Page 22 of Twelve Drummers Drumming

This was incomprehensible to Jemima. There were men in the army who believed war was wrong, too?

But her thoughts faded as she saw Captain Rotherham’s face, for there was pain there, and a sadness that shocked her.

Jemima willed herself to try to bring him out of this dark stupor. “If you think that is misery, try living in my house on laundry day!”

Captain Rotherham laughed despite himself. “Goodness, I do not wonder you occasionally want to leave the house and throw yourself on unsuspecting soldiers!”

Jemima could not help but chuckle at this. “Captain Rotherham, you forget yourself!”

A gentle push from a throng of shoppers determined to move at great speeds meant she and Captain Rotherham came closer once again.

Slowing, Captain Rotherham watched her as they walked.

“I know that we only met a week or so ago,” he said quietly, though just loudly enough for Jemima to hear him over the din of an argument in a shop they were passing, “yet I feel as though I have known you for a long time. I feel as though I shall know you for a very long time.”

Falling into his eyes seemed to be an occupational hazard when around him, Jemima thought. If she was not careful, she was going to find her feelings absolutely compromised by Captain Rotherham.

Thankfully for Jemima, he did not seem to be expecting a reply. A right-hand turn necessitated that they wait for a few minutes to cross the road, and Jemima’s patience started to fray.

“Ten years ago, this would not have been a problem,” she hissed underneath her breath. “Just ten years ago, and now look at it! Carriages everywhere, and carts, and no one attending to the road or to those that may wish to cross—”

She suddenly stopped herself, gazing up at Captain Rotherham, who undoubtedly would find it repulsive and most unladylike that she could be so easily moved to anger.

But he was still standing beside her on her right-hand side, her gloves and another unidentifiable parcel clutched in his right hand and his left on his crutch. He was still smiling at her, a smile that pulled her toward him with some invisible force.

Without saying a word, Captain Rotherham smiled broadly, indicated with a nod of the head toward the road—and stepped out.

Jemima gasped. “No, Captain Rotherham!”

Perhaps he had never been to London before, she thought wildly, and clearly had no understanding of how dangerous the streets were!

Yet, despite his wild recklessness, Jemima stared, astounded, at the scene before her. Captain Rotherham strode out into the road as best he could with his crutch, and the carriages simply stopped before him. He was about six feet across when he realized that Jemima was not with him, and he stopped and turned to look back at her.

“Miss Fitzroy?” he said with the most charming smile on his face. “Will you not join me?”

“Are you mad?” Jemima’s voice seethed under her breath as she raced to catch up with him. “Are you attempting to pull me into an early grave, Captain Rotherham, because you are certainly doing a very good job of it!”

Captain Rotherham laughed and inclined his head to those drivers before him. They mirrored the gesture.

“You forget,” he said quietly to Jemima, “I am no ordinary man.”

Jemima looked at him suspiciously. “Is that so?”

Captain Rotherham nodded. “You must not forget I am a soldier, Miss Fitzroy. I am amazed that you so often do—and do not trouble yourself, please, it pleases me so much. To escape that part of my life is so easy with you, it’s like breathing. But for them…”

With this, he looked meaningfully at the drivers on the road.

Suddenly Jemima understood his meaning. That crimson jacket he wore could be seen from hundreds of yards down the road, it was so distinctive. It marked him out as a soldier, and the crutch marked him out as a hero. There was no one who was going to put their carriage careering into a wounded soldier who gained those wounds for king and country.

“You are a very wise man, you know that?” Jemima said with a smile as they reached the pavement on the other side. “Perhaps you abuse your position, have you considered that?”

Captain Rotherham returned her smile. “You are a very astute woman. It would have taken at least three times the explanation for most of your sex to understand that.”

Jemima tried as best she could not to blush, but it was impossible.

What was going on? Jemima started to chide herself but could not think exactly what she was doing wrong.Thatshe was doing something wrong, she was certain of; wandering the streets with a man she barely knew, of the merest acquaintance possible with her father, who had not even met her stepmother? No, there was something deeply wrong there.

Yet, nothing seemed wrong when she was with Captain Rotherham. She did not have to hide the sarcasm that so often came out of her mouth, and he laughed at her dry humor and did not censure it. There was something incredibly reassuring about the physicality of the man, something that she could not put her finger on. As though his strength was far beyond his body. As though his mind saw her for who she truly was and gloried in it.

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