Soldier

by Grace Burrowes

  “Refreshments, Steen,” the earl said, “and tell them their prey will be down directly.”

  “Alas, my countenance is hardly fit for polite society,” Douglas noted solemnly. “Enjoy your guests.” When St. Just tossed the hairbrush at him, Douglas had already nipped out the door.

  Resenting the bother of finding a morning coat, St. Just steeled himself for the ordeal of the next hour. The formidable Lady Tosten, with whom he’d had a passing acquaintance in the south, had brought her own reinforcements, including her daughter, Elizabeth, a well-fed older woman named Mrs. Davenport, who was attired in garish pink, and that good lady’s offspring, an equally garish pink little shoat by the name of Ophelia.

  The tactic was clear, of course. Next to Ophelia’s stammering plumpness, Elizabeth looked even more serenely lovely.

  St. Just had to dodge veiled and overt invitations, parry those artful pauses when he was supposed to extend an invitation, avoid fluttering lashes, and escape the near occasion of Elizabeth’s bosom pressed against his arm. The dodging and parrying were exhausting and made all the worse because Douglas—damn his disloyal, married ass—neglected to appear at any point. Lady Tosten started angling for an invitation to luncheon in earnest, but that looming disaster was averted when Winnie came pelting around the corner, her smock hiked past her knees, her feet bare, her eyes dancing with mirth, and a carrot clutched in her fist.

  “Oh!” She skidded to a stop. “Hullo, Rosecroft! I am hiding.”

  “Not very effectively,” the earl remarked, “at least not from me.” His eyes challenged her to be on her best behavior, and Winnie obediently waited for his cue. “Come here, Winnie, and make your curtsey to our guests.” He extended his hand to her, expecting her to take off in the other direction, but instead she came docilely forward.

  “Good morning, my ladies.” She curtsied to each woman then turned her gaze to the earl.

  “Well done, princess. You’ve been practicing. I’m impressed.”

  “Bronwyn Farnum!” Emmie bellowed as she, too, came pelting around the corner. Her bun was coming loose, she wore no bonnet, and—to the earl’s delight—she was barefoot in the grass, as well. “You cheated, you!”

  A stunned silence met that pronouncement while Emmie’s cheeks flamed bright red. “I beg your pardon, my lord, my ladies. Winnie, perhaps you’d accompany me back to the stables?” She held out a hand, and at a nod from the earl, Winnie took the proffered hand.

  “Miss Farnum.” The earl turned a particularly gracious smile on her. “You are to be complimented on Winnie’s manners. We’ll excuse you, though, if Herodotus is pining for his carrots.”

  “My thanks.” Emmie nodded stiffly and turned, leaving silence in her wake.

  “Well, really.” Lady Tosten was on her feet. “If that isn’t a demonstration of like following like, really, my lord.”

  “Like following like?” the earl countered, his smile dying. “I don’t comprehend.”

  “You are new here.” Lady Tosten tut-tutted. “I will commend you for trying to take the child in hand, as she is young yet and might still learn her proper place. I will caution you, however, regarding the proximity you allow the child to Miss Farnum.”

  “Proximity?” The earl tasted the word and found it unpleasant. “As I understand it, Miss Farnum has no other living relations. Why shouldn’t Winnie spend time with her?”

  “Well, that’s as may be, isn’t it?” Lady Tosten exchanged a righteous nod with Mrs. Davenport, who set all three chins jiggling in agreement.

  “So you are suggesting, Lady Tosten, that I should prevent Miss Farnum from spending time with her cousin?”

  “Well, who’s to see to it if you do not?” Lady Tosten drew herself up. “Miss Farnum has a modest livelihood, my lord, and we do not begrudge her that as long as she keeps to her place, but it’s no secret the Farnum women are no better than they should be, and if young Bronwyn isn’t to follow in those same lamentable footsteps, she must be protected from pernicious influences.”

  “I see.” The earl tried counting to ten; he tried counting to ten again, and all the while the damned woman blathered on about her willingness to advise him and good intentions and unfortunate realities. She was smiling at him indulgently, and he was strongly reminded of a time in Spain when he’d nearly fainted from heat exhaustion. All the sounds around him had blended into one undifferentiated roar, like the sound of a waterfall, making no sense but nearly driving him to his knees with the sheer, miserable volume of it.

