Page 55 of The Soldier
My brother Valentine has warned me a gift is being forwarded from him to Rosecroft, a sort of housewarming present. When I consider the way my youngest brother was the butt of jokes and pranks growing up, I am loathe to open any gift from him. If it snarls or emits noxious odors, you must promise to return it unopened.
I commend Winnie on her prompt issuance of correspondence, but fear I cannot agree Scout should be learning how to pass a teacup. A beer mug, perhaps, but nothing delicate. In the alternative, Winnie, you might teach him to roll over, fetch, or bark on command. The Viscountess Amery has apparently taught these same skills to all the males in her domain, with the command to lie down being obeyed with particular alacrity. Anna seems to be making similar inroads with the future duke—oh, how the mighty have fallen.
I miss you both and trust this finds you in good health and good spirits. The enclosed provides a few glimpses of my visit thus far with the last little sketch being of Winnie’s new friend, Rose.
Devlin St. Just
Rosecroft
“What does he mean about the mighty falling?”
“I suppose he means his brother was a very serious man,” Emmie suggested, “until your Aunt Anna married him and made him more lighthearted.”
“Rosecroft is not lighthearted. He should get married, too. I’m going to go teach Scout to lie down.”
In Winnie’s absence, Emmie lifted St. Just’s letter to her nose and found to her profound pleasure the stationery bore a faint whiff of his fragrance.
She was reminded by contrast of the vicar’s attentions.
Hadrian Bothwell smelled good, too, she admitted.
With the sense of a person staring over a sheer precipice, Emmie feared she might marry the man after all. She could learn to tolerate him in bed; on the strength of one kiss, she was sure he’d acquit himself competently in that regard. She could learn to socialize with his neighbors and keep herself occupied while her husband took his seat or went off shooting in Scotland or did whatever it was cordial husbands did when their wives had provided them sons.
Children, she thought with a pang. That was the real draw. Children to love and call her own and raise each and every day under her loving eye.
Except—she stood up and began to pace—if they were boys, they might go off to public school as early as age six. That decision would be her husband’s, just as every decision regarding the rearing of their children would be.
And what if she couldn’t tolerate Hadrian’s attentions? A short, fully clothed kiss was one thing, but what about the more intimate dealings? Somehow, she could not imagineeverbegging the man to kiss her, not the way she’d begged St. Just. She could not imagine crying in Hadrian’s arms nor handing him her hairbrush nor asking him for an opinion on a recipe.
Maybe—she sat back down—the situation required a good deal more thought.
***
St. Just came in from his morning ride to find Douglas in the Morelands stable yard, checking to make sure the traveling coach was properly packed.
“I am pleased.” Douglas said, his gaze traveling over the horse’s lathered coat. “You are off your backside, no longer content to twiddle your thumbs while your sisters throw their friends at you.”
“I am off my backside.” St. Just swung down. “Beau was sufficiently rested that he was good for a gallop today. We went by some of my childhood haunts and found them blessedly still the same for the most part. But, ye gods, childhood was a lifetime ago.”
“Can you see someday touring Spain and France and thinking the same thing?” Douglas asked as a groom took Beau.
“Yes,” the earl said, surprised at his own answer as Douglas fell in step beside him on the path to the manor. “I can, actually. Not for years, but someday.”
“Then ride every day. It was part of what you enjoyed about being at Rosecroft.”
“I’m bringing a few more of my youngsters north with me when I go back,” St. Just said, finding a tea cart on the back terrace laden with ice water, lemonade, and bread and butter. “Shall we sit?”
Douglas nodded and settled into a chair.
“I’m also nipping into London tomorrow and jaunting down to my own stud farm for a day or two. I’ve sent along a note to Greymoor, requesting word of any worthy prospects, though he charges a pretty penny for anything leaving his farm.”
“Have you written to Emmie?”
“I write to them both,” St. Just replied, chugging some cold lemonade. “Emmie chided me to observe the proprieties, so I have not written to her, precisely.”
“If you did write, just to her, what would you write?”
St. Just sat back, more relaxed than he’d been in days for having had a good gallop. “I would tell her I miss her, that I am scared of being around people all the time, but only marginally less scared when alone. I’m afraid of the next rainy night,still, and I miss Winnie more than I thought I would. Winnie is just… good. Innocent, you know? I would tell her I am not sleeping as well as I did in Yorkshire, but I am managing not to drink much, so far. I would tell her—”
