The Soldier

by Grace Burrowes

  “Oh, Devlin, I am so sorry. She should have those things, too, but I am not going to Cumbria.”

  “Bothwell is keeping this backward little living?” St. Just frowned. “I took the man for a saint not a martyr.”

  “I don’t know what he’s doing, and beyond wishing him well, I don’t particularly care.”

  “You’re marrying Bothwell,” St. Just said, his frown becoming a thunderous scowl. “Aren’t you?”

  ***

  He was having trouble discerning the meaning of Emmie’s words, so fascinated was he by simply drinking in the sight of her, the sound of her voice, the scent of her. She was here in his kitchen, she was confiding in him, and she was admitting her error where Winnie was concerned.

  He should be content with that, but he had to ask her one question for himself: “You’re marrying Bothwell, aren’t you?”

  She would not meet his eyes, and in his chest, Devlin’s heart began a slow, painful tattoo.

  Then she looked up, the most hesitant of smiles on her lips.

  “I am not marrying him. I have figured out he knew Winnie was my child.”

  “He might have.” St. Just had come to the same conclusion, but he was having trouble wrapping his mind around Emmie’s decision not to accept Bothwell. “I surmise your aunt told him when she became so ill.”

  “Perhaps. Hadrian proposed a couple years ago, in part to fortify me against Helmsley. Helmsley knew I was powerless and poor and so didn’t interfere with my attempts to befriend Winnie. It could not have hurt, though, that I was well thought of by the heir to a viscountcy.”

  “I would not put such thinking beyond Bothwell.” St. Just nodded, willing to be generous, seeing as Emmie had rejected the man and his title twice. Bothwell, whom she was not marrying, was a decent, perceptive man.

  “I was hardly going to drag Hadrian into Helmsley’s sphere, though.” Emmie grimaced. “Helmsley had a way of turning all he touched to dross and disappointment.”

  “He’s gone, Emmie.”

  “Thanks to you.” She hunched forward, and he saw a shudder pass through her. “You have no idea… Of all the men I could have chosen to be father to my child, he was about the worst imaginable.”

  “Not the worst.” His heart broke to think she’d place this burden on her conscience, as well. “There are men selling their young daughters on London street corners, Emmie. Men drinking away the little funds available to feed their children. Men beating their children for crying at the cold or the hunger or the pain of the last beating. You bedded down with a miserable specimen, but as far as Winnie is concerned, he was merely uninterested, not the devil.”

  “I suppose.” She didn’t sound convinced. “Winnie is what matters.”

  “She is.” St. Just nodded, but in the part of his mind that processed tactical information even as he faced an opponent in battle, it was still sinking in that Emmie had turned Bothwell down—twice—and wasn’t engaged to anybody.

  So now what? A lifetime of tea and apple tarts while they discussed the child? Would she allow that? If so, he could campaign again to win her affections…

  Except she didn’t want him, as much as she might from time to time let herself enjoy his affections. No woman would want to lash her life to that of a man who jumped at thunderstorms, woke sweating with nightmares he couldn’t speak of, spent more time with horses than people, and cared nothing for society—nothing whatsoever.

  “So what do we do?” Emmie asked, her gaze dodging his. “Winnie is growing comfortable here, but I am her mother and her guardian—aren’t I?”

  “You are, and you control her funds.”

  “But this has become her home,” Emmie pointed out. “You, Lord Val, the animals. She’s lived here for the past few years, but you’ve made it a home for her.”

  “You should also know I tried to talk her into going to Cumbria with you and Bothwell. She wasn’t keen on it.”

  “Did she give a reason?” Emmie asked, squaring her shoulders.

  “She said I was a soldier, and I would not run away, and if she were with you in Cumbria, you would try your damnedest to make Cumbria work, even if you were unhappy there. She had some notion a married woman and a viscountess could just scamper home to my kitchen if she were unhappy.”

  “Why would she think that?”

