Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish

Eighteen

Vim boosted Sophie onto her horse, arranged her habit over her boots, and stepped back.

“Sindal, good day.” Westhaven touched his hat brim and urged his horse forward, then checked the animal after a half-dozen steps and brought it around to face Vim. “Might we see you at Her Grace’s Christmas gathering?”

Vim shook his head, wondering if the man had asked the question as a taunt, though Westhaven’s expression suggested it had merely been a polite query. Rather than elaborate on his refusal, Vim turned to make his farewell to the second woman to cause him to associate Kent at Yuletide with heartbreak.

“Lady Sophia, good day. And if I don’t see you before I depart on my next journey, I wish you a pleasant remainder to the holidays.”

She nodded, raised her chin, fixed her gaze on her brother’s retreating back, and tapped her heel against the mare’s side.

Vim tortured himself by watching their horses canter down the lane, the thud of hooves on the frozen ground resonating with the ache in his chest. Her silence told him more plainly than words he was watching her ride out of his life.

As loyal as Sophie was to her family, there was no way she’d plight her troth to a man who’d given such an unflattering recitation regarding His Grace, and no way Vim would make the attempt to persuade her at this point, in any case.

“So you’re still bungling about with my sister’s affections?”

Valentine Windham, coat open, mouth compressed into a flat line, sidled up to Vim outside the livery.

“The lady has made her wishes known. I am merely respecting them.”

Windham studied him, and not for the first time, Vim had the sense that this was the brother everybody made the mistake of underestimating. In some ways—his utter independence, his highly individual humor, his outspokenness, his virtuosic shifts of mood—this Windham son put Vim most in mind of the old duke.

“You are being an ass.” Windham hooked his elbow through Vim’s as if they were drinking companions. “Humor me, Sindal. If I spend another minute wrestling with that monster at the church, I will for the first time in my life consider tuning a keyboard instrument with a splitting ax.”

Vim let himself be walked back toward the bench, mostly because the prospect of returning to Sidling and the plethora of female relations about to descend was unappealing in the extreme. Then too, Val Windham adored his pianos, suggesting the man wasn’t going to do anything foolish—like, for example, obliging Vim’s inclination to engage in a rousing bout of fisticuffs—if it might damage his hands.

“On second thought”—Windham switched directions—“let’s drop in for a tot of grog.”

They appropriated the snug at the local watering hole, steaming mugs of rum punch in their hands before Windham spoke again.

“You sip your drink, and I will violate a sibling confidence.”

“I don’t want you violating Sophie’s confidences,” Vim said, bristling at the very notion.

Windham’s lips quirked. “Oh, very well, then. I won’t tell you she screams like a savage if you put a frog in her bed. I was actually going to pass along a little something told me by an entirely different sister, one not even remotely smitten with you.”

“Windham, are you capable of adult conversation? For the sake of your wedded wife, one hopes you are, and I do appreciate the drink. Nonetheless, I am expecting a great lot of family this afternoon at Sidling, and charming though your company is, I have obligations elsewhere.”

Windham lifted his mug in a little salute. “Duly noted. Now shut up and listen.”

Vim took a sip of his drink, lest by some detail he betray that he was almost enjoying Windham’s company. The man had the look of his sister around the eyes and in the set of his chin.

“While Westhaven was haring about tidying up the family business affairs, and St. Just was off subduing the French, it befell me to escort my five sisters to every God’s blessed function for years on end. I was in demand for my ability to be a charming escort, so thoroughly did my sisters hone this talent on my part.”

“I am in transports to hear it. Alas, I am not in need of an escort.”

“You are in need of a sound thrashing, but St. Just has said such an approach lacks subtlety. My point is that I know my sisters in some ways better than my brothers do.” Windham studied his mug, a half smile playing about his lips. “They talk to me.”

“Then at least you serve some purpose other than to delight your tailor with your excellent turnout.”

“I delight my wife even in the absence of any raiment whatsoever.”

“For God’s sake, Windham—”

“My sisters talk to me,” Windham resumed, “and as a male, I am always torn by the question: why are they telling me such things? Am I supposed to offer to thrash a fellow or lecture a shopkeeper, or am I merely to listen and make sympathetic noises?”

