Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (19 page)

Vim watched Sophie carefully, trying to pick up a reaction from her to this planned deception. A ducal family could pull off such a subterfuge, particularly this ducal family, and particularly if there was only one tipsy footman to gainsay them.

“Soph?” Lord Valentine tapped her knee with the toe of his boot. “You want some time to consider your options?”

The baby chose that moment to toddle forth on his hands and knees, squealing with glee when he'd covered the two feet between Sophie's side and St. Just's boots.

“A headlong charge into enemy territory can see a fellow taken prisoner.” St. Just lifted the baby under the arms and brought the child up to face level.

Kit grinned, swiped at St. Just's nose, and emitted such sounds as to establish beyond doubt that a certain fellow's nappy was thoroughly soiled.

“Gah!”

“Gah, indeed.” St. Just kept the child at arm's length. “Westhaven, you have a son. I nominate you.”

“Valentine needs the practice.”

Vim took the baby from St. Just's grasp and headed for the laundry. As he left the parlor, he heard Lord Valentine softly observe, “You know, Soph, most men with any backbone can calmly accept the threat of a duel to preserve a lady's honor, but it's a brave man indeed who can deal with a dirty nappy without even being asked.”

“Your timing is deplorable,” Vim told the malodorous, grinning baby. “But I think you've given Sophie's brothers their first reason to pause before they call me out.”

“Bah!”

***

“They are up to something.” Sophie kept her voice down as Vim handed her a clean nappy, lest they or someone else in the inn's common overhear her.

Vim tickled Kit's cheek. “I don't think your brothers are waiting to call me out, if that's what you're implying.”

Sophie passed him the folded up soiled linen. “They might. Devlin used to kill people for his living. Valentine arranged a very bad fate for one of his wife's relations, and Westhaven has been known to be ruthless where Anna's welfare is concerned. You can't trust them.”

“They trust you, Sophie.” Vim put his finger on the tape Sophie was tying into a bow. “They trust I'm not suicidal enough to make advances to you in their very company.”

She wanted to ask him if that was why he'd kept his distance, but Valentine came sauntering up.

“Our meal will be served in the private dining room. The Imp of Satan smells a good deal better.”

“You were just such an imp not so very long ago,” Sophie reminded him. “Did you check on the horses?”

“Your precious friends are knee-deep in straw and munching contentedly on fresh hay. I watched with my own eyes while St. Just fed them their oats, which oats did not hit the bottom of the bucket but were consumed by a process of inhalation I've never seen before. I intend to emulate it if they ever serve dinner here.”

Something passed between the men—a glance, a look, a particular way of breathing at each other.

“I'll take Kit.” Vim lifted the child from the settle where Sophie had been changing the baby's nappy. “Does this place have a cradle?”

He addressed the question to Val, who shrugged. “I understand how to bed down a horse; I understand how to keep my wife safe and content. These creatures”—he gestured at Kit—“confound me entirely.”

“But the King's English does not,” Sophie said before the breathing got out of hand. “Go ask if they have a cradle, and if they do, have it placed in my chamber.” She spun him by his prodigiously broad shoulders and gave the middle of his back a shove.

“St. Just or Westhaven will be along momentarily,” Vim said, rubbing noses with the baby. “They aren't complete fools.”

“Do they think I'm going to have my wicked way with you right here in the common?” Sophie hated the exasperated note in her voice, hated the way Vim slowly turned his head to assess her, as if he wasn't quite sure he recognized the shrew standing there, hands on her hips, hems soaked, hair a fright.

“Is it your courses?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My sisters grow… sensitive when their courses approach.” He went back to having his nose-duel with the baby, while Sophie fisted both hands and prayed for patience.

“I am traveling in the company of my three older brothers and the man with whom I violated every rule of polite society, as well as a baby whom I will have to give up when we reach Morelands, and all you can think is that my—”

He did not kiss her, though she hoped he might be considering it, even here, even with her brothers stomping around nearby. He regarded her gravely then passed her the baby.

“Because if it's not your courses, then perhaps it's all that rule violating we did that has you so overset. Or maybe it's that we got caught violating those rules. I am willing to answer for my part of it, Sophie, duke's daughter or not. I think your brothers know that.”