  “Hush, madam,” he said, his words coming out much more loudly than he’d intended. “You dare to tell me how to care for a child when that child has run riot in your own backyard for the past two years? You’ve not lent her a pair of shoes, not spared her a sip of water, not permitted her to even learn the names of your sons and daughters, and then you think to tell me how that child should go on?”

  He paced over to glare down at Lady Tosten. “Emmaline Farnum has shown Winnie the only thing approaching Christian charity since the day the child’s mother died more than two years ago. Not you, not your pretty vicar, not the servants in this household, no one but Emmaline Farnum has given a thought to the child’s health or safety in all that time. Winnie is an orphan, Lady Tosten, a bloody, damned orphan, and you begrudge her simple human kindness, yet you consider it your Christian duty to advise me to take from the child the one person she might still trust. For shame. You will excuse me if I do not heed this kind advice. Steen will see you out. Good day.”

  Having made his grand exit, St. Just stayed in his room for most of the afternoon, trying to write letters but experiencing aftershocks of temper that undermined his concentration. A soft tap on the door interrupted his latest effort to write to his brother, and so he crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the hearth.

  “Enter.”

  Of all people, Emmaline Farnum poked her head around the door. “I don’t mean to intrude.”

  “Come in,” he said, getting to his feet, while some of his temper abated at just the sight of her. He’d kissed her just this morning. Kissed her thoroughly then pleasured himself on her bed thoroughly, before mucking up his day thoroughly.

  “You are still in a temper,” she observed, surveying the evidence of his failed attempts at correspondence. “I am sorry.”

  “What have you to be sorry for?” His back was burning, though he wore only a half-unbuttoned shirt; his muscles ached, and worst of all, he felt like a fool.

  “You were defending me,” she said, withdrawing the little silver tin from her pocket. “And you meant well.”

  “Was I yelling that loudly?” he asked, scrubbing a hand over his face.

  “You were not,” she replied, fleeting humor in her eyes. “At first. Winnie forgot her carrot, though, so I was much closer to the terrace than I might have been otherwise, and Lord Amery was approaching from the hallway, so he heard you, too. You meant well.”

  “Oh, famous. You will both see to it that on the tomb of my social ambitions, it is clearly engraved: He meant well.”

  “It isn’t like you to pout.” She frowned at him and glanced at the tin of salve. She arched an eyebrow, and he nodded, shrugging out of his shirt.

  “It never used to be like me to rant at trivialities, either,” he said, closing his eyes when her cool fingers went to work. “I was a steady fellow at university, quiet, bookish, and fond of horses.”

  “Something happened,” Emmie commented, working the soothing cream over his back.

  “Something, indeed. I do not sleep well. Until I got here, my appetite was indifferent. I drink my way through thunderstorms, and I cannot abide to be near harbors that use cannon for their signals. The gun I fired on Helmsley was the first one I’d aimed at a live target in more than two years, and my temper…”

  She let her hand drift up to work gently over his nape.

  “You and Winnie both,” she said thoughtfully. “You’ve just described her, you know. She wanders at all hours and
feels much safer out in a storm than trapped inside. She has tantrums like a younger child, and all of her strong feelings tend to express themselves as anger. She is only now regaining the habit of sitting at table, but for two years after her mother died, she would not sit down to eat.”

  “You describe an eccentric child,” he said, closing his eyes as she shifted to treat his face.

  “An eccentric child trying to cope with too much, and without an adult to take an interest in her. She had a nurse, at first, but Helmsley did not pay consistent wages, and so Winnie became… feral.”

  “And I am a feral earl, I suppose.” He opened his eyes. “I’m surprised you trust me after the way I behaved this morning.”

  “I could have stopped you,” she said, handing him the tin. His arms, back, neck, and shoulders felt better, but he understood her trust went only so far. She stepped aside and cocked her head, and he applied salve to his own chest.

