“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.