He glanced around then leaned in and brushed his nose against hers.

Leaving Sophie not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

***

“Lady Sophia sends her regrets. She'll be taking a tray in her room.” Westhaven settled into a chair as he spoke, then reached across the table and appropriated a drink from his brother's ale while Vim watched.

Lord Valentine slapped his brother's wrist. “Which means we don't have to take turns passing Beelzebub around while we pretend we're having a civil meal. Is Sophie truly fatigued, or is she being female?”

“Can't tell,” Westhaven said. “She's probably worn out, worrying about the child. Valentine, if you value your fingers, you will put that roll back until we've said the blessing.”

Lord Valentine took a bite of the roll then set it back in the basket.

“Think of it as playing house,” Devlin St. Just—also the Earl of Rosecroft, though he apparently eschewed use of the title—suggested. “Westhaven gets to be the papa, Val is the baby, and I am the one who refuses to indulge in such inanity. For what we are about to receive, as well as for infants and sisters who travel fairly well, and snowstorms that hold off for one more freezing damned day, we're grateful. Amen.”

Before the last syllable was out of St. Just's mouth, Lord Val had retrieved his roll.

They ate in silence for a few moments, food disappearing as if it were indeed being inhaled. Vim figured it was some kind test too, and aimed his question at St. Just.

“To what do we attribute Goliath's miraculous recovery? He was off when I tried to take him from Town yesterday, and today he's dead sound.”

St. Just lifted his mug and peered into the contents. “Higgins explained that Goliath is a horse of particulars. Westhaven, did Valentine spit in my mug?”

Westhaven rolled his eyes as he glanced at first one brother then the other. “For God's sake, nobody spat in your damned mug. Pass the butter and drop the other shoe. What manner of horse of particulars is Sophie's great beast?”

“He does not like to travel too far from Sophie. He'll tool around Town all day with Sophie at the ribbons. He'll take her to Surrey, he'll haul her the length and breadth of the Home Counties, but if he's separated from his lady beyond a few miles, he affects a limp.”

“He affects a limp?” Vim picked up his mug and did not look too closely at the contents. “I've never heard of such a thing.”

“I'll tell you what I've never heard of.” Westhaven shot him a peevish look. “I've never heard of my sister, a proper, sensible woman, spending a week holed up with a strange man and allowing that man unspeakable liberties.”

Lord Val paused in the act of troweling butter on another roll. “Kissing isn't unspeakable. We know the man slept in my bed, else he'd be dead by now.”

And thank God that Sophie hadn't obliterated the evidence of their separate bedrooms.

“I have offered your sister the protection of my name,” Vim said. “More than once. She has declined that honor.”

“We know.” Lord Val put down his second roll uneaten. “This has us in a quandary. We ought to be taking you quite to task, but with Sophie acting so out of character, it's hard to know how to go on. I'm for beating you on general principles. Westhaven wants a special license, and St. Just, as usual, is pretending a wise silence.”

“Not a wise silence,” St. Just said, picking up Lord Val's roll and studying it. “I wonder how many cows you keep employed with this penchant you have for butter. You could write a symphony to the bovine.”

Lord Val snatched his roll back. “Admit it, St. Just, you've no more clue what's to be done here than I do or Westhaven does.”

“Or I do.” The words were out of Vim's mouth without his intention to speak them. But in for a penny… “I want Sophie to be happy. I do not know how to effect that result.”

A small silence spread at the table, a thoughtful and perhaps not unfriendly silence.

“We want her happy, as well,” Westhaven said, his glance taking in both brothers. He ran his finger around the rim of his mug twice clockwise then reversed direction. “When I wrested control of the finances from His Grace, things were in a quite a muddle—I hope I don't have to tell you that bearing the Windham family tales would not be appreciated?”

In other words, it would earn him at least that beating Lord Val had referred to.

“I can be as discreet as my brother.”

“One suspected as much.” Another reversal of direction. “I gradually got the merchants sorted out, the businesses, the shipping trade, the properties, the domestic expenses, but the one glaring area that defied all my attempts at management was the pin money allocated for my mother and sisters.”

