Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (22 page)

She slipped out the door, a gracious hostess having checked on her guests.

Sophie cuddled the baby close, not knowing whether to pray for decent weather so she could get free of proximity to Lord Sindal, or to pray for the roads to be closed for days, that she might enjoy a little more time with the child she was bound to give up.

“Here you go.” St. Just offered Vim a peculiar sort of smile as he handed over a carrying candle. “You'll want to light your uncle up to his room, won't you?”

He would? “Of course. Uncle, I'm sure Aunt is wondering what's become of you.”

“She knows damned good and well what's become of me,” Rothgreb said, tottering to his feet. “Haven't had so much fun swilling port and telling stories since I last rode to hounds.”

“And you'll introduce me to Dutch's Daughter in the morning,” St. Just said, shaking a finger at the viscount. “I've seen her offspring under saddle and coveted her bloodlines.”

“No doubt about it, my boy, you'd be a lucky man to get your hands on such as her.” The viscount winked and turned to his nephew. “Onward, young Vim. My bride awaits me.”

Vim caught looks from Westhaven and Lord Val suggesting Rothgreb might need a steadying hand on the stairs, but when he accompanied his uncle into the corridor, the old man's step was brisk.

“Moreland sired some decent sons,” Rothgreb remarked. “And that's a pretty filly they have for a sister. Not as brainless as the younger girls, either.”

“Lady Sophia is very pretty.” Also kind, intelligent, sweet, and capable of enough passion to burn a man's reason to cinders.

“She's mighty attached to the lad, though.” His uncle shot him a look unreadable in the gloom of the chilly hallways. “Women take on over babies.”

“He's a charming little fellow, but he's a foundling. I believe she intends to foster him. Watch your step.” He took his uncle's bony elbow at the stairs, only to have his hand shaken off.

“For God's sake, boy. I can navigate my own home unaided. So if you're attracted to the lady, why don't you provide for the boy? You can spare the blunt.”

Vim paused at the first landing and held the candle a little closer to his uncle's face. “What makes you say I'm attracted to Lady Sophia? And how would providing for the child endear me to her?”

“Women set store by orphans, especially wee lads still in swaddling clothes. Never hurts to put yourself in a good light when you want to impress a lady.” His uncle went up the steps, leaning heavily on the banister railing.

“And why would I want to impress Lady Sophia?”

“You ogle her,” Rothgreb said, pausing halfway up the second flight.

“I do not ogle a guest under our roof.”

“You watch her, then, when you don't think anybody's looking. In my day, we called that ogling. You fret over her, which I can tell you as a man married for more than fifty years, is a sure sign a fellow is more than infatuated with his lady.”

Vim remained silent, because he did, indeed, fret over Sophie Windham.

“And you have those great, strapping brothers of hers falling all over themselves to put the two of you together.” Rothgreb paused again at the top of the steps.

Vim paused too, considering his uncle's words. “They aren't any more strapping than I am.” Except St. Just was more muscular. Lord Val was probably quicker with his fists than Vim, and Westhaven had a calculating, scientific quality to him that suggested each of his blows would count.

“They were all but dancing with each other to see that you sat next to their sister.” Rothgreb pushed away from the banister and headed off toward his room, Vim trailing a step behind him. “What are you about, boy? I know where my own room is. Lady Sophia's in the green guest bedroom.”

The room right across from Vim's room. “I would not disrespect a guest in this house, Uncle.”

“Youth! It's a wonder the aristocracy hasn't perished for sheer lack of brains. I'm not suggesting you disrespect anybody. Wish her a pleasant good night. Won't take but a minute, and I'm sure your aunt neglected this courtesy.”

Vim passed his uncle the candle. “Good night, Uncle. Thank you for the suggestion.”

The old man pointed with a gnarled finger. “Her room's that way, and for God's sake, don't wake the baby while you're wishing her good night.”

***

Valentine stepped over the hound drowsing on the hearth rug in Lord Rothgreb's study. “I can spend hours tuning that piano. Once I start on the harpsichord, we might be here all day.” He settled onto the sofa beside Westhaven.

“That's fortunate,” St. Just said from the other end of the couch. “Trying out the mare's paces was only going to take all morning, and that's assuming nobody in the stables moves faster than the staff here at the house.”

“Which leaves me to do what?” Westhaven groused.

Valentine wedged himself a little lower on the sofa and propped his feet on a hassock. “You're a clever lad, being the heir and all, you'll think of something.”

