Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (26 page)

“You were smitten.” She watched his lips moving, forming words that seemed to hurt him as much as they hurt Sophie. He was in all likelihood still smitten, and
that
was why he absented himself from his own home for years at a time.

“The fall assembly had passed, and we were to be married early in the New Year, so we'd had no opportunity to make an announcement. She'd asked me to wait until after Yuletide to speak to her father, but there was no young man more optimistic than I. My lady allowed me the occasional taste of her charms, but I esteemed her too greatly to fully anticipate our wedding vows. She was delicate in this regard, and I respected that.”

And what a lucky young lady she must have been, to have Vim's affections at such an earnest and tender time of life. Sophie smoothed a hand down her skirts, wishing she'd never asked for this recitation.

“So imagine my chagrin, Sophie, when I took my handsome young self in my best courting finery off to one of the most prestigious holiday gatherings in the shire, and my lady's father called for all to attend him, as he had an important and felicitous announcement to make. My chest filled with pride, for I was certain he was going to announce the impending nuptials and spare me an awkward interview.”

Vim paused, and Sophie watched as his glance scanned the green. He looked like he never wanted to see the place again.

“Her papa announced that she'd be marrying the Baronet Horton's heir. Tony Horton was ten years my senior, in definite expectation of a title, and a man reputed to know his way under a woman's skirts, if I might be vulgar. I could not believe her father had cast her into the arms of such a worthless bounder.”

“What did you do?”

“I tried to call the man out, right there at the men's punch bowl. I'd held my tongue until the prospective groom was among his confreres and away from the eyes and ears of the ladies. I accused him of poaching on an understanding, of enticing a gently bred lady with his charm and his expectations, and being the ruin of her happiness.”

“Plain speaking.” Egregiously plain speaking. Tony Horton's family was well settled in the area, though his holding was not known to be particularly prosperous.

“I would have slapped him soundly before all and sundry, but the host of the gathering caught me by the arm and prevented the blow.”

“This is significant?”

“When a blow has been struck, no apology should prevent the duel, not if honor is to be maintained by both parties.”

“Men.”

His lips quirked, a fleeting hint of his smile. “Yes, men. The host made a joke of my outburst, said half the shire was going to go into mourning because Tony had taken my intended out of consideration, said young men were prone to such overreactions as mine, and with a few more cups of punch, I'd likely be falling in love with mine host's best milk cow. The man was and is well respected, and the others were all too happy to follow his lead. They ended up toasting His Grace's milk cow before I was hustled out of the room by three of my burlier neighbors.”

Oh, my goodness.
“His Grace?” There were other dukes in Kent, several, in fact.

“Your father, Sophie Windham, His Grace, the Duke of Moreland. Your father was the one who heaped such ridicule and scorn on my head, made a laughingstock of me before my peers, and saw to it an engagement undertaken in bad faith obliterated one made in good faith. I've crossed paths with him since in Town, and it's almost a greater insult that he treats me with great good cheer, as if a defining moment in my life meant nothing at all in his.”

Sophie felt physically ill. Her father, particularly as a younger man, had been capable of callous, calculating behavior but this crossed a line to outright meanness.

“You never married?”

He stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankle. “I'm English, Sophie. I always envisioned myself with an English bride to go with my English title and my English family, and yet, I've spent precious little of my adult life in England until recently. Then too, I was content to dwell in Cumbria when I had to be somewhere in the realm, but that option has been precluded now, as well.”

Sophie blinked in the bright sunshine, hurting for him and feeling a hopelessness close around her. Not only had Vim chosen to leave the area never to dwell here again, her own father had been the author of his difficulties.

“Sophie, are you ready to go?”

How long Westhaven had been standing there, Sophie did not know. Vim got to his feet and extended a hand to Sophie. “I'll walk you to the livery.”

When she put her hand in his, he bowed over it then wrapped her fingers over his arm, as if they were strangers promenading in some drawing room.

“Looks like we might get yet more snow,” Westhaven remarked.

