Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (12 page)

“He'll be hungry soon enough,” Sophie said, taking a little foot and shaking it gently. Kit grinned at her and kicked out gleefully, so she did it again.

“He likes a change of scene.” Vim was smiling at the baby as he tickled the child's belly.

Sophie would not have thought to bring the baby to bed with them; she would not have thought to kiss Vim's nose before she left the bed.

She would not have thought she could fall in love with a man because he put aside his lovemaking to tend to a baby, but as she watched Vim smiling at the child, enjoying the child, she realized she'd gotten one stubborn, long-despaired-of wish to come true: she'd fallen in love.

She tarried for a few moments, listening to Vim speak nonsense to the child about navigating the treacherous waters of pillows and blankets; then she climbed out of the bed and went to build up the fire.

***

Vim heard Sophie mutter something about heating up some porridge as she slipped into her socks. She was out the door a moment later, leaving Vim with his nose in the grasp of one happy, refreshed, and—thank the gods—dry baby.

He arranged the infant on his chest, a warm little bundle of comfort in an otherwise abruptly bleak situation.

“Attend me, young Kit.”

“Gah.” Kit made another swipe at Vim's nose.

“I'll seek retribution if you persist at this nose-capturing business.”

Kit thumped Vim's chest and levered up, grinning hugely.

“Go ahead and smile, you little fiend. Do you know why the aristocracy have large families? Several reasons, the first being that any man who can afford to fuck his way through life finds it tempting to do so, and babies like you are the frequent result.”

“Fah!” Another thump. “Fah, fah, fahck!”

“Boy, you had better watch your language when Miss Sophie is about. Say damn. Much less vulgar.”

“Bah!”

“Bah is acceptable, used judiciously. The aristocracy have large families not just because they can, but also because their babies are kept well away from any situation where the pleasurable business of procreation might ensue. Babies belong in nurseries.”

“Bah-bah-bah-bah!”

Vim lifted Kit straight above his chest, which provoked much chortling and waving about of small limbs. “Perhaps you'll be a balloonist.”

He brought the baby back down to his chest, cradling the child close.

“You saved me from folly, you know. Sophie Windham is dangerous to a man's best intentions.”

No comment from the child, leaving Vim to realize if the baby hadn't interrupted, Sophie Windham's clothes would likely be tossed all over the bed and Vim buried inside her as deep as he could get, doing his utmost to make her scream with pleasure.

Make them both scream.

“There's no reason not to,” he murmured against the baby's crown. “She's willing, I'm so willing my eyes are at risk of being permanently crossed, but I don't think it would serve her…”

He fell silent, trying to think through how a man—a gentleman—ought to act under the circumstances. If she were merely a domestic—and the clues pointed as much in this direction as any other—then Sophie was not in a position to pursue marriage, but she brought marriage, commitment, and permanence to Vim's mind.

Also hot, soul-shattering pleasure, a confusing combination if ever there was one.

Kit grabbed for Vim's lower lip.

“Since when do babies come with claws?” He gently peeled Kit's fingers away and examined tiny fingernails. So small, but Vim knew they grew quickly. “We'll have to find some embroidery scissors and render you weaponless, me hearty.”

He lingered in the bed with the child for a few more minutes, but when a particular, determined look came across the baby's face, Vim got them both quickly down to the laundry and dealt with the requisite change of linen.

“Are you baking again?”

He kept his tone casual as he carried the infant into the kitchen. Sophie looked up from the sink where she was peeling an apple.

“Adding some apple to His Highness's porridge.”

“We made a stop in the laundry. Kit's ready to tour the Ring at the fashionable hour.”

“At this rate, I'll need to boil some laundry for him.” Sophie dropped some apple quarters into a pot simmering on the stove, sliced another fat quarter in half, and passed both sections to Vim.

He gave one to the baby and ate the other. “I didn't finish telling you about the situation at Sidling.”

“That's your family seat?”