***

Sophie put down her hairbrush, not even sure she'd heard a tap on the door. “Come in.” She said it very softly, in deference to the baby sleeping in the cradle near the hearth.

Valentine was fearless to the point of recklessness. He would be the one foolish enough—

“I hope I'm not intruding?” Vim closed the door quietly behind him.

“You're not.” Sophie gathered her wrapper around her a little more closely. It was borrowed from Lady Rothgreb's closet, a voluminous old thing more comfortable than attractive.

“Kit's asleep?”

She nodded and watched as Vim moved a few steps into the room. “You have everything you need, Sophie? I'm not sure the staff has had to contend with visitors since the last time I passed through.”

“I'm quite comfortable. How long has it been since you came to visit?” She picked up the brush with every intention of resuming her evening toilette. It would not do to fall upon the man as if she were starving for the sight of him, for the sound of his voice, for the exact shade of blue in his eyes.

“Shall I braid your hair for you?” He rose from where he'd been kneeling by the cradle and prowled over to the vanity.

Or maybe it just looked to her like he was prowling, because her mind was in such a muddle. He took the brush from her grasp, and shifted her shoulders gently with his hands so she was facing the mirror.

“I want you to do something for me.” Sophie spoke quickly, lest she lose her nerve.

“Anything within my power, of course.” He used both hands to scoop her hair over her shoulders so it flowed down her back, a sweet, soothing caress that made Sophie's insides melt.

“Are you familiar with the curate's family?”

“I am not.” He started brushing her hair, long, slow strokes down the length of it. “Why?”

“Your aunt suggested they might be willing to take in a boy child. They have only girls and would likely dote on Kit.”
Or
work
him
to
death
. She didn't say that. She closed her eyes lest Vim see the indecision she was wrestling with.

“Curates tend to move around, Sophie, at least until they gain a vicar's living. Are you sure that's what you want for Kit?”

She shook her head, and behind her, Vim went still.

He said nothing, not one word, while Sophie's mind fumbled around for some coherent phrases to explain something so difficult to express. “I am
not
sure, which is why I'm going to ask you to interview these people and see if they might suit Kit.”

He hunkered at her side, so they were at eye level. Sophie forgot she wanted to do him bodily injury, forgot he'd been excruciatingly polite over dinner, forgot everything except the kindness once more in his eyes.

“You ought to be the one to make this decision, my dear.” He did not touch her, but his voice touched her heart. “You love that baby as if he were your own, and this is too important a decision to make secondhand.”

“But I can't…” She swallowed and looked away, emotion welling. “I simply cannot.”

He rose and tugged her by the wrist over to the bed, then sat beside her holding her hand. “I will be your emissary, but you must tell me what my marching orders are.”

She wanted to throw her arms around him in gratitude—or in some excess of emotion—but he was being so… reserved. She marshaled her dignity, though it was a struggle.

“You simply go and look the family over. See if their circumstances are adequate to take on another mouth, offer them whatever coin you think they'll need to provide for Kit. My pin money is lavish, and I'd spend it all to see Kit comfortable. Make sure the house is warm and the larder stocked. Look over their livestock and their root cellar, see if their children have shoes and warm clothes.”

His arm came around her shoulders.

“And look to make sure the roof isn't leaking, and that the doors all close snugly. It would be nice if they had some toys… no, they
must
have toys. Sturdy toys a boy can't break by playing with them too vigorously, not just pretty things and dolls for little girls. And something musical. I don't expect a piano, but a guitar doesn't cost much, or even a wooden flute…”

She trailed off and pressed her face to Vim's shoulder as an awful thought occurred to her. “They'll change his name.”

This struck her as more monstrous even than taking Kit on simply for the free labor he'd provide. To toss his very name aside, as if he were just a beast, a dog, an old horse passed from owner to owner…

“You can insist they address him as Kit, my dear, but for him to have a different last name from his family would raise uncomfortable questions.”

She nodded against his shoulder, it being impossible to wedge words past the lump in her throat.

“I'll go first thing in the morning, if this is what you wish.”

It wasn't what she wished. She
wished
she weren't Lady Sophia Windham. Wished she were just some goodwife and Vim her yeoman, able to take on another baby to go with their own brood. She wished she could provide Kit family—brothers and sisters to tease and grow up with and still be his people when Sophie was dead and gone.

She wished…

She pulled away from the sturdy comfort of Vim's body. Wishing never got anybody anywhere.

