Page 2 of The Soldier
The child scowled and blinked up at him.
“Eat,” the earl clarified. It had been quite a while since he’d had to converse with someone this small. “Armies, as the saying goes, march on their bellies not on their feet. You need to eat.”
His opponent appeared to consider the point. “I’m hungry.”
“When was the last time you ate?” The child might be as old as seven, but it would be a thin, puny seven if that. Six seemed more likely, and five was a definite possibility.
“I forget,” the child replied. “Not today.” As the sun was lowering against the green Yorkshire hills, the situation required an immediate remedy.
“Well, come along then.” St. Just held out a hand. “We will feed you and then see what’s to be done with you.”
The child stared at his hand, frowned, and looked up at his face, then back down at his hand. The earl merely kept his hand outstretched, his expression calm.
“Meat pies,” he mused aloud. “Cheese toast, cold cider, apple tarts, strawberry cobbler, sausage and eggs, treacle pudding, clean sheets smelling of sunshine and lavender, beeswax candles…” He felt a tentative touch of little fingers against his palm, so he closed his hand around those fingers and let his voice lead the child along. “Berry tarts, scones in the morning, ham, bacon, nice hot tea with plenty of cream and sugar, kippers, beefsteak, buttered rolls and muffins…”
“Muffins?” the child piped up wistfully. St. Just almost smiled at the angelic expression on the urchin’s face. Great blue eyes peered out of a smudged, beguiling little puss, a mop of wheat blond curls completing a childish image of innocence.
“Muffins.” The earl reiterated as they gained the side terrace of the manor and passed indoors. “With butter and jam, if you prefer. Or chocolate, or juice squeezed from oranges.”
“Oranges?”
“Had them all the time in Spain.”
“You were in Spain?” the child asked, eyes round. “Did you fight old Boney?”
“I was in Spain,” the earl said, his tone grave, “and Portugal, and France, and I fought old Boney. Nasty business, not at all as pleasant as the thought of tea cakes or clean linen or even some decent bread and butter.”
“Bread and butter is good. I’m the Earl of Helmsley.”
The Earl of Rosecroft stopped and frowned. “Better you than me. I’m Rosecroft, of all the simple things to name an earldom.”
“This estate is Rosecroft, and it belongs to the Earl of Helmsley.”
Would that it still did, St. Just fumed silently. Had no one told the child of Helmsley’s death?
“We are in the midst of a truce,” the earl reminded his companion. “A gentleman does not bring up conflicted matters during a truce.”
“I’m still the Earl of Helmsley. Can we have supper anyway?”
“We can.” The earl nodded his agreement and began towing the child up the stairs. “But one must be decently turned out for dinner, and you, my friend, are sadly lacking in both wardrobe and proper hygiene.”
The child looked down at scruffy britches, a tattered shirt, and very dirty brown toes. “I’m decent.”
“But when opposing generals show one another hospitality the night before a great battle, they do not merely present themselves as decent.”
“They don’t?” The child peered around at the private suite the earl had appropriated. The rooms were spacious and full of interesting things no doubt begging to be touched.
“‘Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look,’” the earl quoted. “Have a seat.” He half lifted, half led the child to a settee, though even on that modest piece of the furniture, those dirty little toes swung several inches above the carpet. St. Just began to divest himself of his garments, having long since learned to make do without a valet, batman, or other sycophant.
“Well, get busy,” the earl said when he was in the process of shucking his breeches. “A gentleman doesn’t go down to dine unless he’s properly bathed, and you, I fear, will take a deal of bathing.”
“I am not a gentleman,” the child said, the truculence back in full force. The earl glanced down at his own naked chest and recalled that grown men were not necessarily an easy thing for not-so-grown men to compare themselves to. He shrugged into a dressing gown and tossed his shirt to the child. “For your modesty. Now let’s be about it, shall we? The sooner we’re clean, the sooner we eat.”
He eyed the child’s hair and suspected getting clean might involve a quantity of shampoo, but merely held out his hand again. “Come along, child.”
“I amnota gentleman,” the child said again, scooting back against the sofa.
“We can remedy that,” the earl said with what he hoped was a reassuring tone. “A little scrubbing, some decent attire, small refinements of speech.” He slipped the child’s shirt off in a single motion. “If I can master it in not quite thirty-two years, there is certainly hope for you.”