She stirred the apples then stirred a second pot, as well. He could tell nothing about her mood from her expression, tone, or posture, her reserve being the equal of some monarchs Vim had encountered on his travels.

“Sidling has been in my family since Norman times, though the manor house itself is fairly modest.”

She peered over at him from the stove while Kit started waving a thoroughly gummed piece of apple about like a sword. “The name Sidling is very familiar.”

“It's not particularly distinctive, but my aunt and uncle have been comfortable there, as have my cousins.” Or they'd grown comfortable there once Vim had been able to take over the finances.

“And this is the place that's losing its heirlooms to thievery or something underhanded?”

She was putting together a tea tray now, her movements competent, graceful, and unself-conscious. Maybe she was the cook, or an undercook? Vim had to listen to her words again in his mind to register her question.

“We've come close to losing my aunt a time or two, as well, if Uncle's letters can be believed.”

“How does one lose an aunt? Is she in poor health?”

“Not physically, but she's growing… vague. She wanders the estate, though I've suggested a companion could be hired for her.”

He'd insisted on it, in fact, with his uncle writing back angrily that a man who'd been married to a woman for more than half a century knew better than to assign that lady a nursemaid over the woman's own objections.

Sophie got a pitcher of milk from the window box. “My father had a heart seizure not long ago. It threw the entire family into a tizzy.”

“How is he faring now?”

She set the milk on the counter and got a bread knife down from the rack built onto the rafter overhead. “Better than ever. The heart seizure was the excuse my mother needed to take him more firmly in hand, and I think the excuse he needed to allow her to do so.”

She cut several slices of bread, wrapped up the loaf, and set a small bowl of porridge, a clean napkin, and Kit's little spoon at one end of the table. “If you'd see to the honors, I'll make us some sandwiches.”

Kit put away a prodigious quantity of porridge and apples, necessitating another trip to the laundry. By the time Vim had changed the child, built up the fire in the parlor, and washed his hands, darkness had fallen.

Sophie brought a picnic to the servants' parlor while Vim arranged the baby on the nest of blankets before the fire.

“There was something more I wanted to tell you, Sophie, about things at Sidling.”

She paused in the act of passing him a plate piled high was sandwiches. “This doesn't sound like we're about to have a cheerful conversation.”

“It isn't cheerful, but it isn't that remarkable, either. I'm my uncle's heir, you see, and I'm expected to marry sooner rather than later.” And why she needed to understand this when he would not see her after tomorrow, Vim could not say.

She lifted the top off a sandwich of her own and added a dollop of butter. “I forgot to put on the butter, though there's mustard enough.” The small silver knife looked elegant in her hand as she made neat little passes over the bread, spreading the butter just so.

“My uncle has three daughters, and each of them has at least two daughters,” Vim went on. He didn't pick up his sandwich—his mouth for some reason had abruptly become dry. “I have seven of these cousins of some remove. At least two are old enough to marry, possibly more by now.”

“Are you inclined to marry one of them?”

She was fussing the baby's blankets, folding over the satin binding around the edge of the blanket and smoothing her palm along its length.

“Sophie, I hardly know these women, but I'm responsible for them. At the very least, I need to dower them. My aunt and uncle hint strongly that it's time I settled down, though the thought fills me with…”

He trailed off, trying to put a name to the heavy, anxious feeling in his gut. The conversation wasn't going in the direction he might have intended, if he'd used enough forethought to
have
intentions about it.

“Yes?”

“Dread, the idea of dealing with those twittering, fluttering young girls fills me with dread.” He lifted his sandwich in one hand but did not take a bite. “Have you ever considered marriage, Sophie?”

“Not seriously.”

And she wasn't considering it seriously now, either. That much was evident from her casual tone and the way she didn't meet his eyes. His careful hinting around was getting him a clear response from her, just not the response he'd hoped for. Whatever she wanted from him, it was going to be temporary and quickly forgotten.

On her part.

“Eat your sandwich,” Vim said. “You can see why I need to be on my way. The situation in Kent is troubling from many angles, and it's the very last place I want to be over the holidays.”

