sane argument with a piano while I can still reason.”
He marched off—he was
A man could not aspire to the status of man at all unless he admitted to himself he’d been mistaken.
And Sophie had apparently known this. She’d known Vim had spent more than a dozen years racketing around the world, laying up treasures on earth, all in the mistaken belief His Grace had treated him shabbily, when all the while…
“I beg your pardon.” The very object of his youthful folly stepped back and peered at him through tired eyes. Louise Holderness Horton smiled tentatively. “I know you, sir, or I believe I do.”
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “It’s Sindal, Louise. Wilhelm Charpentier. Happy Christmas.” He bowed and left her standing there under the mistletoe, her hand to her a cheek and a ghost of her old smile on her lips.
Sophie, who was discreetly maintaining an absence when he’d come expressly to mend his fences with her. He gave the place one more visual inspection and didn’t see her anywhere, so he signaled for his hat and coat.
“Where are you off to?” Westhaven was doing a poor job of masking a glower. “If I’m not mistaken, you haven’t made your bow to Sophie.”
“I have not, and if that’s how she wants it, that’s how it will be. Excuse me.”
“You’re really leaving.” The glower faded to puzzlement, though Westhaven’s hand stayed on Vim’s arm.
“I’m leaving for the curate’s house, if you must know, and then, if Sophie still won’t give me an audience, I am heading for Yorkshire, or wherever else you lot think you can secret her.”
“What’s at the curate’s house?”
“Not a what, a who. The love of Sophie’s life, who should at least be with her if she won’t allow me to be. Happy Christmas, Westhaven.”
He slipped out the door and didn’t bother retrieving his horse. It was a short walk down to the village, and he’d need the time to clear his head.
“Where was Sindal going?” St. Just growled.
“I’m not sure, but he mentioned the curate’s house.” Westhaven’s brow knit. “He sounded a bit like he’d gotten into Deene’s white rum, but he had only the one drink with His Grace.”
“His Grace is involved now?”
The brothers exchanged a look, and they spoke in unison. “Let’s go.”
Vim was composing a speech, having failed utterly with his note to Sophie. He sought a means of explaining to the Harrads that he’d like to have the baby back, thank you very much, because Sophie Windham loved the child, and she should have whom and what she loved.
And if he cleared that hurdle without landing on his arse, he might, apology in hand, point out to the lady that a growing boy could use a man’s influence.
It was a shaky plan, but it had the advantage of sparing one and all trips to the West Riding in the dead of winter. Surely she’d see the wisdom of that?
“Vim?”
He stopped dead in his tracks. There
“Sophie. Why aren’t you at the Christmas revels?”
She stared at Vim for so long he thought perhaps she hadn’t heard him. But then a sigh went out of her, and she seemed to grow smaller where she stood.
“I’m fetching Kit to you.”
Her smile was wan, not a smile he’d seen on her before, and it tore at his heart.
“It’s the right thing,” she said, rubbing her hands up and down her upper arms. “It’s the right thing for you and the right thing for Kit. I can’t raise him—
“Can we talk about this?”
Her chin came up. “You didn’t want to talk to me at the party.”
The strains of some old Handel came floating over the sounds of the Moreland gathering, the same pastoral lullaby Sophie had sung to Kit days ago, but this time rendered with mellow beauty on the church piano. The music was soothing, but sad too.
“Your father had something to explain to me, Sophie. I apologize if it seemed as if I was avoiding you.” But she was avoiding him, standing there trying not to shiver in the frigid night air. “Can we not find somewhere to sit? Because I do want to speak with you; I want it badly.”
“You’re taking the baby,” she said, visually scanning the green. “My brother is an idiot.”
He wasn’t sure which brother she referred to. “If you say so. I find them all likeable when they’re not threatening to thrash me.”
She scowled. “They’re still making threats?”
“Not lately.” He took her by the arm and started walking in the direction of the Harrads’ tidy porch. “I’m not inclined to take on the responsibility for the child, Sophie. Not in my present circumstances.”
“Because you’re going to China?”
“I was supposed to go to Baltimore.” And she was going to Yorkshire, for God’s sake.
“Wherever. Children usually travel well, particularly when they’re as small as Kit. He can’t stay with the Harrads, though. They’re decent people, but it was foolish of me to think strangers would love him the way we do.”
“So you love Kit?”
She stopped at the foot of the Harrads’ steps. “I do. I think you love him too, though, and you’re in a position to provide for him. I am prepared to be stubborn about this.”
“Formidable threat, my dear, but I am prepared to be stubborn too. Do you know what your papa wanted to discuss with me so urgently?”
This time when she looked him up and down, Vim had the sense she might be
He believed her. He believed she’d no more notion of who and what had been involved in Vim’s great humiliation all those years ago than he had himself. To this extent, then, His Grace—and likely the ducal consequence, as well—had been guarding Vim’s back, not driving daggers into it.
“It is a night for revelations. Can we take a seat?”
There was nowhere to sit, except the Harrads’ humble wooden stoop. He lowered himself to it and patted the place beside him. “Cuddle up, Sophie. It’s too cold to stand on pride much longer, and we have a dilemma to solve.”
She sat, and he let out a sigh of relief.
“What is our dilemma?” She might have tucked herself just a bit closer to him, or she might have been trying to get comfortable on their hard wooden seat.
“If Kit is to have the best start possible in life, he needs two parents who love him and care for him.”
She focused on something in the distance, as if trying to see the notes her brother’s playing was casting into
