Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish

Ten

“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 their flirting and courtship, and accounted for Lord Bartholomew’s arrival something less than nine months after the nuptials.

It gave pause to a loving papa immured in the country drinking tea, and tempted him to saddle up his charger and head for Town, miserable weather be damned.

Sophie’s day dragged, the hours punctuated by Vim’s absence more than by the chiming of the tall clocks throughout the house.

Vim wasn’t there to help Sophie feed the baby.

He wasn’t on hand to deal with some of the soiled nappies.

He wasn’t offering the occasional opinion on the baby’s situation, leaving Sophie to fret that the child was too warm, too cold, too tired, too everything.

Vim wasn’t offering adult companionship at meals, complimenting Sophie’s pedestrian cooking as if it were the finest food he’d ever eaten.

He wasn’t there when Sophie contemplated and discarded the notion of lying down for a nap while Kit caught his midafternoon forty winks, there being memories to haunt her in both her own bed and Vim’s.

Vim wasn’t there, and he would never be there again.

“I have both brothers and sisters,” she told Kit as she laid him in the cradle near the kitchen hearth. “My oldest sister is named Maggie. She’s several years my senior and very much a comfort to me, though she’s technically a half sister.”

Would Kit have brothers and sisters? Did Joleen’s footman have other children he’d created with the same careless disregard for the child’s future? That Kit might have siblings and never know them, or not even know of them, made her chest ache.

“Maggie explained certain things to me when I made my come out,” she said, shifting the cradle to the worktable and putting it beside her baking ingredients. “Things no decent girl is supposed to know.” And how Maggie came upon the knowledge was something Sophie had wondered.

“She explained that people like you get conceived at certain times and are less likely to be conceived at other times.”

The baby kicked both feet and stuck the two middle fingers of his left hand in his mouth.

“I was hoping…”

She’d been hoping Vim would show her what the greatest intimacy between a man and a woman could be. She’d been hoping to be his lover, to know with him what she’d never know with any other man.

She’d been hoping a great deal more than that, actually, but hoping was as useless as wishing.

“I’ll deal with Valentine’s room tomorrow,” she assured the baby. “I’ll clean up the bathing chamber, and I’ll send along a cheery note to Their Graces.”

She wouldn’t lie, exactly, but she wouldn’t mention Vim Charpentier, either. Among her siblings, there was tacit acknowledgment of the occasional need to protect their parents from some unsavory detail or development. It was the kind thing to do, also the most practical, as some aspects of reality did not yield even in the face of ducal determination.

Like the reality that Vim was gone and Sophie would never see him again.

Tomorrow she’d tidy up Val’s room and set the bathing chamber to rights. She’d remove every possible piece of evidence indicating Vim had been in the house.

Just… not… yet.

She started mixing another batch of stollen, though she had to pause occasionally to swipe the stray tears from her cheeks.

“My dear, I’m afraid it’s gone.”

Essie Charpentier watched her husband rise slowly from where he’d knelt on the carpet. One foot on the floor, then while he braced himself, the second foot. A pause, then a hearty shove to gain him his feet, and another pause to recover from the effort.

“Perhaps it is simply misplaced,” she said as she’d said on an appalling number of other occasions. “Or maybe the servants have taken it downstairs for cleaning in anticipation of the holidays.”

He cast a glance at her, an indulgent glance laced with a little worry and a tinge of… pity. She hated the pity probably as much as he hated the ways she pitied him in recent years too.

“It was just an olive dish,” she said briskly. “We have several such, and the olives don’t taste any better or worse for being in an antique silver dish or a piece of the everyday.” She laced her arm through his. “It’s sunny today. I’m of a mind to visit the ancestors, if you’ll escort me?”

“Of course, my dear.” He patted her hand and led her from the family parlor where they’d stored various items of sentimental and commercial value for years—the heirloom parlor.

“Perhaps we should take to locking the doors of certain rooms,” Essie said. “You lock the billiards room when we’re not entertaining.”

“The gun cabinets are in there, my dear. I’m sure the dish will turn up, and it wouldn’t do to offend the staff by locking the place up like some medieval castle. Is there someone in particular you’d like to see?”

“Christopher, I think. We must tell him his son is coming for a visit.”

