Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (28 page)

Rothgreb was gruff, irascible, cantankerous, and sometimes even cussed, but in Vim's experience, his uncle was never, ever uncertain.

“Of course I will, and if she's not careful, I'll be sure we meet up under the mistletoe.”

Rothgreb nodded slowly. “Not a bad approach. Puts the ladies in a fine humor when they get their regular share of kisses. Enjoy your ride.”

He shuffled out, looking to Vim for the first time like a very old man. A very old and very dear man.

“He's not coming.” Valentine kept his voice down and his smile in place, even managing to nod at some little pretty across the room who apparently hadn't gotten word he'd recently acquired a wife.

“He'll be here.” Westhaven smiled, as well, as if Val had just said something amusing.

“I could always go fetch him.” St. Just wasn't smiling. He was looking thoughtful, which generally did not bode well for somebody.

“We should send Her Grace,” Val said. “She'd sort the bugger out in a hurry.”

St. Just glanced at him. “She's too busy dispensing good cheer to every yeoman and goodwife ever to pass through the village.”

“Sophie's being even more gracious than our mother.” Westhaven did not sound happy about this in the least.

Maggie glided up to them, looking striking in a green velvet dress. “I thought you three said you had Sindal under control. Sophie's smiling so hard her jaw must hurt, and he's nowhere in sight.”

“Oh, for God's sake.” Westhaven sounded most displeased. “Evie just switched her glass of wassail for Deene's, and the idiot man didn't even notice.”

Maggie's brows knit. “Why does that matter?”

“Because,” St. Just said as Westhaven moved off, “Deene's is spiked with a dose of the loveliest white rum ever to knock a grown man on his arse.”

Maggie took a little sip of her drink. “So's mine.”

Val reached over and plucked her glass from her hand. “Then you'd better share, sister dear, or I'm going to go fetch Sindal here myself.”

***

A summer evening could be quiet, peaceful even, but it could never compete with the utter stillness of a winter night. No birds flitted from branch to branch; no insects sang to their mates; no soft breezes stirred leafy green boughs.

As Vim let his horse trot down the Sidling drive, all was still, and a fat moon was about to crest the horizon. The silence was as dense as the air was cold, but for the life of him, Vim could not have remained indoors with his silly young cousins, his fuming aunt, his oddly quiet uncle, and the aging retainers on every hand.

As the horse loosened up at a ground-eating trot beneath him, Vim started composing a note in his head to Lady Sophia Windham.

He was sorry—more sorry than he could say—that their paths were diverging.

Except that wasn't an apology, and he owed her an apology. He'd leapt to convenient conclusions, made mad, passionate love for what felt like the first time in his life, then bungled the aftermath badly. He should have gone down on his damn bended knee, should have made her heart tremble, or whatever that word was Windham had used.

At the foot of the drive, he turned the horse toward the village and started his note over: Dear Sophie…

My dear Sophie…

Dearest Sophie…

Sophie, my love…

The horse's ears swiveled forward, and Vim drew the beast up. The last thing he needed was to land on his arse on the cold, hard ground because some damned fox was out hunting his dinner.

“What is it?” He smoothed a hand down the gelding's neck and let the horse walk on. “You hear some hound baying at the moon?”

But as they approached the village, Vim heard it too: a baby crying.

He halted the horse and simply listened. This was the sound that had drawn his path to Sophie's, a purely unhappy, discontent sound, but unmistakably human.

Kit
, and he wasn't hungry. He wasn't tired, either; this was his lonely cry, the lament he sent out when he needed to be held and cuddled and reassured. This was the simplest and most sincere form of a human being demanding to be loved.

The boy wanted Sophie, and he didn't second-guess his entitlement to her, didn't stop to fret about long-ago insults and innuendos and violins, didn't worry about titles or any other damned thing that stood between him and what he needed to be happy.

Mercifully, the crying ceased.

Before Vim could change his mind, he wheeled the horse in the direction of Morelands and set the beast to a brisk canter.

***

“Her Grace dispatched me to figure out what has you lot glowering like a matched set of gargoyles.” Percival, the Duke of Moreland, surveyed his three sons, all of whom were clutching their drinks with the grim resignation of grown men being sociable under duress. This was odd, since all of his children were more than comfortable in social settings.

