checked his horse’s girth and glanced at his brothers. For men who’d never been on campaign, they traveled well, even under the circumstances.
“Their Graces will worry,” Val said, patting his chestnut’s neck. “Sophie ought to be comfortable enough, though.”
Westhaven’s lips pursed where he sat on his horse. “My backside is not comfortable in the least. I tell myself to be grateful we’re not dealing with rain and mud, but a cold saddle is only a little less miserable.”
“You should have let me fit a sheepskin under the ducal arse,” St. Just said, swinging onto his horse. “Baby Brother wasn’t so proud.”
Val climbed aboard too, settling onto the sheepskin cushion St. Just had fashioned the night before. “It helps with that initial, ball-shriveling shock of cold when your backside first lands in the saddle. You ought to try it, Westhaven.”
“Perhaps tomorrow, if we’re indeed to be traveling another day.”
“We could push it,” St. Just said as they moved away from the inn where they’d eaten a luncheon of bread, cheese, and ale. “But everybody’s tale is the same: move south, and the snow is navigable. Move west, and the drifts are several feet deep in places.”
“So we give it another day to melt and continue working south.” Val’s gaze went to the perfect azure sky making the day appear much warmer than it was. “At least I got a violin out of it. A little Christmas present for having been a very good boy.”
This comment was too worthy of reply to be ignored, so St. Just, cheerfully abetted by Westhaven, spent the next five miles teasing their baby brother about just how good he’d been. This led the way to a lengthy discussion regarding Christmases past, naughty deeds, pranks, and family memories.
St. Just watched the sun sink and gave thanks that this campaign was so much more joyous than others he’d endured in the past. No, they would not make London in the limited daylight available, and they possibly wouldn’t on the next day, either, but he was with his brothers, traveling in relative comfort, and all was right with the world.
“Do you recall the year His Grace thought Sophie should have a pet rabbit for Christmas?” he asked his brothers.
“And Bart told her it was headed for the stew pot. I thought she’d brain him senseless,” Westhaven supplied. “I do believe it’s the only time I’ve heard Her Grace laugh out loud.”
“But we didn’t tease our sisters quite as mercilessly after that,” Val pointed out.
“Sophie has her ways,” St. Just said. “To this day, a man does not cross her with impunity.”
The talk drifted to various neighbors and other sisters before Westhaven was again complaining that his ass had frozen to the saddle, and this was hardly how the heir to a dukedom expected to spend his holidays.
When next they paused to rest the horses, his brothers washed his handsome face with snow for that nonsense.
All day long, as Vim’s toes turned to distant, frozen memories, the wind chapped his cheeks and nose, and the food Sophie had packed for him disappeared into a bottomless well of cold and hunger, he mentally kicked himself.
He should not have left Sophie to contend with that baby by herself. She was brave and sensible but a novice when it came to babies.
He should have escorted her to the cozy, well-staffed home of some titled acquaintance and set about courting her—a display of his connections in polite society accompanied by discreet indications of his wealth would have been a nice place to start.
He should have waited for better weather to leave Town, weather fine enough that he could take Kit with him to Sidling, where the boy could be raised up secure and safe in any number of useful professions.
He should have told her that whatever her station in life—cook, housekeeper, companion, governess,
And for variety, he’d occasionally curse himself for tarrying in London, at all. If he hadn’t put off going to Kent to the very last minute, he’d be cozy and snug at Sidling right now, listening to his aunt explain the subtleties of chess to a man who’d been letting his wife beat him at the game for half a century.
And finally, when he lost sensation in his fingers, the food was gone, and darkness starting to fall, he admitted he should have made love to Sophie when they’d had the chance. He should have put aside all the rotten memories he carried courtesy of the last female he’d pursued in the Yule season, gotten together his courage, and made such passionate love to Sophie that she couldn’t bear to let him go.
This thought coalesced in his brain just as his foot went sideways beneath him in the snow and he pitched headfirst into a fluffy drift at least four feet deep.
“Westhaven writes that Valentine is on the trail of some sort of violin, but it will cost them a day’s traveling time.” His Grace passed his wife the letter, a terse, efficient little epistle, via messengers, from a man who’d taken the disarrayed finances of the duchy and set them to rights in about a year flat.
“A violin?” Her brow furrowed as she perused the single page where she sat in serene domestic splendor near the study’s fire. “A Guarneri. No small find. Do you suppose Valentine is happy?”
Women. They were forever pondering the imponderables and expecting their menfolk to do likewise.
“Valentine delights in his music, the Philharmonic is ever after him to give up his ruralizing and come to Town to rehearse them. One must conclude his rustic existence appeals to him.”
Her Grace set the letter aside. “Or being up in Oxfordshire appeals to him, or his wife appeals to him. I think Ellen is yet shy of polite society.”
If their youngest son ran true to Windham form, he was spending the winter keeping his new wife warm and cozy, and perhaps seeing to the next generation of the musical branch of the family.
His Grace reached over and patted his wife’s hand. “We’ll squire her around next Season, put the ducal stamp of approval on Val’s choice. Care for more tea, my love?”
“No, thank you.”
She fell silent, leaving His Grace to go back to a daunting pile of correspondence from his cronies in the Lords. Damned fools were still yammering on about this or that bill, when they ought by rights to be with their own families, catching all the pretty parlor maids under the kissing boughs.
This thought, for some reason, connected two thoughts in His Grace’s often nimble brain.
“You’re fretting over Sophie,” he said, pushing his chair back from his desk. “This means whatever mischief she’s up to, her brothers will be yet another day in retrieving her from it.”
The slight—very, very slight—tightening at the corners of Her Grace’s mouth told him he’d scored a lucky hit. “For God’s sake, Esther, I can saddle up and fetch the girl home. It’s not that far, and I’m hardly at my last prayers.”
She gave him a look such as a wife of many years gives the man who taught her the true meaning of patience. “It is the depths of winter, Percival Windham, and you would leave me here with four daughters to keep out of trouble by myself when every home in the neighborhood is full of mistletoe and spiked punch. Sophie is the sensible one. She’s doubtless visiting elsewhere in Town, and her letter to us went astray in the bad weather.”
“Very likely you’re right.” For appearances sake, he was compelled to add, “It really would be no trouble, my love. I’ll take a groom or two if you insist.”
She turned her head, giving him a view of her lovely profile as she gazed out the window. “Sophie will be fine. Perhaps I will have a spot more tea after all.”
“Of course.”
Except by now, Sophie would have sent more than one letter regarding her change of plans. His Grace was reminded that all those years ago, when he’d been an impecunious younger son bent on a career in the cavalry, Esther had been considered the sensible daughter too. This had allowed them all manner of ill-advised leeway in
