Eleven

“Good morning!” St. Just wrapped his arms around Emmie’s waist and pressed his freshly shaved cheek to the side of her neck. “You smell good enough eat.”

“My lord!” She batted at St. Just with a towel and wrestled herself out of his embrace. When she kept swatting at him, not in play but perhaps in panic, he stepped back and let his hands fall to his sides.

“What on earth do you think you’re about?” she panted, spearing him with an incredulous look. “I will not be accosted in the broad light of day as if…”

He arched a dark eyebrow. “As if you’re capable of driving me beyond reason between the sheets?”

She whirled, turning her back to him, and when he tried a tentative hand on her shoulder, she flinched.

“Emmie?… Sweetheart? Are you crying?”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Can we discuss this outside?”

“No we cannot.” She whipped back around. “I have to get the scones out of the oven by nine, and then start Winnie’s lessons so I can have the next batch of bread in before luncheon, and then work on the Weimers’ wedding cake this afternoon, and I haven’t planned anything for dessert, and your brother is here…”

She paused to take a deep breath, but as she spoke, St. Just realized that though they’d made love last night, her room had been dark, and he hadn’t seen her since setting foot on his property the day before.

“I’ll do Winnie’s lessons,” he said, thinking as quickly as he could. He’d felt a difference last night when Emmie was naked in his arms, but his mind had been clouded by lust, anticipation, and gratitude. By daylight, he could see she’d lost at least a stone of weight, her features were drawn, and her eyes were underscored by shadows. Her hair, usually confined in a tidy bun at her nape, was coming undone on one side, and her movements were brittle, as if her bones ached.

“I can’t let you do Winnie’s lesson. You don’t know what she’s working on.”

“She’ll work on what I tell her to work on,” he said, reverting to the habits of command.

“St. Just.” Emmie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We have to discuss Winnie and her recent behaviors.”

“Will your scones burn if we do it now?” he asked, relieved beyond measure to be embarking on something resembling a discussion.

“Oh… Yes.” Emmie looked on the verge of tears. He wanted more than anything to take her in his arms and comfort her, but instinct cautioned him she’d only be more upset.

“Even if I sit here and you tell me how to make bread dough while we talk?”

That earned him a ghost of a smile. “I am not asking the Earl of Rosecroft to make bread.”

“The earl used to be known around the campfires as a fine hand with the biscuit dough,” he rejoined. “I am not a stranger to the process of preparing food, Emmie.”

“Well, sit,” she said, some of the tension leaving her. “I’ll bake, and we’ll talk.”

“About Winnie?”

“Yes, about Winnie.” Emmie’s mouth compressed into a thin line. “She ran off yesterday morning. Stevens and I found her by the pond when it was all but pitch dark. She was not the least contrite, but rather chastised me for not having Cook set aside scraps for Scout’s dinner.”

“He was a puppy when I left. Somebody has been feeding him something.”

“He’s not a bad dog,” Emmie said as she slid hot scones onto a wire rack. “But Winnie has become increasingly defiant, disobedient, rude, and unpleasant. I am loathe to admit it, but she has reminded me lately of her father.”

“She was a little cool toward Val at breakfast. That is unusual, as Valentine is the most charming man in my family, save His Grace when he’s wheedling.”

Emmie dropped more batter onto the tray. “I am hoping she was just worried your absence would become protracted, and with you here, she will settle down.”

“But?” The earl resisted the temptation to help himself to a hot scone.

“But Winnie has been through a great deal, and she will go through another transition when I leave.”

“You are not leaving.”

“I will not argue the matter with you when Winnie can walk into the kitchen at any minute.”

“Fair enough, but you will listen to what I say, Emmie Farnum. You are too damned skinny, you aren’t getting enough rest, your temper is short, and I don’t care if your menses are going to start this afternoon, you have no call to be treating me like I’m your enemy.”

“Do not,” she hissed, “mention my bodily functions outside of a locked bedroom door.”

St. Just ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. “I want to help, all right? All I’m saying is you seem frazzled, and if Winnie is part of the problem, I’ll tackle that, but we need to find a way to talk that doesn’t leave us at daggers drawn.”

