“I am not fertile now. I didn’t want you to abandon me.”

She cringed at her own word choice, given that he’d be moving on in the morning once and for all. He made no reply, though, so Sophie turned her attention to collecting memories: the feel of Vim’s hard male chest rising and falling beneath her hand, the bergamot scent of his skin, the slightly salty taste of his shoulder, the transcendent sensation of him joining their bodies so very, very carefully…

“My business in Kent shouldn’t take but a few weeks,” he said, his tone thoughtful. His fingers smoothed her hair back, and Sophie understood exactly what he was working up to.

“You must not worry. I cannot conceive now, or I would not have been so… selfish.”

“You can’t be certain, Sophie. I’ll leave you my direction when I go.” There was just a hint of reproof in his voice, but he was wrong. Sophie was certain their paths needed to separate regardless of any unlikely consequences. She’d waltzed with his very own half brother, for heaven’s sake, and Benjamin Hazlit’s discreet assistance had been instrumental in keeping both Valentine’s and Westhaven’s wives safe from harm.

Vim would learn that—learn she was the daughter of a duke, no less—and think she’d been untruthful with him.

Which she had. He hadn’t asked any awkward questions yet, but it was hardly likely Lady Sophia Windham would have been all alone, unchaperoned, without servants or family in the ducal mansion. She had contrived mightily to make it so. He would feel deceived and manipulated, and it would ruin everything, even the memories.

“Your brain is turning on a greased wheel, Sophie.”

His voice was lazy in the darkness, as lazy as his hand stroking over her hair. If he’d been offering his direction in Kent out of something other than duty and guilt, she might have considered explaining the situation to him more fully.

“I am trying to recall each moment with you in this bed.”

“There could be more such moments. I’ll come back through Town when I’m done sorting out my relatives.”

Ah, damn him. “I have my position to consider.”

More silence, while in Sophie’s heart, the glow of a wonderful sexual initiation and shared intimacy grew chilled by encroaching regret.

“I could offer you another position, one of substantial duration and considerable standing. One I have never offered another woman worthy of such a consideration.”

She closed her eyes, lest more tears give her away. Vim was a good man, the kind of man wishes and dreams were made of, but she’d made such a tangle of things, he could never be the man for her, particularly not if all he was offering was a few years as his mistress between sea voyages.

And if he’d offered not a careful description of a discreet liaison, but marriage? No hope lay in that direction. Even if he proposed, when he learned she’d been dishonest with him about her position in the household and the world at large, the proposal would be withdrawn.

She fell asleep in his arms and did not recall her dreams in the morning.

* * *

Vim was learning to read Miss Sophie Windham, learning that despite appearing serene and even sanguine, she was hurting. She was going about her morning routine calmly, her expression pleasant while she tidied up her hair and used her vanity mirror to watch Vim dressing and putting her bed to rights. The heartache was there in her eyes, in her posture, in her silences.

Kit started to fuss but was still in the happy stages of greeting his own toes when Vim picked up the rag he’d tossed aside so casually the night before.

The rag that in the light of another brutally bright day was sporting definite streaks of pinkish brown.

“Sophie?”

“Hmm?”

“Do your courses approach?”

Her hands paused in twining her braid into a bun at her nape, but other than that, she showed no reaction. “They always approach, unless they’ve descended. My mother has a lot of unflattering things to say about The Almighty’s design in this regard. One’s only respite is to carry a child, and that is hardly a fair trade, considering what’s involved in birthing the child.”

In the back of Vim’s mind, he was recalling how very wonderfully snug Sophie’s body had been, how she’d bit his shoulder as he’d sunk into her damp heat, how artless her lovemaking had been. I didn’t know how it would be…

How virginal?

Twelve

It would change everything, if Sophie had been a virgin—and it would mean she’d misrepresented her circumstances.

“Are you sore this morning?” he asked, picking Kit up and holding the baby high above his head. “Good morning, My Lord Baby.”

“I am tired and hoping your journey to the countryside passes uneventfully.” She watched as he raised and lowered the baby, her expression a trifle guarded.

“Sophie, am I the first man you’ve allowed carnal intimacies?” He put the question casually, keeping his attention to appearances on the baby.

She frowned, just a flicker over her features. “I am not a virgin, if that’s what you’re asking.” It was exactly what he’d been asking, though her wording was in the present tense. “Does that child need his nappy changed?”

“He does.” Vim lowered the baby, still dissatisfied with Sophie’s answer but not knowing quite how to clarify matters without interrogating her very directly.

He was still uncomfortable when less than an hour later they stood in the aisle of the stable, Sophie holding a bundled-up Kit in her arms.

“Goliath will see you safely to Kent,” she said, stroking a hand down the beast’s neck. “He delights in romping through the snow, and I know you will let no harm befall him.”

Vim’s pockets held piping hot potatoes; his traveling satchel sported a considerable quantity of bread, cheese, stollen, and even a stash of marzipan Sophie had produced from one of her pantries. His feet were warm and dry and likely to stay that way, as she’d insisted he keep a pair of her brother’s marvelous wool stockings, and she’d even tucked a bottle of fine brandy among his belongings, as well.

And for all these comforts, his heart, which he’d long since considered beyond such nonsense, was aching. For her, for himself, for what was not going to be.

“This is the price we pay for our pleasures,” he said, keeping his voice down so Higgins and Merriweather wouldn’t overhear. “We part, and it’s… difficult.”

