Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (7 page)

She finished bundling the child up, her gaze drawn to the way muscles bunched and moved under the skin of Vim Charpentier's forearms as he worked. “What awaits you at home, Mr. Charpentier?”

“Why do you ask?” He hung the last towel on a hook and crossed to the table. “Are we reusing this water, or should I dump it?”

“You can dump it in the laundry, and you're avoiding my question by answering it with a question.”

The single glance he flicked at her confirmed Sophie's suspicion in this regard. He wasn't good at evasion or dissembling—something she had to approve of—and he did not want to make this journey down to Kent.

Did not want to even discuss it.

He came back into the kitchen, rolling his sleeves down as he did. Sophie found this mundane gesture on his part inordinately interesting.

“If you'd like to catch a nap, Sophie, I can watch His Highness for a bit.”

A generous—and distracting—offer. Sophie let the topic of his journey home ease away. He hadn't pried regarding her status; she would return the consideration—for now. “I was hoping you would watch the baby for a just a little while, but not so I can sleep. I'd like to check on Higgins and Merriweather, bring in more milk and eggs, and take the grooms some cinnamon buns and butter.”

He blew out a breath, and Sophie prepared to be Reasoned With.

“Have you looked out the window, Sophie Windham?”

“Occasionally, yes.”

“Then you comprehend there's better than two feet of snow out there and more coming down?”

“I do comprehend this. I also comprehend Higgins and Merriweather shoveled out paths between the house and the mews. The least I can do is show my appreciation.”

She lifted Kit off the table and perched him on her hip. A discussion of this nature required patience and determination, nothing more.

Vim took two steps closer to her, until she had to lift her chin to meet his gaze. “You aren't going to back down on this. What's the real reason you want to make this outing, Sophie?”

“What's the real reason you don't want to go home?”

The question was out of her mouth before she could consider its rudeness, but he was right: she was determined on her outing.

“It isn't home.” His mouth was a flat line, his eyes bleak. “If you'll let me do some shoveling, I will escort you and My Lord Baby to the mews. If we bundle him up, he should enjoy the change of scene.”

She considered that this was a Male Tactic, designed to keep her indoors out of guilt and concern for the child, but the disgruntlement in Vim's expression belied that notion. “You're sure the weather won't bother him?”

“No more than it's bothering me.” He turned to leave, heading for the back hallway. She let him go, because their last exchange hadn't been quite as polite as everything that had gone before.

Still, she sensed it had been honest. She liked that it had been honest.

***

Vim had heard a rumor regarding certain native peoples of far northern Canada. It was said to be an article of hospitality in those parts to offer a guest the intimate use of his host's wife, or to trade wives with friends for purposes of sexual recreation.

As Vim shoveled out paths thoroughly drifted over, he considered the hypothesis that excessive winter weather affected the humors such that prurient activity became even more enticing than usual.

Not that it had been enticing in recent memory. Not until he'd decided Sophie Windham and her foundling needed some supervision to get a proper start with each other.

He should not have given in to the urge to gratify himself the previous night, but the temptation had been rare of late, and a man didn't want to admit such a thing could be worrisome. He shoveled that thought off into the nearest drift.

He was getting old, and by God, he did not want to spend his holidays at Sidling.

He was clear enough on that to have a path reshoveled from the house to the stables in no time. The exertion had felt good, but another form of exertion wanted to crowd its way into his imagination, one involving naked bodies and cozy beds.

He could shovel his way to Kent in no time if he allowed his mind dwell there, so he put up the shovel and let himself into the mansion's back hallway.

“We're ready!” Sophie's voice sang out from the kitchen, and then she appeared in the doorway, the baby all but rolled into a rug, so snugly was he covered.

“I'll take Kit.” Vim held out his arms, and Sophie passed along her bundle without protest.

“Thank you. Let me fetch the buns, and we can be on our way.”

She disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Vim to realize Sophie had been feeling housebound too. It put him a little more in charity with life, to think he was doing her a service just by seeing her across the alley.

The bundle in his arms cooed.

“It's winter.” Vim peeled away just enough blankets to expose baby-blue eyes. “Cold is part of it, but we're English, so we refer to this as fresh air. Repeat after me: fresh air.”

“Gah.”

“My sentiments, as well, truth be told, but there's a steaming bowl of porridge in it for you if you keep your nappy clean for the next fifteen minutes.”

“Bah!”

Vim was still smiling when Sophie emerged from the kitchen. Her gaze went from Vim to Kit and back to Vim. “This looks like a conspiracy in progress. What have you two been up to?”

