“Kent is the family seat on my father’s side. When my mother remarried, I went with her to Cumbria. I’m not sure my uncle was comfortable with the arrangement, but he never protested. Shall I wash while you dry?”
“I will not refuse a man’s offer to wash dishes in my kitchen.”
She still did not sound precisely happy.
“Tell me of your home,” Vim suggested, using a rag to start washing the mixing bowl in the warm, soapy water.
“It’s beautiful. Big but cozy. It will always be home.”
“Do you miss it?”
She accepted the clean bowl from his hand, frowning as she did. “There comes a point where the familiar can feel more like a prison than a haven, though in truth it’s neither. It’s a home, a place laden with memories, nothing more and nothing less.”
Vim stared at the water. “A place with obligations too.”
“What sort of obligations?”
Now why had he brought up this mare’s nest of unpleasant associations?
“My uncle is getting older, and he refuses to hire new staff. My aunt has never been a traditionally practical woman, and their daughters are no help whatsoever.”
“Do you worry for them?”
“Oh, of course.”
Something in his tone must have given him away. Sophie put a hand on his sleeve. “What aren’t you saying? If you worry about them, you must love them.”
“I hardly know them, Sophie. They’re my only paternal family, but I’ve never…”
She was standing right beside him, her big green eyes holding a world of compassion Vim did not want directed at him. He did not deserve it, certainly not from her.
“Sophie, I want to kiss you.”
He’d meant to state it as a problem, a small, troubling matter she needed to take into consideration when she stood so close. It came out sounding like a prayer, like the most fervent wish hoarded up in a tired, lonely heart that had long since lost the courage to wish.
She set aside the towel in her hand while Vim watched her mouth in anticipation of a gentle, even kind, rebuke.
And then the baby let loose with a loud, indignant squall.
Sophie didn’t want to kiss Vim Charpentier; she wanted to gobble him up like a holiday sweet, to gorge herself on the feel and taste and scent and sound of him.
Which was… disquieting. She’d been kissed before, fondled, groped, pulled into dark alcoves and promised all manner of outrageous pleasure when it became apparent she wasn’t entertaining offers of marriage.
Some of it she’d found… intriguing, but not intriguing enough to risk the consequences.
Thank God for fussy babies. They gave a woman time to recover her balance and assess what it meant when a man did not kiss a lady but announced that he wanted to.
“Let me try.” Vim took the small spoon from her hand—no flirtation there—and addressed himself to the baby. “If you refuse your victuals, young Kit, we will spank you soundly and send you to bed quite hungry indeed. I will eat them up myself, in fact. Yummy warm porridge with plenty of juicy apple mashed into it. How can a man— even such a wee man as you—refuse such ambrosia?”
“We will not spank you,” Sophie interjected. “Not until you are at least as big as Vim.”
When the baby spat out another mouthful of his dinner, Vim sat back, a puzzled expression on his face. “The boy is in a mood about something. We can try again later, and he’ll probably eat a double portion.”
He tried putting the baby back in the cradle, which provoked more fussing and kicking.
Sophie took Kit from Vim’s arms. “He wants cuddling.”
By the time darkness had fallen, they’d both had turns holding the infant, rocking him, and distracting him with trips to the window. While Sophie took the last of the cakes and muffins from the oven, Vim toured the kitchen with the baby in his arms.
“You never did tell me about your family seat,” Sophie said. Thanks to Kit’s fussiness, there had been no opportunity to revisit Vim’s startling pronouncement regarding that other business.
That business about kissing her. About
“It’s a pretty enough place,” Vim said. “The main part is a Tudor manor with sprawling grounds. My aunt is quite the landscaper. Uncle likes to fish, so we have two ornamental lakes and several ponds.”
“And you will inherit this property?”
“For my sins, yes.”
She paused in the middle of wrapping the bread in muslin. “Do I take it you have bad memories of this place?”
He touched noses with the baby, which Sophie accounted a stalling tactic.
“I have few memories one way or the other. My father died when I was quite young, and then we removed to Cumbria. I spent a few holidays in Kent when I was at University, but my uncle didn’t issue many invitations. My siblings in Cumbria seemed to need some looking after, so I bided there more than anywhere else. That bread smells heavenly.”
“When it cools, we’ll have some. Kit seems quieter.”
“Shall we try to feed him again?”
It was a good suggestion. Sophie didn’t for a minute believe Vim had told her more than a superficial glossing over of the truth, but concern for the child won out over her curiosity.
Then too, if she pried too closely into Vim’s situation, he might feel entitled to pry into hers, which would not serve in the least. A man might announce a desire to kiss a housekeeper or other domestic, but he’d never risk offending a duke’s daughter with such forwardness.
Fortunately, the child ate prodigiously, as Vim had predicted. Sophie cut fat wedges of bread for her and Vim, added a dish of butter to the tray, and followed Vim and the child down the hallway to the servants’ parlor.
They put the baby on his nest of blankets, and while Kit seemed to enjoy the change of scenery, he made no move to get up on all fours but stayed on his belly or his back, content to watch as Sophie and Vim ate their buttered bread.
“I should have made you a proper dinner,” Sophie said. “I wonder how women with large families ever get anything done.”
Vim looked over from where he was letting Kit gnaw on his finger. “You’re from a large family.”
“My mother had scads of help. Does that child’s diaper need changing?”
Vim inhaled through his nose. “Not yet. Will you be all right when I leave tomorrow, Sophie?”
She was glad he’d brought it up, but she would not ask him to stay. Men of a certain ilk could sit still only so long before all around them suffered for it.
And what difference would one more day make? Whether Vim knew it or not, she was still Lady Sophia Windham, with a baby to find a decent home for, and he was a man whom she was convinced never bided any one place long enough to call it home.
“We’ll manage.” She started tidying up the remains of their meal. “My brothers will show up in a day or so, and two of them are parents.”
“I do believe His Highness is yawning.”
Subject changed. He’d wanted reassurances that she’d be able to manage, nothing more. Well, she wanted some things from him too.
“Let’s see if we can’t read him to sleep,” Sophie suggested. She went to the bookshelves and pulled down a volume of Wordsworth’s poetry. There was a copy in the library as well, but that version would not have dog-eared pages or a spine cracked and creased with frequent readings.
She didn’t realize Vim was standing behind her until she bumped into him when she turned around.
“Steady.” His hands closed around her upper arms then dropped away. “What have you found for us?”
“Poetry. Nice, calm, pastoral poetry to read a fussy young man to sleep.”
“What sort of household is this, Sophie, that the servants read poetry?”
“A proper English house. Bring My Lord Baby to the sofa.” She sat a little left of the middle of the sofa, so Vim
