Page 35 of The Soldier
“We are wet,” Winnie retorted, “because he dunked me, because I… Well, I am wet.” Her pinafore hit the grass with a sodden plop, and she grinned at both men in her short dress. “But I am nice and cool.”
“So you are,” Douglas said, “and you’ve very considerately seen to the comfort of the earl, as well. I, however, am going to repair to the house for luncheon and hope there is something left for the two of you, as you must now change before you can come to table.”
“Here.” The earl lifted Winnie out and wrapped his shirt around her. “You are turning blue, and while the color goes with your eyes, Miss Emmie will tear a strip off me if you catch a cold.”
He carried her back up to the house, strolling along beside Douglas. It should not have mattered that he was in charity with a stubborn little girl. It should not have mattered that she felt so good perched on his hip, smiling from ear to ear. It should not have mattered that a six-year-old female had grown possessive of him.
Like holding Emmie Farnum’s hand or offering her a hug for simple comfort—or risking the unnameable with a good night kiss threatening to stray from its bounds—those were things that should have been insignificant, beneath his notice. But with those things in place, the prospect of dealing with his neighbors’ social calls was not quite as daunting.
***
St. Just had one lovely day when it seemed like peace and plenty were in his grasp. One day of working his own land, mingling with his laborers, becoming familiar with the broad speech and circumspect manner of his tenants.
From dawn until late afternoon, St. Just worked, raking and binding hay in the broiling sun, using his body until a pleasant state of exhaustion could claim him. When the hay crop was in, he spent the evening hacking both Wulf and Red, as Caesar had yet to work through his abscess.
And then he had bathed and fallen asleep, the boneless, dreamless sleep of a man who has labored hard and well. When he rose the next morning, however, it was to realize haying had wearied muscles unused to the task, and even in Yorkshire, the summer sun meant business.
He’d gone to bed feeling a little younger than his thirty-two years; he rose feeling decades older. When he creaked down to the breakfast parlor, he found Douglas in the same condition.
Douglas passed him the teapot. “I will not visit you again in the summer, St. Just. It gives me delusions of youth.”
“Which fade by morning,” the earl agreed. “I feel like I took a hard fall from a fast horse and was left to bake in the hills of sunny Spain for a few days thereafter.”
“Good morning, gentlemen.” Emmie sailed in, all smiles. “Oh, my goodness.” She looked from one bleary-eyed fellow to the other. “Did we overdo yesterday?”
“We did,” Douglas said. “Though we both know better.”
“I have a salve that might help with the aches. And you look like you were in the sun, my lords. It will help that, too.”
“I thought I was permanently immune to sunburn after being in Spain.” The earl sighed as he poured her tea. “Too soon old, too late wise.”
“But it brings out the green of your eyes very becomingly. And now your hay barn is full, and you’ve impressed Mr. Mortimer to no end.”
Douglas rose carefully. “I am off to sum up the week’s adventures for my viscountess and my daughter. I will pass along your compliments, St. Just.”
When Douglas had departed, his pace a little less brisk than usual, the earl sat back and treated himself to the pleasure of watching Emmie Farnum demolish her breakfast. She wasn’t dainty, not in her dimensions and not in the gusto with which she went about life. She laughed, she cried, she ate, she raged, all with an energy a more proper lady would not have displayed.
And before he could stop his naughty mind from thinking it, he wondered if she loved as passionately as she did everything else.
“More tea?” he asked when she was between slices of toast.
“An orange, I think.” She took the orange he selected from his hand without any hint of awareness their fingers had touched. She was like that, willing to touch, to hold hands even, as if it were perfectly normal to do so. He found it a surprising and likeable quality, but lowering, too.
She never gave off those little signals that suggested it meant anything to her—no swiftly indrawn breath, no dropping of the eyes, no becoming blush. It might as well be Winnie’s hand she held.
“What will you and Winnie get up to today?” he asked, forcing his gaze up to meet hers.
“Winnie is composing a letter in reply to her new friend, Rose. I gather they are exchanging more than just letters, as Winnie asked for drawing paper. I have not been consulted regarding the particulars.”
“Have we toys on hand?” He watched her fingers tearing the skin off the orange. Strong, competent fingers that had winnowed so gently through his hair.
“We have toys. There are many of Anna and Morgan’s old toys, and even some that belonged to Winnie’s papa. She likes those especially.”
“You must tell me if she needs anything.” The earl rose, but stiffly, lest he continue to ogle her at her breakfast.
Emmie frowned in sympathy. “You are not doing very well, are you?”
“I’ll locate some horse liniment and keep moving. I will not, however, touch a damned hay rake until Judgment Day.”