His tone was reasonable, almost pleading, and when he saw her shoulders relax, he knew he was making some progress—not much, but some.

“If you would keep Winnie occupied today, I’d appreciate it.”

“Done. And when you are through here, please just take a nap, Em.” He glanced around the kitchen. “Leave the mess. I’ve got staff, and they can clean up for once. Don’t come down to dinner if you don’t want to, either. Val understands—he plays his piano for hours most days, and if we see him at meals, it’s a coincidence. Just…” He looked her up and down, trying to keep the worry from his expression. “Just get some rest,” he finished with a tentative smile. “Please?”

She nodded, able to return a small smile of her own.

Taking his chances, St. Just stepped over to her, brushed a kiss to her forehead, and took his leave. He was more alarmed that she merely bore the kiss silently rather than swat him again with her towel.

He took Winnie up on Caesar and purposely hacked through the woods, but Winnie sat before him, silent and sullen, only occasionally calling to Scout.

He left her up on the horse while he himself got down, putting her above him while he spoke. “You’re in a taking about something, princess. When you want to let somebody in on it, talk to me. For now, are you ready to coach me over fences?”

“I am, but Caesar likes Vicar, so you might find him less willing to mind you.”

“Everybody likes Vicar.” Hell, I even like Vicar.

“I don’t. He seems nice, but he’s been kissing Miss Emmie, and that isn’t nice at all.”

What?

With admirable calm, St. Just merely tossed Winnie up onto the fence rail, resisting with saintly force of will the urge to turn the child into his spy.

“I rather enjoy kissing,” he said, “certain ladies, that is.” He planted a loud kiss on Winnie’s cheek—“and some horses”—another one for Caesar’s nose—“but not dogs, old lad.” He blew a kiss to Scout, who looked—as he usually did—a little confused.

“All right, you.” He plunked Winnie onto his shoulders as Stevens led the horse away forty-five minutes later. “Time for luncheon. What did you think of the rides today?”

“You ride better than Vicar,” Winnie said with heartening loyalty, “but I don’t think Wulf and Red are right-hoofed, you know? They like to go this way”—she twirled a finger counterclockwise—“better than the other way.”

“My heavens,” he exclaimed in genuine astonishment. “What a good eye you have. Have you told Vicar this?”

“I don’t talk to him.”

“I know. He kisses Miss Emmie.” Much as it pained him to—bitterly, piercingly—he went on. “You know, Miss Emmie might like kissing him, Winnie, in which case it is none of our business.” As Winnie was sitting on his shoulders, he could feel the tension and anger flowing back into her.

“It’s nasty. My father was always kissing the maids, and that was nasty, too.”

“Do you think it’s nasty when I kiss my horses?” the earl asked, hefting her to the ground.

“No.” Winnie shook her head. “Red and Caesar and Wulf don’t think so either.”

“What about when I kiss you?”

“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.

“And that’s all.” She sighed, bowing her head. “I made a mistake with you. It isn’t my first mistake, but I hope it will be my last. I can’t survive another such mistake.”

He was silent, not asking her why it was a mistake. He could guess that.

“I think I’m getting better,” he said quietly. “I go for as much as a week between nightmares, and the last time it rained, I was able to stay away from the brandy. I haven’t had to build a wall now for a few weeks, Emmie.”

“Oh, St. Just.” She rested her forehead on his shoulder. “It isn’t you. You must not think it’s you. You’re lovely, perfect, dear… And you are getting better, I know you are, and I know some lady will be deliriously happy to be your countess one day.”

He listened, trying to separate the part of him that craved her words—lovely, perfect, dear—from the part of him that heard only her rejection.

“Is there someone else?” he asked as neutrally as he could.

Emmie shook her head. “Again, not in the sense you mean. I am not in love with anybody else, and I don’t plan to be. But I am leaving, St. Just. I have thought this through until my mind is made up. My leaving will be for the best as far as Winnie is concerned, and she comes first.”

“I don’t understand,” he said on an exasperated sigh. “You love that child, and she loves you. She needs you, and if you marry me, she can have you not just as a cousin or governess or neighbor, but as a mother, for God’s sake. You simply aren’t making sense, Em, and if it puzzles me, it’s likely going to drive Winnie to Bedlam.”