She made no reply but ate her sandwich in silence while the fire burned merrily and the baby figured out how to put his toes in his mouth.

Sophie got through the evening with a sort of bewildered resignation. She had waited her entire adult life and much of her girlhood, as well, to feel a certain spark, a lightening of her heart when a particular man walked into the room.

Vim was that man, but he wasn't the
right
man. For once in her life, Sophie wished she had an older brother on hand to explain to her how it was with men.

How could Vim kiss her like that and speak of marrying a stranger—or possibly a cousin—in the next breath?

How could life finally introduce her to the man she'd been hoping she'd meet, only to limit her time with him so terribly?

How could she endure another Christmas watching her family lark about in high spirits, graciously entertaining hordes of neighbors in equally high spirits, while Sophie's spirits were anything but high?

And how—how in the name of God—was she going to part with Kit when the time came?

“You're not listening, Sophie Windham.” Vim brushed his thumb along her cheekbone. “Shall I put His Highness to bed?”

Sophie glanced down at the child nestled in her arms. “He's almost asleep.”

She sat beside Vim on the worn sofa in the servants' parlor while he read Wordsworth by the firelight. His arm wasn't around her, and she knew why: those cousins in Kent, that aunt and uncle in Kent, that dread Vim had of marriage, those travels he'd undertaken for most of his life.

“Sophie, is something amiss?”

The concern in his voice nearly undid her.

“I do not want to part from this child, Vim. I wanted a few days to myself in this house because the good cheer others take in the season deserted me several years ago. I planned and schemed to have some time alone because I thought solitude would yield some peace, but it has yielded something else entirely.”

That much was honest. Kit let out a little baby-yawn and stuck his two middle fingers in his mouth as if aware of the weariness plaguing Sophie's spirit. He was such a wonderful baby.

“I will travel on in the morning, Sophie, and I doubt our paths will cross again, but if you need money for the child, I will happily…”

She shook her head. The last thing she needed or wanted from him was money.

“Let's get this baby into his bed, shall we?” She rose off the sofa, Kit cradled against her heart. Vim tidied up the blankets and folded them into the cradle, letting Sophie precede him up the main stairs, through the freezing hallways and into her bedroom.

In just a few days, they'd fallen into a routine around the child as if Kit had been theirs since birth. It comforted and it hurt terribly to feel that silent sense of synchrony with a man she wanted so much from.

Vim lit the candle by Sophie's bed using a taper from the glowing coals in the hearth, then built up her fire and turned to regard her as she laid Kit in the cradle.

“Will you be able to sleep? I'm at sixes and sevens myself, having slept late and napped substantially. I expect women in their childbearing years get used to such disruptions of schedule.”

It struck Sophie that Vim didn't want to leave her room.

“I'm tired, and tomorrow will come soon enough.” She wanted him gone, and she wanted him to hold her close, as he had in his bed that very afternoon. But more than that, she wanted him to want her in his arms.

So much wanting and wishing.

Vim sank into a chair by the fire. “I'll wait until His Highness has dropped into the arms of Morpheus. Come sit, Sophie, and tell me about your brothers.”

She took the rocking chair near the cradle, though the topic was hardly cheering.

For a moment she rocked in silence, listening to the soft roar of the fire and the sound of the baby slurping on his fingers. “Bartholomew fought under Wellington. My brother Devlin went with him, though each had his own command. Still, they kept an eye on each other, and Dev was there when Bart died. The Iron Duke himself sent a note of condolence. He commended Bart's bravery, his devotion to duty.”

“But you are a woman, a sister, and you wish your brother hadn't been so brave.”

“I wish he hadn't been such an idiot. My mother was spared the details, but Devlin was honest with his siblings: Bart approached a woman he thought was available for his pleasure. His command of the language was so poor he did not understand he was insulting a lady until pistols were drawn. It's a surpassingly stupid way to die but entirely in keeping with Bart's nature.”

“And you are angry with him for dying like that.”

