Seven
“There are few consolations in my present state—do not piss on the mounting block, for God’s sake. How many times must I tell you?” Aethelbert Charpentier, Eighth Viscount Rothgreb, nudged his dog’s backside with the end of a stout oak cane. Talking to old Jock—not Jacques—was one of those consolations, and one could hardly indulge in it if the dog was off in a snit somewhere for having been too harshly reprimanded.
Jock lifted his head from giving the sight of his last indiscretion a good sniff and trotted obediently to the viscount’s side.
“As I was saying, there are few enough consolations in my life at present, you being one of them, such as you are, her ladyship’s predictability being another.”
The dog sneezed.
“Meaning no insult, old boy, but we’re neither of us what we used to be.”
Jock sidled over to the snow-dusted remains of a chrysanthemum and lifted his leg, his expression blasé while he heeded nature’s call.
“Piss on it, you say? Handy enough sentiment.” The viscount scanned the sky while he waited for the dog—nothing wrong with Jock’s bladder, no matter the canine was older in dog years than the viscount in human years.
“Nasty weather up toward Town,” the viscount remarked as they resumed their progress. “Must be why my nephew has yet to make an appearance. He cuts the holidays closer and closer in those years when he deigns to show up at all. Some people don’t know the meaning of family loyalty, even if they can be counted on not to toss up their accounts on her ladyship’s best carpets.”
If this slight reference to a previous lapse made any impression, Jock was not inclined to acknowledge it when the frosty ground was so full of interesting scents.
The trip to the stables seemed to take longer each season, but when a man felt the cold wheeze of eighty years breathing down his neck, he was grateful to be making the distance on his own two legs at any speed.
“Then again, perhaps Wilhelm has been detained in the North, or his life lost at sea. The boy can’t be bothered to write, but for his damned quarterly accountings.”
Jock stopped to water another bush—the dog’s abilities were still prodigious in some regards—and came quietly to heel as the viscount paused at the bottom of the swale upon which the Sidling stables sat in aging splendor.
“Noble hound, my ass,” Rothgreb said, stroking his hand over the dog’s head. There would be hell to pay for not putting on gloves before leaving the manor, but Essie had gone wandering again. With the weather threatening to turn miserable, retrieving her from the stables became urgent.
“Go find her ladyship,” Rothgreb said, moving one hand toward the stables. “Go find Essie, Jock.”
The beast bounded up the hill, ears flapping with an eagerness better suited to a puppy. Jock would find Essie where they always found her, sitting on some dusty old tack trunk, a cat or two in her lap, her expression serene despite the fact that of late she was wandering without gloves, bonnet, scarf, or—and this was truly worrisome—even a cloak.
Essie had always had her own kind of sense, which was fortunate when their daughters and granddaughters suffered an egregious lack of same.
But lately…
“My lady?” Rothgreb tottered into the barn aisle, leaning on his cane for a moment while his eyes adjusted to the gloom—he was not catching his breath, for God’s sake, the stables being only a quarter mile from the manor.
“Rothgreb?” Essie rose from her perch, gently displacing a worthless excuse for a mouser as she did. “My lord, you are without gloves and scarf. This is not well advised.”
“My lady, you are without a cloak, gloves, or scarf yourself.”
He said it as gently as he could, but the woman was haring around in a dress and shawl, and at her age, lung fever could be the end of her. She patted snow white hair braided neatly into a coronet.
“Why so I am. What an awkward state. Come say hello to Drusilla as long as you’re here.”
She glided away, drawing Rothgreb along by the hand. They stopped outside the stall of an elegant gray mare—Dutch’s Daughter was the only mare the viscount continued to breed, because her foals were nothing short of spectacular, just as her granddame Drusilla’s foals had been.
“Such a pretty girl,” Essie crooned, taking a lump of carrot from her pocket. The mare sidled over to the half door and craned her neck to take the treat from Essie’s hand.
“She is pretty,” the viscount said, watching as his wife of more than fifty years stroked her hand down the horse’s furry neck. “She’s beautiful, in fact, and she always will be. But we mustn’t spoil her, my dear. May I escort you back to the house?”