“We're that obvious?” Valentine asked.

“To Her Grace, all is transparent when it comes to her family. I suppose we're waiting for Sophie's swain to come to his senses and gallop up the drive on his white charger?”

St. Just stood by the window, peering through a crack in the drapes. “It's a bay, actually, and the idiot man is finally here. Somebody needs to warn Sophie.”

“Not just yet,” His Grace said. “I'm to have a word with Sindal first, Her Grace's orders. You three look after your sister, and for God's sake, find somebody to dance with Evie before she drags Deene under the mistletoe by his hair. She holds his liquor better than he does.”

He left his sons to deal with their sisters while he moved to receive his latest guest.

“Sindal, glad you could join us.” He passed the man's greatcoat to a footman and noted that Sindal's expression was wary and his cheeks were flushed, as if he'd galloped the entire distance from Sidling. “Stop peering around to see if Sophie's here. I assure you she's about somewhere.”

Sindal passed his gloves and hat to the footman and waited until the servant had bustled away. “And you would not object to my socializing with Lady Sophia?”

“Such a bold fellow you have become.” Emboldened by love, apparently, which made the situation both simpler and more delicate. “You would not give a tinker's damn if I objected, would you?”

Sindal's lips quirked. “I would not, Your Grace, but Sophie would.”

“Thank God for small favors, then. Are we to stand around here in this draft and exchange innuendos, or will you let me get you a glass of punch?”

And still, Sindal's gaze was darting surreptitiously into every corner of the vast entrance hall. “No punch for me, thank you, Your Grace.”

Oh, for God's sake
. His Grace leveled a look at his guest that wasn't the least congenial. Love made young men daft—old men too, though that didn't signify at the moment.

“Perhaps a small glass,” Sindal allowed.

And just when His Grace was certain they were going to gain the privacy of the men's punch bowl, who should come wafting by but dear little Sophia herself ?

“Lord Sindal?” She stopped, her gaze fixed on Sindal's face.

“I'm fetching him a glass of punch, Sophie.” His Grace took Sindal by the arm. “I believe Her Grace said something about Westhaven decimating the marzipan trays. You might want to have a look, hmm?”

He had to drag the boy away bodily. “You can lurk under the mistletoe later, Sindal. I want no more than five minutes of your time.”
And
grandchildren
. He most assuredly wanted grandchildren, though based on the way Sophie and her swain made eyes at each other, this happy outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Legitimate grandchildren would be a shade easier to explain to Her Grace.

“To your health.” He passed a glass of spiked punch to Sindal. “Drink up, sir. I have a hunch you'll need the fortification.”

Sindal took a sip of his drink, his eyes going to the door and the entrance hall beyond. “And your health, as well, Your Grace. Now if you're done demonstrating your ducal forbearance, I've something to say to your daughter that can't—”

His Grace plucked the glass from Sindal's hand. “You will listen to me first, young fellow.” He saw his wife glide past the door and understood that she'd ensure they had a measure of privacy. “You have been notably absent from our Christmas gatherings in years past.”

“I've been notably absent from England, but I don't foresee that being necessary in future.”

“Glad to hear it. Stop that infernal mooning for Sophie and take a look at the woman standing at the foot of the stairs.”

Sindal did stop scanning the environs long enough to shoot his host a look mixing irritation with vague curiosity. “The heavyset, older woman?”

“The one standing next to the bald fellow leaning on his cane.” The woman obligingly turned, which ought to confirm, even to Sindal's preoccupied and besotted eyes, that she wasn't just heavyset, she'd graduated from matronly to something less flattering two stone ago.

“Do you recognize her?”

“She looks vaguely familiar, as does the older fellow with her.”

“There is your thwarted dream, Sindal. Why don't you stand under the mistletoe and ambush her for old times' sake? Horton can barely stand on his own now, so bad is his gout and so seldom is he sober. I suppose if you called him out now, you could arm wrestle.”

To his credit, Sindal did not gape.

“Then again”—His Grace paused to take a sip of his drink—“if I had six little heifers the likes of his to dower and launch, I might be driven to drink myself.”

