And today, there would be no one to protect her from the loss of a baby she’d grown to love ferociously in such a short time.
And no one to protect her from the loss of the man she’d come to love, as well. He’d been generous last night, passionate, tender, lavish with the intimacies he’d afforded her. To know she could be married to him if only she’d settle for passion…
But she’d wished not for a man to take to bed every night, but a man to love.
A man who would love her as his wife and the mother of his children.
“You will be fine.” She held a grinning, drooling Kit up before her. “You are charm personified, and they will love you before the sun sets. Lord Sindal has assured me the Harrads are decent, hardworking people devoted to their children and their church. You’ll thrive there, tease your sisters, and be a comfort to your parents.”
They’d call him Christopher, though, Kit being too far removed from the theological origins of his given name.
“Chris-to-pher. That shall be your name.”
She cuddled him close when he squirmed. “You shall be Christopher Harrad, and you shall want for nothing.”
“Sophie, the horses are saddled, and your brothers are waiting.” Vim stood in the doorway of her sitting room, looking handsome and grave. In his eyes, Sophie saw concern but no hint of the passionate lover she’d held just a few hours previously.
The man she’d said good-bye to with every kiss and caress she’d given him.
“I’m ready.” She would never be ready.
“Come.” He held out a hand to her, and Sophie expected him to wing his arm and provide her a proper escort from the house. Or perhaps he’d take the baby and steal a few minutes more of Kit’s smiles and sweetness.
His arm slid around her shoulders, his chin rested on her crown. “I wish you’d reconsider this. He can always join the Harrads in spring or when he’s started to walk or speak.”
He meant this as a kindness, but Sophie felt the suggestion as something like a betrayal, sloshing about amid all the other pain she was carrying around in her heart. “If I don’t do this today, now, I won’t ever be able to. Not ever.”
She felt him nod, but he didn’t let her go, and she didn’t step back. For a long moment, she leaned against him and took for herself some of his strength and warmth. “I don’t want to do this.”
“My dear, I know.”
It was as much comfort as she’d have, the consolation that Vim knew exactly what this decision would cost her. Kit fussed and kicked between them, and Sophie moved away.
Or tried to. Vim kept his arm around her shoulders as they traveled through the house, then took the baby from her when they walked out into a sunny, cold day.
“At least it’s still. You should make Morelands easily.”
Sophie paused at the bottom of the front steps. “You’re not accompanying us?”
“He is.” St. Just led a big bay horse up to the mounting block. “We took the liberty of having a mount saddled for you, Sindal. It’s a pleasant day for a ride.”
“I’d thought to look over account books with my uncle this morning.”
And the winter day was about as pleasant as the coldest circle of hell by Sophie’s lights.
St. Just smiled a smile sporting more teeth than charm. “To hear your aunt tell it, the account books have languished for years without your attention to them. Surely you’d rather accept our invitation for a short jaunt on this sunny day?”
Valentine and Westhaven rode up, halting their horses on either side of St. Just.
“It’ll clear the cobwebs,” Westhaven said.
“And you can tell us all why you’ve been such a stranger at Morelands these last years,” Valentine added. “Sister, I can take the infant up with me.”
Vim glanced from one brother to the other, something like a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. “I would be pleased to join you, and Kit rides with me.”
He passed Kit to St. Just, gave Sophie a leg up, mounted and retrieved the baby, and then they were moving down the driveway, a silent cavalcade in the sunny, bitter morning.
It took no time at all to reach the curate’s little house beside the church, a mere span of minutes by Sophie’s reckoning, while she tried not to watch Vim holding Kit, occasionally speaking to the child, cradling him close against the brisk air.
Already, she felt an empty place under her heart, a place that ought to be filled with gummy smiles, baby-songs, and a tiny flailing hand intent on capturing the nearest adult nose, chin, or heart.
“Take him for just a moment.” Vim was regarding her with steady blue eyes, while Sophie’s throat closed and her chest began a slow miserable tattoo of impending loss. She shook her head.
