mare—Dutch’s Daughter was the only mare the viscount continued to breed, because her foals were nothing short of spectacular, just as her granddame Drusilla’s foals had been.
“Such a pretty girl,” Essie crooned, taking a lump of carrot from her pocket. The mare sidled over to the half door and craned her neck to take the treat from Essie’s hand.
“She is pretty,” the viscount said, watching as his wife of more than fifty years stroked her hand down the horse’s furry neck. “She’s beautiful, in fact, and she always will be. But we mustn’t spoil her, my dear. May I escort you back to the house?”
She gave the horse one more pat and turned to regard her husband sternly. “You certainly shall. I do not know what you were thinking, coming out in this weather without your gloves. I should spank that hound of yours for allowing it.”
“Yes, you should, but luncheon is long past, and I missed you, Essie.” He offered her his arm and sent up a prayer that they made it back to the house before spring—or before death claimed them.
“Have we heard from Vim?” She took his arm, but he leaned on her as much as she leaned on him. Essie’s wits might be wandering, though she was yet wonderfully spry.
“Beg your pardon, my dear?”
“Vim,” she said, speaking a little more loudly. “Wilhelm Lucifer Charpentier, our nephew and your heir.”
“No word yet, but I do expect him.”
They tottered along in silence for a good long way, uneven ground being something neither of them negotiated carelessly anymore. The dog sniffed about here and there but never let them get very far from his notice.
“He’ll come,” Essie said quietly as they reached the back gardens. “Vim is a good boy; he’s just sad, as Christopher was.”
“Christopher was a damned sight worse off than sad,” Rothgreb said. Stairs were the very devil when there was even a dusting of snow involved. “Essie, what say you beat me at a hand of cards?”
“Chess would make the time go faster—assuming we can locate your chess set?”
Rothgreb glanced away. For all she was growing quite vague about a few things, he had the sense his wife was more astute than ever about others.
“If we can’t find the Italian set, we can play cribbage or checkers.”
She snorted as she swept up the steps ahead of him. “Not checkers. For heaven’s sake, Rothgreb. That is a game for dodderers who can no longer tell a pawn from a knight.”
“So it is.” He ascended the steps more slowly than she and took her hand when they reached the terrace. Her hand was warm, while his—an old man’s gnarled paw—was cold.
“Come along, Rothgreb. I feel like giving your pride a trouncing.”
She smiled the smile of a much younger wife, and Rothgreb followed her into the house. They did not find the Italian chess set—he’d known they wouldn’t, and he suspected Essie had known they wouldn’t, as well—but she beat him soundly using the everyday pieces left about for the servants to use.
Trounced him handily, as she had been doing for decades whenever the notion struck her.
Sophie awoke to silence and near darkness, the warmth of Vim’s length blanketing her back.
“You’re awake.” Vim spoke very quietly, likely in deference to the baby sleeping in his cradle near the hearth.
“I’ll be back.” He patted her arm, and Sophie felt the mattress bouncing. She really should be getting up herself, but she heard Vim behind the privacy screen and decided to stay put. When he came back to the bed, he sat on the opposite side then scooted under the covers.
“You tried to wake me,” he said, still nearly whispering. “Budge up, Sophie. We’ll both be warmer.” Because neither one of them was going to risk making a racket building up the fire, not while My Lord Baby was still napping peacefully.
“I tried waking you twice then built up your fire enough so you wouldn’t catch a chill,” Sophie said. “When I realized Kit was taking his nap, I climbed in here to avoid moving him to my room and having to make up another fire.”
As if he’d believe that.
His arm came around her middle. “One more day won’t make a difference.”
She heard that he was trying to convince himself, but she needed no convincing. A weight on her heart eased, though it couldn’t lift entirely. Tomorrow would come all too soon.
“Vim?”
“Sweetheart?”
The whispered endearment spoken with sleepy sensuality had Sophie’s insides fluttering. Was this what married people did? Cuddled and talked in shadowed rooms, gave each other bodily warmth as they exchanged confidences?
“What troubles you about going home?”
He was quiet for a long moment, his breath fanning across her neck. Sophie felt him considering his words, weighing what to tell her, if anything.
“I’m not sure exactly what’s amiss, and that’s part of the problem, but my associations with the place are not at all pleasant, either.”
Was that…? His lips? The glancing caress to her nape made Sophie shiver despite the cocoon of blankets.
“What do you think is wrong there?”
Another kiss, more definite this time.
“My aunt and uncle are quite elderly, though Uncle Bert and Aunt Essie seem the type to live forever. I’ve counted on them living forever. You even taste like flowers.”
Ah, God, his tongue… a slow, warm, wet swipe of his tongue below her ear, like a cat, but smoother than a cat, more deliberate.
“Nobody lives forever.”
The nuzzling stopped. “This is lamentably so. My aunt writes to me that a number of family heirlooms have gone missing, some valuable in terms of coin, some in terms of sentiment.”
His teeth closed gently on the curve of her ear.
What was this? He wasn’t kissing her, exactly, nor fondling the parts other men had tried to grope in dark corners—though Sophie wished he might try some fondling.
“Do you think you might have a thief among the servants?”
He slipped her earlobe into his mouth and drew on it briefly. “Perhaps, though the staff generally dates back to before the Flood. We pay excellent wages; we pension those who seek retirement, those few who seek retirement.”
“Is some sneak thief in the neighborhood preying on your relations, then?”
It was becoming nearly impossible to remain passively lying on her side. She wanted to be on her back, kissing him, touching his hair, his face, his chest…
“Or has some doughty old retainer merely misplaced some of the silver?” Vim muttered right next to her ear.
“You’ll sort it out.” Sophie did shift then, as quietly as she could. She lay on her back right next to Vim, while he remained on his side, peering down at her in the gloom.
“We ought to leave this bed, Sophie.” The warmth of his palm stole across her midriff, a slow, sumptuous caress that, even through the fabric of her old house dress, left Sophie wanting so much more.
“Kiss me.” She twined her arms around his neck, hitched a leg over his hips, and pulled herself snug against him. “Please.”
“God help me.”
He growled this prayer against her neck as he drew her flush against him, his arm lashing around her back. When his mouth fused to hers, Sophie was glad she was lying down, because the sensations were that dizzying.
Vim, all around her, his hand cupping her derriere to drag her more tightly against his rising erection. The taste of him flooding her mouth, the feel of his heat and strength all along her body.
