Vim took a step back so the lady might have a view out the window. He also disengaged his proboscis from the baby’s surprisingly strong grip.
“I was told the coaches are all putting up for the duration, madam. My own travel has been interrupted because of it.” The baby knocked Vim’s high-crowned beaver straight at the woman beside them. She caught it deftly in one hand. When Vim dipped his head, she positioned the hat back where it belonged.
“That is a naughty baby,” she said, eyeing the child.
“He’s a boy baby. They all have more energy than they know what to do with, until they sleep like the dead, restoring themselves for their next round of mischief.”
This recitation seemed to please the little fellow, for he smiled directly at Vim, a great drooling expression of benevolence disproportionate to his tiny size.
“I think Kit likes you.”
“He likes having food in his tummy and a warm place to cuddle, the same as the rest of us. You can linger here, but I honestly do not think the mother will return. May I have your coach brought round for you?” Though the pandemonium in the yard suggested it would be far simpler to escort the lady to her conveyance.
“I only brought the gig, and it’s right around the corner.” She reached for the baby, but Vim took half a step back.
“I am happy to carry him for you.”
“But he’s…” She fell silent, regarding the baby gurgling contentedly on Vim’s shoulder. “He does seem quite happy there.”
“And I am happy to enjoy his company, as well. If you’d lead the way?” He nodded toward the door to encourage her, because her eyes bore a hesitance, suggesting she knew better than to allow a strange man to accompany her down the street.
“I neglected to introduce myself,” Vim went on. “Wilhelm Charpentier, at your service.” He left off the title, as he usually did with strangers, but he did bow with the baby tucked against his chest. The child laughed, a hearty, merry baby-chuckle calculated to have Vim bobbing around the room for the pleasure of My Lord Baby until one or both of them succumbed to exhaustion.
“I’m Sophie Windham.” She dipped another curtsy while Vim cast around mentally for why the Windham name sounded vaguely familiar. “I should have known Joleen—his mama—was up to something when she took her valise to the necessary.”
“You were occupied with a certain unhappy little gentleman. Shall we be going? I don’t like the look of that sky.”
She glanced out the window and got moving. It took some minutes to navigate through the crowd; then they had to pause inside the door for Miss Windham to wrap the child in a thick woolen shawl.
“My conveyance is just around that corner.” She pulled on her gloves, nodding to the north, toward Mayfair. “We’re not far from home, but with Joleen’s valise, I thought the carriage would save us effort.”
She wasn’t wearing a bonnet, which allowed her to wrap a knit scarf around her head in such a way that her ears and neck and some of her hair were covered. Vim was relieved to get shut of the commons, relieved to breathe the relatively fresh air of the out-of-doors. They hadn’t gone very far when Vim stopped abruptly.
“God in heaven. What is that?”
“Not so loud.” Miss Windham turned to frown at him as the boy holding the reins darted off toward the inn. “You’ll hurt Goliath’s feelings. He’s a very sensitive pony.”
Her sensitive pony was almost as tall at the withers as the top of Vim’s head, which put the beast at something over eighteen hands. Such an animal would be able to cut through the snow without breaking a sweat, but his kind were seldom kept in the confines of Town.
“Did he escape from in front of some beer wagon?” Though escape was hardly the appropriate term. A horse that size went where he pleased—fences, stone walls, and human wishes notwithstanding.
“He did not enjoy a sanguine existence before joining our stable, but he’s the best of horses in bad weather. I’ll take the baby.” She turned to Vim as he noticed three fat, lazy snowflakes drifting down from the sky. He did not pass her the child.
“I don’t see a driver, Miss Windham. How will you manage to guide the horse and hold Kit?”
“I can put the reins in one hand,” she said, brow puckering. “Goliath knows the way home.”
“No doubt he does.” Or he knew the way to his barrel of oats. “Nonetheless, I would be more comfortable if you’d allow me to drive you. It seems we’re to be treated to yet more snow, and I would not want a lady and her very young charge relying on the good offices of her horse when a gentleman was on hand to see to her safety.”
It was a courteous, gentlemanly speech, calculated to reassure her and let him attend to an errand of conscience, though he’d meant what he’d said: he wanted to see her and the baby safely ensconced in a well- heated home before he set about finding his own accommodations. Call it vestigial chivalry or a rare manifestation of seasonal charity, but he wasn’t going to abandon her to her own devices just yet.
“It’s only a few blocks, Mr. Charpentier.” She gave his name the same emphasis he did, Shar-pen-tee-ay, in deference to his father’s distant Norman antecedents.
“Then you won’t mind if I drive you.” He tossed his haversack into the back, and with his free hand, he took her elbow, guiding her over to the gig. The angle of her chin suggested she had a stubborn streak, which was about to come inconveniently into evidence, but a chilly breeze came along at just the right moment—sporting more snowflakes—and her chin dipped.
“If you insist, then. I do appreciate it.”
He boosted her into the gig and glanced at the sky in silent thanks. If there was one thing he did not regard as a productive use of his time, it was arguing with a strange woman in the street while a blizzard bore down on the city and the baby in his arms grew closer to that moment when…
“My goodness.” Miss Windham wrinkled her nose where she sat on the bench. “Something…”
“Not something.” Vim handed her the baby. “Someone. He ate, he burped, and now he must treat us to a demonstration of the health of the other end of his digestion.” He climbed into the gig and unwrapped the reins from the brake. Beside him, Miss Windham was holding the baby slightly away from her body.
“I say.” She frowned at the child. “I do say. You’re sure they do this regularly?”
“With appalling regularity, if you’re lucky. I’d guess the boy’s getting some solid food too, which will make his situation a great deal easier if you can’t locate the mother.”
She didn’t ask him how he came to such a conclusion, though the evidence presented to Vim’s nose was unassailable. A child subsisting exclusively on mother’s milk wasn’t half as odoriferous as Kit had just been.
Vim flicked the reins, and the chestnut behemoth in the traces moved off. “Where are we heading?”
She rattled off an address on one of the great squares of Mayfair, prompting Vim to wonder just whom he was escorting.
Sophie Windham was well spoken, but she was also driving herself around London in the dead of winter. Her clothing was well made but not fancy enough to suggest wealth. She had the brisk competence of a housekeeper, and a position in service would explain her lack of familiarity with child care, as domestics seldom married.
“You were traveling today, Mr. Charpentier?” She’d relented and was holding the child against her body, despite the baby-stink emanating from the bundle in her arms.
“Heading to the family seat for the much-vaunted holidays.” The family seat, such as it was, for the holidays, such as they were. His tone of voice must have given him away, for she shot him a look. He could feel her scrutinizing his profile and see her female brain choosing the most delicate way to frame an awkward question.
But she said nothing.
“What about you?” He glanced over at her. “Is London home, or should you be traveling somewhere to join your family for Christmas?”
“My brothers are coming through Town later in the week. We’ll journey to Kent together, assuming they all arrive safe and sound.”
“How many brothers do you have?”
“I had five. Thanks to consumption and the Corsican, I now have three.” Her voice hadn’t wavered, hadn’t revealed any particular sentiment, but she cradled the child closer.
“I am sorry for your losses.”