“Plotting a raid on the pantry. Shall we brave the elements?”

“Please.” She wrapped a scarf around her ears and neck and followed Vim out the back door. When she stood with him for a moment on the back terrace, her cheeks rosy and her breath puffing white in the winter air, Vim considered handing her the baby and plunging headfirst into the nearest snowdrift.

The impulse to kiss her was that strong.

***

Devlin St. Just, Colonel Lord Rosecroft, propped his stockinged feet on a scarred coffee table, took a sip of lovely rum punch, and listened to his younger brothers squabbling. It was a wonderful sound to a man who had only two younger brothers left.

“I say we wait another day.” Westhaven was getting quite ducal in his pronouncements, which was an understandable tactic, if poorly advised when dealing with their youngest brother.

“I say you're full of shit,” Lord Valentine replied with a diffidence no doubt calculated to aggravate. “The snow isn't that deep, we've already tarried here a day, and all we've seen is some flurries and a lot of low-hanging clouds. This is Sophie we're talking about, need I remind you?”

“Sophie.” Westhaven pushed out of his wing chair and began to pace around the inn's private parlor, making a credible impersonation of their mutual father, His Grace the Duke of Moreland. “Sophie, the paragon of probity. Sophie, the delight and comfort of our parents' eyes. Sophie, the sensible. Sophie, named for wisdom herself. She isn't clinging to a tree in some enormous snowdrift, her lips too frozen to call for help. She's ensconced in Lady Chattell's parlor, being plied with chocolate and marzipan.”

St. Just took another sip of his punch and exchanged a look with Val intended to limit the goading. Westhaven was worried. Worried enough to be counseling sense when sense wasn't necessarily going to carry the day. As heir to the dukedom, he'd refined worrying to a high art, and his siblings all loved him for it.

Mostly.

“Sophie is sensible,” Val said, still affecting bored tones. “She's sensible enough not to get caught when she's visiting the Magdalene houses in the East End. She's sensible enough to take in every stray animal that ever pissed in a back alley and to put the vagrant humans she finds there to work in the stables. She's sensible enough to tat lace and embroider pillowcases while fomenting the rights of women with her pin money. The storm is reported to be worse in London, and I say we push on now.”

St. Just intervened before they started yelling in the ducal tradition. “Both of you have some punch. The spices are excellent, and it calms the humors. Seasonal cheer never hurt a fraternal congregation.”

Westhaven resumed his seat, running his hand through dark chestnut hair. They all shared height and green eyes, but St. Just and Val had darker hair. This plan to meet up in Cambridge had been Westhaven's idea, and as usual with Westhaven's plans, a sound notion. Val had been appraising some antique harpsichords in Peterborough, Westhaven lecturing at Cambridge, and St. Just traveling south from Yorkshire—and all of them had been cordially summoned by Her Grace to put in a holiday appearance at the ducal seat in Kent.

One could ignore a summons from His Grace. The duke would simply issue a louder summons or come deliver the next summons in person.

One ignored a summons from the duchess at risk of causing that dear lady disappointment, and Val and Westhaven were arguing over the sibling who, in all her twenty-some years, had likely caused Their Graces the least disappointment.

So far. Sophie was a different hairpin, though. She might not merit regular castigation like her brothers and sisters, but St. Just knew she puzzled her parents, and puzzlement was in some ways a more painful state of affairs than disappointment.

St. Just kept his features bland, as he'd learned to do when listening to half-drunk generals squabble over competing idiot plans while the sensible course lay in plain sight before them all, silently begging for notice.

“Valentine, you are agitating to push on in part because you are worried about matters at home in Oxford.” St. Just passed his youngest brother a steaming mug along with a shut-up-and-hear-me-out look. “Westhaven, you are concerned we'll offend Sophie if we go to heroic measures to retrieve her from Town when she's perfectly capable of managing competently under all situations—at least to appearances.”

He passed Westhaven a mug, and in deference to the man's standing and sensibilities, a please-hear-me-out look.

But Val was never one to take orders just because it made sense to do so. “A new wife is not a
matter
. She is my family. Their Graces have had thirty years to spend holidays with us, and this my first—”

Westhaven sighed, took a sip of punch, and glanced over at Val. “It doesn't get easier the longer you're married. You still fret, more in fact, once the babies start coming.”

Val's head cocked, as if he'd just recalled his brother was also his friend. “Well, as to that…” Val smiled at his punch. Baby Brother sported a devastating smile when he wanted to, but this expression was…

St. Just lifted his mug. “Congratulations, then. How's Ellen faring?”