“Just while I dismount.” Vim passed the baby over, despite another shake of her head, and then Sophie was cradling Kit close, shutting her eyes to memorize the sweet, baby scent of the child, to block out the sight of a tidy, tired young woman coming from the house in a plaid shawl.
“Sophie.” Vim, standing by her horse, waiting for her to give him the child. “You can come by later and visit with Mrs. Harrad. We should get Kit out of this weather.” He spoke gently, his voice pitched so the others would not hear.
This was why her brothers had impressed Vim into coming with them: so Sophie could hand the child to him, not to the woman shivering at the bottom of her steps, trying to look anywhere but at Sophie or the baby.
She handed Kit down and looked away, off toward the rolling terrain of Morelands just outside the village. She forced herself to take in air, then expel it, take in air, then expel it.
She counted her breaths—four, five, six… while Vim passed the child into the waiting woman’s arms and out of Sophie’s life.
“I’ll ride to the Morelands gates with you.” Vim swung up and shifted his horse so he was alongside Sophie’s mount, but he kept his silence while they rode.
“You’ve made the best decision, Soph.” Valentine shot her a glance that held a world of understanding, and all Sophie could do was nod and stare straight ahead, lest her brother’s compassion destroy her composure. He seemed to comprehend how tenuous her nerves were, because he rode on, joining their brothers in the lead.
“I can tell you it will ease,” Vim said very quietly. “I pray for you that the hurt will ease, Sophie Windham. Some things just take a great deal of time.”
He didn’t castigate her, didn’t try to reason with her or cheer her up, but Sophie was grateful for his presence nonetheless. All too soon, they were at the Morelands gates, the wrought iron wings standing open in welcome.
Vim drew his mount to a halt. “I’ll turn back here and thank you all for both your companionship on the journey and your willingness to provide my relations their first houseguests in quite some time.”
He was leaving her now ? Now when there was no compulsion, no urgency whatsoever, and her heart was never going to mend? “You won’t come in for a cup of tea?”
“Sophie.” Westhaven sounded serious indeed. Val and St. Just looked equally grave. St. Just shook his head subtly, but the message was clear.
She was not to push Morelands hospitality on Baron Sindal.
Vim moved his horse right next to Sophie’s, leaned over, and there—before her three solemn brothers—gave her a lingering kiss on the cheek. “You will send to me if there’s need.” He spoke very quietly, and it was not a question. Then he turned his mount and steered it in the direction of Sidling.
While Sophie watched Vim walk out of her life, her brothers maneuvered so their horses were beside her, Valentine to her immediate right, Westhaven and St. Just to her left.
“Shall we?” St. Just kneed his horse forward, and Sophie’s mount walked on, as well. All too soon, they were ambling up the drive to Morelands, the house sitting in winter splendor just a hundred yards ahead.
“I don’t know how I’ll face Their Graces.”
Sophie realized she’d spoken aloud when a
ll three brothers were looking at her with concern.
“A headache might do,” Westhaven said.
“Fatigue would be convincing,” St. Just added.
Valentine cocked his head, his expression hard to read. “You’re a grown woman. We’ll make your excuses, Soph. Just go to your room and leave orders you’re not to be disturbed until dinner.”
She realized as Val helped her dismount that her brothers had been right to suggest Vim avoid an encounter with Their Graces. Sophie’s parents were perceptive people, and who knew what innuendos and looks they might have picked up on between Sophie and the man who’d made half her wishes come true?
* * *
“Back so soon?” Rothgreb surveyed his nephew, not needing spectacles to see the boy was preoccupied.
Not a boy, a man grown, and a handsome—if somewhat thick-witted—man at that. Love made such fools of young people.
Vim slid into the chair across from his uncle’s desk. “The distance we covered wasn’t great. You have the ledger books out?”
“You just let that pretty filly go?”
Vim looked up, and Rothgreb could see him trying to balance respect for his elder with the urge to throttle an interfering old busybody.
“She refused my suit on more than one occasion, Uncle. I don’t suppose you’ve made a list of all the things that have gone missing?”