He glanced over at her, and wasn’t that just lovely, she was in tears now.

“Ah, Emmie.” He pulled her against him in a one-armed hug. “I am sorry, sweetheart.” She stayed in his embrace for three shuddery breaths then pulled back.

“You cannot call me that.”

“When do you think you’re leaving?” he said, dodging that one for now.

“Sooner is better than later.” Emmie wiped at her tears with her hand, which had St. Just tucking her fingers around his handkerchief. “When can you have a governess here for Winnie?”

“I’m not sure.” He spoke slowly, mentally tallying weeks. If he dragged his feet long enough, it would be winter, and Emmie would be bound to stay. “I’ve started the process for filling a number of positions, and we’ll have to see who comes along. Winnie won’t tolerate just anybody, and neither will I.”

“But certainly by Christmas?” Emmie said. “It’s more than two months away, and you are hardly parsimonious with your wages.”

“Is that why you’re accepting every order that comes along, Emmie?” He brushed a lock of her hair back over her ear. “You are saving against the day you leave here and your business might not be so brisk?”

“I am saving against the day I’m too old to work in the kitchens hour after hour, against the day I turn my ankle and miss a week’s business, or the day when I have to replace Roddy.”

“Petunia is trained to drive.”

“I can’t keep her.” Emmie got up and went back to work with her bowl and spoon.

“Do you mean you cannot afford to keep her or you do not think it proper to keep her?”

“Both.” She shot him an indecipherable look where he sat. “She is lovely, and the gesture was lovely.”

Lovely. He felt an immediate, irrational distaste for the word, but their discussion had been productive on a number of levels. First, he comprehended he had at least until Christmas to change her mind. Second, he understood part of Emmie’s bad mood and skittishness was due to sheer exhaustion, which he could address fairly easily. Third, Emmie had not expected him to react as he had to her lack of virginity. She had anticipated he would reject her for it or judge her, and it was a consequence she was willing—almost eager—to bear.

So he didn’t have her trust—yet. And he did not have all the facts. Emmie was keeping secrets, at least, and if Winnie’s disclosure regarding Bothwell was any indication, Winnie had a few things to get off her chest, as well.

Just like managing a group of junior officers. Always a mare’s nest, always making simple problems difficult, and always needing to be hauled backward out of the thickets they should never have blundered into. Except, he mused as he regarded Emmie’s drawn features, he hadn’t been in love with his recruits, and males were infinitely less complicated than females.

Thank the gods Bonaparte had not been female, or the empire would already have encompassed Cathay.

***

“So where’s your kitchen general?” Val asked as they settled in for a brandy in wing chairs before the hearth in the library. “She missed tea and dinner.”

“She’s asleep.” St. Just had sent a tray up to her at teatime, then checked on her just an hour or so ago. The food was half gone, and the kitchen general was facedown on her bed, one foot still wearing its stocking. He’d wrestled her out of her clothes and tucked her in, all without her even opening both eyes.

“She’s the prettiest kitchen general I can recall meeting,” Val said, toeing off his boots. “And she looks at you like you are the world’s largest chocolate cream cake.”

“She does not.” She might have once upon a dark night, but she was obviously retrenching from that happy aberration.

“She does too. When you’re out there on your horses, she glances repeatedly out the window, then just stops and stares and sighs and shakes her head and starts glancing again. When she came into the music room looking for the child, she asked me what kind of music you like best.”

“I like anything you play,” St. Just said, running his finger around the rim of his snifter. “When I was in Spain, I used to occasionally catch someone at a piano when I took dispatches into the cities, and even more rarely, hear a snatch of something you might have worked on. It made me more homesick than any letter.”

Val stared at him. “I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t something to be sorry for. A soldier needs to be homesick, or he forgets why he fights. Scents were even worse, as they’ve wonderful roses in Spain. They reminded me of Morelands in the summer, and Her Grace.”

“Did you read those letters she gave you?”

“I’m working up my courage.”

“Shall I read them for you?”