She gave the horse one more pat and turned to regard her husband sternly. “You certainly shall. I do not know what you were thinking, coming out in this weather without your gloves. I should spank that hound of yours for allowing it.”
“Yes, you should, but luncheon is long past, and I missed you, Essie.” He offered her his arm and sent up a prayer that they made it back to the house before spring—or before death claimed them.
“Have we heard from Vim?” She took his arm, but he leaned on her as much as she leaned on him. Essie’s wits might be wandering, though she was yet wonderfully spry.
“Beg your pardon, my dear?”
“Vim,” she said, speaking a little more loudly. “Wilhelm Lucifer Charpentier, our nephew and your heir.”
“No word yet, but I do expect him.”
They tottered along in silence for a good long way, uneven ground being something neither of them negotiated carelessly anymore. The dog sniffed about here and there but never let them get very far from his notice.
“He’ll come,” Essie said quietly as they reached the back gardens. “Vim is a good boy; he’s just sad, as Christopher was.”
“Christopher was a damned sight worse off than sad,” Rothgreb said. Stairs were the very devil when there was even a dusting of snow involved. “Essie, what say you beat me at a hand of cards?”
“Chess would make the time go faster—assuming we can locate your chess set?”
Rothgreb glanced away. For all she was growing quite vague about a few things, he had the sense his wife was more astute than ever about others.
“If we can’t find the Italian set, we can play cribbage or checkers.”
She snorted as she swept up the steps ahead of him. “Not checkers. For heaven’s sake, Rothgreb. That is a game for dodderers who can no longer tell a pawn from a knight.”
“So it is.” He ascended the steps more slowly than she and took her hand when they reached the terrace. Her hand was warm, while his—an old man’s gnarled paw—was cold.
“Come along, Rothgreb. I feel like giving your pride a trouncing.”
She smiled the smile of a much younger wife, and Rothgreb followed her into the house. They did not find the Italian chess set—he’d known they wouldn’t, and he suspected Essie had known they wouldn’t, as well—but she beat him soundly using the everyday pieces left about for the servants to use.
Trounced him handily, as she had been doing for decades whenever the notion struck her.
***
Sophie awoke to silence and near darkness, the warmth of Vim’s length blanketing her back.
“You’re awake.” Vim spoke very quietly, likely in deference to the baby sleeping in his cradle near the hearth.
“I’ll be back.” He patted her arm, and Sophie felt the mattress bouncing. She really should be getting up herself, but she heard Vim behind the privacy screen and decided to stay put. When he came back to the bed, he sat on the opposite side then scooted under the covers.
“You tried to wake me,” he said, still nearly whispering. “Budge up, Sophie. We’ll both be warmer.” Because neither one of them was going to risk making a racket building up the fire, not while My Lord Baby was still napping peacefully.
“I tried waking you twice then built up your fire enough so you wouldn’t catch a chill,” Sophie said. “When I realized Kit was taking his nap, I climbed in here to avoid moving him to my room and having to make up another fire.”
As if he’d believe that.
His arm came around her middle. “One more day won’t make a difference.”
She heard that he was trying to convince himself, but she needed no convincing. A weight on her heart eased, though it couldn’t lift entirely. Tomorrow would come all too soon.
“Vim?”
“Sweetheart?”
The whispered endearment spoken with sleepy sensuality had Sophie’s insides fluttering. Was this what married people did? Cuddled and talked in shadowed rooms, gave each other bodily warmth as they exchanged confidences?
“What troubles you about going home?”
He was quiet for a long moment, his breath fanning across her neck. Sophie felt him considering his words, weighing what to tell her, if anything.
“I’m not sure exactly what’s amiss, and that’s part of the problem, but my associations with the place are not at all pleasant, either.”
Was that…? His lips? The glancing caress to her nape made Sophie shiver despite the cocoon of blankets.
“What do you think is wrong there?”
Another kiss, more definite this time.
“My aunt and uncle are quite elderly, though Uncle Bert and Aunt Essie seem the type to live forever. I’ve counted on them living forever. You even taste like flowers.”
