The Duke’s Obsession Bundle (52 page)

Clever bastard.

“You haven’t made cheese breads for a long time, Emmie,” Bothwell said. “I was missing them.”

“I’m glad you like them. May I send some along home with you?”

“I would be eternally indebted and the envy of all who call on me for the next two days.” The small talk went on for a few more minutes as the cheese breads and lemonade disappeared, but then Bothwell rose on a contented sigh. “Rosecroft, thanks for a great gallop.”

“Are you busy tomorrow afternoon? I’m working them almost every day, but when they’re not in company, they spend half the ride dodging rabbits and outrunning their own shadows.”

“Ah, youth. I will present myself in riding attire tomorrow at two of the clock, weather permitting. Ladies, good day, and Emmie, you know I would love to see you any Sunday you take a notion to join us.”

“Thank you, Hadrian.” Her smile was gracious, but the earl, watching her closely, saw a hint of something—regret, sorrow, sadness?—in her eyes. “Bronwyn, shall we take the tray and mugs back to the kitchen?”

“Leave it,” the earl ordered, watching the vicar disappear into the woods. “I take it the vicarage is somewhere in the vicinity of your cottage?”

“Just the other side of the hill. Two vicars ago, we had a fellow here with ten children, and the little place by the church was just too modest. The old earl had the present manse built, and the house by the church is now the parish hall.”

“And Bothwell is your nearest neighbor.”
Lovely
.

“You are my nearest neighbor, my lord. Winnie, would you mind taking these gloves into the tack room, and I thought you were going to offer the carrots to the horses?”

“If Stevens says the horses are cool enough,” the earl added then turned his gaze back to Emmie. “Shall we get it over with?”

“I beg your pardon?” She kept her eyes on Winnie’s retreating form.

“Isn’t this where you apologize for your lamentable lapse of composure last night and I assure you it is already forgotten?”

“Is it?” She sounded hopeful. “Forgotten, I mean?”

“It is not.” He grinned unrepentantly. “The feel of a lovely woman in my arms has become too rare a treat to banish from memory. Even your hair smells luscious.”

Emmie frowned. “Why?”

“Because you use scented soap, I suppose.” His tone was admirably solemn.

“No.” Emmie shook her head and raised a serious gaze to his. “Why has the company of a pretty woman become rare? You’re handsome, wealthy, titled, well connected, and without significant faults. You even have a recipe for apple tarts and are patient with children. Why aren’t you surrounded with pretty women?”

“It’s complicated, Emmie.” He realized too late he’d used her given name but wasn’t about to apologize for it. “When you are the son of duke, you are a target for any ambitious woman. My brother’s last mistress went so far as to conceive a child with somebody who resembled him in hopes she would find herself with a ring on her finger.” And he ought to be apologizing for such a disclosure to a lady of Emmie’s gentility, except she looked intrigued more than shocked.

“My lands! Whatever became of such a creature?”

“With my brother’s prompting, the child’s father married her, and they are in anticipation of a happy event on the lovely little estate Westhaven deeded them as a wedding present. My point is that the women trying to spend time with me wanted something I was not prepared to give.”

“And what of other women?” Emmie asked, a blush suffusing her face. “The women like my aunt and my mother?”

“Coin I have to give, but the interest in such an arrangement was lacking on my part.” It was on the tip of his tongue to say what popped into his mind:
I’ve seen too much of rape
.

But Emmie’s gaze was downcast, and he couldn’t say those words to her. She was too good, too honest, and too innocent for him to burden her with such violent confidences, though he stored the thought away for his own consideration later.

“Come.” He rose and angled his arm out. “Let’s retrieve the prodigy and repair to the manor. If we put her in a tub full of lavender bubbles now, she might be clean enough to join us by supper time.”

“I’m not as fragile as you think,” Emmie said as they strolled along. He gazed over at her curiously, but kept walking. “I’m not as fragile, or as virtuous, or as… You could have told me, whatever you just didn’t say. You could have told me.”

He stopped but kept his eyes on the wood some distance from them. It was almost as if she considered his reticence not a courtesy but a rejection, and that he could not abide.

“Women can be victimized in ways men cannot be, as you are no doubt aware. When the victimizing is blatantly violent, it can raise the question why any woman would ever have anything to do with any man.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, Emmie…” He dropped her arm and paced off a few feet. “After a siege, the generals would let the troops storm a city. Those fellows whom you’ve seen parade about so smartly in their regimentals become animals, murdering, looting, and worse, until strong measures are taken to curb their behaviors. It’s tactical, as each city so abused is an inspiration for the next one to capitulate without resistance.”

“So even a man’s base urges become a weapon for the Crown. His own commanders set him up to lose his dignity, his humanity.”

“War sets him up.”

“Were you one of those so used?”

“I was not.” He shook his head and risked a glance at her over his shoulder. “I was one of the stern measures applied to bring back order when the looting, pillaging, and rapine were done, but that could be as much as several days after breaching the walls.”

Emmie’s fingers threaded through his, and he felt her head on his shoulder. “So after turning a place into hell on earth, the generals expected you to restore it to civilization.”

St. Just merely nodded, his throat constricting as memories threatened to rise up.

“But nobody has been sent along to retrieve you from hell yet, have they?” Emmie asked, and she sounded angry, indignant on his behalf. She slipped her hand over his arm, and in silence, accompanied him back to the manor house. Their proximity was completely proper, their appearance that of a couple at peace with each other, but neither could speak a single, civil word.

“I have no excuse for my earlier comments,” the earl said when he met Emmie in the front parlor before dinner several hours later. “Please accept my thanks for your understanding, so I can try to gather my dignity before Amery comes down and starts sniffing about. Would you like some sherry? You may consider it medicinal.”

“Sherry appeals.” Emmie nodded, but she noticed, as well, the strain around the earl’s eyes. “Are you all right?”

“I am not,” he said, frowning. “Or not as all right as I’d wish to be, as you’ve just seen. I march around here, giving orders and accomplishing my list of tasks, but it’s as if I’m standing on a trapdoor, and without warning, I land in a heap at my own feet.” He looked nonplussed at his own honesty. “You did ask, and I’ve the sense you wanted to know.”

“I did and I did. I wish I could catch you.”

The words were out, and she regretted them until she saw the earl looking at her over his drink with such an expression of… disbelief, or relief. Appreciation, even.

“You are wonderfully kind, Emmie Farnum.” His eyes smiled at her while his mouth remained solemn. “And it is good… no, it is essential to know there are such people in the world. In my world. Your sherry.”

When he handed her the drink, his fingers lingered over hers, and Emmie let herself enjoy it. She was relieved, of course, to think she wasn’t the only person who occasionally got upset or overwhelmed or flustered. But she was also still angry at the violence done to a good man in the name of King and Country. He looked so strong and fit and competent, but he’d been, again, deceptive. He was a wounded barbarian. A kind, shrewd, handsome, wounded barbarian.

The conversation at dinner moved along as Emmie mostly watched, with the earl and his guest discussing the estate business, mutual acquaintances, and even horses they both knew.

Emmie let them prattle on, the long day and the excellent meal catching up with her. Getting up very early to bake and pack her goods for delivery, then spending the days trying to keep up with Winnie, and her nights not exactly sleeping soundly, was taking a toll.

“She’s asleep on her feet,” Emmie heard, only to turn her head to find the earl smiling at her.

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen.” She offered a tired smile. “I was woolgathering.”

“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 until 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.”