“Refused your suit! Did you go down on bended knee? Shower her with compliments and pretty baubles? Did you slay dragons for her and ride through drenching thunderstorms?”
“I changed dirty nappies for her, got up and down all night with the child, and offered her the rest of my life.”
“Dirty nappies? Bah! In my day, we knew how to court a woman.”
This provoked a sardonic smile. “In your day, you married for convenience and were free to chase any panniered shirt that caught your eye.”
“Little you know.” Rothgreb tossed his spectacles on the desk. “Your aunt would have had my parts fed to the hogs if I’d done more than the requisite flirting with the dowagers. And she knew better than to share her favors elsewhere too, b’gad.”
“About my aunt.” Vim sat up, his expression grim. “She does not seem in the least vague to me, Uncle. I must conclude your descriptions of her conditions were exaggerated, and I have to wonder for what purpose.”
Damn the boy. Love had made him stupid about some things, but not nearly stupid enough.
“She has good and bad days, and having people around seems to help. She’s particularly glad to see you and glad to see you’ve an interest in the Windham girl.” Let the young rascal chew on that. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to take Essie calling over at Morelands? These old bones don’t weather a chill like they used to.”
The truth of that admission didn’t make it any easier to state, and Vim didn’t look like he was taking the bait.
“If I never set foot on Moreland property again, it will be too soon.”
Oh, the boy had it bad. Rothgreb shoved to his feet, a shift too ponderous to have the requisite dramatic impact, but it did allow him to glower down at his beef-witted nephew. “For God’s sake, when are you going to let a youthful peccadillo go? The Holderness girl was a wrong turn, nothing more. We all make them, and most of us, thanks be to The Deity, get over them.”
“I’m over the girl,” Vim said, springing to his feet with enviable ease. “I was over the girl before the packet left Bristol, but I will never get over being refused the opportunity to seek satisfaction for the slur to her honor and mine. I’ll expect a list of missing items on my desk after dinner.”
He stomped out, all indignation and frustration, the picture of thwarted love. Rothgreb lowered himself into the chair and reached out a hand to the hound who’d come blinking awake at Vim’s departure.
“The boy is an ass. My wife would say he takes after me.”
The hound butted Rothgreb’s hand.
“Let’s go find Essie, shall we? We must do something, my friend. I’m not sure what, but we must do something.”
Seventeen
“You’d best come down to dinner, Soph.” Maggie’s green eyes held compassion and a hint of stubbornness too. “Her Grace is being patient, though I suspect that’s just because our brothers are charming her for all their worth.”
“I’m not hungry.” Sophie rose from her escritoire, where she’d been trying to write a list of Kit’s likes and dislikes for Mrs. Harrad, but this allowed Maggie to walk over to the desk and start snooping.
“Sophia Windham, when did you become an expert on changing an infant’s linen?”
“Vim showed me the way of it—quick and calm.”
“About this Vim…” Sophie realized her mistake too late, because Maggie had put the list down and was regarding Sophie very directly. “A dozen years ago—when you had barely begun wearing your hair up—I was introduced to him as Wilhelm Charpentier, a younger relation with more good looks than consequence. He danced well enough but disappeared without a word after some to-do at one of Her Grace’s Christmas parties.”
“I know him as Vim, but he’s Baron Sindal now, Rothgreb’s heir.” Sophie kept her voice diffident, very carefully diffident.
Maggie crossed her arms, a martial light coming into her eyes. “And how does the baron know about caring for babies?”
Older siblings knew family history worth learning, but they could also be damnably protective.
“Put down your guns, Maggie. Vim has younger sisters, and I think he simply has an affection for babies. He hasn’t mentioned any offspring. What was the to-do about?”
Maggie pursed her lips and peered at Sophie as if torn by indecision. “I don’t know. Socializing was never my forte, but whatever it was, nobody said a word about it afterward. Tell me about this baby of yours.”
Sophie turned her back on her sister, ostensibly to rearrange things on the vanity tray. Vim had used that brush on her hair.