Ah, God, his tongue… a slow, warm, wet swipe of his tongue below her ear, like a cat, but smoother than a cat, more deliberate.
“Nobody lives forever.”
The nuzzling stopped. “This is lamentably so. My aunt writes to me that a number of family heirlooms have gone missing, some valuable in terms of coin, some in terms of sentiment.”
His teeth closed gently on the curve of her ear.
What was this? He wasn’t kissing her, exactly, nor fondling the parts other men had tried to grope in dark corners—though Sophie wished he might try some fondling.
“Do you think you might have a thief among the servants?”
He slipped her earlobe into his mouth and drew on it briefly. “Perhaps, though the staff generally dates back to before the Flood. We pay excellent wages; we pension those who seek retirement, those few who seek retirement.”
“Is some sneak thief in the neighborhood preying on your relations, then?”
It was becoming nearly impossible to remain passively lying on her side. She wanted to be on her back, kissing him, touching his hair, his face, his chest…
“Or has some doughty old retainer merely misplaced some of the silver?” Vim muttered right next to her ear.
“You’ll sort it out.” Sophie did shift then, as quietly as she could. She lay on her back right next to Vim, while he remained on his side, peering down at her in the gloom.
“We ought to leave this bed, Sophie.” The warmth of his palm stole across her midriff, a slow, sumptuous caress that, even through the fabric of her old house dress, left Sophie wanting so much more.
“Kiss me.” She twined her arms around his neck, hitched a leg over his hips, and pulled herself snug against him. “Please.”
“God help me.”
He growled this prayer against her neck as he drew her flush against him, his arm lashing around her back. When his mouth fused to hers, Sophie was glad she was lying down, because the sensations were that dizzying.
Vim, all around her, his hand cupping her derriere to drag her more tightly against his rising erection. The taste of him flooding her mouth, the feel of his heat and strength all along her body.
The sound of him groaning quietly as Sophie ran her tongue along his lower lip.
She anchored a hand in his hair, trying to quell any fool notion he might have about leaving the bed.
Leaving her life, yes, she was prepared to accept that—but not yet.
“My God, Sophie, we have to stop.”
He shifted so he was on all fours over her, then shifted again, wedging his body down between her spread legs. Sophie brought her knees up and locked her ankles at the small of his back, and when he might have spouted more ridiculousness, she levered up and kissed him with every ounce of frustration and desire she could muster.
“Vim, I want…” He kissed her before she could finish that thought, kissed her witless. His tongue creating a sinuous rhythm that had currents of heat ribboning down through Sophie’s body.
“Sophie, we can’t…”
“Can too.” She was a duke’s daughter, capable of a duke’s determination. She got her hand under the waistband of his breeches and sank her fingers into the bare, muscular swell of his flank.
“Naughty…” Vim muttered the word, but it didn’t sound like a scold, so Sophie moved her hand over and grabbed him outright by the derriere.
He pushed himself against her sex, provoking a wonderful, awful conflagration of sensations. Sophie wedged herself against him, and was mentally cursing the invention of clothing when a small sound penetrated the fog of her arousal.
Vim must have heard it too, for he went utterly still, lifting his head.
“The baby.” They spoke in unison, Vim with resignation and something that sounded like relief, Sophie with horror: she’d forgotten utterly that the child was in the room.
“Let me up.” She pushed at his shoulder, which was about as effective as pushing at Goliath’s shoulder when he was at his oats. “Vim, Kit’s awake.”
“He might go back to sleep.” The little thread of hope in his voice was almost comical.
“He never goes back to sleep.”
“I’ll get him.” Vim kissed her nose and lifted away, taking with him warmth and a world of unfulfilled wishes. Sophie was just getting up her nerve to toss the covers aside when Vim came back to the bed, the baby snuffling quietly against his shoulder.
“Make room. My Lord Baby is coming aboard for a progress on his royal barge.”
“Is he dry?”
“The royal wardrobe is quite in order, for now.” Vim climbed on the bed and arranged himself on his side, the baby propped against the pillows between the two adults.