Neither Sophie nor Vim replied.

Vim boosted Sophie onto her horse, arranged her habit over her boots, and stepped back.

“Sindal, good day.” Westhaven touched his hat brim and urged his horse forward, then checked the animal after a half-dozen steps and brought it around to face Vim. “Might we see you at Her Grace's Christmas gathering?”

Vim shook his head, wondering if the man had asked the question as a taunt, though Westhaven's expression suggested it had merely been a polite query. Rather than elaborate on his refusal, Vim turned to make his farewell to the second woman to cause him to associate Kent at Yuletide with heartbreak.

“Lady Sophia, good day. And if I don't see you before I depart on my next journey, I wish you a pleasant remainder to the holidays.”

She nodded, raised her chin, fixed her gaze on her brother's retreating back, and tapped her heel against the mare's side.

Vim tortured himself by watching their horses canter down the lane, the thud of hooves on the frozen ground resonating with the ache in his chest. Her silence told him more plainly than words he was watching her ride out of his life.

As loyal as Sophie was to her family, there was no way she'd plight her troth to a man who'd given such an unflattering recitation regarding His Grace, and no way Vim would make the attempt to persuade her at this point, in any case.

“So you're still bungling about with my sister's affections?”

Valentine Windham, coat open, mouth compressed into a flat line, sidled up to Vim outside the livery.

“The lady has made her wishes known. I am merely respecting them.”

Windham studied him, and not for the first time, Vim had the sense that this was the brother everybody made the mistake of underestimating. In some ways—his utter independence, his highly individual humor, his outspokenness, his virtuosic shifts of mood—this Windham son put Vim most in mind of the old duke.

“You are being an ass.” Windham hooked his elbow through Vim's as if they were drinking companions. “Humor me, Sindal. If I spend another minute wrestling with that monster at the church, I will for the first time in my life consider tuning a keyboard instrument with a splitting ax.”

Vim let himself be walked back toward the bench, mostly because the prospect of returning to Sidling and the plethora of female relations about to descend was unappealing in the extreme. Then too, Val Windham adored his pianos, suggesting the man wasn't going to do anything foolish—like, for example, obliging Vim's inclination to engage in a rousing bout of fisticuffs—if it might damage his hands.

“On second thought”—Windham switched directions—“let's drop in for a tot of grog.”

They appropriated the snug at the local watering hole, steaming mugs of rum punch in their hands before Windham spoke again.

“You sip your drink, and I will violate a sibling confidence.”

“I don't want you violating Sophie's confidences,” Vim said, bristling at the very notion.

Windham's lips quirked. “Oh, very well, then. I won't tell you she screams like a savage if you put a frog in her bed. I was actually going to pass along a little something told me by an entirely different sister, one not even remotely smitten with you.”

“Windham, are you capable of adult conversation? For the sake of your wedded wife, one hopes you are, and I do appreciate the drink. Nonetheless, I am expecting a great lot of family this afternoon at Sidling, and charming though your company is, I have obligations elsewhere.”

Windham lifted his mug in a little salute. “Duly noted. Now shut up and listen.”

Vim took a sip of his drink, lest by some detail he betray that he was almost enjoying Windham's company. The man had the look of his sister around the eyes and in the set of his chin.

“While Westhaven was haring about tidying up the family business affairs, and St. Just was off subduing the French, it befell me to escort my five sisters to every God's blessed function for years on end. I was in demand for my ability to be a charming escort, so thoroughly did my sisters hone this talent on my part.”

“I am in transports to hear it. Alas, I am not in need of an escort.”

“You are in
need
of a sound thrashing, but St. Just has said such an approach lacks subtlety. My point is that I know my sisters in some ways better than my brothers do.” Windham studied his mug, a half smile playing about his lips. “They talk to me.”

“Then at least you serve some purpose other than to delight your tailor with your excellent turnout.”

“I delight my wife even in the absence of any raiment whatsoever.”