They made a slow, careful progress up the main stairs, a majestic cascade of oak whose grandeur was dimming in Essie’s eyes as her knees increasingly protested the effort of climbing it.

“We hope Wilhelm will grace us with his presence,” the viscount said, pausing at the top of the stairs. “There’s been no word, Essie, and he should have been here by now.”

She paused, as well, and surveyed the front hall below them. All was cheerfully laden with swags of pine. A wreath graced the inside of the front door, and a fat sprig of mistletoe wrapped with red ribbon was temporarily hanging from a coat rack in the corner.

“Kiss me, Rothgreb.”

He smiled down at her, a trace of his old devilment in his blue eyes. “Naughty girl.” But he bussed her cheek and patted her hand. “My lovely, naughty girl.”

“Vim will be here,” she said as they resumed their progress toward the portrait gallery. “He keeps his word.”

“He keeps his word, but his associations with Sidling are not cheerful, particularly not his associations with Sidling at Yuletide. Watch the carpet, my love.”

“His associations with Sidling are cheerful. He passed his early childhood here cheerfully enough.”

Rothgreb held the door to the portrait gallery open for her. Down the length of the room, some eighty feet, a fire was laid but not lit in a huge fieldstone hearth, and the cavernous space was chilly indeed.

“Shall I fetch you a shawl, Essie?”

He was not going to argue with her about Vim’s past, which was a small disappointment. Arguing warmed them both up.

At the rate they moved around the house lately, by the time he fetched the shawl, she’d be frozen to the spot she occupied. She smiled at him. “Bellow for Jack footman. Trotting around will keep him from freezing.”

“He won’t move any faster than I will, and you know it.” Nonetheless, Rothgreb strode off and could be heard yelling in the corridor. The man had a good set of lungs on him, always had, and no amount of years was going to take away from the broad shoulders favored by the Charpentier menfolk.

“He misses you,” Essie said to the portrait occupying the wall to the right. She let her eyes travel over blond hair, blue eyes, a teasing hint of a smile, and masculine features so attractive as to approach some standard of male beauty.

“Christopher was the best looking of us three boys,” Essie’s husband said, slipping his arm around her waist. “He would have made a wonderful viscount.”

“You make a wonderful viscount, and to my eyes you were and still are the pick of the litter.” She let her head rest on his shoulder, sending up a prayer of thanks that, for all their years, they still had each other and still had a reasonable degree of health.

“You need spectacles, my lady.” He smiled down at her then resumed perusing his brother’s portrait. “Vim never comes here, you know. When he visits, he doesn’t come say hello to his old papa, nor to his grandfather, either.”

“He will this time.” She decided this as she spoke, but really, Vim was not a boy any longer, and certain things needed to be put in the past.

“No scheming, Essie, not without including me in your plans.”

This was the best part of being married to Rothgreb for decades—though there were many, many good parts. Another man might have become indifferent to his wife, the wife who had been unable to provide him sons. Another man might have quietly or not so quietly indulged in all manner of peccadilloes when the novelty of marriage wore off.

Her husband had become her best friend, the person who knew her best and loved her best in the whole world, and Essie honestly believed she’d come to know him as well as she knew herself. It made up for advancing years, white lies, misplaced olive dishes, and all manner of other transgressions.

She hoped.

“Let’s say hello to Papa while we’re here,” Rothgreb suggested. “He always did have great fun at the holidays.”

Essie let him steer her down the gallery at a dignified pace. The point of the outing had been to get away from the family parlor and wipe the concern from Rothgreb’s eyes. If she had to freeze her toes among previous generations of Charpentiers, then so be it.

“If Vim comes, we will have great fun again,” Essie said. “His cousins will mob him, and the neighbors will come to call in droves. Esther Windham still has five unmarried daughters, Rothgreb. Five, and their papa a duke!”

“Now, Essie, none of that. The last thing, the very last thing Vim will be interested in is courting a local girl at the holidays, and given how his previous attempt turned out, I can’t say as I blame him.”

Essie made a pretense of studying the portrait of Rothgreb’s father. The old rascal had posed with each of his four wives, the last portrait having been completed just a few months before the man’s death.

He was a thoroughgoing scamp of the old school, a Viking let loose on the polite society of old King George’s court. She’d adored him but felt some pity for his successively younger wives.