Sindal swung his gaze back to meet His Grace's. “Her present situation does not excuse your interfering with a man's defense of her honor and his own years ago, Your Grace.”

“No, they do not.” His Grace set his drink down. “But her oldest daughter? Born perhaps six and a half months after the wedding.” He spoke very quietly—there was no need to bruit the woman's folly about again after all these years. “Your grandfather lamented the situation to me over many a brandy, Sindal. She was leading you about by the…
nose
and had her eye on the more highly titled prize the entire time. She even cornered my son Bartholomew a time or two, but he was a canny sort and not about to be taken advantage of. If it's any consolation, Horton was more effectively manipulated than you were.”

As they watched, Horton staggered a little, sloshing some of his drink on his wife's sleeve. A silence spread and spread, underlain with the genial sounds of the party and a piano thumping out a Christmas tune somewhere in the house.

“I have been made a fool of, but not by you, Your Grace.” Sindal spoke quietly too. His Grace put the man's drink back in his hand.

“No more so than most other young men can be made fools of. I had a few close calls myself before Her Grace took me in hand.”

But it appeared Sindal wasn't even listening. He continued to watch as Horton's lady tried to look like she was enjoying herself, though all the while, her expression was pinched with fatigue, anxiety, and what looked to His Grace like a suppressed fury at her lot in life.

“She looks at least ten years older than she should.”

“I don't think her situation has been easy. She's received—Her Grace saw to that—but her indiscretion is common knowledge. Some mathematical calculations are easy to recall. Your grandfather assured me the child could not have been yours.”

“How could he have known such a thing? I was devoted to that woman for a span of several months.” And still, Sindal did not take his eyes off the unfortunate woman and her sorry spouse.

“He knew you.” The duke spoke not as the wealthy, titled aristocrat he was, nor even as Sindal's neighbor and a friend to his late grandfather. He spoke as a father, and most particularly as Sophie's father.

“I owe you an apology, Your Grace.” Sindal extended his hand, and they shook, which put a curious little sense of unfinished business to rest in His Grace's mind.

“None needed, to me at least. St. Just said something about you owing Sophie an apology, though. Might want to be about that posthaste, hmm?”

Sindal put his drink down, nodded once, and strode off like a man very determined on his mission, while His Grace went to the door of the small parlor. Across their crowded main hall, he found his wife's gaze, noted the slight anxiety in her eyes, and eased it with a small, private smile intended just for her.

***

“He walked right past me.” Sophie turned before the harpsichord, skirts swishing, and paced back to Val's side. “He barely looked at me, Valentine. Am I not even worth a glance?”

She veered off and marched over to the great harp. “Maggie offered to poison his drink. What has the blessed punch bowl got that I haven't got? What is that?”

“Your cloak. Some fresh air will settle you down, Soph.”

“I don't want to
settle
down
!”

He held her gaze, thinking his wife would be proud of him. Only a brave—or perhaps very foolish man—tried to console a woman with a heart in the process of breaking. “I rather think you do want to settle down, preferably with Sindal and a brace of offspring.”

Her head came up, and Valentine was grateful he'd be leaving in a couple days. Much more of this drama, and he'd be swearing off family holidays for the next decade.

“I tossed aside a perfectly good baby. A wonderful baby,” she said. “Placed him with
strangers
.”

“That dratted baby has nothing to do with Sindal cutting you.” He draped her cloak over her shoulders, even risking a small hug while he did. “Let's go for a little walk, Soph. It will put the roses back in your cheeks.”

When he pulled away, she clung. He felt the instant when her ire turned to sorrow, felt her spine sag with impending grief. “I tossed away the baby, but Valentine, I'm beginning to wonder if I didn't toss away the man, as well. I never really explained to him what I was about—I didn't know what I was about.”

“And I'm not sure I
want
to know. Come along, Soph. We can amble down to the church and make sure the curmudgeon hasn't gone rogue on me. The damned weather is hard on the old soldiers.”

“You and your blessed pianos.” But she let him tug her through the French doors to the terrace. St. Just was still keeping vigil by the windows, and he started when Val pulled Sophie along on the terrace. Val just shook his head when St. Just beckoned them back inside, all without Sophie noticing a thing in her increasing upset.