Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish

Eight

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.”

“They cry.” Westhaven’s smile faded.

“You are fretting about Maggie. It’s thankless, that. She’ll come calling with a copy of the financial pages in her hand, and every time you try to turn the conversation to a handsome single fellow who doesn’t want to be leg-shackled to a simpering twit from the schoolroom, Mags will start nattering on about some shipping venture.”

“I listen when she natters on, I hope you do likewise. I strongly suspect Worth Kettering listens to her, as well.”

“Kettering has no sisters. I don’t mind giving him the loan of one of ours.”

Westhaven was quiet for a moment, sealing up his letter, and replacing the cork in the inkwell, but Westhaven’s silences were always the considering sort, so Val kept his peace, as well. “I worry about Maggie,” Westhaven said quietly, “but lately I’ve started worrying about Sophie too.”

“You find this worrying enjoyable, then. Nobody worries about Sophie. She’s the salt of the earth and the only thing keeping the ducal household sane when Her Grace abdicates the duty. We don’t worry because Sophie is on hand.”

“She’s not at Morelands as we speak, is she?”

That was a fact. Westhaven was a fiend for pouncing on bothersome little facts—the man had read law, being a younger son who’d expected to make his own way in the world. This had permanently deranged a portion of the fellow’s otherwise excellent mind.

“Sophie is entitled to socialize on occasion,” Val said, but it bothered him: why would Sophie be socializing with neighbors who lived directly across the square when she could be in the country with her entire family? What Val recalled of the Chattell sisters wasn’t so endearing as to explain Sophie’s decision.

“She socializes with perfect grace, as do all our sisters.” Westhaven started tapping his missive on the desk, first one edge of the folded paper, a ninety-degree turn, then another edge. “But I don’t like her remaining behind when she might be out in the country, singing carols, decking the hall, and keeping an eye on the rest of the family. Sophie’s a mother hen at heart.”

“So we’ll collect her and get her to Morelands, and you’ll see we have nothing to worry over where Sophie’s concerned. Not one damned thing. Now if you’re done with that desk, I think I’ll be writing a short epistle to my wife.”

“It’s late,” Westhaven said, rising. “You could write to her tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow we strike out for London, though I think it will be slow going the closer we get to Town.”

“But we’re in no real hurry,” Westhaven said, stretching languidly. “Not unless you count the burning desire to be reunited with our wives once we’ve seen to this errand.”

“Right,” Val said, uncorking the ink bottle. “No damned hurry at all.”

Vim glanced down at the cradle only to see two not-very-sleepy blue eyes peering back up at him.

Babies did not go to sleep when it would suit others for them to do so. This was probably The First Law of Babyhood, the close corollary being that they didn’t stay dry or tidy when it suited others, either.

The feel of Sophie Windham’s fingers tracing the shape of Vim’s ear would be enough to keep him awake for some while, as well. He did not allow himself to watch her getting ready for bed, though the sheer domesticity of it was riveting.

One glimpse of her hair unbound, a dark, silky fall of feminine beauty cascading right down to her hips, and he was remaining in his seat only so he might not embarrass himself with evidence of his arousal.

The entire situation made no sense whatsoever. Sophie had indicated her willingness to accommodate his lust—though nothing more than that—as genteelly as a woman could, and Vim had no doubt he desired her.

Desired her on a level new and not wholly comfortable to contemplate.

And because he desired her so, he was wary of what she offered. Anything that seemed too good to be true generally was too good to be true. Father Christmas did not exist except in the hearts of innocent children; rainbows did not sport pots of gold where they touched the earth.

And Sophie Windham wasn’t meant to be a man’s casual Christmas romp.

And yet… He did not want to disappoint her.

Vim glanced over to see the baby had finally, thank ye gods, gone to sleep. He adjusted the blankets around the cherubic little form and rose to tuck the hearth screen closer to the fire.

He moved over to the bed and stood in silent indecision for a long moment. There would be no recrimination in the morning if he joined Sophie in that bed, none if he merely spent the night in slumber beside her, none if they again took turns getting up with the baby.

And none if they made passionate love in the dark of night.

“Did you close these curtains to indicate I would not be welcome in there with you, Sophie?”

He kept his voice just above a whisper, allowing her to feign sleep if she wanted to spare them both embarrassment. In the moment that followed, a procession of emotions tumbled through him: hope, anticipation, desire… and when Sophie made no reply, a disappointment that had precious little of relief in it. Perhaps he’d misread the situation, or perhaps Sophie wasn’t—

The curtain moved, revealing Sophie sitting up in the shadowy interior. “You are welcome.”

He couldn’t read her expression, and there was nothing particularly welcoming in her tone.

