Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish

Sixteen

“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.

“Straddle me, Sophie.” A whisper, only. She replied by arranging herself over him in the darkened confines of the canopy bed. His hands told him she was naked, not a stitch on her, and his heart told him it would be blasphemy to hurry.

He palmed her nape and levered up to find her mouth with his. For long, lazy moments, he kissed her. Chaste kisses at first, kisses that politely invited her to tenderness and flirtation, then—with a sinuous slide of his tongue—hinted at something more intimate and carnal.

For a time, she seemed content to be seduced, to be tasted and teased and coaxed, but then Vim heard a small sound of longing from her and felt her sigh against his mouth. He took this as a request and slid both hands down her sides, slowly, one rib at a time, savoring the feel of her as he mapped her with his hands.

She broke off the kiss as if listening for what his hands would do next, or perhaps to decide on her own strategy while he measured the span of her hips.

He moved his hands back up, settling them over her breasts so her nipples puckered against his palms.

Another sigh, while she let him have just a hint of her weight on his erection. Not enough to comfort, but more than enough to encourage. He rewarded her generosity by playing with her breasts, stroking them lightly, kneading gently, until she brought her hands up to cradle his grip more snugly to her.

More, then. His lady wanted more of him, so he obliged by arching his hips up, caressing her damp sex with his rigid flesh.

“Vim?”

“Soon. Kiss me, Sophie.”

She leaned forward, her breasts pressing into his chest, and settled her mouth over his. He shifted his grip to explore the length of her spine, the graceful sweep of muscle and bone that was her back. When she gave him her tongue, he steadied himself with two hands on her derriere and gave her his in return.

She groaned softly and found him with her sex again, moving over his length in a slow, hungry push and retreat. “Vim, I need…”

“Your wish, my lady…”

She went still, and he angled himself for penetration, pausing just at the point where their bodies would join.

“Is this what you wished for, Sophie Windham?”

The question had slipped out uncensored by reason, a genuine inquiry for all it was ill timed. At this instant, she wanted him for something, not for marriage but for comfort or passion or simple carnal oblivion.

She made a sound, perhaps of sexual frustration, and shifted her hips forward enough to capture him by half his length. The pleasure of it stunned him, sent all his questions flying from his mind, and had him gripping the back of her head less than gently as he sought her mouth with his own.

He withdrew slowly then set up a torturously languid rhythm—torturous to him—while he plundered her mouth and built the conflagration of their desire.

The first time, she came silently, her body convulsing around his while she hung over him and submitted to his relentless thrusting. His objective had not been to gratify her arousal but to intensify it, to share the pleasurable torture.

When she eased up off his chest, he gave her the space of exactly three deep, shuddery breaths before he started up again, this time attending to her breasts as he resumed the push and drag of his cock inside her body.

He loved her, he wanted her to be happy, but he wanted her to burn, as well, to spend the rest of her life wishing and regretting and remembering.

God knew, he would.

“This is too much.” Sophie panted the words, her voice conveying bewilderment and heat.

“Hold on to me.” He rolled them so he was above her, inside her, and in a better posture to devour her sexually. “I will never have too much of you, Sophie Windham.”

She brought her hands up, anchoring herself by gripping his wrists as he started to thrust with purpose. The second time she came, she whimpered with the pleasure and burden of it. He showed her no mercy, bearing down hard when she shuddered and arched and convulsed around him.

And still, he gave her but a moment to go quiet and motionless beneath him, to reach up and brush his hair back with one hand before he began moving again.

“I did not know it could be like this. I didn’t know… anything.”

Behind the wonderment in her voice, there was pain. He slowed his hips despite the desire and darkness clamoring for release, lowered his body over hers, and cradled her face to his shoulder.

“Shall I stop?”

It would kill him, slay him for all time, devastate him on some level a man never acknowledged in daylight if he had to withdraw from her at that moment. He braced himself on his arms, prepared to die rather than indulge his selfishness any longer.

