Douglas rose to his feet. “If I were you, I would start writing.”
“I’m not passing along such drivel to such a sensible woman.” St. Just rose, as well, and eyed Douglas a little uncertainly. “She’d think my wits had gone begging.”
“It isn’t your wits,” Douglas said sternly. He pulled St. Just into his arms, not for a quick, self-conscious, furtive male hug, but for an embrace, full of affection and protectiveness. “It’s your heart, you ass. Now listen to me.” He put a hand on the back of St. Just’s head, effectively preventing St. Just from doing aught but remaining pliant in his arms. “I love you, and I am proud of you. I am grateful for the years you spent defending me and mine, and I will keep you in my prayers each and every night. Write to me, or I will tattle to Her Grace, Rose, and Winnie.”
“A veritable firing squad of guilt,” the earl said, stepping back. He turned his back on Douglas and reached for a linen napkin on the tea cart. “Damn you, Amery.”
Douglas stepped up behind him and offered him one last pat on the shoulder. “You’ll be all right, Devlin. Just keep turning toward the light, no matter how weak, shifting, or uncertain. Write to me, and know you are always welcome in my house, under any circumstances, no matter what.”
St. Just nodded but didn’t turn as he heard Douglas’s steps fade away.
***
“Esther.” The Duke of Moreland smiled as he found his wife in their private sitting room, already dressed for the day. “I thought you were going to sleep in?”
“I thought I was, too, but Rose leaves us today, and this makes me restless.”
“Ah, but, my love.” The duke tugged his wife of three decades down to sit beside him on the settee. “Rose had a smashing good time, didn’t she?”
“She did.” The duchess smiled at him. “She got you out and about but kept you at a reasonable pace. Every fellow recovering from a heart seizure should be assigned a little granddaughter to keep him in line.”
“I am recovering,” the duke said, eyeing his wife. “Not a hundred percent yet, but I’m coming along. Morelands is good for me.”
“Morelands is lovely.”
“I don’t think Morelands is agreeing with St. Just.”
“What makes you say that?” The duchess kept her tone noncommittal, though His Grace thought she’d come to the same conclusion he had.
“I was on my way out to the rose garden to see how the white roses are coming along, and I happened to be on the other side of the privet hedge when St. Just was bidding Amery good-bye.”
“I think they’ve gotten on well.”
“St. Just was crying in the man’s arms, Esther.” The duke shook his head. “Nothing havey-cavey about it, he’s just… He’s still upset, and Amery doesn’t pull any punches, God knows.”
“Devlin cannot tolerate boredom,” the duchess said. “His demons plague him when he’s idle, and I fear we excel at idleness here at Morelands.”
“Mayhap.” The duke patted her hand, as pretty and slim as any girl’s. “I have never known what to do with that one, Esther. He’s just… he insists on holding himself aloof, and all he’s ever asked me is to buy him his colors and one decent horse. Ten years later, England is victorious, two sons are dead, and another probably wishes he were.”
“You think it’s that bad?”
“Maybe not now.” The duke stroked her hand, searching her eyes. “Val and Westhaven report his drinking has moderated, and he’s been in regular correspondence with them, his steward in Surrey, and his man of business. Maybe he and Amery just went a bit nancy on us—happens in the army, I’m told. And the women in Yorkshire all look like sheep after a certain age, anyway.”
“Percival Windham”—the duchess retrieved her hand—“you repeat that nonsense in polite company, and I will hide every tin of chocolates from which you are cadging your treats.”
“Just a thought,” the duke groused. “Something’s still amiss with the lad, and I’ll be damned if I can fathom it. Why don’t you talk to him?”
“I’m not his mother,” the duchess, said, but she couldn’t hide the pain flashing in her eyes as she repeated a refrain His Grace had heard from her often through the years. She’d loved the boy from the day he’d arrived at the age of five, bewildered, heartbroken to be cast from his mother’s side, and determined not to be intimidated by ducal grandeur; but Esther would not interfere between Percy and his firstborn.