“I believe I shall send Her Grace a little note,” Essie said.

His lordship peered over at her, his expression the considering one that indicated he wasn’t sure whether or how to interfere.

“Just a little note.” She patted her husband’s arm. “I do think Vim inherited the old fellow’s smile. What do you think?”

“I would never argue with a lady, but I honestly can’t say I’ve seen Vim’s smile enough to make an accurate conclusion.”

True enough. They tarried before a few other portraits, and by the time Essie’s teeth were starting to chatter, Jack footman tottered in with a cashmere shawl for her shoulders.

Sophie’s first day tending Kit without Vim’s assistance went well enough as far as the practicalities were concerned. She made more holiday bread and a batch of gingerbread, as well, took care of the baby, folded the dry laundry, placed stacks of clean nappies and rags in strategic locations about the house, and successfully avoided going into the room where Vim had slept.

Tomorrow, maybe.

A fresh bout of tears threatened—my goodness, she hadn’t cried this much in years—and she glanced over at where Kit was slurping on his fingers on the parlor rug. While she watched, he took his hand from his mouth and started twisting his body as if to look at the fire dancing in the hearth.

“You’re getting grand ideas again.”

His gaze went immediately to Sophie where she sat on the floor beside his blankets.

“Go ahead; amaze yourself with a change in scenery.”

As if he’d understood her words, Kit squirmed and twisted and gurgled until he’d succeeded in pushing himself over onto his stomach. His head came up, and he braced himself on his hands, grinning merrily.

“This is how it begins with you men,” she said, running her hand down the small back. “You have this urge to explore, to sally forth, to conquer the world. Next you’ll be going for a sailor in the Royal Navy, shipping out for parts unknown, all unmindful of the people you leave behind, the people who love you and worry about you every moment.”

Kit hiked his backside skyward and managed to get on all fours. Sophie wiped the drool from his mouth, but his grin was undiminished.

“Men. You must adventure; you must go; you must march and sail and charge about in the company of your fellows. No matter you could be killed, no matter you break hearts every time you leave.”

Kit slapped his blankets with one small hand.

“I’ve never understood men. Bart would come home on winter leave, and nothing would do but he’d go off to Melton, riding to hounds, hell-bent, in all kinds of evil weather. It wasn’t enough to taunt fate by charging into French lines. No, he must risk his neck even on leave.”

She fell silent, frowning as Kit raised his second hand and slapped it down, as well, slightly ahead of where it had been previously. He bounced with pleasure, cooing and rocking, until he scooted one small chubby knee a little forward. He rocked on his knees more exuberantly, thrilled with himself for simply moving one small leg.

He was… crawling. Amid more noise and rocking and drooling, he shifted the second knee, then a hand, until he was shortly pitched forward onto his little chest, smacking the blanket and kicking his glee. He struggled up to all fours again and started rocking once more, while Sophie felt another damned tear slide down her cheek.

When it appeared Kit had tired of his newfound competence and Sophie had regained control over her wayward composure, she picked him up and hugged him close.

“I am proud of you. I am most, most proud of you, but these exertions will work up an appetite.”

She herself had eaten quite enough, finding it did nothing to fill the sense of emptiness created by Vim’s absence. The kitchen was toasty warm and full of the scent of gingerbread when Sophie repaired there to make Kit’s dinner, but it was as if her usual misery at the holidays had descended manyfold.

“The house is decorated,” she told the baby. “There are presents under the tree at Morelands, the servants are all enjoying their leave, and I want simply to sleep until all the merriment is over. But I mustn’t sleep.”

Kit spit out his last spoonful of mashed potatoes.

“I can’t sleep because I must find a family to love you, and I can’t sleep now because both of the bedrooms hold too many memories, and besides, I let the fire go out in Vim’s room. Except it isn’t Vim’s room. It is Valentine’s room, or it was before he ran off and got married just like his brothers…”

She was babbling, babbling about her brothers leaving her, for death or marriage, it made no difference. They were all gone, her father had had a heart seizure, and he would be going in time too. Kit would soon be gone, and Vim…

Vim was gone. A sob, a true, miserable, from-the-gut sob welled up, propelled by the darkness falling outside, the effort of being good for an entire day, and God knew what else. Sophie caught herself around the middle and swallowed back the ugly sound which, should it escape her, she feared would signal a permanent loss of her self-control.

