“Come along.” The earl rose and offered his arm. “The company here is obviously too dull compared to the dreams that beckon. I’ll escort you above stairs while Douglas removes to the library and finds us the playing cards.”
Dinner had been pushed back in deference to the haying, and the sun had long since set. Emmie barely stifled a yawn as she was towed along on the earl’s arm.
“I cannot allow you to burn the candle at both ends, Emmaline,” St. Just scolded. “Either we find you some assistance in the kitchen, or we get you some more rest. You look exhausted, and Douglas agrees, so it’s a bona fide fact. I’m going to take Winnie out with me tomorrow morning, and you’re going to sleep in.”
“Sleep in,” Emmie said, the way some women might have said “a dozen new bonnets” or “chocolate” or “twenty thousand a year.”
“It isn’t a baking day tomorrow,” the earl went on. “Winnie has acquainted me with every detail of her schedule, and baking isn’t on for tomorrow. So you will rest?”
“I will sleep in,” Emmie said as they reached her room and pushed her door open. He preceded her into the darkened chamber and lit several candles while she watched.
“You will go directly to bed,” he admonished. “No languishing in the arms of Mr. Darcy or whatever it is you read to soothe you into slumber.” She listened to him lecturing as she drifted around the room in slow, random motion.
“Emmie?” He set the candles down and frowned at her. “What is amiss?”
“Nothing.” But her voice quavered just the least little bit as she sat on her bed. “I’m just tired. My thanks for a pleasant evening.”
He went to the bed and paused, frowning down at her mightily. He let out a gusty exhalation, then drew her to feet and wrapped his arms around her. “We will both be relieved when your damned menses have arrived.”
For an instant, she was stiff and resisting against him, but then she drew in a shuddery breath, nodded silently, and laid her cheek on his chest. He held her, stroking her hair with one hand, keeping her anchored to him with the other, and the warmth and solid strength of him left her feeling more tired but in some fashion relieved, as well. Winnie would thrive in his care. Thrive in ways Emmie could never have afforded.
“There is no crime, Emmie, in seeking a little comfort betimes. Being grown up doesn’t mean we can’t need the occasional embrace or hand to hold.”
She nodded again and let her arms steal around his waist. Slowly, she gave in to what he offered, letting him support more and more of her weight. His hand drifted from her hair to her back, and when he swept his palm over her shoulder blades in a slow, circular caress, she sighed and rubbed her cheek against him.
She could have stood there all night, so peaceful and right did it feel to be in his arms. His scent was enveloping her, his body warming hers.
“Thank you,” she said, mustering a smile when he stepped back. “And good night, good knight.” He must have comprehended her play on words, because he returned her smile, kissed her forehead and her cheek, and withdrew.
She treasured the moments when they touched, because as he intended, she was comforted. But he’d held her close enough she knew he was being merely kind. His heart did not race as hers did; his body did not stir in low places as hers did; his thoughts did not tumble along paths no decent person visited outside of marriage.
And all too soon, this kind, lovely man was going to take Winnie away from her, so what in God’s name was she doing, spinning fantasies about him, when she should be steeling herself for the pain he would bring her?
***
Emmie awoke to a particular, pungent scent. One she associated with Winnie’s increasingly rare and unpleasant accidents.
“I hate him.” Winnie glowered from beside Emmie’s bed. “He’s mean and he can just go back to London and Lord Amery can stay here and run Rosecroft.”
“Good morning, Bronwyn.” Having slept heavily and long, Emmie had needs of her own to attend to. “Would you excuse me while I ring for a bath?” The bell pull was behind the privacy screen, so Emmie heeded nature’s call while summoning the requisite reinforcements.
“You should hate him, too,” Winnie stormed on. “He is taking over Rosecroft and you have to bake when he says and you have to look after me and sleep here when it isn’t even where you live.”
Emmie sighed, her sense of well-being quickly evaporating. “You need to get out of those clothes, Winnie, and I am happy to be here if it means I can keep a better eye on you. And he does not tell me when to bake.”
Winnie turned around so Emmie could undo the bows of her pinafore, but every muscle and sinew in the child’s posture bespoke truculence. Winnie in a temper was not a good thing, as the child had been known to disappear for hours when severely out of charity with her life.
“So what has the earl done to earn your wrath, Bronwyn?”
“That awful old Lady Tosten, with the…” Winnie humped her hands way out over her flat little chest. “She found us in the pub and would not stop yammering, even though I was sitting right there. She did not say hello to me, she did not ask me for a curtsey, she did not even smile at me, because she was too busy trying to hog the earl. She didn’t even say hello to Lord Amery until he butted into the conversation, so I butted in, too.”
Emmie hid a spike of her own temper, wondering if the earl’s plan had been to sneak the child into town while she herself slept. Maybe he wasn’t that devious, but cunning was stock in trade for any self-respecting barbarian.
