Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish

Westhaven resumed his place at the table.

“But his family seat is in Kent,” St. Just said. “He can’t very well avoid that for the rest of his life, particularly not after he inherits.”

Westhaven smiled, not a particularly pleasant smile. “Exactly so. Valentine, fetch the cards; St. Just, we’ll need decent libation. As I see it, we really don’t have very many options.”

Fourteen

A quiet knock sounded on Sophie’s door, no doubt one of her infernal, well-meaning brothers come to check on her.

Come to make sure she hadn’t knotted her sheets and eloped with a stable hand to dance on cafe tables in Paris.

She opened the door and stepped back.

“I wasn’t sure you’d still be awake.” Vim didn’t come into the room, just looked her up and down from where he stood in the drafty corridor.

“Come in, please. We’re letting in the cold.”

He advanced exactly three steps inside the door and still made no move to touch her. “I’ve come to spell you with Kit. I can take him tonight, and you can get some rest.”

And wasn’t that just fine? Vim would come for the baby but not to see how she fared or to speak with her privately.

“I’ll let you take him. I must accustom myself to being without him, mustn’t I?”

“Not necessarily.” He shifted half a step as Sophie closed the door behind him. “You can raise that child, Sophie. You’re a duke’s daughter, and your reputation has no doubt been spotless until now. Your family is of sufficient consequence you could take in a half-dozen children and nobody would take it amiss.”

“You’re wrong.” She rummaged in her traveling bag for some clean nappies and a rag. “They would say: Like father, like daughter. They would say: Like brother, like sister.”

“What does that mean?”

“Anna and Westhaven anticipated their vows, as did St. Just and Emmie. The proof is in their nurseries. I expect Val and Ellen did, as well, but time will tell. His Grace raised two bastards in the Moreland Miscellany, though I love my brother and sister dearly. I’m even named for the royal princess whom all believe to have whelped a bastard, though nobody will say it in public.”

“Sophie, what’s wrong?”

Now, he’d moved. He’d crossed the room silently to stand at her elbow. The bergamot scent of him, the Vim scent of him, tickled her nose.

“I’m tired,” she said, shifting away to sink onto the raised hearth of her small fireplace. “Seeing my brothers is wonderful, but under the circumstances…”

He lowered himself to sit beside her. “Under the circumstances, I’ve ruined your holiday.”

“Christmas is not my favorite time of year.”

“Mine either, and hasn’t been since a certain holiday gathering almost half my lifetime ago. I expect your parents will acquaint you with the details if your brothers haven’t already.”

This was news. She lifted her head to peer at him. “Is this why you dread coming to Kent? There is some scandal in your past?”

“My sisters were the victims of scandal, though I started the tradition well before they did, and I was not exactly a victim. I was a fool.”

“Soph?” Valentine’s voice called softly from the corridor. A moment later, a knock sounded on the door, and a moment after that, Val pushed the door open. Slowly—slowly enough she might have hastened to an innocent posture if she’d been, say, kissing the breath out of her guest. “Is the prodigy asleep yet?”

“You were a prodigy,” she said, rising from the hearth. “Though now you’re just prodigiously bothersome. Lord Sindal was coming by to collect Kit for a night among you fellows.”

“We fellows?” Val’s brows crashed down. “We fellows took turns the livelong freezing day, carrying that malodorous, noisy, drooling little bundle of joy inside our very coats. You should be missing him so badly you can’t let him out of your sight for at least a week of nights.”

“Ignore your brother, my lady.” Vim rose off the hearth, and to Sophie’s eyes, looked very tall as he glared at Valentine. “We will be pleased to enjoy My Lord Baby’s company for the night, won’t we, Lord Valentine?”

Valentine was not a stupid man, though he could be as pigheaded as any Windham male. Marriage was apparently having a salubrious effect on his manners, though.

“If Sophie says I’ll be pleased to spend the night with that dratted baby, then pleased I shall be. Coming, Sindal?”

And then, then, Vim kissed her. On the forehead, his eyes open and staring at Valentine the entire lingering moment of the kiss. “Sleep well, Sophie. We’ll take good care of Kit.”

He lifted the cradle and departed. Sophie pushed the nappies at Valentine, ignored her brother’s puzzled, concerned, and curious looks, and pointed at the door without saying one more word.

* * *

“Westhaven sent us a pigeon.” His Grace waved the tiny scrap of paper at his wife. “Says they’ve retrieved Sophie, and all is well. The four of them are on their way.”

Though it didn’t say precisely that.

“In this miserable weather too,” Her Grace replied. “I don’t worry about the boys so much, but Sophie has never enjoyed winter outings. Come sit and have some tea.”

He sat. He did not want tea, but he did want to share his wife’s company. She was the picture of domestic serenity, plying her needle before the fire in their private sitting room.

“They’re traveling in company with Rothgreb’s nephew,” His Grace said, flipping out his tails. “Is that a new piece?”

“A blanket for your grandson. Anna will be showing him off this spring in Town, and he must be attired to befit his station.”

“Mighty small fellow to be so fashion-minded,” His Grace remarked. “Have we seen the Charpentier boy since that awful scene all those years ago?” He’d tried to keep the question casual, but Her Grace was as shrewd as she was sweet.

And she was very, very sweet.

“We have not.” She looked up to frown at him, the only manifestation of her frown in the corners of her lips. “The viscountess has mentioned him passing through from time to time, but he hasn’t socialized when in the neighborhood. If he’s going to be underfoot this year, we really must invite him to the Christmas party.”

His Grace accepted a perfectly prepared cup of tea from his wife and made a show of putting the teacup to his lips. Insipid stuff, tea. Its saving purpose was to wash down creme cakes, of which there were exactly none in evidence, bless Her Grace’s heart.

“You invite everybody and their granny, Esther. Don’t expect him to come.”

She said nothing while His Grace could hear her female mill wheel grinding facts together with intuition and maternal concern.

“Do you suppose Sophie has come to enjoy Mr. Charpentier’s company?”

He thought his daughter had done a great deal more than that, given the nature of Westhaven’s note. Will explain in person usually meant the news was too bad to be committed to writing.

“Charpentier has the courtesy title now, has had it since his grandfather died all those years back.”

“A title.” Her Grace appeared to consider this. “Sophie has never been much impressed with titles.”

“He’s only a baron.”

They could hope. They could hope he was a handsome, charming, single baron who had a penchant for quiet, spinsterly types given to charitable causes and taking in strays.

Christmas was the season of miracles, after all. His Grace downed his tea in one brave swallow and regarded