“I must do what's best for Kit.” She untangled her fingers from Vim's. “I meant it about the money. Westhaven is very generous with us, and I have enough frocks and bangles and bonnets to last a lifetime.”

She got up from the bed and returned to her vanity but didn't sit down.

To her relief, he remained on the bed. “I have never seen you in a bonnet, never seen you wear a single item of jewelry, never seen you in a dress that wasn't five years out of fashion.”

“What has that to do with anything?” She picked up her hairbrush, and lest she throw it, started swatting at her hair.

“Sophie, I cannot help but think you should take more time with this decision.”

He did move off the bed, then, and Sophie flipped her hair over the other shoulder so she wouldn't have to look at him.

“Time will only make it harder on both of us. It's been little more than a week, and already I grow confused about what should be a simple decision.”

He was close enough that she could catch a whiff of the bergamot scent of him, close enough she could feel the tempting, muscular bulk of him looming near, and still she merely brushed her hair.

“I will wish you good night, then, Lady Sophia.”

She paused and peered up at him. “I do not need to be Lady Sophia to you when we are private.”

“Yes, you do.”

He leaned down and kissed her forehead, lingering near for so long Sophie was tempted to throw her arms around his neck and beg him to stay, to hold her, to love her, to talk her out of this awful decision regarding Kit.

“Sweet dreams, Lady Sophia. I will be about your errand directly after breaking my fast.”

And then he was gone, and Sophie had no one to talk her out of anything, not even the errand of placing her wonderful baby in the care of complete strangers.

“I thought you'd be gone to Morelands by now.”

Vim stood in the doorway to Sophie's sitting room, watching as she played on the floor with a smiling Kit. They made such a lovely picture, thoroughly enthralled with each other, a picture no amount of practical reasoning could convince Vim should be drawn for Kit with any other family.

“I was outvoted,” Sophie said, picking up the baby and getting to her feet. “Valentine must tune the piano, St. Just is dickering with your uncle over the mare, and Westhaven is claiming certain unmentionable parts are not up to another ride in the cold without soaking them for a bit first.” She paused in her recitation and met his gaze. “Well?”

“The Harrads were from home.” The relief in her eyes was painful to behold. “They'll be back this afternoon.”

And then the dread again. She cuddled the baby closer and kissed his ear. Kit turned to swing his little paw at her, but Sophie drew back, only to kiss his ear again when he dropped his hand.

“That child likes to play.” And Sophie adored to play with him, to lavish love and attention upon him.

“He's been singing today, as well,” she said, taking a seat on the sofa with the infant. “Wonderful baby songs, odes to his toes, madrigals to his knuckles. I wonder when he'll begin to speak. Mrs. Harrad will no doubt know such things.”

She was Lady Sophia this morning, a woman with no recollection of the glorious intimacies they'd shared. A duke's daughter determined on her cause. He sat beside her, missing plain Sophie Windham with a fierce ache.

“The livestock look well fed, the fences are in good repair, the chicken coop is snug, and the house looks tidy and spruce. The windows are clean, the woodboxes are full, the porch is swept, and the walkway has been shoveled clear of snow. I hope this disappoints you as much as it did me.”

She gave him a puzzled look.

“Sophie, I would foster the boy here, except my aunt and uncle are surrounded by the oldest domestics this side of the Flood, my aunt is growing vague, and my uncle can't keep track of the valuables. I will not be here enough to matter, and that is no situation to leave a child in.”

“I meant to ask you about that.” She bundled the child into a receiving blanket then folded a second, heavier blanket around the first. “Will you show me your portrait gallery?”

“Of course.” But why would she want to see a bunch of old paintings, and what exactly was she going to ask him about?

She passed him the baby and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. As they progressed through the house, Vim tried to hoard up some memories: Sophie trotting up the main staircase, Sophie pausing at the top to wait for Vim and his burden to catch up with her, while a shaft of sunlight gilded red highlights in her dark hair.

As they entered the cavernous portrait gallery—a space so cold Vim could see his breath before him—Sophie gathered her shawl around her.

“We ought not to stay long,” he said. “You'll take cold with just a shawl.”

“I'm warm enough.” She glanced around the room, which was brightly lit with late morning sun pouring in the floor-to-ceiling windows and bouncing off the polished parquet floors. “This would be a marvelous place to hold a holiday reception.”

“It would take days to heat it.” But she had a point: when had his aunt and uncle stopped entertaining?

“Fill it with enough people, and it will heat easily enough. Who's this?”