  “Because”—St. Just did smile, a crooked, hopeless, self-mocking twist of his lips—“I would have welcomed you with open arms.”

  Silence.

  Ah, well, he thought. He was just being honest, and ridiculous, but his dignity wasn’t too high a price to pay if it meant Emmie understood what his feelings were. If they were going to have to deal with each other, Emmie couldn’t be teasing him nor flirting nor dallying.

  His heart couldn’t take any more of that.

  “I beg your pardon?” Emmie asked slowly. “You would have offered me refuge here if Bothwell and I found we did not suit?”

  “I would have offered you refuge,” St. Just said, but he wasn’t willing to hide behind that fig leaf. “I would have offered you my adulterous bed, my coin, my home, my anything, Emmie. I know that now.”

  Another silence, which left him thinking perhaps his heedless abandonment of dignity had gone quite far enough, because Emmie looked more confused than thrilled with his proclamations.

  “I don’t understand, St. Just. I have lied to you and to my daughter. I was under your roof under false pretenses. I have taken advantage of your kindness, and I nearly succeeded in foisting my daughter off on you under the guise of my mendacity. Why would you want to have anything more to do with me?”

  “Do you recall my telling you once upon a time that I love you?” St. Just asked, rising, and leaning against the counter, hands in his pockets.

  “I do.” She stared at her hands. “It was not under circumstances where such declarations are made with a cool head.”

  “We’re in the kitchen now, Emmie,” he said very clearly. “It is late in the afternoon, a pot of tea on the table, and I am of passably sound mind, and sound, if somewhat tired, body. I am also fully clothed, albeit to my regret, as are you: I love you.”

  That was not an exercise in sacrificing dignity, he realized. It was an exercise in truth and honesty and regaining dignity. Perhaps for them both. As romantic declarations went, however, it was singularly unimpressive.

  “I see.” Emmie got up, chafing her arms as if cold, though the kitchen was the coziest room in the house.

  “You don’t believe me,” he said flatly. “You cannot believe me, more like.”

  “I am…” Emmie met his eyes fleetingly. “I do not trust myself very far these days, St. Just. You mustn’t think I am attributing my own capacity for untruth to you.”

  “I know how your mind works,” he said, advancing on her. “You think it a pity I believe myself to be in love with you, but you can’t help but notice that in some regards, we’d suit, and it would allow us both to have Winnie in our lives. That’s not good enough, Emmie Farnum.”

  ***

  He was speaking very sternly, and for all the tumult inside her, Emmie could hardly focus on the sense of his words. He loved her. He loved her, and he was rejecting her.

  “It’s not good enough?” she asked, folding her arms over her waist.

  “Not nearly,” he said, shifting to loom over her. “I know what I am. I left the better part of my sanity on battlefields all over France and Spain. I am a bastard, regardless of whose bastard, and I will fare best if I maintain a mundane little existence here in the most isolated reaches of society, where I can stink of horses and spend most of my day outdoors. I have setbacks, as you call them. I never know when a sound or a word or a memory will rise up and shoot me out of my saddle. Sometimes I drink too much, and often I want to drink too much. But I am human, Emmie. I will not shackle myself to a woman who feels only pity and gratitude and affectionate tolerance for me. I won’t.”

  “So what do you want of me?” Emmie asked, bewildere
d.

  He gave a bitter snort of laughter.

  “A fairy tale. I wanted a goddamned fairy tale, where you love me and we have Winnie here with us and more children, and they tear all over the property on their ponies and the table is noisy with laughter and teasing and the house always smells wonderful because you are my wife and the genie in our kitchen. On the bad nights, you are there for me to love and to love me, and the bad nights gradually don’t come so often. I want—”

  “What?” Emmie asked, her throat constricting with pain. “Devlin, what?”