“For God's sake, Windham—”

“My sisters talk to me,” Windham resumed, “and as a male, I am always torn by the question: why are they telling me such things? Am I supposed to offer to thrash a fellow or lecture a shopkeeper, or am I merely to listen and make sympathetic noises?”

“Your capacity for making noise is documented by all and sundry.”

Green eyes without a hint of humor narrowed on Vim. “Do not insult my music, Sindal.”

“I wasn't. I was insulting your talent for roundaboutation.”

“Oh. Quite. In any case, I've concluded that in the instant case, I am not to offer to do something nor to make sympathetic noises. I am to
act
. Don't neglect your drink.”

“At the moment, it would serve me best emptied over your head.”

The half smile was back, and thus Vim didn't see the verbal blow coming. “Sophie thinks you were offering her a less than honorable proposition before we came to collect her, and modified your proposal only when her station became apparent.”

Windham took a casual sip of his drink while Vim's brain fumbled for a coherent thought. “She thinks
what
?”

“She thinks you offered to set her up as your mistress and changed your tune, so to speak, when it became apparent you were both titled. I know she is in error in this regard.”

Vim cocked his head. “How could you know such a thing?”

“Because if you propositioned my sister with such an arrangement, it's your skull I'd be using that splitting ax on.”

“If Sophie thinks this, then she is mistaken.” Windham remained silent, reinforcing Vim's sense the man was shrewd in the extreme. “You will please disabuse her of her error.”

Windham shook his head slowly, right to left, left to right. “It isn't my error, and it isn't Sophie's error. She's nothing if not bright, and you were probably nothing if not cautious in offering your suit. The situation calls for derring-do, old sport. Bended knee, flowers, tremolo in the strings, that sort of thing.” He gestured as if stroking a bow over a violin, a lyrical, dramatic rendering that ought to have looked foolish but was instead casually beautiful.

“Tremolo in the strings?”

“To match the trembling of her heart. A fellow learns to listen for these things.” Windham set his mug down with a thump and speared Vim with a
look
. “I'm off to do battle with the treble register. Wish me luck, because failure on my part will be apparent every Sunday between now and Judgment Day.”

“Windham, for God's sake, you don't just accuse a man of such a miscalculation and then saunter off to twist piano wires.” Much less make references to failure being eternally apparent.

“Rather thought I was twisting your heart strings. Must be losing my touch.”

Vim watched as Windham tossed a coin on the table. “It makes no difference, you know, that your sister is mistaken. I did offer for her subsequently. She understood clearly I was offering marriage, and she turned me down.”

Windham glanced around the common then met Vim's gaze. “As far as she's concerned, you offered her insult before you offered her marriage. An apology is in order at the very least, and Her Grace's Christmas party seems to be the perfect time to render it.”

And then he did saunter off, and the blighted, bedamned, cheeky bastard was whistling “Greensleeves.”

***

Westhaven's subtlety had failed, Valentine's bullying charm had met with indifferent success, so Devlin St. Just, Colonel Lord Rosecroft, saddled up and rode into battle on his sister's behalf.

“I'll collect the mare when I've signed the appropriate documents up at the manor,” he said, stroking a hand down the horse's long face. The wizened little groom scrubbing out a wooden bucket showed no sign of having heard him, so St. Just repeated himself, speaking more slowly and more loudly.

“Oh, aye. Be gone with ye, then. I'll make me farewells to the lady and get her blanketed proper while ye and their lordships congratulate each other.” The groom's eyes went to the mare, the last of Rothgreb's breeding stock, and in the opinion of many, the best.

“May I ask you something?” St. Just knew better than to watch the man's good-byes to the horse. He directed his gaze to the tidy manor a quarter mile away.

“Ask, your lordship.”

“Why is there no young stock among the servants here? Why is everybody working well past the time when they've earned some years in high pasture?”

The old fellow turned to glare at St. Just. “We manage well enow.”

“It isn't smart, letting the entire herd age,” St. Just replied. “You need the elders to keep peace and maintain order, but you don't put your old guard in the traces beyond a certain point. The young ones need to learn and serve their turn.”