And, my lands, his idea of a good night kiss…
“What did you say?” Emmie asked as she carefully lifted Winnie’s sodden clothes over her head.
“I said I had to pee,” Winnie said, bristling with righteous indignation, “and that was the truth, but that silly Miss Tosten acted like I’d asked for a licorice. I told her I was supposed to stay with the earl, as that was a rule of engagement, but she looked at Rosecroft like he was a big licorice. Lord Amery got us out of there, but it was awful, and now they’re going to come calling. I hate him, and I hate those women, and I don’t want them here. I wish Lord Amery was my papa.”
“If they do come to call, they will call upon the earl, Bronwyn. They aren’t coming to see you.”
“Why not?” Winnie shot back. “The earl told Mr. Danner at the livery if the King had written my papa’s something-or-other differently, then I would be Helmsley, like my mama said. He told Mr. Danner I need a pony, and I am under his protection. Then he ignored me when that old biddy came flapping up to him. And I was sitting right there.”
“So you were rude to get his attention,” Emmie summed up. “And he probably did not appreciate your embarrassing him like that.”
“He should have been embarrassed!” Winnie railed. “Lady Tosten was pushing her…”—she waved her hands over her chest again—“right up against his arm, and she’s old, and fat, and disgusting. And I didn’t… didn’t…” Winnie’s voice hitched, and she heaved herself against Emmie’s legs. “I didn’t… get… my… licorice!” The last word was drawn out on a hooting wail of rage and misery and indignation.
Emmie wrapped her in a towel and scooped her up, knowing that a bout of crying would have to be endured before the situation could be addressed any further. A quiet knock on the door heralded the arrival of breakfast, she hoped, so she went to the door with the child still sniffling on her shoulder.
“I beg your pardon.” The earl stood in the hallway. “I was hoping you would be awake and would know where Winnie had gotten off to.”
“She hates you,” Emmie said pleasantly, turning to kiss the child’s crown. “I am not particularly in charity with you either.”
“Nor I with her, but now I know she is safe, I will contain further expressions of displeasure until another time.” He strode off, but not before Emmie had gotten another whiff of eau de accident from his person. She frowned at the child whose nose was buried so innocently against her neck but held her questions unt
il Winnie had soaked herself clean and shared some of Emmie’s breakfast.
“I still hate him,” Winnie decided while contemplating a section of orange. “If I apologize, do you think I can have a licorice?”
“For being rude? You should apologize whether you get the licorice or not.”
“I wasn’t just rude,” Winnie said, suddenly glum.
“What did you do?” Emmie slipped an arm around the child’s waist and hugged her.
“When we got home, but before we got off, I peed on his saddle, but I got him, too,” Winnie said, hiding her face. “I could have held it, but I was too mad to talk to him, so I peed.”
Emmie was holding the child, so she dared not laugh, even silently, but the urge was there. The urge to commend Winnie for being herself, for seeing the Tosten females for the prowling nuisances they were, for spiking the great cavalry officer’s guns with the few weapons available to a child.
But she loved Winnie, so she did not laugh.
***
“I see you ogling Douglas,” the earl growled from behind where Emmie sat weeding a bed of daisies.
“He is married,” Emmie said, “though his dear Guinevere is not on hand to do the honors, so I find myself willing to appreciate certain of his attributes in her place.”
“He’s honorable, Emmie.” The earl was watching Douglas and Winnie as they tacked across the yard toward the stables, and there was a note in his voice, a warning maybe.
“As am I.” Emmie rose to her feet. “The man is attractive, charming, and kind to Winnie. I like him, and I hope he likes me, as it appears he makes a superb friend. Is there more that needs to be said?”
When he met her gaze again, the earl’s expression bore a hint of humor. “Not on that subject, unless it’s to offer an apology.”
“Accepted.” Emmie nodded but didn’t trust his mood. Did he think she would dally with Lord Amery? Because she’d tolerated a kiss that came so close to improper it was almost worse than improper? But no—he was apparently not regarding it as such—a mere kiss to the forehead and the cheek—which rather dauntingly confirmed her sense that whatever the attraction she felt for the earl, he was oblivious to it and indifferent to her as a woman.
“Will you walk with me?” the earl asked, his gaze measuring.
“Are we going to parse your visit to town this morning?” Or perhaps a certain kiss?
“We are, or make a start on it.”
Emmie glanced around and saw the bench under Winnie’s favorite climbing tree. “Come along.” She took him by the hand as Winnie might have, and tugged him over to the shade. “State your piece.”
She arranged her skirts, and when he would have paced before her, captured his hand again and indicated his piece would be said from the place beside her. “I will not watch you march around while you hold forth. Save your energy for your horses.”
“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.
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