Page 81 of The Soldier
“So you’ve decided to move to Cumbria, then?” He turned his face to inhale the fragrance of her hair, wondering how a man could breathe through so much heartache, much less speak intelligibly.
“It isn’t Cumbria,” Emmie said, tears welling again. “I just need to know Winnie has taken root here, and she cannot do that if she thinks I am an option for her.”
“I do not,” St. Just said in low, intense tones, “and I never will, agree with your decision in this matter, but neither can I convince you to reconsider it.”
“Just hold me,” Emmie whispered. “Please, for the love of God, just hold me.”
“Let me build up the fire,” he suggested a few minutes later. He hoped simple activity and even a few feet of distance might allow rational thought to find him again. He eased away from her, added several heavy logs to the blaze on the hearth, and turned to face her where she sat on the sofa.
“St. Just?” She’d pulled her feet up and propped her chin on her knees.
He hunkered to meet her gaze at eye level. “Emmie?”
She drew in a deep, shuddery breath and let it out before meeting his eyes. “Lock the door.”
***
Don’t do it, his common sense screamed.You’ll regret it, she’ll hate you for it, this is stupid, stupid, stupid… Think, man!
“Why?” he asked. Not why lock the door—he didn’t even pretend to himself regarding that answer—but why allow such intimacies now? She smiled in response, a heartbreakingly tender, wistful smile.
“I am being selfish, St. Just.” She turned that smile on the crackling hearth. “I need you. I know it isn’t wise, not for either of us, but I am so…” He sat back on the raised hearth and mentally filled in the silence: Lonely, frightened, bewildered,cold…
“What of Bothwell, Emmie?” he pressed, his voice grave. “I will not trespass where there’s a betrothal. He doesn’t deserve that from either of us.”
“I have not given him an answer. There is no betrothal.”
Yet.The word hung between them, and St. Just felt a spike of wry self-pity. She wanted a little fling, perhaps, some comfort over her decision to abandon the child, some pleasure before she must accept the saint over the barbarian. She wanted the oblivion of passion and knew she could, at least, count on him for that.
“You are sure?” he asked, tossing one last meager bone to his conscience. “I would not become one of those fellows who used you ill, Emmie. Not for anything.”
“I will use you ill,” she said, that same sad smile flickering across her tired countenance. “If you will allow it.”
“And if you get a child?” he asked, closing his eyes against the part of him that would sell his soul to ignore the question.
“It’s not likely right now.” And for no reason he could fathom, this seemed to make her even more sad.
“You must not answer Bothwell until you know,” St. Just said, but he realized Emmie would have promised to dance naked through York at that moment, so desperate was she for the oblivion he could provide.
“I will wait.” She met his gaze. “And if I’ve conceived, I will refuse Bothwell.”
His best, most noble, and unselfish motivations, his self-discipline, his very reason went sailing right up the flue, but still—even having handed him a means of thwarting the vicar—Emmie held his gaze. She had not said she’d marry St. Just, either, and they both knew it.
He rose on a sigh, feeling both buoyant that she should turn to him and desolate that he was truly going to lose her. “I have not the strength nor the virtue to deny myself what you offer.”
Emmie closed her eyes and nodded, but he could almost hear her thinking:Thank God… He stood, gazing down at her. How to begin this unlooked-for feast of pleasure and heartache? How to give her the abandon she sought in such exquisite, overflowing measure she might even doubt her determination to leave?
Naked, he thought, the image of Emmie gilded by firelight igniting in his imagination.
“Come.” He tugged her to her feet. “You deserve a bed, and no one is about at this hour.” She silently complied and let him lead her through the darkened house, his arm about her waist, her head on his shoulder as if she could barely find the strength to move.
“Last chance to change your mind,” St. Just murmured as they neared his bedroom door. She shook her head and followed him into his room.
He locked the door behind them and saw his room through her eyes: It looked almost unlived in. A fire had been lit, but the covers were not turned down to warm the bed, the candles were not lit, the wash water had not been moved to the hearth for warming. Though the rest of the house was showing the benefits of additional maids and footmen, his own quarters were not.
“You wash first,” Emmie suggested. “I’ll see to my hair and the bed.”
He nodded and began to strip out of his clothes, as casually as if they’d done this for a thousand nights. Emmie turned down the bed, found his hairbrush, and sat on the end of his raised canopy bed to take down her hair. St. Just stayed near the warmth of the hearth, systematically removing his clothes. Naked as he came into the world, he turned to the side and propped a foot on the low brick hearth.
