The Soldier Read Free Page B

shall we say, and my thanks for the very delicious…”
    The earl stood beside her chair, waiting for her to rise, and as her voice trailed off, he offered his arm.
    “I must insist on just a little more of your time.” He picked up her hand and placed it on his arm. “You are my first visitor here, you see, and I wasn’t aware the custom in Yorkshire was to burst in upon a neighbor at table, without explanation or invitation, and disturb his meal.”
    ***
     
    As they made a leisurely progress through the once-gracious manor, Emmie Farnum reminded herself that, drunk and mean, the late Earl of Helmsley hadn’t been able to make her back down. Sober and chillingly polite, the Earl of Rosecroft wasn’t going to be any greater challenge. Life’s circumstances had made her a good judge of character, particularly a good judge of male character, as it was invariably a shallow, trifling subject. In less than ten minutes in the earl’s company, she’d come to understand he was a very deceptive man.
    Not willfully dishonest, perhaps, but deceptive.
    He looked for all the world like an elegant aristocrat come to idle the summer heat away in the country. A touch of lace at his collar and throat, a little green stone winking through the folds of his neckcloth, a gleaming signet ring on his left hand, and even in waistcoat and shirtsleeves, he projected wealth, breeding, and indolence.
    His speech was expensively proper, the tone never wavering from a fine politesse that bespoke the best schools, the best connections, the best breeding. He wielded his words like little daggers though, pinning his opponent one dart at a time to the target of his choosing.
    His body deceived, as well, so nicely adorned in attire, tailor-made for him from his gleaming boots to his neckcloth, to everything so pleasantly coordinated between.
    And he was handsome, with sable hair tousled and left a little too long, deep green eyes, arresting height, and military bearing. His face might be considered too strong by some standards—he would never be called a pretty man—but it had a certain masculine appeal, the nose slightly hooked, the chin a trifle arrogant, and the eyebrows just a touch dramatic. No honest female would find him unattractive of face or form.
    Beneath the well-tailored clothes, great masses of muscle bunched and smoothed with his every move. The hands holding Emmie’s chair for her were lean, brown, and elegant, but also callused, and she’d no doubt they could snap her neck as easily as they cut up Winnie’s apple tart. He was clothed as a gentleman, spoke as a gentleman, and had the manner of a gentleman, but Emmie was not deceived.
    The Earl of Rosecroft was a barbarian.
    But then, there was the most puzzling deception of all: He was a barbarian, but barbarians did not notice when small children grew tired, they did not think to cut up a little girl’s tart for her, they did not coax and charm and guide when they could pillage, plunder, and destroy.
    So he was an intelligent, shrewd barbarian.
    Emmie let him seat her on a green brocade sofa in the paneled library. “My lord, if you would permit me to ask just one or two questions?”
    “I will not,” he replied, seating himself—without her permission, barbarian-fashion—in a wing chair opposite the sofa. “I will ask the questions, as you are under my roof and without my invitation.”
    “I apologize for interrupting your meal,” Emmie said, trying for humility, “but I was concerned for the child.”
    “So I gather. Tea, Miss Farnum?” He excused the footman when the elegant service was sitting on the low table between them.
    “Tea would be lovely,” she said automatically, resenting the delay in his inquisition. “Shall I pour?”
    “No need. I will pour for you so I might pour for myself, as I abhor a cup of tea prepared not as I prefer. Worse than no tea at all.”
    “I see. Well then, cream and two sugars in mine, if you please.” He passed her the tea