“Your capacity for making noise is documented by all and sundry.”

Green eyes without a hint of humor narrowed on Vim. “Do not insult my music, Sindal.”

“I wasn’t. I was insulting your talent for roundaboutation.”

“Oh. Quite. In any case, I’ve concluded that in the instant case, I am not to offer to do something nor to make sympathetic noises. I am to act. Don’t neglect your drink.”

“At the moment, it would serve me best emptied over your head.”

The half smile was back, and thus Vim didn’t see the verbal blow coming. “Sophie thinks you were offering her a less than honorable proposition before we came to collect her, and modified your proposal only when her station became apparent.”

Windham took a casual sip of his drink while Vim’s brain fumbled for a coherent thought. “She thinks what ?”

“She thinks you offered to set her up as your mistress and changed your tune, so to speak, when it became apparent you were both titled. I know she is in error in this regard.”

Vim cocked his head. “How could you know such a thing?”

“Because if you propositioned my sister with such an arrangement, it’s your skull I’d be using that splitting ax on.”

“If Sophie thinks this, then she is mistaken.” Windham remained silent, reinforcing Vim’s sense the man was shrewd in the extreme. “You will please disabuse her of her error.”

Windham shook his head slowly, right to left, left to right. “It isn’t my error, and it isn’t Sophie’s error. She’s nothing if not bright, and you were probably nothing if not cautious in offering your suit. The situation calls for derring-do, old sport. Bended knee, flowers, tremolo in the strings, that sort of thing.” He gestured as if stroking a bow over a violin, a lyrical, dramatic rendering that ought to have looked foolish but was instead casually beautiful.

“Tremolo in the strings?”

“To match the trembling of her heart. A fellow learns to listen for these things.” Windham set his mug down with a thump and speared Vim with a look. “I’m off to do battle with the treble register. Wish me luck, because failure on my part will be apparent every Sunday between now and Judgment Day.”

“Windham, for God’s sake, you don’t just accuse a man of such a miscalculation and then saunter off to twist piano wires.” Much less make references to failure being eternally apparent.

“Rather thought I was twisting your heart strings. Must be losing my touch.”

Vim watched as Windham tossed a coin on the table. “It makes no difference, you know, that your sister is mistaken. I did offer for her subsequently. She understood clearly I was offering marriage, and she turned me down.”

Windham glanced around the common then met Vim’s gaze. “As far as she’s concerned, you offered her insult before you offered her marriage. An apology is in order at the very least, and Her Grace’s Christmas party seems to be the perfect time to render it.”

And then he did saunter off, and the blighted, bedamned, cheeky bastard was whistling “Greensleeves.”

Westhaven’s subtlety had failed, Valentine’s bullying charm had met with indifferent success, so Devlin St. Just, Colonel Lord Rosecroft, saddled up and rode into battle on his sister’s behalf.

“I’ll collect the mare when I’ve signed the appropriate documents up at the manor,” he said, stroking a hand down the horse’s long face. The wizened little groom scrubbing out a wooden bucket showed no sign of having heard him, so St. Just repeated himself, speaking more slowly and more loudly.

“Oh, aye. Be gone with ye, then. I’ll make me farewells to the lady and get her blanketed proper while ye and their lordships congratulate each other.” The groom’s eyes went to the mare, the last of Rothgreb’s breeding stock, and in the opinion of many, the best.

“May I ask you something?” St. Just knew better than to watch the man’s good-byes to the horse. He directed his gaze to the tidy manor a quarter mile away.

“Ask, your lordship.”

“Why is there no young stock among the servants here? Why is everybody working well past the time when they’ve earned some years in high pasture?”

The old fellow turned to glare at St. Just. “We manage well enow.”

“It isn’t smart, letting the entire herd age,” St. Just replied. “You need the elders to keep peace and maintain order, but you don’t put your old guard in the traces beyond a certain point. The young ones need to learn and serve their turn.”

“Tell that to yon strappin’ baron.”