“She's in fine spirits, in glowing good health, and I'm a wreck. I think she sent me off to Peterborough with something like relief in her eye.”

Westhaven was staring morosely at his grog. “Anna isn't subtle about it anymore. She tells me to get on my horse and not come back until I've worked the fidgets out of us both. She's quite glad to see me when I return, though. Quite glad.”

For Westhaven, that was the equivalent of singing a bawdy song in the common.

St. Just propped his mug on his stomach. “Emmie says I'm an old campaigner, and I get twitchy if I'm confined to headquarters too long. Winnie says I need to go on scouting patrol. The reunions are nice, though. You're right about that.”

Val took a considering sip of his drink then speared St. Just with a look. “I wouldn't know about those reunions, but I intend to find out soon. Dev, you are the only one of us experienced at managing a marching army, and I'm not in any fit condition to be making decisions, or I'd be on my way back to Oxfordshire right now.”

“Wouldn't advise that,” Westhaven said, still looking glum. “Your wife will welcome you sweetly into her home and her bed, but you'll know you didn't quite follow orders—our wives are in sympathy with Her Grace—and they have their ways of expressing their…”

Both brothers chimed in, “Disappointment.”

A moment of thoughtful imbibing followed, after which St. Just went to the door, bellowed an order for another round of punch, then returned to the blazing fire.

“All right, then. It seems to me the clouds are hanging off to the south and west, but all the northbound and eastbound travelers are telling us the storm is serious business. Here's what I propose…”

Lord Val and Lord Westhaven listened, and in the end they agreed. The grog was good, the advice was sound, and Sophie was, after all, their most sensible sister.

It wasn't a mews, it was a menagerie.

As Sophie introduced Kit to the end of Goliath's nose, Vim's gaze scanned the interior of what should have been ducal stables. For some reason, Miss Sophie held sufficient sway over the household that she could command space in the barn for a little brindle milk cow with one horn, another hulking draft horse which looked to Vim to be blind in one eye, and a small cat missing one eye, part of an ear, and all of a front paw. Vim had no doubt if he inspected the rest of the premises, he'd find yet more strays and castoffs in her keeping.

“Kit likes Goliath,” Sophie said, taking the child's tiny fingers and stroking them over the largest Roman nose in captivity. “But then, who would not love my precious, hmm?”

She leaned over and kissed the horse's muzzle, a great loud smacker of a kiss that had the baby chortling with delight. Kit swung a fist toward the horse, but Sophie leaned away before the child could connect.

“Come meet wee Sampson, my other precious.” She moved off down the shed row as Higgins came shuffling up to Vim's elbow.

“She'll be in here half the morning, dotin' on them buggers.”

“Where does she find them?”

Higgins hitched his britches up and frowned. “She just does. She come upon Sampson at the smithy when they was blinding him for work at the mill. Miss Sophie wouldn't have none of that, no matter the colonel tried to explain to her a half-blind horse is worse than one with no sight at all.”

“A horse that size could turn the millstone handily.”

“Not if he's got sight in one eye, he can't. He'd fall down dizzy after an hour in the traces.”

“Who's the colonel?”

“Her oldest brother. Good fellow with a horse. Was in the cavalry all acrost Spain and at Waterloo.”

Sophie was making every bit as big a fuss over the second horse as she had the first. She held the baby up on the side of the horse's good eye and spoke quietly to horse and baby both.

“Why did she name her tom cat Elizabeth?” It was a silly question, but some part of Vim wanted to know this detail.

“Ye'd have to ask her. It's something Frenchified.”

She knew French, and she had a brother who'd made the rank of colonel—not an easy or inexpensive feat.

“Mr. Sharp-an-tee-air?”

Vim glanced down at the little man standing beside him. “Mr. Higgins?”

“I know Miss Sophie has took the nipper in, and that's a sizeable task for any woman, much less one what hasn't got any nippers of her own.”

Ah, the stable gnome was working up to a lecture. Sophie didn't need to lecture Vim, she had minions assigned to the task. “She's managing quite well, and it's mostly common sense.”

“And lord knows, the girl has got common sense.” Higgins's frown became more focused. “About most things, that is.”

“Spit it out, Higgins. Once she's done petting that bedraggled cat, she'll turn her attention on you and start ordering you to consume all those buns and refrain from shoveling snow and so on.”

“All I'm saying is her family sets great store by her, and they'd take it amiss did any mischief befall our Miss Sophie.”