It did not stay subdued, though. No, her body was determined to have its unhappy say. But then the back door slammed shut, and despite her misery, Sophie heard the sound of booted feet stomping in the hallway.

Good heavens, Merriweather or Higgins would be coming to check on her. She rose, swiped at her cheeks, and set aside the baby’s spoon and rag.

Then a thought hit her that had her sitting down hard on the bench again: her brothers. Oh, please God, not those three. Yes, she’d missed them terribly, but at that precise moment, she didn’t want to see anybody, not one soul except the very person she would never see again.

Vim.

He stood in the doorway, looking haggard, chilled to the bone, and so, so dear. Sophie flew across the kitchen to embrace him, the sob escaping her midflight.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his arms going around her. “There were no coaches going to Kent, no horses to hire for a distance that great. No horses to buy, not even a mule. All day… I tried all day.”

He sounded exhausted, and the cold came off him palpably. His cheeks were rosy with it, his voice a little hoarse, and against his ruddy complexion, his blue eyes gleamed brilliantly.

“You must be famished.” Sophie did not let him go while she made that prosaic, female observation. Despite all she’d eaten, she was famished—for the sight of him, for the sound of his voice, and oh, for the feel of his tall body against her.

“Hungry, yes. How fares Kit?”

Still they did not part. “He started crawling today. Not far, not quite well, but he’ll figure it out quickly. He’s just finished dinner.”

Vim moved off toward the table but kept an arm around Sophie’s shoulders.

“Clever lad.” He smiled down at the baby propped amid blankets and towels on the table. “Making your first mad dash across the carpet, are you? And I missed it. You must have a demonstration for me before you retire, for it’s a sight I would not miss.”

“I missed you.” Sophie hugged Vim close, burying her face against his chilly shoulder.

She felt a sigh go out of him and wished she could recall the words. Yes, they were the truth, a defining truth, but still, she should not have said the words. When he did not give those unwise words back her to, she stepped away. “Put your wet things in the parlor to dry. I’ll see about dinner.”

Vim did as ordered, spreading his sodden greatcoat over the back of a wing chair, adorning the mantel with his gloves, hat and scarf, peeling off the knit sweater he’d worn all day, and removing his boots and the soaked outer pair of trousers from his legs.

In his life, he’d been colder, more exhausted, and hungrier on many occasions, but he’d never been so glad to come in from the weather.

The picture Sophie had made, sitting in a faded brown velvet dress at the table—her dark hair gathered sleekly at her nape, her soft voice a low caress in Vim’s mind as she’d spoken to the child—had been an image of heaven.

And then the feel of her…

No hesitance, no remonstrance for reappearing uninvited, nothing but her arms lashed around him in welcome, and those dangerous, wonderful words: I missed you.

“These are socks I knitted for my brother Devlin when he was wintering in Spain,” Sophie said, closing the parlor door behind her. “I made several pairs for him and for Bart, as well, but Bart’s things were distributed among his men, in accordance with his wishes. Devlin went north in summer, so all his winter socks were left behind.”

“My thanks.” He took the socks from her, letting his hand brush hers.

“You are chilled to the bone, Vim Charpentier. I cannot believe you wandered London the entire day.”

He sat to peel off his soaked and chilled footwear, struck with the precious domesticity of the situation.

Sophie sank to her knees before him. “Allow me.” She plucked the socks she’d just handed him from his grasp and scowled at his feet. “For heaven’s sake, Mr. Charpentier, could you not have paused to warm your feet up at the occasional public house?” She went on scolding him, taking a kitchen towel from her shoulder and applying it briskly to his feet.

“Easy, Sophie, the feeling comes back in an uncomfortable rush.”

She paused, the towel wrapped around his feet. “Did you really look all day for a horse?” She studied his feet while she posed her question, and Vim resisted the urge to stroke a hand over her hair.

“Not all day. First I made the rounds of the coaching inns in Mayfair, Soho, St. James, Knightsbridge, and halfway to the City. There were a few traveling due east, but I could not buy a place, even on the roof, not for any price. People are determined to join their loved ones for the holidays.”