Vim's words, quietly spoken, no blame or censure in them at all, had the ring of truth. “I am angry with him for dying, simply for dying. Bart was the oldest, the one groomed for leadership, and he would have made a magnificent patriarch.”

“Was he a magnificent brother?”

Had he been? What was a magnificent brother?

“He was. He could be awful—he threatened to chase me around with earthworms until Maggie told me to threaten to put horse droppings in his favorite pair of riding boots. I have a deathly horror of slimy things.”

“All sisters do.” He slid off his seat and took the place on the floor beside Sophie's rocking chair, sparing a glance for the baby. “He's not getting to sleep as quickly as I thought he would.”

“Pondering the events of the day.”

“Pondering his next bowl of porridge. So what does a magnificent brother do, Sophie?”

“Bart could make you laugh. He could make fun of our parents without being vicious, and he could make fun of himself. He could also keep a secret. My mother did not want me riding out without a groom from the time I was ten or so, and Bart knew I often eluded the grooms. He'd mount up and take off in a different direction, but I knew he was there, a few hundred yards away, shadowing me. Devlin did the same thing.”

“And you let them look after you like that.”

“I wasn't a complete ninnyhammer. One time my pony threw me—bolted at a rabbit or something—and I tore my riding habit when I fell. Bart caught the horse before it could go thundering back to the stables without me. Dev sneaked a sewing kit down the stables so I could repair the damage before anyone was the wiser.”

She did not see him shifting, but one moment he was sitting placidly on the floor next to the cradle, his knees drawn up, his hands linked around them. The next, he'd moved a few inches so his shoulder pressed against Sophie's thigh.

“Just when I thought I was recovering from Bart's death, I realized Victor wasn't going to get better. Victor sensed it before we did, but he kept this unhappy truth to himself, letting each of us accept it at our own pace. My father never quite got around to acknowledging that his son would die, and if my mother did, she wasn't about to contradict her husband.”

“Was it a wasting disease?”

“Consumption.”

With just her fingers, she stroked his hair. His queue had come loose—it often did around Kit—and Sophie felt an ache in her middle to think she wouldn't have another night like this to speak quietly with him, to feast her eyes on his golden splendor, to hear his voice coaxing confidences from her.

“Bloody miserable way to go.” He tilted his head so his temple rested on her leg. “He fought it, I'm guessing.”

“He fought so hard… not to live exactly, but to keep us from seeing how awful it was, struggling for breath, not being free to laugh lest it mean he started coughing, not being free to run, to ride, to do anything really. I read to him by the hour.”

“What was he like as a younger man?”

“Full of the devil.” Sophie traced the shape of Vim's ear, a delicate, curious part of man's body she'd never considered before. “Victor got my father's charm and my mother's ability to smooth over an awkward moment. He was handsome—all my brothers have the audacity to be gorgeous men—urbane, witty, graceful on the dance floor and dashing in the saddle. Victor was…”

It hurt to recall all that Victor had been. It hurt awfully.

“And then he was ill,” Vim said. He turned and rose up on his knees, slipping his arms around Sophie's waist. “He's the one who died at the holidays?”

She nodded, the lump in her throat making words too difficult. Vim's hand settled on her hair, gently pushing Sophie's forehead to his shoulder.

“Cry, Sophie. When it hurts this badly, a woman needs to cry.”

She'd cried. She'd cried buckets every time she'd left Victor's room because he was feigning sleep just to get rid of her. She'd cried after she chased the damned leeches from his bedside, as if bleeding was going to do anything in the face of consumption. She'd cried when she heard her father railing at Victor to quit malingering and get the hell out of that damned bed. She'd cried until she wished she couldn't cry any more ever again.

“I never cried where Victor could catch me at it.”

“You never cried where
anybody
could catch you at it.” His hand made slow circles on her back; his chin rested against her hair. The simple comfort of it, the acceptance, was reason enough to start crying all over again.

“Men don't cry.” What this had to do with losing her brothers, Sophie didn't know. Another one of life's injustices, she supposed.