“Tell that to yon strappin' baron.”

The groom shuffled away, muttering in the Irish—which happened to be St. Just's mother tongue—about young men too happy to gallivant about the globe when they were needed to look after their family at home.

“Madame.” St. Just addressed the mare. “I'll come for you soon. The grooms at Morelands are bedding your stall with enough oat straw for an entire team. Nonetheless, try to look downcast when you take your leave here, hmm?”

She regarded him out of large, patient eyes, her mental workings as unfathomable as any female's.

St. Just made his way to the manor, noting the number of horses in the Sidling paddocks and the several conveyances outside the carriage house. Her Grace said the Charpentier family gathered for the holidays, and it looked like what ought to be a quick exchange of coin, documents, and a toast in the viscount's study was going to require some seasonal socializing to go with it.

He looked at the sky, which bore the same sun as was shining at that very moment on his wife and daughters in Yorkshire. A comforting thought.

“Rosecroft! Come ye in and sing wassail!” Rothgreb stood grinning at the front door, his nose a bright red contrast to his green velvet jacket. “The place hasn't been this full of noise since the old lord's third wedding breakfast.”

“My lord.” St. Just stopped just inside the door and bowed to the older man. “I didn't mean to impose, but came to fetch the mare and thought I'd—”

“Here they come!”

St. Just looked up to see a half-dozen very young ladies trotting up the hallway in a giggling, laughing cloud of skirts and smiles.

“Another guest, girls! This is Lord Rosecroft. Make your curtsies and then line up.” The ladies assembled with an alacrity that would have done St. Just's recruits in Spain proud. “All right, Rosecroft, best be about it. They get bold if you make 'em wait.”

St. Just looked askance at his host, who was grinning like a fiend.

“It's the kissing bough,” Vim Charpentier said as he emerged from the hallway, a tumbler in his hand. “You have to kiss them each and every one, or they'll pout. And, Rosecroft, they've been collecting kisses all afternoon between trips to the punch bowl, so you'd be well advised to acquit yourself to the best of your ability. They will compare notes all year. So far, I believe I'm your competition.” He took a sip of his drink, eyeing his cousins balefully.

“I've charged headlong into French infantry,” St. Just said, smiling at the ladies, “praying I might survive to enjoy just such a gauntlet as this.” He went down the line, leaving a wake of blushes, kissing each cheek until he got to a little girl so small he had to hunker down to kiss her.

“What's your name, sweetheart?”

“Cynthia Weeze Simmons.”

“The prettiest has been saved for last.” He kissed a delicate cheek and rose. “Any more? I was cavalry, you know, legendary for our charm and stamina.” This was said to tease the young ladies, but they all looked at their grandfather without breaking ranks.

“Once with you lot is enough,” the old man barked. “Shoo.” They departed amid more giggles.

Sindal looked disgruntled. “You made that look easy.”

“I have daughters, and I'm half Irish. It was easy, also fun. Rothgreb, can we repair somewhere private to transact a little business?”

“What? Business? Sindal can deal with those details. I'm going to find my viscountess and tell her she missed a chance to kiss Moreland's war hero.”

Sindal passed St. Just the tumbler. “It helps if you're as half seas over as the rest of the household. I have never longed more ardently for sunset. Uncle has set himself up as the Lord of Misrule until then.”

“And you're not feeling the seasonal cheer?”

“Bah, to quote my uncle.” An odd smile flitted across Sindal's face. “Among others. Let's repair to the study. There's a bill of sale and a decanter—and no damned mistletoe.”

“I rather like mistletoe.”

“I rather like a fine brandy.”

They dealt with the documents quickly, but Sindal had to hunt up the sand with which to blot them. “It should be in here some damned where. The old fellow is nothing if not—” He fell silent, peering into a low cupboard behind the estate desk.

“Something amiss?”

Sindal straightened, a divided serving dish in his hands. “What would an olive dish be doing secreted in my uncle's study?”