“Love me. Please, Vim, just love me.”

Yes. That was what he’d been trying and failing to comprehend—that the gift of this final joining was about loving, not about regrets or erotic arguments or his own wishes. Sophie’s body had understood that even if her mind would not let her explain it to him in words.

This time when he moved, he moved gently, gathering her to him, cherishing her with everything in him. He meant to withdraw, to give her one more increment of pleasure, to love her and protect her.

But the third time when she came, her body seizing up with desire so fiercely and sweetly around him, he was helpless not to join her, not to let his grip on discipline and determination slip so he might instead hold on to love.

The day Sophie learned her brother Bart was dead dwelled in her memory as a black, miserable stretch of hours. A man gone for a soldier was always at risk of death, and she’d reconciled herself to Bart’s choice in the matter. As a ducal heir, no one would have thought less of him for remaining a civilian.

He’d wanted his colors, wanted them badly, and Sophie had had the consolation that Bart had died doing more or less as he pleased.

The worst pain of the day had been not her brother’s death but her parents’ utter paralysis with the loss. His Grace’s bluster and rough good humor had gone abjectly silent, Her Grace had, for the first time in Sophie’s life, looked lost and more old than dignified. Her parents had embraced repeatedly in her sight, an upsetting rarity.

Victor’s death had been a similar ordeal—a relief for her ailing brother, perhaps, but a loss of more than a sibling for Sophie. She’d given up a little more of the illusion that her parents and her position could protect her from both grief and harm.

And today, there would be no one to protect her from the loss of a baby she’d grown to love ferociously in such a short time.

And no one to protect her from the loss of the man she’d come to love, as well. He’d been generous last night, passionate, tender, lavish with the intimacies he’d afforded her. To know she could be married to him if only she’d settle for passion…

But she’d wished not for a man to take to bed every night, but a man to love.

A man who would love her as his wife and the mother of his children.

“You will be fine.” She held a grinning, drooling Kit up before her. “You are charm personified, and they will love you before the sun sets. Lord Sindal has assured me the Harrads are decent, hardworking people devoted to their children and their church. You’ll thrive there, tease your sisters, and be a comfort to your parents.”

They’d call him Christopher, though, Kit being too far removed from the theological origins of his given name.

“Chris-to-pher. That shall be your name.”

She cuddled him close when he squirmed. “You shall be Christopher Harrad, and you shall want for nothing.”

“Sophie, the horses are saddled, and your brothers are waiting.” Vim stood in the doorway of her sitting room, looking handsome and grave. In his eyes, Sophie saw concern but no hint of the passionate lover she’d held just a few hours previously.

The man she’d said good-bye to with every kiss and caress she’d given him.

“I’m ready.” She would never be ready.

“Come.” He held out a hand to her, and Sophie expected him to wing his arm and provide her a proper escort from the house. Or perhaps he’d take the baby and steal a few minutes more of Kit’s smiles and sweetness.

His arm slid around her shoulders, his chin rested on her crown. “I wish you’d reconsider this. He can always join the Harrads in spring or when he’s started to walk or speak.”

He meant this as a kindness, but Sophie felt the suggestion as something like a betrayal, sloshing about amid all the other pain she was carrying around in her heart. “If I don’t do this today, now, I won’t ever be able to. Not ever.”

She felt him nod, but he didn’t let her go, and she didn’t step back. For a long moment, she leaned against him and took for herself some of his strength and warmth. “I don’t want to do this.”

“My dear, I know.”

It was as much comfort as she’d have, the consolation that Vim knew exactly what this decision would cost her. Kit fussed and kicked between them, and Sophie moved away.

Or tried to. Vim kept his arm around her shoulders as they traveled through the house, then took the baby from her when they walked out into a sunny, cold day.

“At least it’s still. You should make Morelands easily.”

Sophie paused at the bottom of the front steps. “You’re not accompanying us?”

