Page 40 of The Soldier
Emmie was regarding him curiously, and St. Just had to hope what he felt did not show on his face. She broke what was becoming an awkward and charged silence.
“Perhaps it is not time for Winnie to start developing other associations, but sooner or later, it will be in her best interests to do so. When that time comes, I will understand and do what I can to help her.”
“She will never stop needing you, Emmie. She can develop all the associations in the world, and she will still know you loved her when nobody else did. Children don’t forget.”
“And I will not forget you spoke up for me today.” She smiled at him, a sweet, pleased benediction of a smile, one that lit his flagging spirits with warmth.
“I am your good knight,” he replied, smiling back and coming to his feet.
“Will you be down for dinner tonight? Winnie is a little concerned for you, but we can send up a tray, if you like.”
“I’ll be down,” he decided, completely at variance with his earlier plans. “Send up Douglas, and I’ll treat his back for him before we change.” He walked her to the door, feeling an ease that had eluded him all afternoon.
“You should have seen Mrs. Davenport,” he said, thinking back. “Put me in mind of a goose, flapping and carrying on, not knowing whether to gloat or commiserate with her familiar. I had the distinct impression Ophelia was trying not to snicker.”
“Naughty man. I will see you at dinner.” She rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek, then patted his sunburned shoulder very gently and departed.
Now why, the earl wondered, was that one little peck on the cheek warming his insides just as effectively as all his panting and pawing had done earlier? He was still leaning against the door, half clad and musing, when Douglas found him a quarter hour later.
“I come seeking relief,” Douglas said, pulling his shirt from his waistband. “You smell as if you’ve just been dosed, sparing me the burden.” He presented his back, which was, if anything, more pink than it had been hours earlier.
“How are we to sleep tonight?” St. Just asked as he worked salve over Douglas’s shoulders. “I still ache, my skin stings, my lips feel chapped, and I’m bone tired.”
Douglas sighed as the earl got to his nape. “I suspect we could order up tepid baths, maybe open up a bottle of whiskey, lace it with a tot of laudanum. God above, that feels good.”
“Douglas?” St. Just leaned in, resting his forehead on the back of Douglas’s neck.
“Devlin?” Douglas waited, though St. Just realized his friend had already given him the entire afternoon to brood.
“I fucked up today.”
“Well.” Douglas held his ground. If he was appalled by St. Just’s display, he wasn’t showing it in word or deed. Steady nerves, Amery had. The steadiest. “Did you, now?”
St. Just nodded against his friend’s back. “I tore into old Biddy Saint Tosten like she was a recruit who had just wasted ammunition, shooting at steeple bells. I am ashamed, as I keep expecting my temper to be less ungovernable…”
“But”—Douglas reached behind him and drew one of St. Just’s arms around his waist—“you keep having lapses, and you keep wondering if maybe you didn’t shoot Helmsley as a function of just such a lapse. If maybe you have crossed that line, from soldier to killer.”
St. Just nodded again, feeling at once awkward as hell to be all but holding on to another man and yet relieved as hell, too. Douglas laid his hand over St. Just’s, and the relief obliterated the awkwardness.
“Every time it snows,” Douglas said, tipping his head back to rest it against St. Just’s shoulder, “I am out of sorts. The morning my mother died, we had one of those fairy tale snows that dusts everything in white, pretty as a picture. Both of my brothers died on snowy days. I’ve come to dread snow, though snow had nothing to do with any of their deaths. I know it isn’t rational. You know your brother’s wife is safe, and you know Helmsley wanted her anything but safe. You also know you would not have put the burden of killing that vermin on your brother.”
“Bloody hell.” St. Just sighed and stepped back. “That is part of it. I would do anything for Gayle or Val. I would die for them.”
“And you would kill for them,” Douglas said, regarding him gravely. “By far the harder choice, particularly for a man who has done more than his share of killing.”
“You know, it’s odd.” St. Just went to his window and stared out across the drive to the pastures. “Nobody talks about the killing. The night before a battle, you might talk about what it’s like to die. You write those maudlin if-I-die letters; you make all kinds of promises to comrades. You don’t talk about the actual killing, the taking of one life after another after another. Shooting a man on purpose, with intent to put a period to his entire existence. In the hospital, after Waterloo, I overheard some Frenchmen talking about the same thing, and a few of the Dutch fellows allowed as how it was the same with them. We pray to the same God, using the same prayers, asking for the same things. It makes no sense, but we don’t talk about it.
“And what would you say?” he went on then fell silent.
“You would say,” Douglas said quietly from right beside him, “that it hurts like blazes. Seeing the light die in another’s eyes, the confusion and pain and bewilderment, knowing you did that. It hurts beyond anything.”
St. Just nodded silently, and Douglas left him there alone, bare to the waist, staring unseeing across the lovely green hills of Yorkshire.
Seven
Emmie took to avoiding the earl, and in fairness to her, he understood exactly why. No young lady appreciated a man who tore a strip off his neighbors when first they ventured to call on him. He’d behaved badly, and no matter Lady Tosten had deserved every word of his tirade, he’d still bungled the encounter.
Lady Tosten, however, wasnotavoiding him. Three days later she was back, Elizabeth in tow and no Davenports in sight. On that occasion, Douglas, perhaps thinking the earl required closer supervision, bestirred himself to join the group. The unfortunate result was that Lady Tosten could maneuver so the earl was forced into Elizabeth’s company as they strolled the cutting gardens.
