Page 63 of The Soldier
St. Just watched this scene, one like many stored in his memory of his half brothers casually teasing their mother, assuming she’d be there to tease when next they got around to paying a call. It made him a little crazy to see the same thing yet again today, so he turned to go.
“Devlin St. Just!” The duchess’s voice had the whiplash quality to it again, and Val grimaced at him in sympathy. Devlin turned and prepared for the usual lecture on his duty to look after his little brothers, but the duchess simply opened her arms to him. He went to her and cautiously leaned in for a hug.
“You are not a perfect soldier,” she whispered, “but you are a perfect son, and I love you.” Her embrace was fierce, and in his arms, she did not feel like an older woman. She felt like a mother trying to get through to her pigheaded offspring.
“Good-bye,” he said, “I love you, too.”
She stepped back, her smile radiant. “Look after each other.” She shook her finger at them both. “I have my hands full with your father and your featherbrained sisters. I can’t be fretting about grown men.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” they said in unison, exchanging a smile. She let them go. She was still beaming from the front steps when they trotted down the drive.
***
“Can I play it?” Winnie asked, running her hands over the closed lid of the gleaming grand piano. It had been delivered that morning by four large men and four monstrous draft horses.
“Best not,” one of the men said. “If, God forbid, something busted on the way, Lord Val will want it righted first.”
Winnie looked disappointed but nodded.
“And I’d be keeping yon beast a safe distance, too.” The driver nodded at Scout. “Some of them like to nibble the linseed oil in the finishes, and half-gobbled piano legs will not set well with his lordship either.”
“He sounds like a man of particulars,” Emmie said.
The driver shrugged. “Easy fella to like, for Quality. Don’t be disrespecting his pianos.”
“Well, thank you for your efforts,” Emmie said as Winnie huffed out of the room with Scout at her heels. “Perhaps you’d like to come around to the kitchen before you head back to York?”
The man smiled. “That’d go aright, and where do the horses go?”
“The horses?” Emmie blinked. “You mean for some hay and water?”
The man shook his head. “Nah. The horses is from the other brother.”
“Lord Westhaven?” Emmie wracked her brain, but she was sure the stud farm was in St. Just’s possession. “Why would he send along such a team of… Sturdy fellows.”
“The two of ’em’s mares raised to the plough. All four is steady as ’ell and like as strong. Man’s got land, he needs a team.”
“I see.” The team would hardly fit in the stables, so thank God it was only coming autumn.
The rest of the day was taken up with provisioning the deliverymen for their journey south, having Stevens take the men into the village, and rearranging the stables so the larger horses could use the foaling stalls and the others the loose boxes.
And in the general disruption, Emmie realized she hadn’t seen Winnie since before luncheon.
Not this again.Winnie’s ramblings hadn’t exactly stopped since Rosecroft had taken over, but Winnie had willingly adopted the habit of announcing her intended destination, and then—bless the child—sticking to her itinerary. But the sun was setting, the evening air was not quite warm, and nobody had seen Winnie for hours.
Emmie wracked her brain for clues, but all she could come up with was Winnie’s comment over breakfast that the woods were prettiest in the fall.
The woods… noxious plants, snakes, rocks that twisted ankles, the pond, rabid animals Winnie would think needed help…
“Stevens,” Emmie said, voice shaking, “can we saddle up the mare? I want to make a pass through the woods before it’s full dark.”
“I’ll saddle up Caesar, too,” Stevens said. Emmie glanced at him, but her imagination had already started filling in the unspoken words… in case somebody needs to go for help, in case we need the vicar, in case there’s a body that has to be brought back to the manor.
“Are there Gypsies in the area, Stevens?” Emmie asked as she hefted a saddle onto Petunia.
“Not this late in the year. They head south, down to Devon and Cornwall when fall comes. We’ll find her, Miss Emmie. If need be, we can have Mr. Wentworth’s hounds come looking in the morning, but the child knows how to bide through the night on the property.”
“She does, but she’s only six years old, and anything from wild dogs to a bad fall can interfere with her best efforts to stay safe.”