“He is.” St. Just led a big bay horse up to the mounting block. “We took the liberty of having a mount saddled for you, Sindal. It’s a pleasant day for a ride.”

“I’d thought to look over account books with my uncle this morning.”

And the winter day was about as pleasant as the coldest circle of hell by Sophie’s lights.

St. Just smiled a smile sporting more teeth than charm. “To hear your aunt tell it, the account books have languished for years without your attention to them. Surely you’d rather accept our invitation for a short jaunt on this sunny day?”

Valentine and Westhaven rode up, halting their horses on either side of St. Just.

“It’ll clear the cobwebs,” Westhaven said.

“And you can tell us all why you’ve been such a stranger at Morelands these last years,” Valentine added. “Sister, I can take the infant up with me.”

Vim glanced from one brother to the other, something like a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. “I would be pleased to join you, and Kit rides with me.”

He passed Kit to St. Just, gave Sophie a leg up, mounted and retrieved the baby, and then they were moving down the driveway, a silent cavalcade in the sunny, bitter morning.

It took no time at all to reach the curate’s little house beside the church, a mere span of minutes by Sophie’s reckoning, while she tried not to watch Vim holding Kit, occasionally speaking to the child, cradling him close against the brisk air.

Already, she felt an empty place under her heart, a place that ought to be filled with gummy smiles, baby-songs, and a tiny flailing hand intent on capturing the nearest adult nose, chin, or heart.

“Take him for just a moment.” Vim was regarding her with steady blue eyes, while Sophie’s throat closed and her chest began a slow miserable tattoo of impending loss. She shook her head.

“Just while I dismount.” Vim passed the baby over, despite another shake of her head, and then Sophie was cradling Kit close, shutting her eyes to memorize the sweet, baby scent of the child, to block out the sight of a tidy, tired young woman coming from the house in a plaid shawl.

“Sophie.” Vim, standing by her horse, waiting for her to give him the child. “You can come by later and visit with Mrs. Harrad. We should get Kit out of this weather.” He spoke gently, his voice pitched so the others would not hear.

This was why her brothers had impressed Vim into coming with them: so Sophie could hand the child to him, not to the woman shivering at the bottom of her steps, trying to look anywhere but at Sophie or the baby.

She handed Kit down and looked away, off toward the rolling terrain of Morelands just outside the village. She forced herself to take in air, then expel it, take in air, then expel it.

She counted her breaths—four, five, six… while Vim passed the child into the waiting woman’s arms and out of Sophie’s life.

“I’ll ride to the Morelands gates with you.” Vim swung up and shifted his horse so he was alongside Sophie’s mount, but he kept his silence while they rode.

“You’ve made the best decision, Soph.” Valentine shot her a glance that held a world of understanding, and all Sophie could do was nod and stare straight ahead, lest her brother’s compassion destroy her composure. He seemed to comprehend how tenuous her nerves were, because he rode on, joining their brothers in the lead.

“I can tell you it will ease,” Vim said very quietly. “I pray for you that the hurt will ease, Sophie Windham. Some things just take a great deal of time.”

He didn’t castigate her, didn’t try to reason with her or cheer her up, but Sophie was grateful for his presence nonetheless. All too soon, they were at the Morelands gates, the wrought iron wings standing open in welcome.

Vim drew his mount to a halt. “I’ll turn back here and thank you all for both your companionship on the journey and your willingness to provide my relations their first houseguests in quite some time.”

He was leaving her now ? Now when there was no compulsion, no urgency whatsoever, and her heart was never going to mend? “You won’t come in for a cup of tea?”

“Sophie.” Westhaven sounded serious indeed. Val and St. Just looked equally grave. St. Just shook his head subtly, but the message was clear.

She was not to push Morelands hospitality on Baron Sindal.

Vim moved his horse right next to Sophie’s, leaned over, and there—before her three solemn brothers—gave her a lingering kiss on the cheek. “You will send to me if there’s need.” He spoke very quietly, and it was not a question. Then he turned his mount and steered it in the direction of Sidling.