“You’re being nosy, Mags.”
And now Maggie was beside her, her expression hard to read. Maggie was the second born, a half sibling like St. Just, and her mother’s influence showed in flaming red hair, more height than any other Windham sister, and an occasional display of temper.
“You changed this child’s napkin, Sophie Windham—many times. Her Grace is a devoted mother, but I am willing to bet my favorite boar hog she never changed dirty linen for any of you.”
Siblings were the very devil when a woman needed some privacy to regain her composure.
“Needs must,” Sophie said softly, blinking at her hairbrush.
“It isn’t just this dratted baby, is it?” Maggie gently took the brush from Sophie’s grip. “You’ve gone and fallen in love with Sindal, and all over a basket of dirty laundry.”
“It wasn’t quite like that.” It was exactly like that, and on the carpet in the servants’ parlor, no less.
“I overheard the boys talking. St. Just was muttering something about Sophie’s mad scheme and that idiot Sindal. Did something happen, Soph?”
Maggie, being the duke’s oldest daughter and illegitimate, had not had an easy road. When she’d turned thirty, she’d moved into her own household in Town. This had created a paradoxical opportunity for closeness between the sisters, allowing Maggie’s pretty little house to become a place of refuge for her younger siblings.
“I don’t know what to do.” Sophie picked up the brush again, then put it down and reached for a handkerchief neatly folded on the vanity tray. Vim’s handkerchief—how had she come by this? She brought it to her nose, caught a whiff of bergamot, and began to cry.
“Damn all men forever to a place in hell so cold their nasty bits shrivel up and fall off,” Maggie muttered. She slid her arm around Sophie’s waist and walked her to the chaise by the hearth. “Shall I have the boys deal with Baron Sindal? They all love a good scrap, even Westhaven, though he’ll think it’s unbecoming of the Moreland heir to gang up on a man or even go at him one at time. They�
��ll likely draw straws, and Dev and Gayle will rig it so Valentine’s hands—”
“Stop it, Maggie. You must not aggravate the menfolk,” Sophie said, laying her head on her sister’s shoulder. “Sindal offered for me, but it wasn’t…”
Maggie brushed Sophie’s hair back, hugging her where they sat on the chaise. “It wasn’t an offer of marriage?”
Sophie shook her head. “Not at first. I let him think I was a h-housekeeper, or a companion, or something, and I wanted…”
“You wanted him.”
Sophie pulled away a little. “Not just him. I wanted a man who loved me, Mags. A man who wanted to be with me, and Vim seemed so…”
“Oh, they all seem so when the moon is full and passion is in the air. I at least hope you enjoyed this lapse?”
Sophie’s head came up at this question. It wasn’t at all what she would have expected from socially retiring, financially minded, no-nonsense Maggie. “I did, Mags. I enjoyed it immensely.”
A nonplussed expression flitted across Maggie’s pretty features. “So what is the problem? He acquitted himself adequately in the manner you desired, and now you can have him to keep if you want. It requires only a word to bring him up to scratch.”
“He isn’t the man I wished for, though he was very definitely the man I desired.”
Maggie sat back, a frown gathering between her brows. “Desire isn’t a bad thing, Sophie Windham, particularly not between spouses. Many a marriage goes stale for lack of it.”
This wasn’t like any conversation Sophie had had with her older sister. It was both uncomfortable and a relief, to speak so openly about such a delicate subject. “You’ve been married so many times you can speak with authority?”
“I’ve been propositioned so many times by other women’s husbands, men who think questionable birth and red hair mean I’ll be grateful for any man’s attentions.”
“Oh, Mags.” Sophie hugged her sister. “I’ve been so wrapped up in myself these past few years. I am sorry.”
“Since Bart and Victor died, since the boys started marrying, since His Grace’s heart seizure, we’ve all been a little bit widdershins.” Maggie sighed and rested her chin on Sophie’s temple. “I think you’re being narrow-minded where Sindal is concerned.”
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