“I’ll be right back, then.” He drew the curtain closed and moved as quickly as he could without making a sound. He lifted the cradle, baby and all, and moved down the darkened corridor to his room, which was warm enough to serve as the child’s temporary quarters.

Vim’s clothes landed in a heap on the floor, his ablutions were made with cold water, and his use of the tooth powder was particularly thorough. As he pulled on the brocade dressing gown, he glanced at the cradle.

“If you know what’s good for you and good for Miss Sophie’s spirits, you will endeavor to sleep for at least the next hour. Two would be more gentlemanly. I’ll see to it you get a pony just as soon as you learn your letters if you’ll accommodate me on this.”

He slipped into the corridor, leaving the door cracked just an inch—not enough to let in a draft, but enough to let a baby’s cries be heard two doors down.

And when he quietly closed Sophie’s door behind him, eagerness turned to something… less certain.

Perhaps he should have brought himself off first…

Perhaps this wasn’t wise. Assuming Sophie’s welcome was a sexual overture—and that was an assumption, regardless of how she kissed him—no matter what precautions were taken, there was always a chance of consequences…

He pushed the bed curtains aside, appallingly willing to take on such consequences if taking on Sophie were part of the bargain, as well. Sophie didn’t roll over as Vim shed his dressing gown, which had him pausing, one knee on the mattress, one foot on the floor.

She reached behind her and flipped the covers up. Vim scooted into their warmth and arranged himself along the lovely, feminine curve of Sophie’s back. She was in her nightgown, which he took for a minimal boon to his self-control, until he heard a funny hitch in her breathing.

Had she been crying while he was plotting seduction?

“You did not want to speak of your brothers,” he said, drawing his hand down the elegant length of her spine and feeling remorse twist in his gut where arousal had been just moments before.

“We don’t, generally.”

“When my father died, I was a small child. I did not understand grieving in silence, but my mother seemed to need it. Fortunately, my aunt and uncle understood I needed to speak of my papa. Uncle had sketches of Papa hung in the schoolroom, which had a salubrious impact on my studies.”

She craned her neck to peer at him over her shoulder. “I think that’s the first positive thing you’ve said about anyone or anything associated with your home.”

“It’s a lovely place, settled, comfortable, and…”

“Yes?” She subsided, which meant he couldn’t see her face—and she couldn’t see him.

“Come here, Sophie Windham. If you’re to interrogate me, at least let us be comfortable while you do.” He tucked her close enough that she had to be aware of the remains of his erection snug against her backside.

“Mr. Charpentier, you are without clothing.”

“And soon you will be too, if you want to be.”

“Tell me about Sidling.”

It was to be slow torture, then, unless he’d mistaken her invitation entirely. No matter, it was the loveliest form of torture, and he would do his utmost to make sure it was mutual.

“Sidling goes back nearly to the days of the Conqueror, at least to hear my grandfather tell it. We’ve a Norman ruin that was likely a watchtower of some sort. The land rolls, but not so you can’t get a crop in. There’s a drive about a half-mile in length, oaks on both sides, some of them huge. We had a big windstorm when I was a boy, and one toppled. I stopped counting the tree rings at four hundred, and in the middle, where the rings were almost too small to count, my grandfather said those were the hard, cold years.”

“Cold makes for solid wood. My brother has studied violin construction and says northern wood is preferred for that reason.”

“These brothers of yours are an interesting lot.” Her hip was interesting too. A smooth, beautiful conjunction of leg, derriere, and woman that fit beneath his palm perfectly.

“Tell me of your uncle and aunt.”

Had she sighed a little with that question? He leaned over and kissed her cheek to investigate. When he resumed speaking, he kept his cheek against her hair.

“Uncle is a tough old boot. He was the spare, the oldest son having died before I was born. My father was an afterthought produced to secure the succession, but I’m told he was never very healthy. Grandfather was a force of nature, on his fourth wife when he died. He had every confidence he’d have more sons of that one too.”

“You come from fierce stock, then.”

Fierce. This was an apt description for the sensation pooling in his groin. He brought his attention to the conversation with effort.

“Uncle is fierce, in his way, so is my aunt. Proud, independent. They’ve let me wander half my life away rather than ask me for anything.”

His hand stilled on her flank as it occurred to him some of his feelings toward Sidling were explained by guilt. Not disgust for the events in his past, nor resentment, nor impatience… Guilt, for having turned his back on not just some bad memories—his worst memories, really—but on people who’d loved him since he was Kit’s age.

Sophie caught his hand in hers and brought it around her waist. “And you’re worried about them now, worried you’ve left them too long alone.”

“Yes.” She said it better than he could have. Vim wrapped her close and just held her for a long, thoughtful moment. He could visit and discuss and flirt the night away, or he could gather his courage in both hands and do the woman the courtesy of asking her a simple question.

“Shall I pleasure you, Sophie?”