“He’ll be hungry soon enough,” Sophie said, taking a little foot and shaking it gently. Kit grinned at her and kicked out gleefully, so she did it again.
“He likes a change of scene.” Vim was smiling at the baby as he tickled the child’s belly.
Sophie would not have thought to bring the baby to bed with them; she would not have thought to kiss Vim’s nose before she left the bed.
She would not have thought she could fall in love with a man because he put aside his lovemaking to tend to a baby, but as she watched Vim smiling at the child, enjoying the child, she realized she’d gotten one stubborn, long-despaired-of wish to come true: she’d fallen in love.
She tarried for a few moments, listening to Vim speak nonsense to the child about navigating the treacherous waters of pillows and blankets; then she climbed out of the bed and went to build up the fire.
***
Vim heard Sophie mutter something about heating up some porridge as she slipped into her socks. She was out the door a moment later, leaving Vim with his nose in the grasp of one happy, refreshed, and—thank the gods—dry baby.
He arranged the infant on his chest, a warm little bundle of comfort in an otherwise abruptly bleak situation.
“Attend me, young Kit.”
“Gah.” Kit made another swipe at Vim’s nose.
“I’ll seek retribution if you persist at this nose-capturing business.”
Kit thumped Vim’s chest and levered up, grinning hugely.
“Go ahead and smile, you little fiend. Do you know why the aristocracy have large families? Several reasons, the first being that any man who can afford to f*ck his way through life finds it tempting to do so, and babies like you are the frequent result.”
“Fah!” Another thump. “Fah, fah, fahck!”
“Boy, you had better watch your language when Miss Sophie is about. Say damn. Much less vulgar.”
“Bah!”
“Bah is acceptable, used judiciously. The aristocracy have large families not just because they can, but also because their babies are kept well away from any situation where the pleasurable business of procreation might ensue. Babies belong in nurseries.”
“Bah-bah-bah-bah!”
Vim lifted Kit straight above his chest, which provoked much chortling and waving about of small limbs. “Perhaps you’ll be a balloonist.”
He brought the baby back down to his chest, cradling the child close.
“You saved me from folly, you know. Sophie Windham is dangerous to a man’s best intentions.”
No comment from the child, leaving Vim to realize if the baby hadn’t interrupted, Sophie Windham’s clothes would likely be tossed all over the bed and Vim buried inside her as deep as he could get, doing his utmost to make her scream with pleasure.
Make them both scream.
“There’s no reason not to,” he murmured against the baby’s crown. “She’s willing, I’m so willing my eyes are at risk of being permanently crossed, but I don’t think it would serve her…”
He fell silent, trying to think through how a man—a gentleman—ought to act under the circumstances. If she were merely a domestic—and the clues pointed as much in this direction as any other—then Sophie was not in a position to pursue marriage, but she brought marriage, commitment, and permanence to Vim’s mind.
Also hot, soul-shattering pleasure, a confusing combination if ever there was one.
Kit grabbed for Vim’s lower lip.
“Since when do babies come with claws?” He gently peeled Kit’s fingers away and examined tiny fingernails. So small, but Vim knew they grew quickly. “We’ll have to find some embroidery scissors and render you weaponless, me hearty.”
He lingered in the bed with the child for a few more minutes, but when a particular, determined look came across the baby’s face, Vim got them both quickly down to the laundry and dealt with the requisite change of linen.
“Are you baking again?”
He kept his tone casual as he carried the infant into the kitchen. Sophie looked up from the sink where she was peeling an apple.
“Adding some apple to His Highness’s porridge.”
“We made a stop in the laundry. Kit’s ready to tour the Ring at the fashionable hour.”
“At this rate, I’ll need to boil some laundry for him.” Sophie dropped some apple quarters into a pot simmering on the stove, sliced another fat quarter in half, and passed both sections to Vim.
He gave one to the baby and ate the other. “I didn’t finish telling you about the situation at Sidling.”
“That’s your family seat?”
She stirred the apples then stirred a second pot, as well. He could tell nothing about her mood from her expression, tone, or posture, her reserve being the equal of some monarchs Vim had encountered on his travels.
