Page 70 of The Soldier
“You are always silly about it. That’s fine.”
Relieved and realizing there was more to discuss with Emmie, St. Just took the child into the house, supervised a thorough washing of the hands, then another washing of the hands as Scout required eviction after the first round.
They shared a convivial lunch with Val, who obligingly took Winnie by the hand and went off to hold a tea party with Scout and Mrs. Bear. St. Just repaired to his library, where he wrote his thank-you note to Their Graces for their hospitality, and then jotted off a similar note to Greymoor, in whose home he’d stayed for a couple nights in Surrey.
There was more of course—he eyed the remaining pile of unopened mail with distaste—but it would keep.
“Your brother is a demon for his technique,” Emmie remarked when St. Just found her at the kitchen table. “Is he making up for missed time, or is he always so dedicated?”
“He’s always dedicated. He was closest to our brother Victor and barely out of university when Bart died. In some ways, Val is my… lost brother.”
“Your ages are the most different. Can I get you something?”
Well, he thought, she was in a better mood at least, and something to eat in Emmie’s kitchen was never a bad idea. It gave him an excuse to linger, if nothing else.
“I will accept whatever you put before me, provided you made it.”
“It seems all I do these days is bake.” She was banging her crockery around, dumping ingredients into the large bowl, and stirring furiously.
“Val told me he got up to check on the piano, Emmie.” The earl watched as she flitted around the kitchen. “At five in the morning, you were mixing bread dough.”
“I usually am, and I had the wedding cake to start.” She was also frowning mightily at her bowl.
“And Stevens tells me,” the earl went on, “it now takes several hours to make your deliveries. And”—he rose and stood before her, frowning right back—“you used to have an assistant over at the cottage, and you told her she wouldn’t be needed for as long as you’re baking at Rosecroft.”
“My lands!” Emmie threw up her hands. “I suppose you also took it upon yourself to learn how I take my tea.”
“You like it very hot, rich with cream, and sweet,” he said, and somehow, though he hadn’t intended it, the words had an erotic undertone, at least to his ears.
“Is there a point to all of this?” Emmie whipped something into the bowl with a wooden spoon.
“There is,” he said, his frown turning to one of puzzlement. Why had she permitted him intimacies? Had she simply been too worn down to resist him? Too weary and lonely? Was the vicar leading her a dance?
He sat and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I am trying to make your life easier here.”
“By poking into my business and accosting me while I work?” But then she stopped her furious whipping and set the bowl down. “Ye gods, I sound like Winnie. I’m sorry, I’m just… There is too much to do for us to be indulging in pointless conversation. I made a mistake with you last night, St. Just. I was tired and… lonely and I wanted…”
“Yes?” He kept his tone even, as if he were verifying expected dangerous orders for his next mission riding dispatch.
“I don’t know what I wanted, but misbehaving with you is not the answer.”
“What do you want, Emmie?” he asked in the same carefully steady tone.
“Now?” She sat with a thump. “I want… to sleep. But people will have weddings and this cake is supposed to be over at the assembly rooms tomorrow morning and even if you wanted to help, I doubt there was much call for decorating wedding cakes in the cavalry.”
“Now there you would be surprised.” He shifted to sit beside her. “The men were forever getting married, and their wives were forever running off or going home to mama or catching their fellows in the wrong tent, and so on. Compared to battles and drills, it was almost entertaining.”
In the room above the kitchen, Val switched to a slow, lyrical etude, and for a few minutes, Emmie just sat beside him while they listened.
“He is very talented, isn’t he?”
“Appallingly so,” St. Just said, eyeing her hands where they rested in her lap. “And at everything he turns his hand to. He rides better than I do, paints better than Her Grace does, sings as well as Westhaven ever did, but hides it all behind his keyboards. Em?” St. Just’s arm settled around her shoulders. “Do you regret what we did last night?”
When he thought of her eagerness, her ardor in the night, and then compared it with her behavior with him today…
She blew out a breath, and beneath his arm, he felt her shoulders drop. “I do not regret it the way you might think. I will always treasure the memory and…”
“And what?” His fingers began to circle on her nape, and he felt all manner of tension and anxiety flowing out of her.