She nodded, her lips thinning in telltale self-discipline. Vim glanced over his shoulder and saw both grooms had taken themselves elsewhere. “Come here, Sophie Windham.”

She went into his arms, a perfect bundle of woman and baby and warmth, and everything Vim’s sojourning heart had ever wanted to come home to. She was home, she was…

Not interested in a permanent position as his wife. He’d almost considered asking her to be his mistress, but Sophie was too dear, too worthy of his respect for him to proffer such an arrangement.

“I’ll send the horse back as soon as the roads clear.”

Her shoulders dropped on a sigh. “Just send him over to Morelands.”

“Morelands?” It was a large property less than four miles from Sidling. The Duke and Duchess of Moreland had been legendary for their hospitality even in his youth, though Vim had been in the family home only once and was at pains to recall the family name.

And wasn’t it just divine irony that Sophie would be employed by the very family who’d hosted the scene of Vim’s worst nightmares all those years ago?

“It lies in Kent,” she said, resting her cheek against his chest. “You’ll not overtax yourself today? You’ll warm your feet before you do lasting damage to them?”

“I will warm my feet.” He kissed her cheek and stepped back, lest he fall to his knees and start begging her to reconsider his proposal of marriage. She’d made her position gently but firmly clear, preferring the independence of her employment over what a stranger might offer her on appallingly short acquaintance.

“Sophie, if you need anything, anything for you or Kit, you’ll send to me?”

She nodded but did not give him her word.

He would never hear from her again.

He kissed the top of the baby’s fuzzy head and turned to check the girth on the makeshift saddle adorning the massive horse’s back.

“Thank you.” Sophie kept her voice low and her features from view by virtue of nuzzling the baby.

“For?”

“I made some Christmas wishes, foolish, extravagant wishes. You have made many of them come true.”

“Then I am content.”

It was the most resoundingly false lie he’d ever told.

* * *

Down the barn aisle, Miss Sophie was pretending to groom her remaining precious, the one-eyed Sampson. What she was really doing was crying, crying like her heart would break, crying on the great beast’s smelly neck, and hiding it like she always hid it.

“Don’t pay no mind, nipper.” Higgins grinned at the baby in his arms. “Lady Sophie is due a few tears, unlike some wee people who have their every need met before it needs meeting. She’s spoiling you proper, she is.”

“Miss Sophie said the nipper has taken to crawling already,” Merriweather observed from where he was cleaning a muddy girth across the snug little tack room. “Best day of the lad’s life was when that worthless Joleen went haring off.”

“Spare the girl a prayer. That Harry was none too steady.”

“Horny bastard. Bet he had her breeding again, and the nipper not even a year.”

Which would explain why Joleen had taken the desperate and shrewd step of abandoning her child in Miss Sophie’s care.

“Miss Sophie will do right by the lad.”

Merriweather glanced up from the girth. “Be a bit of a surprise when her brothers show up and find her sporting a bebby on her hip.”

Higgins used a gnarled finger to chuck the baby’s wee chin. “Be some surprises all around before the sun sets this day. Mark me on this, nipper.”

Merriweather winked, and they shared a grin while Kit chortled gleefully and grabbed for Higgins’s nose.

* * *

“You’ve grown ominously silent,” Val observed.

Westhaven rode to his brother’s left, because it was St. Just’s turn to break the trail ahead. The merchants along The Strand had done what they could to clear a path, but with so much snow on the ground, there was simply nowhere to put it all. Two horses could pass comfortably most places, but not all.

“I’m trying to decide which part of me is the most frozen,” Westhaven replied. “It’s a toss-up between my bum-fiddle and my nose.”

“I lost awareness of my nose before we hit London.”

Westhaven glanced at Val’s gloved hands. “Your fingers are not in jeopardy, I trust?”

“Heaven forfend! Ellen would be wroth, which I cannot allow.”

“I cannot allow much longer in this perishing saddle.”

“We’ve little enough light left.” Val glanced at the sky, which was turning a chilly sunset turquoise. “The Chattells will likely be sitting down to dinner, and didn’t Their Graces give the staff at the mansion holiday leave?”

“I gave them holiday leave.” Which was an idiot notion when compared with imposing on the neighbors for hospitality. “They get four weeks off, we pay them for two, and everybody has pleasant holidays. The crew at Morelands takes leave in late summer, before harvest.”

“I’ll have to implement something like it at Bel Canto, assuming I don’t turn into an icicle before spring. I don’t relish being Chattell’s uninvited guests.”

“You’re married,” Westhaven said, lips quirking up. “You’re safe, Valentine. Of no interest to the debutantes at all.”

“Yes, but they all come with mothers and aunts and older sisters… St. Just, halt if you please.”

St. Just twisted in his saddle, his horse coming to a stop without a visible cue. “We’re going to take in the fresh air, are we? It grows dark soon, in case you were too busy composing tunes in your head, Baby Brother.”

“I want to drop off this violin. The repair shop is just down that alley.” Val swung a leg over his horse’s back and climbed down into the snow. “I won’t be but a minute.”

“Might as well rest the horses,” St. Just said, nudging his beast out of the middle of the beaten path. “Westhaven, can you dismount?”

“I cannot. My backside is permanently frozen to the saddle; my ability to reproduce is seriously jeopardized.”

“Anna will be desolated.” St. Just waited while Westhaven swung down, then whistled at an urchin shivering in the door to a nearby church.