Another sigh, while she let him have just a hint of her weight on his erection. Not enough to comfort, but more than enough to encourage. He rewarded her generosity by playing with her breasts, stroking them lightly, kneading gently, until she brought her hands up to cradle his grip more snugly to her.

More, then. His lady wanted more of him, so he obliged by arching his hips up, caressing her damp sex with his rigid flesh.

“Vim?”

“Soon. Kiss me, Sophie.”

She leaned forward, her breasts pressing into his chest, and settled her mouth over his. He shifted his grip to explore the length of her spine, the graceful sweep of muscle and bone that was her back. When she gave him her tongue, he steadied himself with two hands on her derriere and gave her his in return.

She groaned softly and found him with her sex again, moving over his length in a slow, hungry push and retreat. “Vim, I need…”

“Your wish, my lady…”

She went still, and he angled himself for penetration, pausing just at the point where their bodies would join.

“Is this what you wished for, Sophie Windham?”

The question had slipped out uncensored by reason, a genuine inquiry for all it was ill timed. At this instant, she wanted him for something, not for marriage but for comfort or passion or simple carnal oblivion.

She made a sound, perhaps of sexual frustration, and shifted her hips forward enough to capture him by half his length. The pleasure of it stunned him, sent all his questions flying from his mind, and had him gripping the back of her head less than gently as he sought her mouth with his own.

He withdrew slowly then set up a torturously languid rhythm—torturous to him—while he plundered her mouth and built the conflagration of their desire.

The first time, she came silently, her body convulsing around his while she hung over him and submitted to his relentless thrusting. His objective had not been to gratify her arousal but to intensify it, to share the pleasurable torture.

When she eased up off his chest, he gave her the space of exactly three deep, shuddery breaths before he started up again, this time attending to her breasts as he resumed the push and drag of his cock inside her body.

He loved her, he wanted her to be happy, but he wanted her to burn, as well, to spend the rest of her life wishing and regretting and remembering.

God knew, he would.

“This is too much.” Sophie panted the words, her voice conveying bewilderment and heat.

“Hold on to me.” He rolled them so he was above her, inside her, and in a better posture to devour her sexually. “I will never have too much of you, Sophie Windham.”

She brought her hands up, anchoring herself by gripping his wrists as he started to thrust with purpose. The second time she came, she whimpered with the pleasure and burden of it. He showed her no mercy, bearing down hard when she shuddered and arched and convulsed around him.

And still, he gave her but a moment to go quiet and motionless beneath him, to reach up and brush his hair back with one hand before he began moving again.

“I did not know it could be like this. I didn’t know… anything.”

Behind the wonderment in her voice, there was pain. He slowed his hips despite the desire and darkness clamoring for release, lowered his body over hers, and cradled her face to his shoulder.

“Shall I stop?”

It would kill him, slay him for all time, devastate him on some level a man never acknowledged in daylight if he had to withdraw from her at that moment. He braced himself on his arms, prepared to die rather than indulge his selfishness any longer.

“Love me. Please, Vim, just love me.”

Yes. That was what he’d been trying and failing to comprehend—that the gift of this final joining was about loving, not about regrets or erotic arguments or his own wishes. Sophie’s body had understood that even if her mind would not let her explain it to him in words.

This time when he moved, he moved gently, gathering her to him, cherishing her with everything in him. He meant to withdraw, to give her one more increment of pleasure, to love her and protect her.

But the third time when she came, her body seizing up with desire so fiercely and sweetly around him, he was helpless not to join her, not to let his grip on discipline and determination slip so he might instead hold on to love.

* * *

The day Sophie learned her brother Bart was dead dwelled in her memory as a black, miserable stretch of hours. A man gone for a soldier was always at risk of death, and she’d reconciled herself to Bart’s choice in the matter. As a ducal heir, no one would have thought less of him for remaining a civilian.

He’d wanted his colors, wanted them badly, and Sophie had had the consolation that Bart had died doing more or less as he pleased.

The worst pain of the day had been not her brother’s death but her parents’ utter paralysis with the loss. His Grace’s bluster and rough good humor had gone abjectly silent, Her Grace had, for the first time in Sophie’s life, looked lost and more old than dignified. Her parents had embraced repeatedly in her sight, an upsetting rarity.

Victor’s death had been a similar ordeal—a relief for her ailing brother, perhaps, but a loss of more than a sibling for Sophie. She’d given up a little more of the illusion that her parents and her position could protect her from both grief and harm.

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?”