She stood before a full-length portrait of a big, blond fellow standing beside a pretty, powdered lady lounging in a ladder-backed chair.

“My grandfather. He never took to wearing powder or wigs, though he liked all the other finery. That is his first wife. My grandmother is in the next portrait down.”

Sophie moved along a few steps. “I see where you get your great good looks. These four are all of him?”

“With his various wives. He lived to a great old age and was expecting to get a passel of sons on them all.”

She studied the portrait, while Vim wondered what, exactly, constituted great good looks.

“I can see Rothgreb in him,” Sophie said, “about the eyes. They have a Viking quality to them, devil take the hindmost. Was your grandmother the only one to give him sons?”

“An heir and spare, and then years later, when the heir died of some wasting disease, my father as an afterthought. I think my father's death was particularly hard on the old man.”

She moved to the last portrait of Vim's grandfather. “He had you by then, though. You should have been some consolation.”

“I was not.” Vim shifted to stand beside her but focused on Kit, not the painting of his grandfather. “My father had a weak heart. His lordship was convinced, because I look like my father, I would be a similar disappointment.”

Sophie perused him up and down, her lips compressed in a considering line, then she gestured to the next portrait. “This is your father?”

“Christopher Charpentier, my sainted father.”

“He's quite handsome, but I have to say, you look as much like your grandfather as you do your sire.”

“I do not.” Not one person had ever told him he looked like his grandfather.

She crossed her arms. “By the time you came along, his hair had likely gone white, but it was the exact shade of golden blond yours is now. As a younger man, his eyes were the exact shade of baby blue yours are too.”

“If I am the spit and image of him, I wonder why, when I told him I was leaving for a life at sea, he did nothing to stop me.”

She gave him another visual inspection. “Was this declaration made after your heart was broken?”

“Shall we move on? The older portraits are over here.”

Sophie crossed the room with him and took a seat beside him when he lowered himself to one of the padded benches between paintings.

“I never liked this room,” he said, shifting so Kit sat on his lap. “Never liked the sense the eyes of the past are upon me.”

“Some of the people in this room loved you, I should hope.” She reached over and loaned Kit her finger to wrestle into his mouth.

“And I loved them, but they're dead all the same.” He paused to take a breath and marshal his composure. “It wasn't my heart that was damaged so much as it was my pride, and on the occasion of a gathering attended by the entire neighborhood. A young lady made it dramatically apparent she preferred another, and I did not handle the situation well. In hindsight, I made far too much of the entire matter. Would you like to hold the baby?”

As gambits went to change the subject, it ought to have been foolproof, but Sophie shifted to look out over the room, taking her finger from Kit's maw.

“He's comfortable where he is, and if I'm dreading my leave-taking from him, you can't be looking forward to losing him, either. Are you still in love with your young lady?”

“For God's sake, Sophie.” He set the baby, blankets and all, in her lap and rose, pacing off a half-dozen feet. “I haven't seen the woman in years, and she preferred another. No sane man would allow himself to hold on to tender feelings under such circumstances.”

“We're not necessarily sane when we're in love.” Her smile was wistful, as if recalling her own first love.

“Then I'm happy the condition has since not befallen me. Shall we go? I'm sure I heard the first bell for luncheon, and we don't want Kit taking a chill.”

She looked peevish, as if she might argue with him, which was about what he deserved for being so short-tempered. Fortuitously, the baby started bouncing in her lap and carrying on in baby-language about God knew what.

“Come.” Vim scooped the child up and extended a hand to Sophie. “We'll bring him to the table and entertain your brothers with his singing. Aunt will be delighted, and Uncle will start telling stories again.”

***

“Do you know, Percy, my eyes are not what they used to be.” Esther, the Duchess of Moreland, kept her tone mild, but her spouse was no fool. After more than thirty years of marriage, he could sniff out an uxorial interrogation just in the way she said his name, and she could tell from his very posture he was already maneuvering charm into place to avoid it.

“Your eyes are as lovely as ever, my dear. Hold a minute.” He pointed upward, to where a fat sprig—nigh a sheave—of mistletoe was suspended from the rafters over the Morelands main entrance. She smiled while he bussed her cheek.

“Your behavior is wonderfully decorous, husband. I don't know whether I approve.”

“The girls are all underfoot, save Sophie. It doesn't do to set a bad example. I wish you could have seen young Deene's expression when he realized he was going to have to kiss four Windham sisters in succession if he wanted to leave the house with his reputation intact.”