She nodded and hugged his feet. Hugged his big, cold, red, soon to be madly itching feet. Hugged them right to her breasts.

It was ridiculous, that gesture. Extravagantly generous, personal, and practical all at once, given her bodily warmth. He allowed it and realized his heart would never recover entirely from encountering Sophie Windham.

“I tried to rent a horse, but nobody wanted to part with a sound animal for so great a distance when many people were willing to pay dearly for a local hire. I tried the abattoirs and breweries, everywhere. No luck.”

And no room at the inns he’d tried, either. He didn’t tell her that.

“I’m glad.” She let his feet go and resumed rubbing them gently. “I’m glad you came back where I can feed you properly and know you’re warm and safe and well fed.”

She did feed him, fed him thick slabs of smoked ham, steaming potatoes seasoned with herbs, cheese, and butter, and crusty slices of bread fresh from the oven. It was the best meal he’d ever eaten, and yet he tasted little of it because he was preoccupied watching her move around the kitchen, tidying up as he demolished his dinner.

And then he followed her down the hallway to where he’d never thought to be again, sprawled on the thick carpet of the servants’ parlor, Kit on all fours between them, rocking and cooing and enjoying the life of a cosseted baby.

“Kit listened to your parting sermon this morning. He was a very good boy today.” She lay on her back, her head turned to watch the baby.

“And he’s thriving in your care. Sophie. You aren’t really going to give him up, are you? If Their Graces were tolerant of the tweenie’s situation, they might make allowances for you.”

He regretted the words, because they opened the door for him to wonder again what exactly her position in the household was. He told himself it didn’t matter—it still didn’t matter—because again, he’d be leaving in the morning.

She curled over on her side, pillowing her cheek on her hand as she gazed at the fire. “Their Graces would indulge me, did I ask it of them, but Kit needs a real family, brothers and sisters, a mama, a papa. I would spoil him shamelessly, and there’s much I do not know about raising a child.”

He gave in to the temptation to touch her, reaching over and smoothing the side of his thumb along her hairline. “You’re a quick study. Every mother and aunt and granny in Town would be happy to help you.” Women were like that. They rallied around babies despite differences in age, class, standing, and even nationality.

She did not react to his caress, not that he could see. “I think the country is a better place to grow up, especially for boys.”

It occurred to him to offer her a place at Sidling. His aunt and uncle were forever grousing about their aging staff, but they refused to pension off the duffers and dodderers on their payroll.

But then he’d never see her, for Sidling was one place he would not frequent if he could help it. Still, the idea was not without merit. It would be better than losing touch with her entirely.

“He’s getting tired.” Sophie spoke quietly as Kit let out a huge yawn, looking like a lion cub on all fours, roaring in sleepy silence.

“Shall we remove upstairs?”

She nodded, and they began the routine of folding up blankets, banking the fire, packing up the baby, and heading for the servants’ stairs. The stairway and corridors were frigid, but Sophie’s room was a cocoon of warmth.

“I let the fire in the other bedroom go out,” she said, waiting for Vim to set the cradle near the hearth before depositing Kit in his bed. “We can get it going again, or you are welcome to stay with me.”

She was fussing the baby in his cradle as she spoke, depriving Vim of the sight of her face. If it was an invitation, it was quite casually offered.

Carefully offered?

He lit the candle near her bed, blew out the taper, and moved to stand next to the cradle.

“I do believe that child is growing so quickly he’ll soon no longer fit in his cradle. We’ll wake to find the thing in pieces on the floor and Kit striding about the room, demanding his breakfast.”

It wasn’t at all what he’d intended say.

He dropped to his haunches and waited until Sophie peered at him. “Sophie Windham, if I share a bed with you ever again, I will make mad, passionate love with you through the night. We’ll neither of us get any rest, though in the morning, I will leave, and I will not come back.” He would want to come back though, and wanting sometimes turned into wishing, and wishing into making it so. Sometimes.

She appeared to consider his words calmly. “Mad, passionate love?”

“With you, dear lady, it could not be otherwise.” He hadn’t meant to say that, either, though it was true.

She sat back on her heels but continued studying the baby as he found two fingers to slip into his rosebud mouth. “I believe I’ll use the bathing chamber. Mad, passionate love sounds quite agreeable.”