Page 74 of The Soldier
“I won’t be long,” she said, brows knit as she positioned the second layer atop the little pedestals set on the first. “I just need to put the candied violets around the base when I’ve got the thing assembled, and maybe a few finishing touches.”
“She’ll be hours.” The vicar smiled at her so indulgently that St. Just’s fist ached to put a different expression on the man’s face. “Come along, St. Just, and we can at least spend a few minutes in the sunshine.” They ambled out into the crisp air, St. Just willing himself to hold his tongue. Silence made most men talkative, and the vicar was no exception.
“It galls me,” Bothwell said, smile fading. “People around here will pay good coin for Emmie to make these gorgeous cakes—and they taste as good as they look, St. Just—but they won’t invite the woman to their weddings and parties and picnics. She’s never put a foot wrong, never flirted with anybody’s husband, and even after what—twenty-five years of spotless behavior?—they still judge her.”
“Your defense of her does you credit,” St. Just said with grudging honesty. “But Emmie does not curry their favor, and that, I believe, is what costs her admission.”
“And you’ve put your finger on the real truth.” Bothwell frowned, his gaze traveling over the tidy village green across from the church. “Enough of that, as there has been churchyard politics as long as there’ve been animal sacrifices to the pagan gods, but I think Emmie has just concluded touching up the cake, and the wedding doesn’t even start for an hour,” Bothwell said, turning toward the doorway to the hall.
“I’m ready to go.” She smiled at St. Just. “Nice to see you, Vicar, and these”—she held out a package of buns—“are for you.”
“My thanks.” He took the package then bowed over her hand, pressing a lingering kiss to her bare knuckles.
St. Just silently ground his teeth at that shameless display and even let Bothwell hand Emmie up into the gig. As St. Just took the reins, the Kissing Vicar patted Emmie’s hand where it rested in her lap.
Except it was more of a stroking pat, St. Just noted, a caress, the filthy bugger.
“You’re quiet,” Emmie remarked, lifting her face to the sun. The relief in her expression suggested she hadn’t been interested in lingering in Bothwell’s company.
“Is Bothwell pestering you, Emmie?”
She glanced over at him, a furtive, assessing glance that he unfortunately caught and comprehended too well: It isn’t bothering if the lady welcomes it.
“He is a friend,” she said, lapsing into silence when St. Just said nothing more.
He reached over with one hand and gently peeled Emmie’s index finger from her teeth. “No biting your nails. Whatever it is, you have only to ask, and I will help.”
“Is it possible to love someone and hate them at the same time?”
“It is. I love my father, in a complicated, resentful, admiring sort of way, but when he gets to tormenting my brothers, which he used to do brilliantly, I would rather Bonaparte himself had sired me than that scheming, selfish old man.”
Emmie grimaced and looked like she wanted desperately to bite her nail. “That is quite an indictment, especially coming from you.”
“He’s a quite a character. I don’t know how my mother…”
He fell silent: Her Grace was not his mother. Twenty-seven years after meeting her, St. Just was still making the same mistake he’d made when he was five years old.
“You never talk about your mother,” Emmie said. “I’ve heard stories of each brother or sister, Her Grace, your papa, Rose, her family, and even the dogs and horses, but you never talk about the woman who brought you into this world. You forgot her, I suppose.”
He drove along in silence until Caesar brought them back to the kitchen terrace. St. Just set the brake, climbed down, then came around to assist Emmie. He paused first, frowning up into her eyes. Then he settled his hands on her waist and lifted her to the ground.
In the normal course of such a courtesy, Emmie set her hands on his shoulders, and there they stayed as he continued his hold on her, even when it was clear she no longer needed his support.
“What?”
“I never forgot her, Em,” he said, closing his eyes. “Never… but not for lack of trying.”
She slipped her hands around his waist, hugged him for a brief, fierce instant, then retreated again to her kitchens and the endless work to be found therein.
Twelve
To Her Grace, Esther, Duchess of Moreland,
Thank you for your recent letter. I pray by the time you’ve received this, young Devlin is once again in robust health, tagging after his brothers and enjoying the pleasures of a country summer. I’m happy to report the farm here will prosper this year, but as harvest approaches, I find my thoughts turning to the day I parted from my little boy. As I am sure you recall, it was in mid-October, a bright, beautiful fall day, a day too pretty for as much as it pained me.
I am consoled, however, to hear Dev has taken to riding with his father and brothers, and he excels at this endeavor. Even as a babe in arms, he was taken with horses. I used to walk with him to the mews and hold him up so he could stroke the great velvety noses of the carriage horses. They seemed to sense his wonder with them, his heart for them.
Still, you must promise me, Your Grace, though it is rank arrogance to ask such a thing, that you will not encourage him to recklessness. Many a laughing boy has fallen to his death from the back of a horse…