From Westhaven's tone of voice, this had been more than a mere aggravation. Pin money by ducal standards for that many women could be in the tens of thousands of pounds annually.

“Her Grace likes to entertain,” Lord Val observed. “Monthlong house parties, shoots in the fall, a grand ball every spring. Gives one some sympathy for our dear papa.”

And
don't forget the Christmas parties
, Vim thought darkly.

“And bear in mind,” St. Just said, “we have five sisters of marriageable age. Five. Most of whom are quite social, as well.”

“Dressing them alone was enough to send me to Bedlam,” Westhaven said. “I'd end up shouting at them, shouting at them that even a seven-year-old scullery maid knew not to overspend her allowance, but then Her Grace would look so disappointed.”

This was indeed a confession. Vim kept a respectful silence, wondering where the tale was going.

“Sophie does not overspend her pin money,” Westhaven said. “Not ever. She did not want to offend me, you see, but she saw I was far more overset to be shouting at my sisters than they were to be shouted at—His Grace is a shouter—and she intervened. She asked me to turn the ladies' finances over to her, and a more grateful brother you never beheld. She passes the ledger back to me each quarter, the entries tidy and legible, the balances—may all the gods be thanked—positive. I don't know how she does it; I haven't the courage to ask.”

“I'm a grateful brother too,” Lord Valentine said after a short silence. “I got my year in Italy thanks to Sophie.” His lips quirked into a sheepish smile. “I play the piano rather a lot, though composition has my interest these days, as well. His Grace does not—did not—approve of the intensity of my interest in music but was unwilling to buy me my colors with both Bart and St. Just already on the Peninsula. I was climbing the walls.”

“I'm sorry I missed that,” St. Just said.

“You should be glad you missed it,” Lord Val replied. “Shouting doesn't begin to describe the rows I had with His Grace. Sophie sought me out one day after a particularly rousing donnybrook and jammed a sailing schedule under my nose. She'd researched the ships going to Italy, the conservatories in Rome, the cost of student lodging, the whole bit. Paris was out of the question, thanks to the Corsican, but Rome was… Rome was my salvation. She offered to give me her pin money. Not lend, give.”

“Did you take it?” Vim had to ask, because a moment like this would not present itself again, of that he was certain.

“Of course not, but I took her idea, and for the first time in my life found myself among people who shared my passion for music. You cannot imagine what a comfort that was.”

Yes, he could. He could well imagine wandering for years without any sense of companionship or belonging, then finding it in perfect abundance.

Only to have it snatched away again.

“I suppose I'll have to add my tuppence,” St. Just said. He didn't look at anyone as he spoke, but stared at his empty plate. “I was not managing well when I came home from Waterloo.”

“When I dragged you home,” Lord Val interjected.

“Dragged me home kicking and screaming and clutching a bottle in each fist.”

Vim had to stare at his plate too, because St. Just was the last man he could picture losing his composure. Westhaven was polished, Lord Val casually elegant. St. Just was a gentleman and no fool, but the man was also had the bearing of one who was physically and emotionally tough.

“I was quite frankly a disgrace,” St. Just said. Westhaven looked pained at this summary but held his peace. “I'd left a brother buried in Portugal and seen more good men…” He took a sip of his ale, and Vim saw a hint of a tremor in the man's hand.

“I went to ground.” He set his ale down carefully. “I holed up at my stud farm in Surrey, where I consumed more good liquor than should be legal. I could not sleep, yet I had no energy. I could not stand to be alone, I could not stand to be around people, I could not—”

“For God's sake, Dev.” Lord Val glowered at the mug he cradled in his hands. “You don't have to—”

“I do. I do have to. For Sophie. She came tooling down to Surrey after a few months of this and took in the situation at a glance. She rationed my liquor, and I suspect she put you two on notice, for you began to visit periodically, as well. She called in my man of business and chaperoned a meeting between him and me. She had a stern talk with my cook so I'd get some decent nutrition. I hated her for this, wanted to wring her pretty, interfering neck, and contemplated it at length.”