While Sophie watched Vim walk out of her life, her brothers maneuvered so their horses were beside her, Valentine to her immediate right, Westhaven and St. Just to her left.

“Shall we?” St. Just kneed his horse forward, and Sophie’s mount walked on, as well. All too soon, they were ambling up the drive to Morelands, the house sitting in winter splendor just a hundred yards ahead.

“I don’t know how I’ll face Their Graces.”

Sophie realized she’d spoken aloud when all three brothers were looking at her with concern.

“A headache might do,” Westhaven said.

“Fatigue would be convincing,” St. Just added.

Valentine cocked his head, his expression hard to read. “You’re a grown woman. We’ll make your excuses, Soph. Just go to your room and leave orders you’re not to be disturbed until dinner.”

She realized as Val helped her dismount that her brothers had been right to suggest Vim avoid an encounter with Their Graces. Sophie’s parents were perceptive people, and who knew what innuendos and looks they might have picked up on between Sophie and the man who’d made half her wishes come true?

“Back so soon?” Rothgreb surveyed his nephew, not needing spectacles to see the boy was preoccupied.

Not a boy, a man grown, and a handsome—if somewhat thick-witted—man at that. Love made such fools of young people.

Vim slid into the chair across from his uncle’s desk. “The distance we covered wasn’t great. You have the ledger books out?”

“You just let that pretty filly go?”

Vim looked up, and Rothgreb could see him trying to balance respect for his elder with the urge to throttle an interfering old busybody.

“She refused my suit on more than one occasion, Uncle. I don’t suppose you’ve made a list of all the things that have gone missing?”

“Refused your suit! Did you go down on bended knee? Shower her with compliments and pretty baubles? Did you slay dragons for her and ride through drenching thunderstorms?”

“I changed dirty nappies for her, got up and down all night with the child, and offered her the rest of my life.”

“Dirty nappies? Bah! In my day, we knew how to court a woman.”

This provoked a sardonic smile. “In your day, you married for convenience and were free to chase any panniered shirt that caught your eye.”

“Little you know.” Rothgreb tossed his spectacles on the desk. “Your aunt would have had my parts fed to the hogs if I’d done more than the requisite flirting with the dowagers. And she knew better than to share her favors elsewhere too, b’gad.”

“About my aunt.” Vim sat up, his expression grim. “She does not seem in the least vague to me, Uncle. I must conclude your descriptions of her conditions were exaggerated, and I have to wonder for what purpose.”

Damn the boy. Love had made him stupid about some things, but not nearly stupid enough.

“She has good and bad days, and having people around seems to help. She’s particularly glad to see you and glad to see you’ve an interest in the Windham girl.” Let the young rascal chew on that. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to take Essie calling over at Morelands? These old bones don’t weather a chill like they used to.”

The truth of that admission didn’t make it any easier to state, and Vim didn’t look like he was taking the bait.

“If I never set foot on Moreland property again, it will be too soon.”

Oh, the boy had it bad. Rothgreb shoved to his feet, a shift too ponderous to have the requisite dramatic impact, but it did allow him to glower down at his beef-witted nephew. “For God’s sake, when are you going to let a youthful peccadillo go? The Holderness girl was a wrong turn, nothing more. We all make them, and most of us, thanks be to The Deity, get over them.”

“I’m over the girl,” Vim said, springing to his feet with enviable ease. “I was over the girl before the packet left Bristol, but I will never get over being refused the opportunity to seek satisfaction for the slur to her honor and mine. I’ll expect a list of missing items on my desk after dinner.”

He stomped out, all indignation and frustration, the picture of thwarted love. Rothgreb lowered himself into the chair and reached out a hand to the hound who’d come blinking awake at Vim’s departure.

“The boy is an ass. My wife would say he takes after me.”

The hound butted Rothgreb’s hand.

“Let’s go find Essie, shall we? We must do something, my friend. I’m not sure what, but we must do something.”