The groom shuffled away, muttering in the Irish—which happened to be St. Just’s mother tongue—about young men too happy to gallivant about the globe when they were needed to look after their family at home.

“Madame.” St. Just addressed the mare. “I’ll come for you soon. The grooms at Morelands are bedding your stall with enough oat straw for an entire team. Nonetheless, try to look downcast when you take your leave here, hmm?”

She regarded him out of large, patient eyes, her mental workings as unfathomable as any female’s.

St. Just made his way to the manor, noting the number of horses in the Sidling paddocks and the several conveyances outside the carriage house. Her Grace said the Charpentier family gathered for the holidays, and it looked like what ought to be a quick exchange of coin, documents, and a toast in the viscount’s study was going to require some seasonal socializing to go with it.

He looked at the sky, which bore the same sun as was shining at that very moment on his wife and daughters in Yorkshire. A comforting thought.

“Rosecroft! Come ye in and sing wassail!” Rothgreb stood grinning at the front door, his nose a bright red contrast to his green velvet jacket. “The place hasn’t been this full of noise since the old lord’s third wedding breakfast.”

“My lord.” St. Just stopped just inside the door and bowed to the older man. “I didn’t mean to impose, but came to fetch the mare and thought I’d—”

“Here they come!”

St. Just looked up to see a half-dozen very young ladies trotting up the hallway in a giggling, laughing cloud of skirts and smiles.

“Another guest, girls! This is Lord Rosecroft. Make your curtsies and then line up.” The ladies assembled with an alacrity that would have done St. Just’s recruits in Spain proud. “All right, Rosecroft, best be about it. They get bold if you make ’em wait.”

St. Just looked askance at his host, who was grinning like a fiend.

“It’s the kissing bough,” Vim Charpentier said as he emerged from the hallway, a tumbler in his hand. “You have to kiss them each and every one, or they’ll pout. And, Rosecroft, they’ve been collecting kisses all afternoon between trips to the punch bowl, so you’d be well advised to acquit yourself to the best of your ability. They will compare notes all year. So far, I believe I’m your competition.” He took a sip of his drink, eyeing his cousins balefully.

“I’ve charged headlong into French infantry,” St. Just said, smiling at the ladies, “praying I might survive to enjoy just such a gauntlet as this.” He went down the line, leaving a wake of blushes, kissing each cheek until he got to a little girl so small he had to hunker down to kiss her.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Cynthia Weeze Simmons.”

“The prettiest has been saved for last.” He kissed a delicate cheek and rose. “Any more? I was cavalry, you know, legendary for our charm and stamina.” This was said to tease the young ladies, but they all looked at their grandfather without breaking ranks.

“Once with you lot is enough,” the old man barked. “Shoo.” They departed amid more giggles.

Sindal looked disgruntled. “You made that look easy.”

“I have daughters, and I’m half Irish. It was easy, also fun. Rothgreb, can we repair somewhere private to transact a little business?”

“What? Business? Sindal can deal with those details. I’m going to find my viscountess and tell her she missed a chance to kiss Moreland’s war hero.”

Sindal passed St. Just the tumbler. “It helps if you’re as half seas over as the rest of the household. I have never longed more ardently for sunset. Uncle has set himself up as the Lord of Misrule until then.”

“And you’re not feeling the seasonal cheer?”

“Bah, to quote my uncle.” An odd smile flitted across Sindal’s face. “Among others. Let’s repair to the study. There’s a bill of sale and a decanter—and no damned mistletoe.”

“I rather like mistletoe.”

“I rather like a fine brandy.”

They dealt with the documents quickly, but Sindal had to hunt up the sand with which to blot them. “It should be in here some damned where. The old fellow is nothing if not—” He fell silent, peering into a low cupboard behind the estate desk.

“Something amiss?”

Sindal straightened, a divided serving dish in his hands. “What would an olive dish be doing secreted in my uncle’s study?”

St. Just sipped at his brandy while Sindal withdrew a ceremonial sword, a carved chess set of ivory and onyx, an ivory-inlaid cribbage board, an antique pair of dueling pistols, a small crossbow, and several other curiosities from the same low cupboard.

