Page 19 of Twelve Drummers Drumming

A pang hit Jemima’s stomach when she saw that it was completely impossible for him to reach them, his leg preventing him from aiding her.

A family of four was shepherded away by the father, muttering something under his breath that Jemima would never believe could come from a person’s mouth, and one elderly woman paused and pushed a coin into his gloved hand.

Jemima could not help but laugh at the stunned and slightly confused expression on the captain’s face.

“She gave me a shilling,” he said, completely bewildered. “Why would she do that?”

*

It had notbeen a good day for Captain Rotherham.

He had been kept up half the night. At first, he had believed it was something that he ate, though he had assumed nothing could disquiet his stomach after the disgusting fare they had been given when in France, when the battle lines were close, when there were but moments to stuff as much sustenance down their throats as possible.

Yet it had not been his stomach. It had been his heart, twisting the more he thought of Miss Fitzroy. Jemima.

The sun had come up, and Rotherham had barely closed his eyes for more than a moment. He was to gain no sleep that night—which in some ways was a blessing.

Although his nightmares had dissipated this last week, the threat of them was always hovering over his pillow.

The crisp morning was full of the blustery wind he had already begun to associate with the London winter. The birdsong revived him, and he strode out toward his favorite park: Hyde Park.

It was not, Captain Rotherham tried to convince himself, because of his encounter with Jemima, he must remember to call her Miss Fitzroy, even in his head—that Hyde Park was his favorite.

To be sure, he had not visited it much before meeting her, but the fact he had found himself there every day in the last week was surely a mere coincidence. Instead of waiting around at their billeted lodgings that had been assigned to them during the winter, that is where he spent his hours.

Captain Rotherham nodded to a gentleman striding through the park, then realized that he had no memory of how he had got there. His thoughts had been so entwined with Jemima that his legs and crutch had taken him, unbidden, to the very bench where they had sat.

If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that she was here with him, those serious eyes regarding him as he opened his soul to her.

Dear God, he wished he had touched her more than a handshake in that moment. Before her father had arrived, of course.

What he would have given to feel the softness of her skin, to sense her warmth, to breathe in that fragrance only a woman seemed to have.

Jemima Fitzroy. He could not help but smile whenever he thought of her name. The boisterous, wild, untamed woman who had absolutely no concern with speaking her mind.

Dear God, she bewitched him.

He had certainly told her more than anyone else about his time in France. Even his mother had not been able to pry so much detail from him—yet there was something about Jemima. Something that made it impossible not to speak; something that made him warm, and desperate to bring her closer to him, to feel her skin underneath his fingers, to feel her breath on his…

Captain Rotherham coughed. This was getting him nowhere. It had been a week, a full seven days since he had met her, and what had he done in the meantime?

Had he inquired after her family, discovered her place of abode? Had he written her a letter, called upon her—or even given attending the engagement ball of her sister any real thought?

In any case, he was not entirely sure what reception would greet him, even if he did. Her revulsion for war and anything related to it was a challenge to any further acquaintance. At times he thought he could see something in her eyes that looked like desire, but she confounded him at every turn.

The wind blew autumn leaves toward him, and he shivered. No. He had done nothing to find her. It was too much to expect Jemima to have even the smallest interest in him. She had probably forgotten him already, just another soldier stumbling around London with more injuries than sense.

It was when he was on his way back to his rooms at the Rose and Crown that his crutch had slipped on some wet leaves, causing him to knock the elbow of the elegant woman in front of him.

Shame and embarrassment coursed through him, but Captain Rotherham had truly believed his eyes to be deceiving him when he saw it was Jemima Fitzroy berating him once again.

The coldness of the shilling in his hand brought him back to the present. Jemima was bending down to retrieve her s parcels. He needed to concentrate. Needed to ensure he did not pull her into his arms and taste those pink lips. Needed to prevent himself from giving her a taste of what pleasure he could surely give her if she would only let him.

*

Shifting the parcelswrapped in brown paper in her arms so she had a better grip, Jemima saw with relief that none were grievously harmed in their adventure, and the one package that she had been able to hold onto was Sophia’s cakes. She would never have heard the end of it if they had been damaged.

Captain Rotherham was gazing at her with a strange expression. If Jemima did not know better, she would say that something like warmth was pouring out of them, and she felt once again that she was falling into them.

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