The Soldier

by Grace Burrowes

  “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 ear
l’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.”

  “You’ve established priorities?”

  “Haying, the roof on the manor, the stables, the tenant farms, a dock on the Ouse.”

  “What of your home farm?” Douglas reached for his lemonade and paused. “Assuming you have a home farm?”

  “I do. For some reason, my steward hasn’t seen fit to tour it with me.”

  “Best remedy that.” Douglas met his eyes. “You don’t want to be buying your eggs and cheese when you’ve all this land. What of a home wood?”

  “There is plenty of wood on the property, but again, it isn’t something my steward has put on our agenda.”

  “This far north, you’ll need as much firewood as you can harvest without depleting your wood. If you see to it now, the deadfall you cut will be seasoned by the new year.”

  “Good point. But before we descend further into the catalog of my oversights and my steward’s shortcomings, how fares your wife and your stepdaughter? And you have your heir now, if I remember aright.”

  Relief flashed briefly in his guest’s eyes, as if Douglas hadn’t been sure his host was to be trusted to manage the burden of interfamilial civilities.

  “My wife thrives,” Douglas replied, “as does our son, though he keeps his mother up at all hours with demands for sustenance and comfort.”

  St. Just grinned. “Typical male, or so Her Grace would say.”

  “And so his mother says.”

  St. Just chewed his own sandwich, thinking the chicken could have done with some seasoning and the bread with some mustard, or butter, or even pot cheese, but it was filling, and the journey had no doubt left his guest hungry.

  “Your niece has specifically told me to warn you she will hop on her pony and come introduce herself should you fail to remedy the oversight in the near future.” Douglas eyed the tray as if considering a second sandwich.

  “My apologies to Miss Rose. I assume her Uncle Valentine calls upon her regularly?”

  “As does her Uncle Gayle, with her newly acquired Aunt Anna, but you are her father’s oldest brother, and she wants to meet you.”

  “I am her father’s illegitimate half brother. She can have a happy and meaningful life without making my acquaintance, though for the record, it isn’t that I haven’t wanted to meet her.”

  “She’s a little girl, St. Just,” Douglas said gently. “Little children forgive anything, even things they should not. You put this off much longer, and you will hurt her feelings, and as the current holder in her eyes of the title Papa, I cannot allow that.”

  “You came all this way to scold me for not meeting my niece?”

  “In part.” Douglas nodded, apparently finding that a more than adequate justification for a two-hundred-mile journey in high summer. “But also because the ladies were concerned. Moreover, it is beastly hot in the south, and I have never seen this part of the world.”

  “You would have me think you’re rambling the countryside for your own pleasure?” The earl stood, cocking an eyebrow.

  Douglas stood, as well. “It pleases your family to be concerned for you, but your brothers could not come north. No matter whether you are a half brother, one-eighth brother, or less, you are a brother to them. I would not whine too loudly, were I you.”

  The earl had the grace to keep silent, knowing Douglas had arrived to his title after the death of his older brother, then lost his younger brother shortly thereafter under miserable circumstances.

  “Point taken. Well, I am glad you are here, despite appearances to the contrary. Let’s get you settled in upstairs, and perhaps you’d like a bath before supper?”

  “A bath.” The viscount closed his eyes. “Please God, a bath.”

  “We’ve bathing chambers upstairs,” the earl assured him as they gained the front hallway. “The water is piped from the roof cistern and one of the few luxuries to be had here. Did you come by horseback or by coach?”

  “Horseback. My great and good friend, Sir Regis, is enjoying the hospitality of your stables as we speak.”

  “Your room will be in here.” St. Just opened a door and led Douglas into a sunny, pleasant back bedroom. A soft leather satchel and a pair of saddlebags sat on the bed, the water pitcher was full, and the windows had been left open to admit a soft breeze.

  “Lovely, and that bed looks like it will serve for a much-needed nap while my bathwater is heating.”

  “I’ll leave you to it, then.” The earl glanced around the room, hoping it was adequately prepared. “We keep country hours here, and it will be just the three of us at dinner.”

  It wasn’t until Douglas was soaking in a lavender scented bath that it occurred to him to wonder just who the three of us at dinner might be.

  ***

  Leaving his guest, the earl struggled with a sudden, irrational temper. He liked Amery as well as he liked any man of his acquaintance, save his brothers, of course, but he did not like having the peace and priva
cy of his new home destroyed. He did not like unannounced visits from distant relations by marriage. He did not like having his routine upended; he did not like…

  He wasn’t in the kitchen, where he’d intended to go. He’d been so lost in controlling a seething, disproportionate irritability, he’d taken himself to the stables, where all three geldings, along with Amery’s bay, were lounging in their stalls to avoid the worst heat of the day. He stepped into Caesar’s stall and rested his head against the horse’s muscular neck.

  “Steady on,” he reminded himself, taking a deep breath. God above, if his men could only see him now. Raging over nothing and going two years without so much as thinking of bedding a woman. The malaise in him included his poor sleeping, too, he supposed. In active service, he’d slept in trees, on church benches, and frequently on his horse. Now he couldn’t find sleep in a damned canopied featherbed. And when he did sleep, the nightmares came.

  But it was getting better, he assured himself, stroking the gelding’s neck. The rages weren’t so frequent, and they were more swiftly over. There was an occasional decent night’s rest, and just this afternoon, at the pond…

  It was definitely getting better. He never expected to be quite the man he was, or the man he’d thought he’d been, but Fairly, who served more or less as the family physician, had been right: He wasn’t going mad. He was recovering slowly from years of serving his nation.

  On that reassuring thought, he turned his steps to the kitchen, there to inform Cook they would be three for dinner for the foreseeable future.

  Three

  “Of course I can’t make you go to services.” Douglas glared at his host over what passed for Sunday breakfast. “But you are a grown man who should at least be on nodding terms with his Creator, for pity’s sake.”

  The earl marshaled his patience while he subdued a stale scone with more butter, then forced himself to consider Douglas’s “advice.”

  “You will tell Her Grace I am not going to services. Not very sporting of you, Amery.”