“I'm coming to set great store by the lady too, Higgins. But for her, I'd be cooling my heels in some taproom, nothing to occupy me but watered ale, cards, and occasional trips to a privy as malodorous as it was cold.”

“Then you'll be moving along here directly, won't you, sir? Wouldn't want the girl's family to come to troublesome mis-conclusions, would we?”

Higgins's rheumy blue eyes promised a world of retribution if Vim attempted to argue.

“Settle your feathers, Higgins. I stayed only at the lady's express request in order to acquaint her with some basics regarding care and feeding of an infant. If you're equipped to step in, please do, because I'm on my way as soon as the weather permits—tomorrow at first light, if at all possible.”

And he wanted to go. He just didn't relish the idea of hours in a mail coach trying to slog its way through the drifts. Hours of cold, hours of the wheezing, coughing companionship of other travelers…

His gaze fell on Sophie where she was crouched in the aisle having some sort of conversation with the bedraggled little cat and the baby.

“Her hems will never come clean.”

He hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud until Higgins snorted quietly. “And she'll never care a whit if they do, either. That is one smart bebby, that Kit. He's made a good trade.”

“You didn't think much of the mother?” For God's sake, the girl had been only sixteen years old.

“She set her cap for young Harry, Joleen did, and damn the consequences. Their Graces turned Harry out, but they give him a character, see? He kept coming around here on the sly, meeting with Joleen and whispering in her ear, if you know what I mean. Last I heard, he was taking passage for Boston.”

Higgins meant a pregnant girl couldn't get any more pregnant, so an enterprising and conscienceless young man would keep swiving her for his own pleasure.

“I seen Harry prowling around last week, that girl about shivering herself to death waiting for him in the garden. She's run off to her Harry and left little Kit to shift for hisself.”

“He's shifting quite well. I'm not sure a baby ever found any better care than Kit is getting.”

“Because Miss Sophie has a soft heart. Her family thinks she's sensible, but she's like Westhaven. They're sensible because somebody in the family has to be sensible, but neither of 'em is as sensible as all that.”

Vim tried to translate what was and wasn't being said.

“You're saying sometimes one acts sensibly out of regard for one's family, not because one finds it a naturally agreeable course.” And God help him, Vim could testify to the truth of that sentiment.

Higgins nodded. “That says it right enough. You'll be leaving in the morning?”

“Come hell or high water, I intend to.”

Sophie was smiling at the baby, who was making a determined play for the cat's nose. Vim expected the beast to issue the kind of reprimand children remembered long after the scratches had healed, but the cat instead walked away, all the more dignified for its missing parts.

“He must go terrorize mice,” Sophie said, rising with the child in her arms.

“You're telling me that cat still mouses?” Vim asked, taking the baby from her in a maneuver that was beginning to feel automatic.

“Of course Pee Wee mouses.” Sophie turned a smile on him. “A few battle scars won't slow a warrior like him down.”

“A name like Pee Wee might.”

She wrapped her hand into the crook of his elbow as they started across the alley. “Elizabeth gets more grief over his name than Pee Wee does.”

“And rightly so. Why on earth would you inflict a feminine name on a big, black tom cat?”

“I didn't name him Elizabeth. I named him Bête Noir, after the French for black beast. Merriweather started calling him Betty Knorr after some actress, which was a tad too informal for such an animal, and hence he became Elizabeth. He answers to it now.”

Vim suppressed the twitching of his lips, because this explanation was delivered with a perfectly straight face. “I suppose all that counts is that the cat recognizes it. It isn't as if the cats were going to comprehend the French.”

“It's silly.” She paused inside the garden gate, her expression self-conscious.

He stopped with her on the path, cradling the baby against his chest and trying to fathom what she needed to hear at the moment. “To the cat it isn't silly, Sophie. To him, your kindness and care are the difference between life and death.”

“He's just a cat.” But she looked pleased with Vim's observations.

“And this is just a baby. Come.” He took her gloved hand in his. “Kit has had his outing, and so have you. I was hoping the snow would stop, but it seems to be coming down harder again.”

She kept her hand in his and let him escort her back into the warmth and coziness of the kitchen. As short as the daylight was in December, between the child's bath, the shoveling, and the excursion to the mews, the day was half gone.

Watching Sophie unswaddle the baby, Vim decided that was a good thing. This time tomorrow, he'd be across the river and headed for Kent, just as he'd promised Higgins.

***

Sophie hadn't wanted Vim to see the collection of misfits she kept in the stables. She wasn't ashamed of them by any means, but she was… protective. Each animal contributed somehow, to the best of its ability, but most people didn't see that. They saw only the ridiculousness of a draft animal who turned to a one-ton blancmange at the sight of a whip, or a mouser who was hunting with half his weapons dulled by injury.