“And did you treat him to a ducal glower?”

“Permit me my entertainments, my love, but I could hardly glower when the girls were the ones who ambushed him under the kissing bough.”

And as distractions went, the image of four of Esther's daughters kissing the handsome Marquis of Deene ought to have sufficed—except Esther did not allow it to.

“What else did Westhaven have to say?” She tucked her arm through her husband's, lest he try to nip into his study for something he'd forgotten or pop down to the kitchen to snitch a crème cake or go on some other ducal frolic and detour.

“Westhaven?”

“Yes, you know. Earl of, also known as Gayle Windham, your heir and our son. He sent you another little epistle this morning from Sidling.”

His Grace paused outside the door to Esther's personal parlor. “How do you know these things, Esther? The children swear you have eyes in the back of your head, but I suspect it's supernatural powers.”

“I saw the Sidling groom coming up from the stables. The man isn't young, and his progress took some time. Perhaps the note wasn't from Westhaven.”

“It was from Westhaven. He said old Rothgreb was pressing them to stay an extra day, claiming his viscountess hasn't been so animated since Sindal's last visit. St. Just is negotiating the sale of that mare Rothgreb is so proud of, our very own Mozart is tuning their piano, and Sophie might be taking notice of young Sindal.”

“Sindal is a bit older than St. Just.”

“A veritable relic, though still barely half my age. Would you mind if she took an interest in him?”

In the studied casualness of her husband's inquiry, Esther understood very clearly that His Grace would not mind. His Grace was encouraging the association, in fact. Esther passed into the cozy little parlor overlooking the wintry landscape of Morelands' park, waited until her husband had joined her, and closed the door behind him.

“This room always smells lovely,” he said, glancing around. “Flowers in summer and spring, and spices in the fall and winter. How do you do it?”

Now that they were behind closed doors, his arms slipped around her, and she leaned against him.

“It's a secret. Do you want to know what was in the viscountess's note to me?”

He rested his chin against her hair. “I wasn't going to pry.”

Nothing wrong with His Grace's eyesight. “It seems our Sophie has become enamored of a foundling. The tweenie did not catch her coach for Portsmouth, but left the child in Sophie's care and hasn't been heard from since. Esmerelda gleaned this from things Rothgreb winkled from his nephew over port. She is concerned Sophie is too smitten with the baby to realize she's made a conquest of young Wilhelm.”

“Oh my.” His Grace stepped back and went to the sideboard, lifting a quilted cozy from the teapot. “It seems we have an intrigue going on, my love. The temptation to meddle is very strong.”

She crossed her arms and considered her husband, the man she loved, the father of her children, and a man who would never have enough grandchildren. “My very thought, Percival. Perhaps we should sit down and discuss the situation.”

“No ‘perhaps' about it.”

***

Already, after only a handful of days and nights, Vim
knew
her. Half asleep, deep in the night, without even touching her, he knew she was there.

“Sophie, what are you doing in my bedroom?”

The shadows beside his bed shifted, and he felt a weight beside him on the mattress.

“I don't want to talk.”

“Sophie, this is not in the least wise. You're leaving tomorrow—” Two soft, rose-scented fingers settled over his mouth then slowly moved up along his jaw to caress the outer contour of his ear.

“You can send me away.” Her weight came closer on the expanse of the mattress. “I wish you would not, because you're right. Tomorrow,
I
will
leave
.”

There was such desolation in three words, desolation that echoed in the very chambers of Vim's own heart. She'd turned down a lifetime with him but was apparently willing to steal another hour in the dead of night. Then too, in the morning, she would give up the child.

“This is not wise, Sophie.”

She kissed him. Her lips connected first with his cheek, then wandered over to the corner of his mouth, then grazed the edge of his jaw.

“My dear, where is Kit?”

“Fast asleep in my room. Kiss me, Vim, please.”

It was the last thing she said for a long, long time—with words—but he sensed she'd come to
know
him too. Her hands as they skimmed over his chest and arms were sure on his body; her kisses on his skin were cherishing and unhurried.

For all she'd turned down his proposals, Vim was certain this was not mad, passionate lovemaking from Sophie, but
loving.
Maybe it was born of grief in anticipation of parting from the baby; maybe it was an indulgence before she fully resumed the mantle of Lady Sophia Windham.

Whatever her reasoning, it would be his privilege to accommodate her wishes on this one, unlooked for, final occasion.