“Is somebody putting away the valuables while company’s underfoot?”

Sindal shot him a look, a speculating, cogitating sort of look. “Would a woman growing vague and easily disoriented know to stop by the kitchen for carrots and sugar before she wandered off toward the stables?”

The question made no sense and had no discernible context. “Sindal, have you spent a little too much time at the punch bowl fortifying yourself for the kissing bough?”

“There is no adequate fortification for such an ordeal. It’s enough to make a man repair to heathen climes permanently.” He set the contents of the cupboard out on Rothgreb’s estate desk, came around the desk, and took the seat beside St. Just. “I have been manipulated by a pair of old schemers. The question is why?”

“Finish your drink.” St. Just pushed a glass closer to his host. “You are not going to remove to distant parts, but I gather you divine some sort of conspiracy from what’s here?”

“My aunt’s letters suggested Rothgreb was misplacing valuables; his letters informed me my aunt had started wandering.”

“And you came home to investigate?”

“Exactly. I suppose that was the point, though one wonders if they were conspiring with each other or intriguing individually.”

“And until you come home to stay, the old guard will not retire nor step aside for any younger replacements. Your uncle’s regiment has decided they’re going to fight this battle as a team.”

“One suspected such faulty reasoning was at work.”

They fell into a companionable silence while St. Just tried to formulate a question that would pique but not quite offend. “I’ve wondered something.”

Sindal turned to regard him. “If you’re going to invite me to Her Grace’s Christmas party, spare your breath. That is the very last place I’d seek to spend time.”

“Yes, but one wonders why. If His Grace did you a disservice by preventing you from dueling with Horton all those years ago, then why not take the opportunity to read the old boy the Riot Act? Why not beard the lion in his very own den?”

“The old boy is one of the most powerful men in the Lords, the highest title in the shire, and the father of the woman I happen to l—”

St. Just went on as if he hadn’t heard the very thing no man ever admitted to another. “And every year that you dodge and skulk about, avoiding His Grace’s hospitality, you enlarge the magnitude of what was not intended to do you any harm whatsoever. I was there, Sindal, and I saw exactly what happened. Come over tomorrow night, have a cup of eggnog, smile, and hang about in your finery under the mistletoe until Sophie comes swanning down the steps. You need a chance to make a grand exit with your head held high.”

Sindal scrubbed a hand over his face and stared at his drink. “What do you mean, there was no intent to do me harm? The lady and I had an understanding, and half the shire knew it. His Grace might have handled the thing a thousand different ways that didn’t involve making me a laughingstock. I regretted the loss of the lady’s hand at the time, but more I bitterly resented that Moreland prevented me from defending my own honor.”

The man believed he’d simply been elbowed aside by the collective papas of the shire for the better title, which would have been a bitter blow indeed, had that been the case.

“So demonstrate your backbone and make a short social call. You deserve the chance to put your own conclusion to the matter. Then too, Horton is afflicted with gout. He can no longer even stand up with his own lady.”

Sindal rose and went to stand facing the window. “I need a chance to apologize to your sister for a small misunderstanding, but I fail to see why a note won’t suffice.”

A fellow was not a coward who sought to avoid armed confrontation in the enemy camp. St. Just didn’t judge his host, but he wasn’t about to fail his sister, either.

“I kissed all seven of your cousins, including the fair Cynthia Louise. Are you saying you can’t abide the thought of kissing five of my sisters, at least one of whom has already succumbed to your dubious charms?”

“For God’s sake, St. Just, this isn’t a schoolyard rivalry. I have no confidence whatsoever Sophie won’t run from the sight of me. She thinks…”

“She thinks her swain capable of a less than gallant proposition,” St. Just said, rising to stand by his host. “But here’s what will happen if you fail to speak up. Today, the ladies are busy with preparations at Morelands, and they are not receiving. Tomorrow is the Christmas Party—an excellent opportunity to set matters to rights with His Grace, and your only real opportunity to sort things out with Sophie.