“Thank you.” St. Just smiled slowly at the fierceness in Val’s offer. “But no, I’ll read them. It’s just that things here at Rosecroft have gone widdershins in my absence. My womenfolk are not at peace.”

“Your womenfolk being Emmie and Winnie?”

St. Just nodded and slouched against an arm of the chair. “There’s a burr under Winnie’s saddle. Emmie thinks my absence did not sit well with the child. I suspect it’s Emmie’s flirtation with the vicar that offends Winnie.”

“Could be both,” Val said, pursing his lips, “but I doubt the local vicar has made any significant progress in your absence. I’ve seen how Emmie regards you, and Winnie must see that, too.”

“The child sees entirely too much.” St. Just eyed his drink. “She was allowed to wander the estate, more or less, when her father was alive, and Emmie has curtailed that behavior since his death. Just yesterday, however, Winnie purposely ran off.”

“Running away is usually an effort to draw attention, at least it was when we did it. Sophie and Evie ran off when you and Bart joined up, and spent the night crying in the tree house.”

“And you run off to the piano bench. I run off to wrestle with rocks. I take your point, and Winnie has seen much upset in her short life.”

“Are you sure Helmsley is her father?”

“Her mother said so, apparently.” St. Just blew out a considering breath. “The earl acknowledged the child openly upon her mother’s death.”

“Who was her mother?”

“Emmie’s Aunt Estelle.” St. Just set his empty glass down. “She was not a particularly virtuous female, nor was Emmie’s mother, though I gather they both were loyal to individual protectors and not available on street corners.”

“Does Winnie have any siblings?” Val asked, refilling his own glass.

“None Emmie is aware of.” St. Just watched as his brother sipped at the second drink. “Being a professional, I assume the woman knew how to prevent such things.”

“And what was Winnie, then?” Val cocked his head. “Divine intervention? Or did the woman think to trap Helmsley into marriage? If she’d a brain in her head, she had to know that man was only going to marry money.”

“And stupid money at that.”

“Doesn’t make sense, Dev. This aunt had some sort of pension from the old earl, didn’t she? And a place to live. Such a woman had no motivation to set her cap for Helmsley, particularly not a woman ten years his senior, nor a woman trying to provide her niece a decent upbringing. I can’t imagine she was hungry to waste her remaining years on Helmsley’s bastard, either. You’re telling me she had to be older than you are now when the baby came along—several years older. Doesn’t add up to me.”

“It is puzzling,” St. Just said slowly, thinking through the questions Val had just raised. “And you’re right: It doesn’t add up.”

***

Emmie awoke the next morning, horrified to see the sun was already up. How on earth was she to get the cake to the church hall and still have her deliveries on the wagon by noon?

She had to admit, though, as she hastily put up her hair and donned a clean day dress, she had slept, and some of the leaden, creaky feeling in her body had abated as a result. She’d slept more than twelve hours, in fact, and knew she could have bested even that record had the drapes not been drawn open.

She washed and dressed quickly and had the insight that lately, she was so tired it was hard to work efficiently, creating a spiral of inefficiency and fatigue she’d been too exhausted to see. She shook her head over that and repaired to her kitchen.

“Good morning, Miss Emmie.” Anna Mae Summers emerged from the pantry, all smiles. “I’ve set the bread to cool, and I’m almost ready to start on the hot crosses. The dough for the cinnamons is rising on the hearth.”

Emmie smiled in return. “What on earth are you doing here, Anna Mae? I thought you were off to visit your sister while I’m here at the manor.”

“I’ve been back more than a week.” Anna Mae set to mixing up some icing. “I was dying of boredom when his lordship’s footman came by yesterday afternoon. This kitchen is bigger than yours and better laid out.”

“It’s very nice, but how long can you stay?”

“I didn’t come to call, Miss Emmie. I came to work. That wedding cake is going to look a treat, too. Enough to make me wish old Eldon Mortimer might take a girl to wife, you know?”

“The cake!” Emmie whirled, the morning’s deadlines looming up once more.

“It’ll be fine,” Anna Mae assured her. “His lordship has the dogcart hitched to take you over, and the layers are all boxed in the pantry. I’ve put the repair icing in the jar, and you’ll want a cloak, as it’s not exactly warm out.”

