Page 101 of The Soldier
“I’ll see what’s keeping Winnie,” Emmie said as she watched him closing the fastenings of his heavy cape.
He frowned at her retreating back and looked at the letters where they sat on her wooden table. Something was stirring in the back of his mind, just as it used to stir when he was about to figure out how to dodge murderously stupid orders from a pompous general. The best solutions often came to him that way, emerging whole from below his awareness rather than approaching by steady steps of reason and calculation.
His gaze switched to the letters, which sat right in the shaft of a bright winter sunbeam. The letters…
“Oh, ye gods…” he murmured, but not ye gods, yemothers. His mother, Kathleen, and his mother, Her Grace, had given him one last round of very heavy artillery indeed, and he was going to fire it broadside at Emmie’s heart, even as she thought he was making his final retreat. He resisted the urge to trot up the stairs to see what was keeping the ladies and sat down to read the letters instead.
Both ladies were fairly composed when they gained the kitchen, but Emmie looked unnerved to see both St. Just and Winnie dressed to leave.
“Where’s His Highness, Win?” St. Just asked.
“Scout!” Winnie hailed the dog from the far reaches of the house. “He’s here,” she said unnecessarily when Scout was panting at her side.
“So he is. Why don’t you let him out to romp for a minute while I go find something to use for a bridle on Caesar? I’ll meet you in the stables.”
“C’mon, Scout.” Winnie snapped her fingers and headed for the door.
“Let her go,” St. Just murmured in a low voice. “This is not the last time you’ll see her, and she’s trying to stay composed as it is.” Emmie glanced at him sharply, for he’d allowed something almost fierce in his tone, but she didn’t argue. “No need to come to the stables, Em,” he said, moving toward the back door. “I’ll ride us over on Caesar and send Stevens for the gig when the roads are more passable. Thank you.” He paused and smiled down at her, “for everything.”
She accepted his hug but did not move to kiss him.
“Those letters you found?” he said as he stepped back. “I don’t want to risk them falling in the snow, as they are precious. I’d like to leave them here for the present.”
“Of course.” Emmie murmured, her eyes huge and conveying some nameless desperation. The barking of the dog and happy shrieks of his owner only underscored the heartache of the moment.
“But I have a favor to ask, Emmie Farnum.”
“Anything. Anything at all.”
“Read those letters. There are only three, and you can send them back with Stevens later, but read them before your vicar comes a-courting, please?”
She blinked, and he could tell he’d surprised her. She’d no doubt been expecting him to ask that she write to Winnie, or possibly to him, that she not give away his apple tart recipe, but not… this.
“I promise,” she said, walking to the back door with him.
“Don’t come out here,” he warned as he gained the porch. “It’s damned cold, and you were out in nasty weather yester—”
But she was plastered against him anyway, hugging him as if her heart would break, as if it had broken and would never, ever mend.
“Good-bye, Emmie,” St. Just said, giving her one last answering squeeze then stepping back. “Read the letters. You promised.”
She nodded and wiped a tear from her cheek.
“Inside with you now,” he said gently. “Winnie will see you crying and then I’ll start crying and Scout will howl and Winnie will know we’re daft.” She smiled at him brokenly, whirled, and fled back to the warmth of the house.
Scout came bounding up the porch steps, obviously pleased with the snow, while Winnie trudged along more slowly.
“Emmie was crying again, wasn’t she?” Winnie said in a tired old voice.
“She was, a little.” They crossed the yard in silence, Scout snuffling in the snow after some scent or other.
“Rosecroft?” Winnie called over her shoulder as she fed a carrot to Herodotus in his back stall.
“Yes?” He sorted through the gear in Emmie’s stable and found a serviceable old bridle as well as some grooming equipment.
“Yesterday, did you cry so hard your stomach hurt?” Winnie asked as she broke off part of the carrot for the mule then took a bite for herself.
“I did,” he said, watching her pet the mule. “I cried like a motherless child.”