“Christmas Day will be spent at services, opening a few gifts, and starting on the Boxing Day rounds. We have too many tenants to distribute all the baskets in a single day, but on the following day, I will depart for Yorkshire, and I intend that Sophie accompany me.”

Sindal turned to scowl at him. “You’d make her travel north at this time of year?”

“Nobody makes Sophia Windham do anything. I’ve extended the invitation because my womenfolk would love to have her for a long stay, and there are lots of lonely bachelors in the north who’d give their left testicle to stand up with a duke’s daughter as pretty and well dowered as my sister. Then too, Sophie’s associations with the holidays will soon be as miserable as your own, unless you clear the air with her. I bid you good day and extend one final invitation to the party.”

St. Just picked up the bill of sale and left Sindal staring out the window, the family heirlooms in a dusty jumble on the desk behind him.

“That style is quite becoming on you, my dear.” The duchess advanced into Sophie’s room, eyeing her daughter in Christmas party finery. Her very quiet, grown daughter. “You should start wearing your hair like that more often.”

“Hello, Your Grace.” Sophie frowned in her mirror at a coiffure that was half up, half tumbling down around her shoulders, a splendid compliment to the red velvet of her dress. “This is an experiment.”

Esther’s sons called her mama when they wanted to flatter, wheedle, or comfort, but her daughters were far less in the habit. How had that happened?

“It’s a pretty experiment, but I have to wonder if experimentation hasn’t become something of a new pastime with you, Sophia.”

It was slight, but Sophie squared her shoulders before she turned to face her mother. “Can you be more specific, Your Grace?”

“I received correspondence from the Chattells, Sophia. You manipulated events to be alone without servants or chaperone in Town and then found yourself caring for that baby into the bargain. Your brothers assure me there will be no breath of scandal attached to this… departure from good sense, but I am left to wonder.”

Sophie’s face gave away nothing, not guilt nor remorse, not chagrin, not even defiance. “I wanted to be alone.”

“I see.” Except she didn’t, exactly. When had this child become a mystery to her own mother?

“Why?”

Sophie glanced at herself in the mirror, and Esther could only hope her daughter saw the truth: a lovely, poised woman—intelligent, caring, well dowered, and deserving of more than a stolen interlude with a convenient stranger and an inconvenient baby—Sophie’s brothers’ assurances notwithstanding.

“I am lonely, that’s why.” Sophie’s posture relaxed with this pronouncement, but Esther’s consternation only increased.

“How can you be lonely when you’re surrounded by loving family, for pity’s sake? Your father and I, your sisters, your brothers, even Uncle Tony and your cousins—we’re your family, Sophia.”

She nodded, a sad smile playing around her lips that to Esther’s eyes made her daughter look positively beautiful. “You’re the family I was born with, and I love you too, but I’m still lonely, Your Grace. I’ve wished and wished for my own family, for children of my own, for a husband, not just a marital partner…”

“You had many offers.” Esther spoke gently, because in Sophie’s words, in her calm, in her use of the present tense—“I am lonely”—there was an insight to be had.

“Those offers weren’t from the right man.”

“Was Baron Sindal the right man?” It was a chance arrow, but a woman who had raised ten children owned a store of maternal instinct.

Sophie’s chin dropped, and she sighed. “I thought he was the right man, but it wasn’t the right offer, or perhaps it was, but I couldn’t hear it as such. And then there was the baby… It wouldn’t be the right marriage.”

Esther took her courage in both hands and advanced on her daughter—her sensible daughter—and slipped an arm around Sophie’s waist. “Tell me about this baby. I’ve heard all manner of rumors about him, but you’ve said not one word.”

She meant to walk Sophie over to the vanity, so she might drape Oma’s pearls around Sophie’s neck, but Sophie closed her eyes and stiffened.

“He’s a good baby. He’s a wonderful baby, and I sent him away. Oh, Mama, I sent my baby away…”

And then, for the first time in years, sensible Lady Sophia Windham cried on her mother’s shoulder as if she herself were once again a little, inconsolable baby.

