The Soldier (12 page)

“You were right.” He leaned back beside her and stretched out his booted feet before him. “Winnie was not quite ready for a trip to town, though I think some good was accomplished, despite an ignominious retreat.”

“She has very quickly become possessive of you.”

“Possessive of me or of her licorice?”

“You.” Emmie smoothed her skirts again, trying not to wonder when and how she’d become so familiar with a peer of the realm. Maybe letting him kiss her had something to do with it. “You ran into Lady Tosten and Miss Tosten, and Lady Tosten has nothing better to do than lord her rank over the other women in the neighborhood, and of course, she must be the first to make your acquaintance. Winnie, on some level, divined a rival and was not pleased with your abandonment.”

“I was not supposed to greet acquaintances? Winnie will have to get over that.”

“She will, though Winnie has done a lot of getting over in her short life. When she was four, she got over my aunt’s death, and she started wandering the property. We thought she was done with nappies and accidents and so forth by then, but she lost a lot of ground in this regard. Then she got over the old earl’s death, and he doted on her, as did his countess. Then she got over the countess falling so ill. Then she got over her aunts disappearing without a word. Now, just when I thought she was beginning to find her balance, she’s to get over her papa being dead and her home falling into the hands of a stranger. Her first question to Lord Amery was whether he was going to go away, and he had to tell her that yes, he was going to go away, like her mama and papa, the earl, the countess, her aunts, and in time, myself.”

The man beside her was quiet for a long time, staring down his long legs at his boots, his brow knit in thought.

“I am coming to see,” he said, “our Winnie has been at war.”

“How do you mean?” Emmie replied, feeling the stillness in him from deep concentration.

“The hell of the Peninsular campaigns,” the earl informed his boots, “was that Spain itself became the battleground—the old walled towns and cities, the hills and plains.”

Emmie waited while he gathered his thoughts.

“There were French sympathizers at every turn, of course, as a Frenchman held the throne. They were not above using children as spies, decoys, messengers, what have you. But any child—any child of any age—was subject to the impact of the violence. Orphans were everywhere, begging, scavenging, being taken in by this relative only to have to flee to that relative when the next town fell. They became old, canny, and heartbreakingly self-sufficient and necessarily without conscience in their efforts to survive.”

His eyes were so bleak, Emmie could only guess at the horrors he was recalling.

“Winnie has a conscience.”

“She does.” The earl turned his gaze to hers with visible effort. “Thanks to you, she does. But it’s not quite as well developed as her instinct for self-preservation.”

“Or her temper.” Emmie decided to meet honesty with honesty. “When Winnie feels threatened or ridiculed or upset, her first impulse is anger, and it’s a towering, unreasonable, often violent rage, much like a child several years her junior. I hadn’t seen her in a truly mean temper for a few months, but I gather she put on a display for you.”

The earl smiled. “She was brilliant. She kept her powder dry, so to speak, then ambushed me and scampered off while I was still agog with indignation.”

“You can’t let her get away with it.” Emmie made the observation reluctantly. “She must be punished somehow. She cannot be rude to her elders, much less to her betters.”

The earl shook his head. “The Tostens aren’t better than her. On that, I would like to argue, but I cannot. Winnie accurately surmised I’d fallen into the cross hairs of a scheming old biddy, the likes of whom I left London to avoid.”

Emmie lifted a sardonic eyebrow. “Well, brace yourself. You are now accepting callers, I gather, and you will have no peace short of winter setting in.”

“Christ.” The earl sat forward, rested his forearms on his thighs, and bowed his head. “I am a soldier, Emmie, or perhaps a horseman, a landowner. Her Grace made sure I knew how to dance, which fork to use, and how to dress, but… Christ.”

But, Emmie surmised with sudden insight, he felt like an imposter in the drawing room, among the dames and squires. Well, God knew she’d felt like an imposter often enough, so she told him what she frequently told herself.

“You have a certain lot in life, my lord. Some of it you chose, some you did not, and much of it you did not realize you were choosing. Still, it is your lot in life, and you must make the best of it. A man in your position receives callers and returns the calls. He entertains and is agreeable to his neighbors. He marries and secures the succession. He tends his land and comports himself like a gentleman under all circumstances.”

While I will bake bread, Emmie silently concluded, precisely one property and an entire universe distant from you.

“I comprehend duty.” The earl sat up and frowned at her. “But only in a rational context. A soldier obeys orders because an army falters without discipline and lays itself open to slaughter. A gentleman protects the weak, as they cannot protect themselves. He tends the land because we must eat, and so forth. But what in God’s name is the purpose of sipping tea and discussing the weather with strangers when there is work to be done?”

He was genuinely bewildered, Emmie saw, puzzled. But then it occurred to her he’d probably gone from university to the battlefield and stayed there until there were no more battles to fight.

“Aren’t you ever lonely?”

“Of course I’m lonely. Every soldier makes the acquaintance of loneliness.” He was back to scowling at his riding boots.

“And what do you do when you’re lonely?”

“There isn’t anything to do. I work, go for a ride, write a letter. It passes.”

“No,” Emmie said, “it does not. These people who waste your time over tea and small talk, maybe they are what you should be doing.”

“Hardly.” He rose. “They are not potential friends, Emmie. I’m not sure what they’re about, but I comprehend friendship. My brothers are my friends, and I would die for them cheerfully. Lady Tosten is not a friend and never will be.”

“She will not.” Emmie rose, as well. “And I likely misspoke. She will not be your friend, but perhaps she will be your mother-in-law?”

“Not you, too.” The earl braced his hands on his lower back and dropped his head back to look straight up. “Douglas told me I am now to be auctioned off to the most comely heifer in the valley, but the prospect hardly appeals.”

“It doesn’t speak to that certain form of loneliness single men are prone to?” Emmie asked, smiling.