“Sidling has been in my family since Norman times, though the manor house itself is fairly modest.”
She peered over at him from the stove while Kit started waving a thoroughly gummed piece of apple about like a sword. “The name Sidling is very familiar.”
“It’s not particularly distinctive, but my aunt and uncle have been comfortable there, as have my cousins.” Or they’d grown comfortable there once Vim had been able to take over the finances.
“And this is the place that’s losing its heirlooms to thievery or something underhanded?”
She was putting together a tea tray now, her movements competent, graceful, and unself-conscious. Maybe she was the cook, or an undercook? Vim had to listen to her words again in his mind to register her question.
“We’ve come close to losing my aunt a time or two, as well, if Uncle’s letters can be believed.”
“How does one lose an aunt? Is she in poor health?”
“Not physically, but she’s growing… vague. She wanders the estate, though I’ve suggested a companion could be hired for her.”
He’d insisted on it, in fact, with his uncle writing back angrily that a man who’d been married to a woman for more than half a century knew better than to assign that lady a nursemaid over the woman’s own objections.
Sophie got a pitcher of milk from the window box. “My father had a heart seizure not long ago. It threw the entire family into a tizzy.”
“How is he faring now?”
She set the milk on the counter and got a bread knife down from the rack built onto the rafter overhead. “Better than ever. The heart seizure was the excuse my mother needed to take him more firmly in hand, and I think the excuse he needed to allow her to do so.”
She cut several slices of bread, wrapped up the loaf, and set a small bowl of porridge, a clean napkin, and Kit’s little spoon at one end of the table. “If you’d see to the honors, I’ll make us some sandwiches.”
Kit put away a prodigious quantity of porridge and apples, necessitating another trip to the laundry. By the time Vim had changed the child, built up the fire in the parlor, and washed his hands, darkness had fallen.
Sophie brought a picnic to the servants’ parlor while Vim arranged the baby on the nest of blankets before the fire.
“There was something more I wanted to tell you, Sophie, about things at Sidling.”
She paused in the act of passing him a plate piled high was sandwiches. “This doesn’t sound like we’re about to have a cheerful conversation.”
“It isn’t cheerful, but it isn’t that remarkable, either. I’m my uncle’s heir, you see, and I’m expected to marry sooner rather than later.” And why she needed to understand this when he would not see her after tomorrow, Vim could not say.
She lifted the top off a sandwich of her own and added a dollop of butter. “I forgot to put on the butter, though there’s mustard enough.” The small silver knife looked elegant in her hand as she made neat little passes over the bread, spreading the butter just so.
“My uncle has three daughters, and each of them has at least two daughters,” Vim went on. He didn’t pick up his sandwich—his mouth for some reason had abruptly become dry. “I have seven of these cousins of some remove. At least two are old enough to marry, possibly more by now.”
“Are you inclined to marry one of them?”
She was fussing the baby’s blankets, folding over the satin binding around the edge of the blanket and smoothing her palm along its length.
“Sophie, I hardly know these women, but I’m responsible for them. At the very least, I need to dower them. My aunt and uncle hint strongly that it’s time I settled down, though the thought fills me with…”
He trailed off, trying to put a name to the heavy, anxious feeling in his gut. The conversation wasn’t going in the direction he might have intended, if he’d used enough forethought to have intentions about it.
“Yes?”
“Dread, the idea of dealing with those twittering, fluttering young girls fills me with dread.” He lifted his sandwich in one hand but did not take a bite. “Have you ever considered marriage, Sophie?”
“Not seriously.”
And she wasn’t considering it seriously now, either. That much was evident from her casual tone and the way she didn’t meet his eyes. His careful hinting around was getting him a clear response from her, just not the response he’d hoped for. Whatever she wanted from him, it was going to be temporary and quickly forgotten.
On her part.
“Eat your sandwich,” Vim said. “You can see why I need to be on my way. The situation in Kent is troubling from many angles, and it’s the very last place I want to be over the holidays.”
She made no reply but ate her sandwich in silence while the fire burned merrily and the baby figured out how to put his toes in his mouth.