“What I don’t understand is why you didn’t simply ask me to come back to Sidling?” Vim shifted his gaze from his uncle to his aunt and back to his uncle. He’d waited a day to let his temper cool, but if anything, he was angrier than ever. They were looking at each other, though, and not at him, leaving Vim with the sense volumes were passing between them unsaid.

“I’d like to speak with your aunt in private.” Rothgreb’s tone was tired, quiet, and completely out of character.

“So the two of you can plot and scheme and get your stories straight?”

His aunt looked at him then. It took Vim a moment to decipher the emotion banked in her pale blue eyes: disappointment.

In him. He shifted his gaze back to Rothgreb.

“No, young man, I do not want to plot and scheme with your aunt. I want to apologize to her for trying to plot and scheme without her assistance.” The viscount aimed a small smile at Aunt Essie. “Though I suspect she was getting up to tricks quite nicely on her own, weren’t you, my dear?”

Aunt Esmerelda rose from her chair and began to stalk around the cozy parlor. “I was not managing quite nicely, but I was trying to do something to stop your nephew from charging off to God knows where yet again. Wilhelm, we have tried asking you to come home.”

Vim’s rejoinder was automatic, if a bit unkind. “Sidling is not my—”

“Not your home,” she interrupted him. “Oh, we know it’s not your home, except you were born here, you’re going to inherit the place, and except for three rackety half siblings, your entire family is here in Kent. Your father and mother are buried here, your grandfather and all four of his wives. Your uncle, and very likely you will be buried here, as well, but for some stupid, known-only-to-your-pigheaded-self reason, this is not your home. I have a question for you, Wilhelm Lucifer Charpentier.”

“My dear,” Rothgreb said softly from his wing chair.

“Not now, Aethelbert. I want to hear from your buffle-brained, stubborn, idiot, errant nephew just where his home might be if it isn’t here with the people who love him and pray for him every night? Where must you wander off to next, Wilhelm? I need to know where to send the letter that tells you you’ve missed the last opportunity to ride these acres with your uncle. I want to know what godforsaken heathen port you’ll be in when I have to run the death notice. Tell me, and then hope a merciful God sustains me in my grief long enough to post the blessed thing.”

She swished out of the parlor, the door latch closing with a definitive click in her wake.

And now it was Vim who didn’t want to meet his uncle’s gaze.

A silence started up while Rothgreb scooted to the edge of his chair, braced his hands on the padded arms, and pushed himself to his feet. “Don’t worry. At breakfast tomorrow she’ll be apologizing and cramming strawberry crepes down your gullet.” He knelt to poke up the fire while Vim stood there, his aunt’s tirade ringing in his ears.

“You did ask me to come home, didn’t you?”

His uncle paused, the poker across his bony knee where he genuflected before the hearth. “A time or two. I don’t want Essie to be alone if anything should happen to me. She’s probably reasoning along the same lines. Your cousins will be some comfort, but they won’t manage the place as it should be managed.”

Rothgreb rose, teetered, and caught the mantel to finish pulling himself erect. “Your aunt is a dear, dear woman, but she is protective of me.”

“Don’t apologize for her when she was merely stating a few home truths.”

“Apologize? I was explaining.” Rothgreb peered at him. “She has a knack for walloping a man between the eyes on those rare occasions when she gets her dander up. Makes marriage to her a lively proposition.”

Vim turned to stare out the window at the late afternoon landscape. “I don’t suppose you want to take that ride now?”

“Ah, youth. If you want to freeze your arse off tooling about the shire in this weather, be my guest. Talk to me about riding out come spring, and I might take you up on the offer. I’m going to find your aunt and assure her you’ll still speak to her when next she meets you.” He frowned. “You will, won’t you?”

Rothgreb was gruff, irascible, cantankerous, and sometimes even cussed, but in Vim’s experience, his uncle was never, ever uncertain.

“Of course I will, and if she’s not careful, I’ll be sure we meet up under the mistletoe.”

Rothgreb nodded slowly. “Not a bad approach. Puts the ladies in a fine humor when they get their regular share of kisses. Enjoy your ride.”

He shuffled out, looking to Vim for the first time like a very old man. A very old and very dear man.