Page 79 of The Soldier
“Winnie perceives it differently,” St. Just said. “If she does, your vicar does, too. I saw the man kissing you, Emmie.” St. Just turned to eye her. “You might not be setting a date, but he is.”
“He kissed my cheek,” she said, touching her lips with her fingers. Her eyes met his then, and she had to look away.
“Was he the one who broke your heart?”
***
St. Just knew how to bellow loudly enough to shake the rafters, and he knew even better how to pitch his voice quietly for a more devastating effect.
“Emmie, did Bothwell break your heart?” He repeated the question even more softly, his tone lethal, though it was an unworthy question. A man ought to cede the field when he’d been bested, and right now, Bothwell had gotten a cordial stay of sentence, while St. Just’s attempts to propose had been summarily batted aside.
But she made love with me, he reminded himself. That had to count for something with her, because it counted for the world with him. Incongruously, though he was furious with her, feeling betrayed and confused, just looking at her sent a spike of hot lust through him.She made love with me…
“He did not break my heart,” Emmie said, “but he did propose—again—and he did steal a kiss, and somehow, Winnie must have seen this.”
“She saw it, and she heard it. Not too discreet, your vicar.”
“He is not my vicar,” Emmie wailed.
“He thinks he is,” St. Just rejoined. He eased his hips down to the windowsill, crossed his feet at the ankles, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You have to tell him—and Winnie—what your intentions are, Emmie.”
“I have to what?”
“Winnie is in torments, thinking you plan to move to Cumbria. I suspect a good deal of her misbehavior has been as a result of the fear that you, like her mother, father, her aunts, the old earl, and God knows who else, will abandon her. You owe her at least an acknowledgement of your plans, whatever they may be.”
“I don’t know what they are.” Emmie could barely stand to meet his gaze. “I have not accepted Hadrian’s proposal.”
“Not yet,” St. Just spat. “Well, let us all know when you do and, until then, I will do my best to keep either myself or Bronwyn from any avoidablesetbacks.” He shoved away from the window and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Emmie stared at that door, then out at the bleak Yorkshire day, and felt such an ache in her chest that her heart had to be physically breaking.
Lord Val found her in the kitchen when he wandered down from his bed just before noon.
“Good morning, Emmie.” He smiled a rumpled, cheerful smile at her then frowned. “I see it is not a good morning. Did your soufflé fall?”
“Lord Valentine,” Emmie said, “how would you take it if I went out to the woodshed, picked up the ax, and started laying about with it on your lovely piano?”
“Like you hated me. Does somebody hate you, Emmie?”
“St. Just.” Emmie nodded as she beat the hell out of a bowl of egg whites. “Or he will, if he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.”
“He’s not a hateful person. Why would he be provoked to such an emotion with you?”
“Because I have to leave,” Emmie said, pausing in her beating, then resuming with diminished fury. “I cannot stay here and be Winnie’s governess. I cannot marry him, for he’d hate me then, too, and God help me, someday Winnie will hate me, as well. Even Hadrian will be entitled to hate me, and you, too, I suppose.”
“Seems a deuced lot of hating going on for such a sweet woman. Don’t suppose you’d tell a fellow why?”
Emmie shook her head, and the eggs whites took the brunt of her frustration.
“And you won’t confide in St. Just, either, will you?” She just shook her head again and closed her eyes, heartbreak and unshed tears radiating through her. Val put an arm around her waist and pulled her against his side.
“Pies,” Emmie said, turning her face into his neck. “I have to put this meringue on the pies.”
Val patted her shoulder, gave her a little squeeze, then took his tea and left her in solitude.
Up on the servants’ stairs, St. Just leaned against the wall, trying to sort through the conversation—if he could call it that—he’d just overheard. Emmie was miserable; that much was beyond doubt and even brought him a little, nasty pleasure. She was destroying a helpless child, after all, and then, too…
She wasn’t destroying him, not like she was Winnie, but she was devastating him nonetheless. And for what? To bake bread in Cumbria for her vicar, for God’s sake?
Why would he hate her for marrying him? Was she barren, perhaps, and she could not provide him an heir? Why would Winnie hate her if this business of marrying the vicar didn’t accomplish that task?