“You are the only damned thing he’s ever had that resembles a mother,” the duke shot back, pleased to see he had her attention. “And maybe Amery has the right of it: The boy wants mothering or some damned thing like it. Now, how can we finagle another visit from our little Rose before Christmas?”
The duchess listened to him spin and discard a half-dozen schemes and bribes before he arrived to the least interesting but most effective option of all.
“Do you suppose, Esther”—he tucked her hand back into his—“we should just ask?”
***
“I’ve decided Rose must stay with me,” St. Just informed her stepfather, who waited at the bottom of the front steps for his horse to be brought around. “You have John; you don’t need Rose, too.” He scooped his niece up into a tight hug then set her down near the traveling coach.
“You’ll not kidnap my daughter,” Guinevere Allen, Viscountess Amery said, coming out of the house with John in her arms. “His Grace tried that, St. Just. I frown upon it, and Douglas gets positively irrational.”
St. Just grinned. “I should like to witness that, but perhaps not inspire it.”
Gwen leaned up and kissed his cheek. “St. Just, thank you for keeping Douglas out of trouble these weeks. It’s a thankless task, I know, as he’s so naturally prone to mischief. Husband, mount up. Their Graces said their farewells indoors, and the aunts will not be out of bed for hours yet.”
Douglas assisted his wife and children into the coach and gave the driver leave to walk on, then waited for Sir Regis’s girth to be tightened.
“You might consider marriage, you know,” Douglas said as the horse was led over. “It solved a world of difficulties for me, and I do not refer to the financial.”
“Perhaps you just want to assign responsibility for worrying about me to someone else.”
“I will worry about you for as long as I damned well please,” Douglas muttered. “Behave yourself, and—”
“I know.” St. Just wrapped him a hug. “You love me, you are proud of me, and you will keep me in your prayers.”
“Right.” Douglas nodded, holding on for a moment before stepping back. “Glad to see you were paying attention.”
“Be off with you.” St. Just patted Sir Regis’s neck. “And my thanks for everything.” Douglas saluted with his crop, swung aboard, and trotted off, soon disappearing into the plume of dust raised by the coach.
St. Just sat on the steps, watching the dust drift away on the morning breeze. If nothing else, the past six weeks had brought a friend into his life. A truly dear, worthy friend, a man he would have served with gladly. It wasn’t like having a brother back, not Bart nor Victor, but it was a profound consolation nonetheless.
Valentine Windham appeared at the top of the steps, his sable hair tousled, his green eyes speculative. He sidled down the steps, hands in his pockets, his lean form moving with sleepy grace. He lowered himself to sit beside his brother and frowned.
“Damned quiet without the brat,” Val said.
“Rose stole your heart, too, did she?”
“She’s a lot like Victor. I don’t know how that should be, but she’s droll and quick and passionate, and he’s gone, but then there’s Rose. And sometimes, in a certain light, she has a look of him around her eyes.”
“And in the chin, too, I think. You miss him.”
“I miss him.” Val glanced up at the blue summer sky. “He rallied in the summers, at least when it was dry. I think the coal dust aggravated him, and the damp.”
“And the dying,” St. Ju
st said. “The going by degrees and days and minutes.”
“Many times he said he envied Bart, a nice, quick, clean bullet. Alive and cussing one minute, gone to his reward the next. No quacks, no nurses, no long faces around the bed.”
“I miss Bart, too,” St. Just mused. “No chance to say good-bye, no time to say what needed to be said, no period of grace to bargain with God and find some balance with the whole thing.”
“Damned lousy,” Val said, sounding more desolate than peevish. He laid his head on his brother’s shoulder. “Promise me you won’t pull a stunt like either of them.”
“I promise. You?”
“Swear to God. Word of a Windham.”
They were silent a long moment, the late summer morning barely stirring around them.
“That’s why you beat the stuffings out of me, isn’t it?” St. Just glanced over at his baby brother. “You might kill me with your bare hands, but you weren’t going to let another brother be taken from you.”
“That, and I was only then beginning to realize Victor wasn’t ill, he was dying, and he was fighting it hard not because he enjoyed being trapped in a miserable body, but because we trapped him with our grief. I told him to let go, but he wasn’t about to listen to me.”