  “Just that,” he said tiredly. “I want that small, mundane, bucolic existence. A wife, children, love, and a shared life here at Rosecroft. That is my idea of what makes peace meaningful. It can’t be built on pity or convenience or simple affection, Em. Not with me. I’ll run you off in less than two years, but we’ll have a child by then, so you’ll stay, and next thing, we’ll have separate bedrooms, and the brandy decanter will seldom stay full for long. I won’t live that way, and I won’t let it happen to you or our children either.”

  Another silence, while Emmie’s mind scrambled for what to say.

  “But I do love you.”

  “Of course you do.” He raised his gaze to the ceiling, a man reaching for the last of his patience, and Emmie felt a consuming fear that if she didn’t convince him of this now, then the brandy decanters were never going to be full, and he wouldn’t have even one single child to love and to give meaning to the peace he’d fought so hard to secure. “You love that I can keep a roof over your head and that I am attached to your child. Not enough, Em, but thanks for the gesture.” He turned to go, his eyes registering surprise when she stopped him.

  “No,” she said, gathering the front of his shirt in her fist. She shook it to emphasize her point and glared up at him.

  “No,” she said again. “You will not make such sweeping declarations then stomp off without giving me even a minute to recover. You will stay here in this kitchen and hear me out, Devlin St. Just. You will.” He nodded carefully, and she let his shirt go then smoothed it down with an incongruous little pat of her hand.

  “Thank you,” she said, returning his nod. What to say? What on earth to say to make him believe her?

  “I love you,” she said slowly, her hand returning to stroke down his chest again, “because you wrestle with stone walls when you’d rather drink yourself mindless. I love you because you take my recipes seriously and you gave me your apple tart recipe, asking nothing in return. I love you because it matters to you when I cry and when Winnie is scared and difficult and lost. I love you because you pray for dead horses and you bought that awful, stinky dog so Winnie wouldn’t be so lonely. You went to see Rose and you forgave your mother and you’ve fought and fought and fought…”

  She leaned in against him, her arms around his waist, while his remained at his sides.

  “You fought for Winnie,” she went on, voice breaking. “You fought my stupid, wrongheaded schemes for Winnie, so Winnie wouldn’t suffer what you did, so I wouldn’t die of a broken heart as your m-mother did. I love you because you fought so hard… I surrender, Devlin St. Just. I love you, and I surrender for all time.”

  She wept against him, not even registering when his arms slowly crept around her nor when his chin rested against her temple.

  “You surrender?” he murmured quietly, his hands rubbing slow circles on her back. “Unconditionally?”

  “Not unconditionally,” Emmie replied through her tears. “I demand you take me prisoner.”

  “It will be my pleasure,” St. Just replied. “But, Em? I surrender, too.”

  And thus, for the first time in history, did all sides win the war, even as they were also captured—foot, horse, heart, and cannon—by their opponents for all time.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks go to my editor, Deb Werksman, who spotted what needed polishing and made the rest of this story shine brighter as a result, and to the crew at Sourcebooks, Inc., who take straw and spin it into gold—Cat, Susie, Skye, my very skilled copy editor, the art, marketing and bookmaking departments, Danielle, and others who are the unsung heroes of the book you’re holding in your hands. A very particular thanks goes to author Robin Kaye, who—despite her own maniac schedule (three teenagers, enough said)—read the manuscript when I was in a dither and prevented me from doing Something Stupid to the ending when my courage was wavering (again).

  And thanks to my readers. The pleasure you take in my books is small compared to how much it means to me that you enjoy them.

  About the Author

  Grace Burrowes’s debut novel, The Heir was named one of Publishers Weekly Top Five Romances for 2010, and the sequel, The Soldier was named a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Romances for Spring 2011. When the final book in The Duke’s Obsession trilogy, The Virtuoso, has been polished, Grace will be hard at work on the stories of the five Windham sisters, starting with Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish, to be released late in 2011.

  Grace is a practicing attorney specializing in child welfare law. She lives and works in rural Maryland. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached through her website at graceburrowes.com, her email at graceburrowes@yahoo.com, or through her fan page on Facebook.