Sophie’s larger mount, then threaten to drop his sister in the snow as he helped her dismount. “Her Grace was right to summon us home, even if means we don’t see our wives until Twelfth Night.”
“Maybe it was His Grace doing the summoning.”
Before they could wax maudlin over that, as well, Vim spoke up. “I will apologize in advance for the state of the household here at Sidling. We’ll keep you safe from the elements, but I can’t vouch for the particulars my aunt and uncle might be able to offer.”
Westhaven cocked his head when his horse came to a halt. “Like that, is it? Always a bit sticky taking over the reins from the old guard. I wrested a power of attorney from His Grace not long ago.” He swung down easily. “In hindsight, I’m not sure His Grace put up more than a token fight. Be a good lad and distract dear Sophie while I rub some feeling back into my abused fundament.”
Vim dismounted, his frozen feet and ankles suffering agonies when they hit the driveway. “I have never heard so much about a grown man’s miserable backside in all my days. How do your brothers put up with you?”
Westhaven paused in the act of running his stirrup irons up their leathers. “I do it for them, mostly.” Westhaven’s voice was low and devoid of humor. “They fret I’ll become too much the duke. I won’t ever be too much the duke if it costs me my siblings’ friendship.”
Vim was puzzling out what reply to make to such a confidence when his uncle’s voice boomed from the main entrance. “Vim Charpentier, get yourself into this house this instant lest your aunt fly down these steps and break her fool neck welcoming you!”
“And you.” Vim’s aunt emerged from the house, wearing only a shawl to protect her from the elements. “You get back into this house, my lord, before you blow away in the next breeze. Come in, Wilhelm, and bring your friends.”
His aunt pronounced his name in Scandinavian fashion: Villum. It was a small thing, but others typically used the English version: Will-helm.
“Come along.” His uncle gestured to the assemblage. “Let’s get this pretty young lady ensconced before a fire so your aunt can quiz her properly. And you fellows can use a mug or two of wassail, I’ll warrant.”
His uncle sounded the same: bluff, gruff, and quite at home in his own demesne. When Aunt Essie presented her cheek for Vim to kiss, she bore the scent of lemon verbena, just as she had from his infancy.
Maybe things weren’t so bad.
“Merciful powers!” Aunt Essie took a half step back. “Who have you got there in your coat, Vim?”
Presenting Kit upstaged the introductions, but Aunt and Uncle assumed a neighborly familiarity with Sophie’s brothers, and even with Sophie herself.
By the time coats, hats, and gloves had been passed off to various footmen, Uncle Bert was holding the baby and bellowing for refreshments in the library. Kit nearly kicked the old man’s chin, while Aunt Essie surrendered her shawl to swaddle the cooing, chortling infant.
“He’ll need a change,” Sophie said quietly. “He’ll need to eat and romp, as well.”
And she was telling
He felt a slight pressure to his hand, a brief warmth where Sophie’s fingers closed around his. She was smiling at his uncle, a gracious, soul-warming smile, but she’d kept her hand in Vim’s for a palpable moment.
The tightness in his chest that had started growing the moment he’d realized weeks ago he couldn’t avoid this trip eased a bit. Perhaps he might yet avoid disaster, despite the holiday season, despite the looming separation from Sophie and Kit, despite the disarray and trouble here at Sidling. Christmas was the season of miracles, after all.
That Sophie hadn’t done any of her brothers bodily injury was miraculous.
“They mean well, the lot of them,” Sophie fumed as she lifted a naked, happy Kit from a laundry tub of warm water.
“Gah-bu-bu!”
“They’re getting as meddlesome as His Grace, leaving me to ride by myself for most of the journey, dodging about so Vim must take me in to dinner, then shuffling around with the subtlety of elephants so he sits beside me, as well.” She rubbed noses with the baby. “The worst part was deciding to spend the night here when Morelands is just a few miles farther down the road, and all without consulting me, of course. And Vim, ever so polite through it all.”
“Ba-ba-ba.” Kit grinned, and as soon as Sophie laid him on a folded-up bath sheet, he started kicking and squirming.
“You are no help at all, but you want to romp, don’t you?”
Kit made no reply but applied himself assiduously to the task of rolling onto his stomach. Sophie’s sitting room was cozy and well appointed, though the curtains and carpet were both a trifle faded. Lady Rothgreb hadn’t batted an eye when Sophie had requested to keep the baby with her, but had directed one of the footmen to find a cradle among the furniture stored in the attic.
A soft tap on the door had Sophie hoping Vim was stopping by. It didn’t matter that he’d be coming to say good night to the baby; it mattered only that she missed him, and that every single word to come out of her mouth today had seemed the wrong thing to say if it was directed at Vim.
“Come in.”
“Just me,” the viscountess said. “Don’t get up, my dear. Those young fellows are lingering over their port, and Rothgreb is so glad to have company, he’s going to linger with them. How’s the lad?”
“Relieved to be somewhere he can stretch his legs, so to speak.”
Lady Rothgreb braced one hand on the arm of the settee and the other on the edge of the coffee table and slowly lowered herself to the floor. “Old bones,” she said. “Winters are longer when you get old, but the years go more quickly, anyway. Someone should make a study of this. Is your room in order?”
“It’s lovely. I’m sure Kit and I will be very comfortable here.”
Lady Rothgreb brushed a veined hand over Kit’s head. “If I’d known how having company would perk up the staff, I’d have sent over to Their Graces for the loan of a few of their grown children.” Kit grabbed Lady’s Rothgreb’s finger and grinned at his hostess. “My, you’re a strong little fellow, and my guess is you’re about to cut some teeth too.”
“Westhaven mentioned this. I gather it’s something of an ordeal?”
“They get a little cranky.” She withdrew her finger. “They can also get a cold to go with their fussiness—a runny nose, a touch of congestion.”
“He had a runny nose last week.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to turn him over to a nursery maid, my dear? Nanny has long since retired, but our housekeeper has sixteen grandchildren.”
“I’m sure your housekeeper is dealing with unexpected guests; that’s challenge enough.”
“She loves Vim’s visits, rare though they are. We all do.”
A silence fell, while Kit positioned himself to go a-Viking across the carpet, and Sophie wondered about Lady Rothgreb. Vim had suggested the older woman was growing vague, wandering both mentally and physically, and yet her ladyship had presided over a lively dinner conversation and handled unexpected guests with gracious good cheer.
“I have a motive for intruding on you, my dear.”
“It’s not an intrusion,” Sophie said, shifting to sit between the baby and fireplace. “I can’t imagine swilling port with my brothers has any appeal.”
“Actually, it would—they are charming men, and it would allow me a little more time with my nephew. Rothgreb is entitled to play host, though, so we’ll leave them to it.”
“I should not have shut myself up with Kit,” Sophie said, feeling defensive without any particular reason, “but he has had a great deal of upheaval lately, and I did not want to impose on—”
“May I exercise an old woman’s prerogative and be blunt, my dear?”
“Of course.” Something uneasy in Sophie’s middle suggested this bluntness was going to be painful.
“You are attached to this child, Lady Sophia.”
Sophie watched as Kit lurched and crawled and scooted over to Lady Rothgreb. “Anybody would be. He’s that dear.”
