Page 91 of The Soldier
“I did,” Emmie said, her expression miserable, “and the stables. I assume she’s hiding in the music room with Val, who will no doubt be better company than I.”
“As you wish.” St. Just picked up the one ancient used-to-be-black valise that held the last of Emmie’s personal effects, and offered her his arm, then handed her up into the gig. It had held off raining, snowing, sleeting, or whatever ugliness the sky portended, but the clouds were lowering threateningly.
“Appropriate weather for the occasion, don’t you think?” St. Just remarked as he secured the valise behind the seat.
Emmie glanced at the sky and grimaced. “I suppose.” She kept her eyes forward as St. Just climbed up beside her and took the reins.
“You can still change your mind, you know,” St. Just said softly. Emmie glanced at him, as if to decipher whether the offer was about going back to the cottage, marrying Bothwell, or rejecting St. Just, but she just shook her head.
He clucked to the horse, and they made the short, unhappy journey in silence. Emmie waited until he came around to hand her down, and if she hesitated a moment before putting her hands on his shoulders, then hesitated even longer before stepping away from him, St. Just declined to comment.
“So you’re here,” he said, when he’d set Emmie’s valise down in her front hallway. “Let me get your fires going, at least.”
“I was…” Emmie looked around as if she hadn’t seen the house before and rubbed her arms. “I was going to get the teapot on. Will you have a cup?”
“Emmie…” He regarded her with a frown, not sure what the kind thing to do was. At his hesitation, she looked ready to beg, so he capitulated. “One cup, but if we’re going to that bother, let me put Caesar in a stall and see Roddy is settled in while I’m at it.”
“One cup.” Over which, she looked inordinately relieved.
While she bustled in the big kitchen, St. Just put the horse into a stall with hay and water, scratched the mule’s furry forehead, and lit fires in the downstairs parlor and up in Emmie’s bedroom. He’d never seen the room before and found it pretty, feminine, and welcoming. Emmie’s bed was huge and so adorned with pillows and shams and skirts and lace it looked like a giant bonbon.
Closing the door behind him and wishing he’d not seen that bed after all, St. Just came down the back steps to the kitchen.
“You’ve been home only a few minutes, and something already smells good.”
“I tossed a little cinnamon in the steamer. Your tea?” She handed him a mug, not a teacup, and gestured to the bench near the hearth. “The kitchen fire was lit this morning, so this room is probably the only one truly warm.”
She sat on the bench, leaning back against the wall, and he settled silently beside her. They sipped tea—the universal antidote—and listened to the fire, to the clock ticking, to the end of what might have been.
“You’ll be all right?” St. Just asked, setting his empty mug aside.
“I will.” She spoke around the fingernail she was nibbling. He rose, thinking to get the hell out of the kitchen so the poor woman could cry in peace and perhaps leave him to do the same.
“St. Just.” Emmie lurched to her feet and wrapped her arms around his waist. Much more slowly, almost reluctantly, his arms came around her. He wanted to offer words of comfort, but his throat was constricted with misery; so he just held her, closed his eyes, and inhaled the sweetness and fragrance of her for the last time.
“Hold me,” Emmie whispered desperately. “I shouldn’t ask it, and you’ve every right…”
“Hush,” he murmured, his hand circling on her back. “I’ll hold you. It’s all right.”
She cried silently, much worse than any of her previous, noisier outbursts, and all he could do was hold her. There was no comfort to offer, not to her, not to him. No soothing white lies, no polite fictions to murmur. There was simply sorrow to be borne. When she was quiet in his arms, St. Just walked with her back to the bench and again sat beside her.
“I can’t help but think, Emmie”—he held her hand between both of his—“if a path is this difficult, perhaps it’s the wrong course.”
“Nonsense.” Emmie wiped her cheeks with his handkerchief. “This can’t be any more difficult than much of what you and every other soldier has faced. It’s just…”
He waited, wondering if now, now that her decision was becoming a reality, she would finally talk to him.
“I’ll miss her.”
Three true words, but they bespoke a lifetime of sacrifice and heartache.
“She’ll miss you,” St. Just replied, “as will I. I’ll send Stevens over tomorrow to see if there’s anything you’ve forgotten, anything you need.”
Emmie nodded but closed her eyes for an instant, and he knew she was absorbing his warning: He would not be coming around like an orphaned puppy, making excuses to take tea in her kitchen and further torment them both. He owed her more than that, and he quite frankly could not have borne the knowledge he was lusting after her even after she’d committed herself to Bothwell.
“Farewell, then, Emmie Farnum.” He raised his hand and cradled her cheek. “Be happy.”
“You,” she said, turning her face into his palm, “you be happy, too, St. Just. You deserve to be happy, and… thank you. For everything.”
