt wanted you to have the raising of the child, not the late earl—that was odd, too. Mostly, Emmie, I recognized in you the same desperation I’d sensed in my own mother when she tossed me into the ducal miscellany at the age of five.”

“She didn’t toss you anywhere!” Emmie retorted in horror. “Didn’t you read her letters?”

“I can recite each of her letters to you word for word,” St. Just said evenly, “though they didn’t come into my possession until I traveled south this fall. I wish I’d had them earlier.”

Emmie raised her gaze to his and saw only a kind of tired acceptance, or relief maybe, to have the truth out between them.

Without her choosing to open her mouth and speak, words began to flow from her, her own relief colored by the sadness that comes from having to admit a lie.

“I was sixteen when I really met Helmsley. Oh, he’d been about the property before, but I was home from school for only a few weeks here, a few weeks there. That summer, he took an interest in me, probably because he knew it would aggravate the old earl to do so. My aunt saw what was happening and before Helmsley could do any real harm, whisked me back to Scotland for the rest of the summer to stay with friends.”

She paused, glanced around the table, then met St. Just’s eyes again. His gaze held no discernible emotion except for a kind of sad acceptance, but his hand slid across the table and squeezed her fingers before retreating to his teacup.

Fortified by that surprising gesture, Emmie went on.

“The next summer, I was a year more determined to thwart my elders, a year more foolish and stubborn. Helmsley was a year more lost to propriety, and I allowed myself to become entangled with him. He was going to marry me, of course, as soon as I was of age, and we were going to banish the earl to a dower property and live like king and queen of Rosecroft. I was a selfish, stupid young girl, with no sense of my station nor of the many kindnesses my aunt, the earl, and his countess had done me, and Helmsley was a selfish, unprincipled man.”

“Were you… willing?” St. Just asked quietly.

“I was willing to do what it took to prove my aunt was wrong, to prove I was worldly enough to make my own decisions. Helmsley wasn’t entirely inconsiderate, but he had not dealt with many virgins, I don’t think.”

“I am sorry,” St. Just said. Just that, and Emmie felt tears welling. She swallowed them down, finding that having the ear of a compassionate listener, she did want to relate her story. She’d thought it had died for all time with her aunt’s passing, but now, years later, it was time to speak these words aloud.

“I was sorry, too,” she said. “After the first time, I began to have doubts, to avoid him, to become disenchanted and look for a way out. It had all been a game to him, of course. The pursuit far more interesting than the capture. And he’d wanted to thumb his nose at our elders. I was a means to that end. When it was time to go back for my final year of school, I confessed to my aunt I was glad to be leaving and why. She asked me some very pointed questions and delayed my departure for another week while she conferred with the old earl.”

Emmie paused again, the details of that very difficult year rising up from their resting places in her imagination. She’d been so endlessly
upset
that year. With Helmsley, herself, her body, her future…

“I was sent back to friends in Scotland,” Emmie said very quietly. “I had no idea what my aunt planned, but in those months, she must have contracted a liaison with Helmsley, at least enough so he wouldn’t doubt she could bear him a child. After the holidays, it was put about she was journeying to Scotland for my final semester at school. Winnie was born in early February, but she was small. When my aunt and I came back from Scotland that summer, we kept Winnie away from prying eyes, and Helmsley would not have known if he were looking at a newborn or a six-months babe anyway. He never questioned my aunt’s story that Winnie was the bastard he’d gotten on her, and I was seldom home after that. I had six months with my child…”

She looked away then, the pain of that long-ago parting threatening to break her heart again.

“You can have the rest of your life with her,” St. Just said gently.

“What if she won’t have me?” Emmie asked softly. “What if she can’t understand? She’s six years old, St. Just. I’ve let her think she’s had no mother for half her years on earth, and I was ready to turn my back on her completely.”

His fingers closed over hers, and this time he didn’t simply pat her hand and let go. “You were trying to do the best you could in difficult circumstances. You wanted what was best for Winnie, and she will eventually understand that. It will work out. I know it will.”

“I can only hope so, and I can only continue to try my best.”

“Winnie is reasonably tolerant of her new governess.” St. Just sat back and let her hand go. “If you want to leave the child with us, she is loved and safe here and can go to Cumbria when you’ve settled in with Bothwell.”

“I beg your pardon?” Emmie blinked and straightened her spine.

“Bothwell’s brother is not well,” St. Just replied, “and I thought you might want to give Winnie a few more months here, as she’s settling in fairly well. Then, too…”

“Yes?”

“I will miss her,” he said, looking uncomfortable.

“You will?”

“She watches me ride and has a surprisingly good eye. She has taught that dog of hers to do practically everything a dog can do, except perhaps how not to stink. Her letters to Rose are delightful and let me know exactly what mischief she’s up to. Val dotes on her and says she’s a musical prodigy—she’s very, very smart, you know, for her age—and I… what?”

“You are attached to her,” Emmie said softly, a warmth uncurling in her chest.

“Of
course
I am attached to her. Anybody would be. I just can’t imagine not bringing her south to meet her new cousin in the spring, never hearing her giggle with Rose over little girl secrets, never seeing her drag Douglas up into the trees again—”

“Oh, Devlin, I am so sorry. She should have those things, too, but I am not going to Cumbria.”

“Bothwell is keeping this backward little living?” St. Just frowned. “I took the man for a saint not a martyr.”

“I don’t know what he’s doing, and beyond wishing him well, I don’t particularly care.”

“You’re marrying Bothwell,” St. Just said, his frown becoming a thunderous scowl. “Aren’t you?”

***

He was having trouble discerning the meaning of Emmie’s words, so fascinated was he by simply drinking in the sight of her, the sound of her voice, the scent of her. She was here in his kitchen, she was confiding in him, and she was admitting her error where Winnie was concerned.

He should be content with that, but he had to ask her one question
for himself
: “You’re marrying Bothwell, aren’t you?”

She would not meet his eyes, and in his chest, Devlin’s heart began a slow, painful tattoo.

Then she looked up, the most hesitant of smiles on her lips.

“I am not marrying him. I have figured out he knew Winnie was my child.”

“He might have.” St. Just had come to the same conclusion, but he was having trouble wrapping his mind around Emmie’s decision not to accept Bothwell. “I surmise your aunt told him when she became so ill.”

“Perhaps. Hadrian proposed a couple years ago, in part to fortify me against Helmsley. Helmsley knew I was powerless and poor and so didn’t interfere with my attempts to befriend Winnie. It could not have hurt, though, that I was well thought of by the heir to a viscountcy.”

“I would not put such thinking beyond Bothwell.” St. Just nodded, willing to be generous, seeing as Emmie had rejected the man and his title twice. Bothwell,
whom she was not marrying
, was a decent, perceptive man.

“I was hardly going to drag Hadrian into Helmsley’s sphere, though.” Emmie grimaced. “Helmsley had a way of turning all he touched to dross and disappointment.”

“He’s gone, Emmie.”

“Thanks to you.” She hunched forward, and he saw a shudder pass through her. “You have no idea… Of all the men I could have chosen to be father to my child, he was about the worst imaginable.”

“Not the worst.” His heart broke to think she’d place this burden on her conscience, as well. “There are men selling their young daughters on London street corners, Emmie. Men drinking away the little funds available to feed their children. Men beating their children for crying at the cold or the hunger or the pain of the last beating. You bedded down with a miserable specimen, but as far as Winnie is concerned, he was merely uninterested, not the devil.”