Vim hadn't laughed.

She could not save every animal in the knacker's yard, she couldn't find a home for every cat yowling under the summer moon, but she could help those few in her care.

Vim finished getting out of his winter gear and peered down at the baby.

“I'd say stuff some nuncheon into his gullet and put him down for a nap.”

“I wanted to do some baking this afternoon,” Sophie said. “His nap would be a good time to do it.”

“His nap would be a good time for you to rest, Sophie Windham. He'll keep you up half the night tonight too, you know, and I won't be around tomorrow to spell you if you need forty winks.”

He gave her a fulsome look, as if willing her to acknowledge his impending departure.

“Then tomorrow Kit and I will practice napping at the same time. I boiled some apples this morning. Do you think he'd like to try them mashed into his porridge?”

Porridge had never disappeared more quickly, Sophie was sure of it, and it gave her a little dose of pleasure to think the apples had been her idea. While she fed the baby, Vim busied himself constructing a sort of sugar tit with a wad of clean sponge, a laundered handkerchief, and some sewing cord. Kit took to it easily, slurping away like he'd been doing it since birth.

Which he might have been, though Sophie couldn't recall seeing anybody feed the child except Joleen, and that not often.

“It's my turn to do a nappy,” Vim said. “You burp him, and I'll bring his cradle down here then tend to his wardrobe, so to speak.”

“You think he'll sleep in the kitchen?”

“It's warm, and you'll be here puttering about. He should sleep easily enough now that we've tired him out.”

Sophie watched Vim disappear up the back steps, wondering how she'd cope when he wasn't on hand to discuss every little decision with her.

To add mashed apples or not?

To take the child outside or keep him in the house?

To put the cradle in the parlor down the hall or set it in the kitchen?

There had been a moment out by the back gate, when she'd been trying to explain about Elizabeth's name, and the kindness had come back into Vim's eyes. She'd wanted to trespass on that kindness, to beg the man to stay one more day. She could honestly say she wanted his help with the child, but the truth was, she'd almost gone up on her toes and kissed his cheek.

Or his mouth. She found the idea of kissing his mouth increasingly hard to ignore, as was the idea of running her hands over the muscles of his chest, or the thought of his bare skin under her fingertips.

She hadn't kissed him, because he'd be kind about that, as well. Then too, several other homes backed up to the alley, and at least two had a clear view to the Windhams' garden gate. Bad enough Sophie could be seen coming and going from the house on the arm of a strange man. How much worse if she'd been observed kissing him in broad daylight?

“The snow is trying to make up its mind,” Vim said, bumping down the back stairs with the cradle held under one long arm. “It's coming down in fits and starts now, not as steadily as it did yesterday.”

“Then it's sure to taper off soon.” Sophie injected as much false cheer into her voice as she could. Not only would she have to say good-bye to Vim Charpentier when the snow stopped, she'd have to accept her brothers' escort out to Morelands and very likely turn Kit over the care of a foster family.

“What has put that look on your face, Sophie?”

“What look?” She laid the child in the cradle where Vim had set it near the hearth.

“Like you just lost your best friend.”

“I was thinking of fostering Kit.” And just like that, she was blinking back tears. She tugged the blankets up around the baby, who immediately set about kicking them away. “Naughty baby,” she whispered. “You'll catch a chill.”

“Sophie?” A large male hand landed on her shoulder. “Sophie, look at me.”

She shook her head and tried again to secure Kit's blankets.

“My dear, you are crying.” Another hand settled on the opposite shoulder, and now the kindness was palpable in his voice. Vim turned her gently into his embrace and wrapped both arms around her.

It wasn't a careful, tentative hug. It was a secure embrace. He wasn't offering her a fleeting little squeeze to buck her up, he was holding her, his chin propped on her crown, the entire solid length of his body available to her for warmth and support.

Which had the disastrous effect of turning a trickle of tears into a deluge.

“I can't keep him.” She managed four words around the lump in her throat. “To think of him being passed again into the keeping of strangers… I can't…”

“Hush.” He held a hanky up to her nose, one laden with the bergamot scent she already associated with him. For long minutes, Sophie struggled to regain her equilibrium while Vim stroked his hand slowly over her back.

“Babies do this,” Vim said quietly. “They wear you out physically and pluck at your heartstrings and coo and babble and wend their way into your heart, and there's nothing you can do stop it. Nobody is asking you to give the child up now.”