“And I wasn’t even there to comment.”
“You were drunk, I was coming apart with grief, and that left, as always, Gayle to impersonate the adult in this family.”
“And he seems to be enjoying the role more and more.”
“Adulthood has its privileges,” Val said, lifting his head. “But are you enjoying them?”
“I’m doing better, little brother. My bad days are not quite as bad, and my good days are coming closer together. What of you?”
“Westhaven’s nuptials have put rather a crimp in my designs,” Val said, scowling. “I liked having the two of you where I could keep an eye on you, but I’m not about to share a home with a pair of newlyweds on the nest.”
“So come visit Yorkshire. I warn you an associate of Rose’s lives with me, Helmsley’s by-blow. She is a handful and good for me.”
“Her Grace mentioned this.” Val gave him a puzzled look. “Since when did you acquire the knack of raising children?”
“She has pretty much raised herself, and my arse is going to sleep on these stones.” He rose, rubbed his posterior, then gave his brother a hand up.
“You have calluses.” Val frowned at his brother’s hand.
“I am a stonemason, of sorts, but we can ensconce your behind on a piano bench, never fear. No calluses for my baby brother.”
“I have calluses on my lordly backside from sitting on piano benches, but as I just sent you a grand piano, I suppose it makes sense I’d go see it properly tuned and set up.”
“You’ll come with me?” St. Just asked, feeling a warmth settle in his chest at the words. He’d invited his first houseguest, and it was somebody he’d loved since birth.
“I will. It will get me the hell away from His Eternally Matchmaking Grace and our infernal sisters and their infernal marriage-mad friends.”
“We need to douse you with eau de bastard,” St. Just said. “It cools the heels of all but the most determined.”
“Oh?” Val arched an eyebrow as they started up the steps. “But doesn’t a quick dip in eau de earl bring them all out of the woodwork again?”
“In Yorkshire?” St. Just scoffed. “You can handle that crowd as long you don’t let them hear what you can do with a keyboard.”
***
“Scout says he misses Rosecroft,” Winnie informed Emmie over dinner.
“So why doesn’t Scout write to his long lost earl?” Emmie asked, barely able to keep her eyes open.
“He did. In my last letter I drew a picture of Scout. Are you sad?”
It’s just my menses, Emmie thought. It’s just three weeks of being run ragged, of dodging difficult conversations with Hadrian Bothwell, and baking more bread and goodies than all of Yorkshire should have been able to consume.
“I am not sad, exactly,” Emmie said, knowing it was a lie. Her heart was breaking, and as busy as she tried to keep herself, sadness was her constant companion. The longer she stayed here, the more difficult it was going to be to leave.
“You miss the earl,” Winnie said. “I do, too, but he promised, and it isn’t Michaelmas yet.”
“Not for another week or so. Eat some carrots, Win.”
“I do not understand why horses like these so much.” Winnie eyed her carrot then slipped her fork into her mouth. “But I don’t like grass either.”
“You’ve tried eating grass?” Emmie couldn’t help but smile.
“I was hungry.” Winnie shrugged. “And the cows and sheep and horses all grow quite stout on it. The flowers of clover aren’t bad, but I was still hungry.”
“Winnie.” Emmie reached over and gave her a one-armed hug. “You are impossible.”
“I am possible,” Winnie retorted. “Will Rosecroft bring me home a pony?”
And so it went. Winnie’s favorite conversational gambits became more and more narrowly focused on questions regarding the earl, and fantastic declarations regarding Scout’s expertise, opinions, and decisions. At one point, Winnie asked if the earl might bring a pony for Scout, and Emmie simply got up and walked out of the room.
Hadrian Bothwell had become not just a frequent visitor to the stables but an occasional guest in Emmie’s kitchen, as well. He ensconced himself on a kitchen stool and proceeded to help himself to Emmie’s freshest products while swilling milk or tea or chocolate.
Emmie was occupying Hadrian’s vacated stool when Stevens brought in the post, among which she found another letter from the earl. As the letter was addressed to Miss Farnum, she took the liberty of opening it.