Emmie sat at the table and sent a bewildered look at Anna. She wanted to be indignant over matters running so smoothly without her, but her relief at not being behind was just too great. Then, too, she’d gotten more sleep in the past night than she had in the previous three put together.

“And, yes”—Anna Mae set the bowl of icing aside—“you have time for a nice cup of tea before you go. His lordship said he’d be in to fetch you when he had the beastie hitched.”

His lordship… Emmie got up to pour herself some tea. His lordship had taken Winnie off her hands yesterday, retrieved Anna Mae, shown Anna Mae what orders needed to be filled, and was now preparing to escort Emmie and her cake to church. She owed the man a debt of gratitude, one particularly profound given the way she’d treated him yesterday.

And the way she’d treated him the night before. God above, she’d all but attacked him… As she sat sipping her tea—hot, with lots of cream and sugar—the object of her musings appeared in the back hallway.

“I see you woke up after all.” He smiled at her, and Emmie knew with sudden certainty just who had tucked her in and opened her draperies. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Emmie offered a tentative smile. “My thanks for your efforts. I slept like a log, and the rest is much appreciated.”

“You aren’t going to castigate me for being high-handed?” He helped himself to a sip of her tea. “I thought you needed some reinforcements, and Anna Mae seems glad to be here.” Anna Mae winked at him for that pronouncement, and Emmie held her peace as the earl fastened her cloak for her then escorted her out to the gig. Three white boxes sat on the seat, each holding a layer of wedding cake. Caesar stood placidly in the traces, though the air was almost nippy.

“Don’t worry.” The earl handed her up. “I’ve driven the fidgets out of him already, and the church is only a short drive. You look a little less exhausted though.” He climbed up and settled himself beside her.

“Pretty morning,” Emmie said after they’d tooled along for several minutes. “And I really do appreciate your taking a hand in matters. I was about at the end of my rope with Wee Winnie.”

He smiled over at her. “You needed a nap, Emmie.”

“I did. I feel like I could use another one just as long.”

“Then take it. Anna Mae greeted me like I was Wellington himself, and she seems to have matters in hand.”

“What about Winnie?” Emmie frowned even as she stifled a yawn.

“Winnie has me and Val and Mary Ellen, if need be,” he reminded her as they pulled into the churchyard. “I get no end of satisfaction out of watching my little brother take tea with a stuffed bear and a dog. When my sisters played house, Val always got to be the baby.”

Emmie ushered him into the church hall, which doubled as the local assembly room. While she busied herself with setting up her cake, St. Just was sent to fetch the “repair icing” from the gig. He tarried long enough to release Caesar’s checkrein, allowing the horse to crop the soft fall grass in the churchyard.

“But, Emmie”—Bothwell’s cultured tones drifted through the back doors of the hall—“you know I’ve missed you.”

Emmie’s reply was murmured in low, unintelligible tones, causing St. Just to pause. The damned Kissing Vicar was about to strike again, but as a gentleman…

As a gentleman, hell… St. Just did not pull the door shut loudly behind him, which would have afforded Bothwell a moment to protect the lady’s privacy. He charged into the hall, boots thumping on the wooden floor, jar of icing at the ready.

“Now, Emmie…” Bothwell was kissing her, one of those teasing little kisses to the cheek that somehow wandered down to the corner of her mouth in anticipation of landing next on her lips.

“Excuse me, Bothwell, didn’t realize you were about.”

“Rosecroft.” Bothwell grinned at him, looking almost pleased to be caught at his flagrant flirting. “I’d heard you were back. My thanks for the use of your stables.”

“And my thanks for keeping those juvenile hellions in shape. You need a horse, man, congregational politics be damned.”

“Maybe someday.” Bothwell’s smile dimmed a little as his gaze turned to Emmie. “But for today, I’ve a wedding to perform.”

And Bothwell had known, probably from experience, Emmie would be bringing her cake over. Absent a special license, the wedding would have to start in the next couple of hours, and St. Just suspected the vicar had been all but lying in wait for Emmie.

“Em?” He brought her the icing. “Shall I go offer up a few for my immortal soul, or will we be going shortly?”

“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.