“Have you asked the brother who came home from war about that?”

“Devlin doesn't like to speak of his years of command.” She lifted her head. “I suppose I could ask him now—he's doing better since he married.”

And she wished she hadn't used that word—married.

“Ask him. Men have no corner on dignity. Women aren't the only ones who cry, but I suspect fatigue has lowered your defenses, Sophie Windham. Get you to bed, and I'll wait for this naughty boy to fall asleep.”

He wasn't going to come to bed with her, and Sophie wasn't going to beg him. She instead went about her routine as if he weren't there by her rocking chair, the firelight gilding his hair and shadowing the planes and hollows of his face. She used her tooth powder behind the privacy screen, traded her house dress for a quilted dressing gown, and took her hair down.

“I don't suppose the coaches will be running in the morning,” she observed as she took the brush to her hair.

“Likely not. I'll hire a stout beast and make what progress I can toward Kent. We're bound to get some melting once the storm moves on, and then it will be nothing but mud on the lanes.”

“I will miss you.” She spoke as casually as she could, though the lump was back in her throat. “Kit and I will miss you.”

“I'll miss you both, as well.”

She could not find the resolve to view that as positive. As tired as she was, as bleak as the evening's discourse had been, she couldn't view much at all as positive.

She was certain of one thing, though: when next Christmas came around, as it inevitably would, she wasn't going to be making any fool wishes about falling in love and living happily ever after.

***

“It's late.” Valentine said, toeing off his boots. “Can't you write letters some other night?”

Westhaven didn't look up immediately, but finished whatever profundity he was penning at the desk and then shot Val a look. “Have you considered that for our parents, seeing all three of us married in little over a year must be a little like losing us?”

Val had long since given up trying to figure out the labyrinthine corridors of his brother's mind. It was enough to conclude the man was quietly, sometimes very quietly, brilliant, and prevaricating with him would serve no purpose.

“It felt like I was losing you when you married Anna. There I was, happily quartered with both of my brothers for once, safe from the ducal eye, well supplied with whatever treats and blandishments a bachelor might desire, your excellent Broadwood grand available for my constant delectation, and then all of a sudden, you're rusticating with your dear wife in Surrey, and Dev has gone clear to Yorkshire to brood. If seeing him off to the Peninsula and then Waterloo didn't feel like losing him, watching him plod north to Yorkshire certainly did.”

Westhaven stared at his letter for a moment then sanded it. “You are saying you missed us.”

“Probably trying not to say it. Next you'll have me admitting I miss our sisters.”

Westhaven, damn him, did not accept the comment as a flippant aside.

“Your wife will help with that.”

“Ellen? They aren't her sisters.” And now that the topic of missing people had been raised, Val felt a low, lonely ache for his recently acquired wife.

“She'll correspond with them, she'll make you go visit, and she'll invite them to visit. You're going to be a papa, which means you'll have offspring to show off. Might even get Their Graces to make a progress out to Oxfordshire.”

“Do I want them to?”

Westhaven's version of a smile appeared, a little turning up at the corners of his mouth, accompanied by a softening of his gaze. That smile had been a great deal more in evidence since the man had taken a wife.

“You want them to visit at least once,” Westhaven said, pushing back in his chair and crossing his long legs at the ankle. “You want the memory of His Grace sizing up your entire operation in a sentence or two. You want to hear Her Grace's voice in the breakfast room as you come in from your stables. You want to see how your wife can handle your parents without so much as raising her voice. You want to see Her Grace cry when she holds your firstborn and see His Grace pass her the ducal hanky while he swears at nothing in particular and tries not to look anxious.”

“The ducal hanky?” Val had to smile. “I knew about the strawberry leaves and the coat of arms, but a hanky?”

“All right, call it the marital hanky. I'm sure you have one.”

“Two on my person at all times, at least. When I was first married, I wondered if women were simply much more prone to crying and our sisters an aberration in that regard. They don't cry, that I've noticed.”