  “You have no outward scars,” she remarked, taking a seat on his hassock. “At least not that I’ve seen.”

  “I suffered no wounds worth the name, though I think you imply I am not yet recovered from my years of soldiering.”

  “Do you think you are?”

  “God, I hope not. I hope it is not my fate to rail at matrons for minor provocations, to leave my bed after two hours slumber and find memories rising up to trap me, seeming as real as the day I first experienced them.”

  “Your memories haunt you.”

  “I wouldn’t say haunt.” He frowned, putting the tin down and slumping back into the desk chair. “They are just too real, too powerful when they arise. Like the dreams you don’t initially realize are dreams.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her expression as bleak as he felt. “You talk about those children in Spain, robbed of a real childhood, but things have been taken from you, as well.”

  He nodded, his throat abruptly constricting to the point where speech was too risky.

  Seeming oblivious to his dilemma, Emmie went on. “I wanted to thank you for what you said to Lady Tosten, but also to let you know I don’t entirely disagree with her.”

  “What do you mean?” He was immediately on guard, ready to reengage his anger to defeat her arguments.

  She smiled. “At ease, Colonel. I do not want to say I warned you.” Her gaze ranged around the room.

  “No, that is Douglas’s forte.”

  “I did tell you I am not received in this little slice of Eden, and association with me will not benefit Winnie beyond a certain point.”

  “Were I to take you from Winnie now, the child would be inconsolable. She would likely be wetting her drawers and sheets regularly, pitching tantrums at the table, and sleeping in the hay barn every chance she got. I have not even Douglas’s limited experience with parenting, Emmie, but I understand that for now, Winnie needs you.”

  And I need you. While part of him conducted this very adult, necessary conversation with Emmaline Farnum, another part of him, part soldier, part orphan earl, part healthy man, wanted to haul her over to the bed and cover her body with his own. He wanted to bury his face against her shoulder and bury his cock in her soft, wet heat. Wanted to hear again those sweet, yearning sounds she made when aroused, wanted to feel her hands questing on his back for ways to be closer to him.

  Those feelings, he told himself, were like many of his emotions, disproportionate to their cause. He’d shared a lovely kiss with Emmie, but that was all. And she wasn’t asking him to repeat the moment.

  Emmie was regarding him curiously, and St. Just had to hope what he felt did not show on his face. She broke what was becoming an awkward and charged silence.

  “Perhaps it is not time for Winnie to start developing other associations, but sooner or later, it will be in her best interests to do so. When that time comes, I will understand and do what I can to help her.”

  “She will never stop needing you, Emmie. She can develop all the associations in the world, and she will still know you loved her when nobody else did. Children don’t forget.”

  “And I will not forget you spoke up for me today.” She smiled at him, a sweet, pleased benediction of a smile, one that lit his flagging spirits with warmth.

  “I am your good knight,” he replied, smiling back and coming to his feet.

  “Will you be down for dinner tonight? Winnie is a little concerned for you, but we can send up a tray, if you like.”

  “I’ll be down,” he decided, completely at variance with his earlier plans. “Send up Douglas, and I’ll treat his back for him before we change.” He walked her to the door, feeling an ease that had eluded him all afternoon.

  “You should have seen Mrs. Davenport,” he said, thinking back. “Put me in mind of a goose, flapping and carrying on, not knowing whether to gloat or commiserate with her familiar. I had the distinct impression Ophelia was trying not to snicker.”

  “Naughty man. I will see you at dinner.” She rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek, then patted his sunburned shoulder very gently and departed.

  Now why, the earl wondered, was that one little peck on the cheek warming his insides just as effectively as all his panting and pawing had done earlier? He was still leaning against the door, half clad and musing, when Douglas found him a quarter hour later.

  “I come seeking relief,” Douglas said, pulling his shirt from his waistband. “You smell as if you’ve just been dosed, sparing me the burden.” He presented his back, which was, if anything, more pink than it had been hours earlier.

  “How are we to sleep tonight?” St. Just asked as he worked salve over Douglas’s shoulders. “I still ache, my skin stings, my lips feel chapped, and I’m bone tired.”