“Actually, no, Emmie.” He speared her with a particularly fierce look. “The prospect of taking some grasping female to my bed so she can dutifully submit to my pawing has no appeal whatsoever. Ah, I’ve made you blush. I account the conversation a success.”

“You are being naughty.” Despite her serene tone, his comment disturbed her. It was too blunt, too personal, and too much what she wanted to hear.

“I am being honest.” He slipped his fingers through hers and tugged her toward the house. “A soldier does obey orders, and I did that for very long and unpleasant years. It is going to take me some time to accustom myself to following a different set of orders, when I cannot comprehend the purpose behind them.”

“You are like Winnie,” Emmie said, shifting so they walked arm in arm. “Very wary, and self-reliant, and prone to seeing enemies where they may not lurk.”

“Perhaps I am, but I am not a child, and I have not suffered as many losses as she has. How do you propose I punish her?”

“Winnie adores you, but her adoration must be tempered with respect. I’m sure you’ll puzzle it out, just as you puzzle out your horses.”

“You are no help.” He dropped her arm and bowed, the corners of his mouth tipping up as he straightened. “I am going to join my opponent in the stable, but I look forward to seeing you at luncheon, by which time I might have a treaty negotiated that allows for both social calls and possessive children.”

“Good luck, my lord. Remember that respect is essential.”

***

“You tossed me into the horse trough!” Winnie bellowed.

“You got me wet.” The earl towered over her. “So I got you wet.” But then he grinned. “And it’s a hot day, and you look happy in there.”

She grinned back and splashed him. “I’m nice and cool,” she cooed, “and you are all hot and miserable, and besides, you won’t fit in the horse trough, so there!” She splashed him again, provoking him to whip off his shirt, splash her back, then advance on her, growling and threatening while she shrieked her delight.

Douglas emerged from the barn, his frown clearing at the display of negotiations before him.

“So we are back in charity with one another?” he asked as Winnie stood up and pulled her pinny over her head.

“We are wet,” Winnie retorted, “because he dunked me, because I… Well, I am wet.” Her pinafore hit the grass with a sodden plop, and she grinned at both men in her short dress. “But I am nice and cool.”

“So you are,” Douglas said, “and you’ve very considerately seen to the comfort of the earl, as well. I, however, am going to repair to the house for luncheon and hope there is something left for the two of you, as you must now change before you can come to table.”

“Here.” The earl lifted Winnie out and wrapped his shirt around her. “You are turning blue, and while the color goes with your eyes, Miss Emmie will tear a strip off me if you catch a cold.”

He carried her back up to the house, strolling along beside Douglas. It should not have mattered that he was in charity with a stubborn little girl. It should not have mattered that she felt so good perched on his hip, smiling from ear to ear. It should not have mattered that a six-year-old female had grown possessive of him.

Like holding Emmie Farnum’s hand or offering her a hug for simple comfort—or risking the unnameable with a good night kiss threatening to stray from its bounds—those were things that should have been insignificant, beneath his notice. But with those things in place, the prospect of dealing with his neighbors’ social calls was not quite as daunting.

***

St. Just had one lovely day when it seemed like peace and plenty were in his grasp. One day of working his own land, mingling with his laborers, becoming familiar with the broad speech and circumspect manner of his tenants.

From dawn until late afternoon, St. Just worked, raking and binding hay in the broiling sun, using his body until a pleasant state of exhaustion could claim him. When the hay crop was in, he spent the evening hacking both Wulf and Red, as Caesar had yet to work through his abscess.

And then he had bathed and fallen asleep, the boneless, dreamless sleep of a man who has labored hard and well. When he rose the next morning, however, it was to realize haying had wearied muscles unused to the task, and even in Yorkshire, the summer sun meant business.

He’d gone to bed feeling a little younger than his thirty-two years; he rose feeling decades older. When he creaked down to the breakfast parlor, he found Douglas in the same condition.

Douglas passed him the teapot. “I will not visit you again in the summer, St. Just. It gives me delusions of youth.”

“Which fade by morning,” the earl agreed. “I feel like I took a hard fall from a fast horse and was left to bake in the hills of sunny Spain for a few days thereafter.”

“Good morning, gentlemen.” Emmie sailed in, all smiles. “Oh, my goodness.” She looked from one bleary-eyed fellow to the other. “Did we overdo yesterday?”

“We did,” Douglas said. “Though we both know better.”

“I have a salve that might help with the aches. And you look like you were in the sun, my lords. It will help that, too.”

“I thought I was permanently immune to sunburn after being in Spain.” The earl sighed as he poured her tea. “Too soon old, too late wise.”

“But it brings out the green of your eyes very becomingly. And now your hay barn is full, and you’ve impressed Mr. Mortimer to no end.”

Douglas rose carefully. “I am off to sum up the week’s adventures for my viscountess and my daughter. I will pass along your compliments, St. Just.”

When Douglas had departed, his pace a little less brisk than usual, the earl sat back and treated himself to the pleasure of watching Emmie Farnum demolish her breakfast. She wasn’t dainty, not in her dimensions and not in the gusto with which she went about life. She laughed, she cried, she ate, she raged, all with an energy a more proper lady would not have displayed.

And before he could stop his naughty mind from thinking it, he wondered if she loved as passionately as she did everything else.

“More tea?” he asked when she was between slices of toast.

“An orange, I think.” She took the orange he selected from his hand without any hint of awareness their fingers had touched. She was like that, willing to touch, to hold hands even, as if it were perfectly normal to do so. He found it a surprising and likeable quality, but lowering, too.

She never gave off those little signals that suggested it meant anything to her—no swiftly indrawn breath, no dropping of the eyes, no becoming blush. It might as well be Winnie’s hand she held.