My dear Miss Farnum,
I hope it pleases you to be informed I will be returning no later than the 23rd of this month and I am bringing my youngest brother, Lord Valentine, for an indefinite stay. I’ve endured my visit at Morelands well enough, spent time with my siblings and Their Graces, and while Kent has its appeal, Yorkshire is more peaceful. Douglas says I ought also to tell you I am managing not to drain the cellars at each rainstorm, though sleep has proven elusive.
There are no stone walls here, Emmie, for me to take out my frustrations on. I ride, but Beau is such a steady fellow, I am leaving him with Westhaven to replace an old campaigner by the name of Pericles. I will be bringing more young stock north, so alert Stevens we might be on the lookout for another groom.
There is a great deal more I would tell you, but I will be home not long after you read this. I’ve done the pretty with my solicitors and my man of business in London, and refurbished my wardrobe, as well as picked up a few things for the household. Mostly, though I look forward to being home, to waking up to the scent of fresh bread and sweet rolls, to commenting on your experiments, and seeing what can be done with the gardens before cold weather sets in.
The trip has been useful, Emmie, but it’s homecoming I look forward to most.
Devlin St. Just
Rosecroft
She was in tears when Winnie came through the door, Scout at her heels.
“Miss Emmie? I saw Vicar leave, but why are you crying?”
“I’m just tired, Winnie.” Emmie dredged up a watery smile and didn’t even bother reminding Winnie that the dog was not allowed in the kitchen. “As soon as I’m done with the cinnamon rolls, I think I need a nap.”
“I think you do, too,” Winnie said, plucking one roll for herself, another for the dog. “You’re always tired.”
“Winnie Farnum.” Emmie rose off the stool. “You did not wash your hands, you did not ask permission, nor did you help make these rolls. And yet you have given one away to that garbage scow you call a dog, who is not supposed to be in this kitchen.”
“Scout forgot.”
“Bronwyn.” Emmie’s tone became stern as she planted her fists on her hips. “Scout is the dog, and you ar
e responsible for him. This is the second time he’s been in here today, young lady.”
“C’mon Scout.” Winnie sighed hugely, snapped her fingers, and led her beast from the kitchen.
Emmie sank back down on the stool and willed her eyes to stay open until the last batch of rolls was ready to come out of the oven. If she simply ignored the need to prepare her ingredients and kitchen for tomorrow’s baking, she could go straight up to bed and sleep for maybe ninety minutes before it was time to have dinner with Winnie. She met Cook on the stairs, explained her plan, and dragged herself up the steps.
***
Rosecroft,
I am pleased to inform you both Caesar and Wulf continue to execute consistently clean flying changes of leg, though Ethelred has developed a tendency to be late behind. Stevens has suggested work in counter canter, but I am more inclined to avoid the problem and leave it to your superior skills to address upon your return.
I must warn you, as well, a Canine of mythical proportions has taken up residence in Miss Winnie’s heart. This beast follows her everywhere, though Miss Emmie insists the animal spend its nights in the stable, which, given his size, is only appropriate. The earth shakes when he moves, and if I could get a saddle and bridle on him, I’d suggest you add him to your training program.
I have notified my bishop it is my intention to quit the district before the year is out. I do not exaggerate when I say that means a replacement at St. Michael’s will likely appear by May Day, or thereabouts. My brother’s health is not sound, and I am needed at his side.
It is particularly pleasant, when family matters are not sanguine, to have the pleasure of riding your geldings. Miss Farnum accompanies me on her most excellent mare, who endeavors to set a good example for the younger fellows. Perhaps, if I am considering choosing my future viscountess, I should look to such as Petunia for my example. I have asked Miss Farnum to bear that honor, and have every hope she will agree this time.
I am asked at least a dozen times each week what has become of you and when you will be at services again. I assure one and all (by which I mean Lady Tosten, who is well versed in churchyard dialects), you have been carried off by bandits to be sold into slavery on the Barbary Coast.
The Duke’s Obsession Bundle Page 53