  Douglas sighed as the earl got to his nape. “I suspect we could order up tepid baths, maybe open up a bottle of whiskey, lace it with a tot of laudanum. God above, that feels good.”

  “Douglas?” St. Just leaned in, resting his forehead on the back of Douglas’s neck.

  “Devlin?” Douglas waited, though St. Just realized his friend had already given him the entire afternoon to brood.

  “I fucked up today.”

  “Well.” Douglas held his ground. If he was appalled by St. Just’s display, he wasn’t showing it in word or deed. Steady nerves, Amery had. The steadiest. “Did you, now?”

  St. Just nodded against his friend’s back. “I tore into old Biddy Saint Tosten like she was a recruit who had just wasted ammunition, shooting at steeple bells. I am ashamed, as I keep expecting my temper to be less ungovernable…”

  “But”—Douglas reached behind him and drew one of St. Just’s arms around his waist—“you keep having lapses, and you keep wondering if maybe you didn’t shoot Helmsley as a function of just such a lapse. If maybe you have crossed that line, from soldier to killer.”

  St. Just nodded again, feeling at once awkward as hell to be all but holding on to another man and yet relieved as hell, too. Douglas laid his hand over St. Just’s, and the relief obliterated the awkwardness.

  “Every time it snows,” Douglas said, tipping his head back to rest it against St. Just’s shoulder, “I am out of sorts. The morning my mother died, we had one of those fairy tale snows that dusts everything in white, pretty as a picture. Both of my brothers died on snowy days. I’ve come to dread snow, though snow had nothing to do with any of their deaths. I know it isn’t rational. You know your brother’s wife is safe, and you know Helmsley wanted her anything but safe. You also know you would not have put the burden of killing that vermin on your brother.”

  “Bloody hell.” St. Just sighed and stepped back. “That is part of it. I would do anything for Gayle or Val. I would die for them.”

  “And you would kill for them,” Douglas said, regarding him gravely. “By far the harder choice, particularly for a man who has done more than his share of killing.”

  “You know, it’s odd.” St. Just went to his window and stared out across the drive to the pastures. “Nobody talks about the killing. The ni
ght before a battle, you might talk about what it’s like to die. You write those maudlin if-I-die letters; you make all kinds of promises to comrades. You don’t talk about the actual killing, the taking of one life after another after another. Shooting a man on purpose, with intent to put a period to his entire existence. In the hospital, after Waterloo, I overheard some Frenchmen talking about the same thing, and a few of the Dutch fellows allowed as how it was the same with them. We pray to the same God, using the same prayers, asking for the same things. It makes no sense, but we don’t talk about it.

  “And what would you say?” he went on then fell silent.

  “You would say,” Douglas said quietly from right beside him, “that it hurts like blazes. Seeing the light die in another’s eyes, the confusion and pain and bewilderment, knowing you did that. It hurts beyond anything.”

  St. Just nodded silently, and Douglas left him there alone, bare to the waist, staring unseeing across the lovely green hills of Yorkshire.

  Seven

  Emmie took to avoiding the earl, and in fairness to her, he understood exactly why. No young lady appreciated a man who tore a strip off his neighbors when first they ventured to call on him. He’d behaved badly, and no matter Lady Tosten had deserved every word of his tirade, he’d still bungled the encounter.

  Lady Tosten, however, was not avoiding him. Three days later she was back, Elizabeth in tow and no Davenports in sight. On that occasion, Douglas, perhaps thinking the earl required closer supervision, bestirred himself to join the group. The unfortunate result was that Lady Tosten could maneuver so the earl was forced into Elizabeth’s company as they strolled the cutting gardens.

  For St. Just, it was a form of torture.

  “You are doing much to bring Rosecroft back to its former beauty, my lord.” Elizabeth peeked over at him from under her bonnet. “Tell me, do you believe you might revive the commercial aspect of the property, as well?”

  “I know little about raising and selling flowers,” he dodged, though he’d been considering just this project. “The work you see out here is the result of my houseguest’s enthusiasm for gardening, as well as Winnie’s efforts with Miss Farnum.”